Futuristic USS Horizon NCC 176

[Rainzen]

Upon which our intrepid crew embarks on our three year mission, patrolling the very edge of federation space. The Horizon is a constitution class starfleet vessel. Like all constitution class vessels, it's crew consists of some of Starfleets best and brightest. 


Their mission is to keep the peace along federation borders, whatever form that might take. The ship routinely assists rural colonies in trouble, explores unknown planets, makes diplomatic contact to urge new races to join the federation, responds to distress signals, and occasionally patrol Klingon and Romulan neutral zones. 


The ship is laid out similar to the USS Enterprise, another constitution class vessel, and the fleets flagship. This is mostly for simplicity's sake, since most of us are familiar with the Enterprise. 





This roleplay takes place within the AOS timeline, generally due to aesthetic purposes and difference in the operation of star fleet itself, being a much more military and PR based institution than before. 


The characters will not be the Enterprise crew, nor will they know them personally, but like in the new movies, they will be generally well known, and encounters like the kelvin and the battle of yorktown will have an effect on starfleet policy/regulations and the general atmosphere. No one is directly effected, but it does still exist.


Our ship, as a constitution class starship of Starfleet is laid out similar to the Enterprise. Or mission is to patrol the borders of federation space, regularly visiting and assisting Federation colonies and allies. Occasionally we head a little ways out of federation space to respond to distress signals or make contact with new worlds. Each mission is a new and exciting adventure, where anything could happen. 


Open positions and character sheets are posted here

 

[Rainzen]

Rebecca Bradley needed a coffee. It wasn't often that she missed Earth, if she were to be particularly honest, but the replicated stuff just didn't hold up. 'Punch in the face' strength espressos had gotten her through her medical school years and she was partial to them. Particularly so when a nasty bit of flu was making its way around and she had half of the goddamn Navigation division as well as quite a few others quarantined in the secondary sickbay. She had spent most of her off duty hours passing out hand sanitizer to the idiot ensigns on the ship who were spreading germs like a wild fire, and her on duty ones just trying to contain the spread of the illness. It wasn't one she had necessarily seen before, but just seemed to be some strain of influenza. No one was worried about any casualties quite yet, no one had recovered, but no one had gotten too much worse in the two days that it had been going around.


Finally she got off shift and shrugged on a clean uniform, a long sleeved version of the standard medical blue dress and headed down to the officers mess.


Starting a couple months ago, the captain made a point to schedule the senior officers so that they could have dinner together at least every other week. Something along the lines of crew bonding. Beck didn't really believe in it, but she tried to come even though it wasn't actually an order. 


Miranda was trying not to slump in her chair, and for having to take extra shifts, she thought she was doing a fairly good job of it. She must have been more tired than she thought she was though, because as soon as she reached for her replicated meatloaf Doctor Bradley was in the chair across from her, smacking her fork out of her hand. "Did you wash your hands?" She rolled her eyes. This outbreak had her CMO nearly insufferable lately. She seemed nearly on the brink of making the entire crew wear masks around the ship. Miranda didn't blame her, actually. There were no casualties yet, but if they didn't get it contained soon the ships operation was going to be compromised and they would have to resupply or get help from an actual hospital. The main problem with that was the fact that they were in the middle of nowhere, not a federation planet in sight. A diplomatic diasaster to go with the spreading medical one was exactly what they didn't need.


"Yes Beck. I washed my hands." The doctor nodded, seeming satisfied, and didn't jump on her again when she grabbed her fork. Beck got up to get her own plate and Miranda reveled in the relative quiet of the officers mess while waiting to see which of her senior crew would show up. Last time she had seen any of them, none of them had been sick, but that could have changed. 

 

[NemoTheSurvivor]

Natasha stepped out of the shower, drying herself off. She was slated to resume duty in an hour, though the dinner that Captain Hayashi set up for all of the senior officers was starting soon. The Captain certainly enjoyed getting to know her crew. It certainly won Natasha over, at least the idea of it. After throwing on her Science Officer blue uniform, and sighing about having to wear a skirt for the umpteenth time, Natasha headed towards the Officer's mess.


Natasha found Captain Hayashi and Lt. Commander Bradley already eating. "Captain, Bradley," Natasha says in greeting, before grabbing a plate and sitting. Catching the stare from Bradley, Natasha added, "I washed my hands. Speaking of that, have you compiled the data I asked for?" The flu going around bothered Natasha, though she couldn't quite put her finger on why. Though it was normally the CMO's job to worry about illnesses, Natasha treated the flu as a biological threat. The data from the sick–including when they started showing symptoms, where on they ship they first had symptoms, changes in condition, job on the ship, gender, changes in weight, history of illnesses (within reason, determined by Bradley), and anything else Bradley could think of adding–would help Natasha determine a pattern of infection. From that, it could be determined if this was really just the flu, or if it was something more. While waiting for a response, Natasha started eating her meatloaf. Dry and tough. Not the worst meatloaf I've had, but definitely not the best.

 

[Rainzen]

Beck nodded in response to Commander Keeper and pulled up the database on her Padd. She transferred the file to Natasha without preamble. Normally she would protest at the infraction into her duties, but her sickbay was a mess right now, and she needed to be working on getting a molecular analysis of the bug. "Most of this was compiled by Doctor Carr. I don't think he missed anything but tell me if you need more." She hadn't been truly off duty since this thing started and there still weren't enough hours in the artificial space day. Besides, they had been out here together for long enough that Beck knew she was a perfectly capable officer. "As soon as I leave here I'm going down to lab three to work out a molecular model of the disease and go from there. If you wanted to come analyze that data we could work on the whole thing together." Having all the information at once would be helpful, and Beck had instant access to crew medical records if the commander ended up needing anything else. 


Across the table, Miranda raised an eyebrow. "You just got off shift" She pointed out. Beck just shrugged and held up her coffee. "Does it look like I'm about to go to bed? There's too much to do anyway." Miranda sighed.


"Just don't run yourself into the ground. That will only make this worse." Beck couldn't blame her for the concern, it was hard to keep moral up in space sometimes. Especially with meatloaf like this. Who on Earth had programmed this replicator? She should try to get in a bid for a work order or something. It hadn't been that long since they had left Earth, she still remembered what good meatloaf tasted like. Exasperatedly, she drowned her slab in ketchup. It wasn't ideal, but it definitely helped.   

 

[ONI]

Senior Chief Torok stepped out onto the corridor with purpose in his strides, with his personal data pad in hand swiping left and downwards as he read through reports and gave permission to his respective subordinates, increasing the security presence outside of the medical bays from a the current five guards to an additional three increasing the presence to eight per medical bay, it wasn't the way he wanted to split his already limit amount of personnel but it was the most effective way in ensuring the containment of the quarantined individuals, he even sent in for a request to the Captain to allow his men to remain equipped with Tier 3 filtration systems and suits to avoid getting themselves sick on the job as well as to CMO to authorise his men to carry medical scanners, this outbreak had him and his small number of bodies working triple overtime trying to combat it.


It wasn't long before the large man made his way into the Officer's mess, he hadn't attended any of the Captain's diners previously and he honestly didn't mean to be rude about it, she seemed like a nice woman and that she was taking the time to meet her crew sat well with him but he neither had the time to attend due to the limitations on manpower for his sector nor thought it was really appropriate for himself to attend since he wasn't an Officer, non-the-less he finally attended and didn't take all too long collecting his food either, a generous amount of meatloaf and a black coffee with no sugar, receiving a few 'Evening Senior Chief's from various Junior Officers as he moved along replying respectfully as they came.


Torok sat himself down beside the Lieutenant Commander, he came in mid conversation so waited quietly for them to finish up before respectfully nodding to each of the three women as he spoke in a practiced voice "Captain, I'd like to apologies for lack of attendance before today" it was slightly awkward for himself not that he was the only male at the table but because he was the only enlisted person in the room as a whole, he took the hand sanitizer from his utility belt and applied it his hands swiftly, briefly pausing to thank the Medical Officer for providing him with it earlier, before he started to shovel the bland meatloaf down without complaint, taking gulps of his steaming coffee seemingly without any issue, to him food was food he'd never really spent time dwelling whether it tasted good.

 

[Rainzen]

Beck was a big believer in the humanitarian, exploratory nature of the 'fleet, and she took her healing role very seriously. The woman hated violence. When the academy insisted she take the class in self defense, she sighed, but ended up resigning to it. When a branch of the class revolved around operation of phasers and other handheld weapons, she dropped out, no question. Or at least she tried to. Four academic advising meetings later and the name Rebecca Bradley was still on the class roster. She very nearly failed the class, and it was the only D she had ever received in her life. 


Needless to say, the doctor hadn't been happy when she had arrived to her first shift to find an increase in armed guards outside of her sickbay. Both of them. In a fit of unfortunately characteristic temper, she'd chewed them out. Of course she would apologize later, it wasn't their fault for following orders, and she had felt a bit guilty about it throughout the day. 


Torok was the one she should be chewing out. Not that it would make a difference, and now he was sitting next to her and the captain might just kill her if she got snappy right now.


Besides, armed gaurds in front of her sickbay or not, he was the only person sensible enough to be keeping around the hand sanitizer she had been spreading around the ship like candy on Halloween, and the medical scanners on the guards were a nice touch, even if she did have to spare too many medical personal to train the security officers how to use them.


Captain Hayashi grinned when Torok sat down. "Well, they aren't mandatory for a reason I'm sure you were perfectly busy officer. And besides, we have 2 and a half more years in close quarters. I'm sure we'll all get to know each other, dinners or not." Miranda wasn't generally a team building sort of person, particularly not when she was on duty, but she was young. She was pretty well aware that often, age translated into respect, and she didn't have that advantage. A captain needed her crew behind her, and needed them to trust each other, if that meant well meaning but fairly silly in concept social dinners in the mess hall to make sure at least some of the command crew spent some time together off duty then it was worth it. 

 

[NemoTheSurvivor]

Natasha chewed on the meatloaf as she inspected the data. Everything she asked for was there. There's not really a pattern, at least on the surface. I'll have to cross reference the data with my own findings.  "This should be enough for now," she said, putting her datapad away. Senior Chief Torok sat down beside her, and Natasha gave him a nod in greeting. The Captain and Bradley started to "discuss" Bradley's intention of working past her shift. Natasha sided with Bradley, but did so silently, not wishing to directly disagree with the captain in front of others. The highest ranking people on the ship should maintain an appearance of trust, if only for the crew to rally around.


"I may just do that," Natasha said once the Captain began to talk with Torok, "if the bridge can operate without me. Otherwise, we'll have to make due with comms." It wasn't the most ideal situation, but if the ship didn't have someone in command, they could all be in worse trouble than just a flu. If it is just a flu.

 

[BAPE]

Saul's morning routine was quick, and effective. He woke up, and immediately jumped off the bed so he would prevent himself from snoozing another 5 minutes. As the shower warmed, he made his bed and cleaned any mess in his room he had made the previous night. His shower lasted merely 5 minutes, where he quickly scrubs his short-cropped hair, body, as well as his teeth to save time. By the time he was out, he quickly tucked in his red Enterprise uniform, dusting the Enterprise crest on the left of his chest. Mhm. I'm the shit he thought, as he gave himself a good look in the mirror. And with that, he casually strolls out of his room, calmly making his way to the Officers' mess.


Saul makes his way into the mess, pacing hurriedly into the door."Captain," he began, giving curt nods to everyone else in the room. It had been his introduction since he's attended mealtime. He grabs a plate, and sits. "So how's everyone doing? I heard about that flu that's been breaking out. Is that true?" The flu rumors was merely rumors for Saul. Personally, he hadn't been too worried about it. Back home. the best way to treat a flu was to throw the patient in an isolated room and give them food and medicine when necessary. Let the body work with the medicine, his momma always said.

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

"Allright, I'll flag the damn M-class stars too." the assistant answered, too tired to remember to speak formally.


"Remember, their size doesnt keep them from being lethal, and theyre everywhere." Vas reinforced, too tired to care.


"They're dangerous stuff if we dont keep them on-screen while warping. Dont get us killed. Also, wash your hands."


As the crewman marched angrily to the closest bathroom, Amali shrugged off his staffmember's angst and went for a look of the void from the corridor's window. A particular cluster of stars was lining up like an Alpha, but he paid no mind to it. The shutdown of half his personal team, that was something to mind. With so few navigator-assistants working, the ship was at risk of running into stellar objects during jumps; a spetacullar way of dying. Thankfully, the Captain had the wisdom to make a full-stop, but it didnt make his job any easier- she will likely order a jump before the team goes back to it's full numbers, so he had to keep his personel working for twice it's size to make pre-plottings in advance.


"I swear, my dog back on Taetrus was better at keeping germs away than these people..."


Vas had to keep swinging his arms in order to not fall asleep right there on top of his feet. It had been the third field trip to oversee the few astrogators that were still out of the sickbay- he knew migrating around during a ship-wide infection wasnt a good idea, but considering the Navigation division was the first to get hit, he took it to himself to keep the remaining staff operating. Gathering enough strength to crawl back to the bridge, he heard what he tought to be a ship-wide alarm. It was actualy his stomach.


Brrrhhhhh....


Almost as if his belly had kept the officer's dinner scheduled...


BRRRRRRHHHHH.


"Allright, I'm going, calm down."


--------------------------------


A firm "Ma'am" was all that came from Vas as he sat down next to Torok. Tough keeping his senses sharp to answer any inquiries, he was not in shape to talk. Not until the cafeine kicks in.

 

[Rainzen]

Beck turned to Saul, and made a note to send out a shipwide official medical memo. It was a great error on her part that she had overlooked it until now. Maybe she needed to take a shift after all. Not until she got that memo out to everyone on the ship and a live sample down to the lab and prepped for analysis. "More or less. Hopefully we'll have a more definitive answer for that by Alpha shift tomorrow. For now, if you see so much as a sniffle, medical orders are an escort to sickbay 2 and disinfecting of their station. Right now we're set to wipe out half the ship if it doesn't stop spreading." The captain just nodded. "We may be in for a long few days Officer Gradel. Half of navigation is down it seems like. Anything between the sniffles and nonfunctional and miserable" She added. 


Beck glanced over at Vas as he sat down, and slid the untouched replicated coffee in front of her over to him. "You look like you need this more than I do." Besides, she was verging on unhealthy levels on consumption herself, irresponsible for a doctor. 

 

[Idees]

Deja walked towards the officer's mess, feeling slightly uncomfortable. The dinners with Captain and other officers being the cause. Deja wasn't very sure how to act around them, considering her last ship assignment was one where she was constantly overlooked by the Captain for more important tasks. Still, even with the anxious feeling welling in her chest - just like every other meal she had with the captain - Deja went. She didn't like to disappoint people, even if the people in question would be disappointed or not. She struggled enough with people as it is.


Deja glanced nervously at everyone sitting at the table, almost startling when she noticed Senior Chief Torok sitting at the table as she fetched her tray of meatloaf. She managed to hide the reaction well as she sat down on an open spot, nodding in greeting towards everyone at the table. It was the first time she noticed Senior Chief Torok at the dinner table.


Deja wrinkled her nose at the scent of coffee wafting up from the cup in front of Vas, not really liking the smell of it. She didn't say anything though as she promptly set to the task of disinfecting her hands before she took her first bite from the meatloaf. She immediately blanched when the taste of the meatloaf reached her taste buds, her face scrunching up in to a grimace before she swallowed thickly. Her eyes going slightly teary as she glanced at the plate as she wondered who programmed the replicator to make, in her opinion, one of the worst meatloafs she ever had to privilege to eat. She discreetly examined the expressions on everyone else's face and discovered that no one had the same problem as her. Gulping, Deja said nothing as she forced herself to eat another bite of the meatloaf. Maybe she was being over-dramatic or maybe the smell of coffee was making it taste worse, but Deja was hating that meatloaf. 


She glanced around at the somber table, frowning slightly when she noticed how exhausted everyone looked before remembering that she felt probably just as bad as everyone else seated at the table. She could already feel the shakes starting from her lack of sleep, not yet severe enough to affect her work but still noticeable. The flu outbreak was hard on everyone on board the Horizon and Deja secretly hoped things didn't escalate any further than it did at that point.

 

[NemoTheSurvivor]

Natasha set her fork down, finished with her food. Speed eating was a habit she still had from her workout days. Vas entered the room, followed shortly by Deja. They both sat down. Feeling like now wasn't the time to leave, Natasha started looking over the data. Still no pattern. Wait, the first infections were reported from navigations. Natasha pulled up her mathematical notes, looking for her graphs. After finding them, she looked over a couple before deciding on a Social Network Analysis graph. She started work on the graph, placing the infected individuals in their respective parts of the ship, as well as how the infected could've contacted each other. It wasn't ideal, but it give Natasha a sense of how it was spreading through the ship. Motion in the corner of her eye distracted her. Natasha looked up, seeing Deja visibly shake while looking incredibly uncomfortable. Natasha knew Deja was both young and unsociable, which made the current situation that much harder for the pilot. If she's still shaking like that when I leave, I'll talk to her in private.

 

[BAPE]

Saul coughed as he looked at the frigid and frightened shaking of Deja. She had always been a shy one, but the flu outbreak had made everyone paranoid, so it was probably the best for Saul to tag along and at least pretend to be paranoid.
 


"I think we may need an escort, then," Saul announced almost sarcastically to the entire table, though particularly at Miss Bradley. "It might be the meatloaf," continuing the joke. Saul hadn't touched the meatloaf, and the appearance of it isn't persuading him either. He couldn't blame Deja's looks of disgust over it. It just took the bold, blunt Saul to outright say it. "You'd think the cooks would at least let us know what's in there." Saul began, in an attempt to start a more casual conversation instead of talks about reports, data, and plans to defeat the plague, although he doubt it worked, and so he moved on.


"Anyways... " he began, now addressing the Captain, "If needed I am the communications officer. I'll try to get word out about this to HQ. No point in waiting like ducks for this, er, contagion, to pass through." Saul forced a professional tone, since he didn't like talking about this kind of stuff outside the bridge.

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

Amali had kept his head glued on his dish until then -- too tired to care about posture, tough he did breefly thank the CMO for the extra cup. With the dish quickly consumed - a habit he hesitantly learned from his busier days on the Academy - and the coffee sinking in, his figure was now progressively getting back to the "civilized human" level.


Immediately noticing the comments about the food, he crossed his arms and laid back a little with a smug smile in his face that said in clear terms: "you dont know what bad food realy is."
"Well, actualy this is replicated food, tough I have eaten meat pastes that tasted better than this..." He said in correction. Then something hit him. "Waait, now that you mention it, maybe if the replicator sistems got contaminated..." He firmed his posture and quit with the smile. If the food was contaminated, virtualy everyone on the ship would be infected already.


"Bradley, did you have anyone check the food replicators?"

 

[Rainzen]

The captain stopped short in the middle of bringing a bite of meatloaf to her mouth. "Bradley? Is that even possible?" The doctor in question just stared at Vas. She damn well hated food replicators. Something just felt wrong about it, eating beef that was never alive, the idea of it would give her a headache (and maybe nausea) if she thought about it too long. "I... don't honestly have any idea. We thought it was just a flu bug until the symptoms didn't abate. I don't even know the make-up of the thing yet. I was planning on getting a live culture under a microscope tonight, or at least isolated and ready for examination by alpha shift tomorrow." She cut herself off, knowing that she had a tendency to ramble when she was tired and had been dealing with patients for too long. If anything, it was a sign that she shouldn't be dealing with live samples of contagions. "You mean like, if an anomaly in the molecular make up instructions for the replicator for meatloaf or something resulted in a virus? I never thought that I would have to consult an engineer for a virus outbreak."


"Right. My appetite is dead." Answered Hayashi. Fortunately, it was no great loss. She picked up her data padd in place of her fork.


"Computer, compose a memo to engineering concerning a possible problem with the replicators. Flag it red." The padd chimed an affirmation as the memo sent. If the replicators went down, this could go from a problem, to an outright nightmare immediately. 


"The treatment is probably right under our noses. I'm sure it will be fine once we know what we're looking at."

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

"I'm thinking more around the lines of a deliberate virus."


He knew this was getting to a "conspiracy theory" level, but Vas was in no way going to keep his concern quiet. Colonial airlock-side mentality was one of the few things from home he worked hard to keep with him.


"O-ho, trust me, I've seen this happen before. If something can assemble a piece of cooked muscle, it can assemble a virus too. Back home, I used to hear of neighboring planets suffering outbreaks of diseases that the Federation had already reduced to but a few guarded samples for study."


He paused to turn to the comms officer."Wise choice arriving late, Saul" he said half-jokingly. Gradel hadnt touched his plate yet, nad Vas briefly wished he had followed his example.


"You just dodged a boulder."


"It's a very underhanded aggression, and not something usualy done against Federation ships since they have medical staff dedicated to countering this, but somebody could have sneaked a pathogen model into the replicator's memory."

 

[NemoTheSurvivor]

Natasha blinked once at the possibility of the food replicators being the cause of the virus. She spoke into her communicator to one of her science officers. "Ensign, I need every piece of data you can find on the food replicators. Menu, repair logs, who had access to them, where they primarily sent food, and anything else that mentions them. Send all data to my datapad. Afterwords, double check my graphs to make sure there are no errors." She put her communicator away when the Ensign confirmed her orders.


Amali started blabbering about terrorists using virus to attack planets. "Amali." Natasha spoke with a commanding edge to her tone. Normally, she would have let the comments slide, but considering Deja was already freaked out enough, something needed to be said. "There's no proof that the outbreak is the result of purposeful contamination. As for Lieutenant Gradel dodging a boulder, there is no evidence to support that theory. The Captain and I have been eating here on a regular basis, and neither of us have gotten sick. If someone is purposefully contaminating the food, the chain of command would've been the first target. That means either the contamination is not a direct attack, or the person perpetrating the attack is not able to reproduce the effects in multiple replicators and did not infect the correct replicator. If anything, you should be glad to eat here, as it's probably the safest food on the ship." She stared down the engineer, flicking her eyes in the direction of the pilot. "Understand?"


After dealing with Amali, Natasha turned back towards her datapad. The Ensign had checked the graphs and found no errors. "Bradley," Natasha said, "Based on the data I have, the virus does not appear to be transmitted by contact, at least as a primary vector. The infection's spread through the ship does not match typical contact contagion patters, as people on opposite sides of the ship were getting sick at the same time. In addition, there's no correlation between rank and infection, further reducing the possibility of this being a contact contagion. While it may still spread through close contact, there appears to be another transmission vector that is the primary. Food replicators could very well be the origin of the virus."

 

[Rainzen]

Bradley sighed and could feel a headache coming on. "Right." She answered, rubbing her temples. "If it was airborne we would damn well know it, and I don't need the data analysis to know it's not bloodborne. My money is on food too. It would be easy enough to slip a program into a replicator theoretically, I don't trust the damn things but I highly doubt that this is a natural malfunction." Next time the doctor was granted shore leave, she was stuffing her quarters with non-perishables and swearing off of these damn machines. The only problem was that a person couldn't survive two and a half more years in the black on tomato soup. Or it's alien variation, that it.


"Which calls for a full security sweep. Sorry Torok. Prepare your division for some long hours. Review every crew members background for possible grievances with starfleet and anything that might suggest a history, examination of transporter records. You know the drill." Answered Hayashi.


"Hold off on that, captain. I can narrow the field as soon as I get a good look at this thing. Just let me get some food and a nap so I can process what I'm looking at. Between that and whatever Natasha finds from the replicator information, we should be able to paint a better picture."

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

Vas couldnt help but recoil a little at Natasha's sudden answer. He kept his expression reasonable while listening to her but failed to realise why she was going full-Vulcan on him.


Then he noticed her flickering her eyes towards Deja. He nearly jolted upon seeing her.


Oh, I get it.


"Y-yes, ma'am. I apologize."


Amali couldnt believe he had become completely oblivious of his partner-in-flight. He hadnt even noticed she was in the room until the first officer swiftly conjured her into his field of view.


They had spent the last hours of the previous shifts crunching numbers together on the bridge too, so it wasnt like she was some distant mirage with no meaning to him, no. They had talked already.


With a sour taste now stuck in his mouth, Vas chose to remain silent for the rest of the dinner. At least until the dinner stops being just another debriefing session. Worst case scenario, the captain will hopefully dismiss everyone soon, and he'll just go back to the last few estimates he had to run for the shift before shuteye.

 

[Idees]

Deja said nothing as the conversation flowed around the table and though she followed the conversation easily, it still felt like she was missing something important. 'Why is almost everyone glancing at me when they're talking? Did I do something?' She internally mused, as she watched the expressions and listened to the inflections of their tones. Sighing softly, Deja ignored it. The more important matter at the current moment was to investigate the matter of the virus, but Deja wasn't really certain she what could do to help and it looked like things very already being handled. 


Deja glanced at her meatloaf again and frowned. Obviously she couldn't eat it now - wish she had know that before hand - so she had no idea what to eat now and the replicators needed to be investigated before she touched any food from it again. She frowned as she wondered just how long it would take for the engineers to examine the replicators. Maybe it would be very quick? Maybe there is a problem and it gets resolved quickly? Or maybe it'll take a couple of hours and maybe there is no problem with the replicators....


Deja stared at Vas discreetly from the corner of her eye. Some part of her was believing his theory, but there hasn't been enough evidence to gather the right conclusion. Deja fidgeted slightly, the shaking in her hands had stopped somewhat but not completely.

 

[Rainzen]

Beck gave her meatloaf one last glance before setting aside her fork and pushing away the plate. "I have a virus to experiment on. Keep me posted, captain." she said, standing up and punctuating the sentence by tossing what was left of her food into the leftovers bin. All of this talking was driving her insane. She would give herself a headache trying to track down everything that was going on, and didn't envy her captain or commander one bit. Beck wasn't about to sit around and listen to their plans when there was something that she could be doing. Fortunately, although the food was awful and possibly contaminated, it was still nutrient packed, and she felt significantly less likely to collapse and fall asleep in the hallway on the way to the turbolift. SHe paused by the intercom to patch through to med bay. "Dr. Carr? You're in charge until the end of shift. I'll be in the labs if something comes up." 


"Understood, Dr. Bradley." Came the swift reply. She stopped by another replicator for another cup of coffee along the way, chugging it down before she entered science lab three. Beck was practically buzzing as she shrugged into her lab coat. 


Captain Hayashi's head snapped up from where she had been focused on her food for a moment, a bit taken aback by the doctors abrupt departure. She had spent enough time with the woman to know that she was like that sometimes, but it surprised her almost every time. She turned her attention onto Amali and Deja. "Hopefully this will be handled before it becomes an issue, but I'm going to get us the approval to veer off of the patrol course to the nearest federation world. Preferably one with a starbase." They weren't as deep into no mans land as usual, and were casually patrolling the edge of unexplored space not far from federation borders. "Get a route ready to submit for approval." She ordered, with no intention of actually doing such a thing. It would take up to two weeks to get an answer from the 'fleet via subspace transmission, if she felt it necessary, she would run whatever course she deemed appropriate, approval or not. 

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

Vas let out a low sigh; he was eager to get back to astrogating, but not with another task added on his back.


"Understood, ma'am."


At least, it was just a simple route. Another one.


Vas sluggishly got up from his chair. He grabbed his plate and dropped his own leftovers on the garbage bin. "Well, I might as well get this out of the way soon. I'm heading back to the bridge."


Issuing a course deviation wasnt anything high priority -he could tell that much from his captain's face- but it would get in the way of his schedule if he didnt get it over soon.



Almost exiting the mess hall, he turned around to Deja. "Hey, Deja, I could use a hand to ready the route for submission. You plan to come back to the bridge before shuteye?"

 

[Nuitari Delphiki]

Frost: We dropped out of warp near a Federation planet. We needed a quick stop to re plot our course and head back to the planet so the second ship could join us. We had made our intentions clear to the Klingon warship harassing our planet, we would not hold our fire if they returned. "Sir, i suggest we stop here and refuel. They seem to be able to take our ship." Guy said in Romulan. "I agree. But we can't risk them knowing of my survival. Hail the base and see if we are allowed to refuel. Send them the codes of a science vessel so we are not seen as a warship." i said, sitting in my chair. It was much smaller than the USS Freedom, but it was a tough ship that was easily ran by a crew of 7. So, we sent the message, which the base seemed to ignore. They placed us in a holding pattern until further notice They were uninterested in our needs for some reason. It didn't bother me, we had plenty of time to wait in a holding pattern. So, we waited, our torpedo doors closed and our weapons well concealed within the ship.

 

[Nuitari Delphiki]

Marcus: I had taken over most duties in the Engine Bay and with the Warp Core, as most of the crew had come down with the mysterious virus. I didn't eat much, so i wasn't usually up in the mess hall. At the moment, i was monitoring the Warp core and engines to make sure everything was running as normal. My mind began to wander, back to my old Captain. I regretted leaving my Lieutenant position, i wanted to be on the bridge again. But, i had made my decision, and it was too late now to change it. My records were still solid, i was also a trained pilot and Communications engineer. But i would likely not be needed for either. For now, i ran most of the engine room, and, knowing this ship like the back of my hand, i had no problem doing my duties with a skeleton crew. I ran a last diagnostic on the engine, determined everything was good, and took a quick patrol around the engine, checking for leaks and contaminates that may have leaked out.


I received the message from the captain concerning the food replicators. Something that the commander never bothered to inspect. I sighed, and grabbed 1 of the engineers, and we went to the food replicator. Sure enough, there was a seemingly large amount of bacteria hidden under the spout. "Decontaminate these, but grab samples first so we can send it to the Science Officer. Also, contact the Security Chief. Send him the footage of this door from the beginning of last week to see if maybe this is intentional. Call on the night crew, wake them up. No sleep for us tonight." i said. And no dinner either. i thought as we began to remove each of the food replicators and replace them with the spares we had. We would take our time to decontaminate these, and make sure that the problem was solved. I sent all of the engineering staff records to the security Chief, including my own, with my personal memo entailing what i suspected caused the outbreak and how thoroughly he would need to check. And, if necessary, to contact myself and i would assist him. We were all short-handed, and i hated piling onto someone's plate. So if he needed any help, i would try to help him. I also sent a memo to the Captain informing her that the Replicators seemed to be the problem. The machines had all been removed, except for the one in the Officers dining area. So, i went up, followed by a Petty Officer with a new food replicator that had been thoroughly inspected. We replaced the unit, and i stayed behind to ensure everything was operating properly. I was fitting well into my new position. I was also sent a message to the Captain informing her of what i suspected and how the system was not inspected as it should be. I placed the blame on myself, even though she would know that i was not in charge at the time. I checked my pad, to ensure that the clean up had begun. "It would appear that the suspicions have merit. There is a large amount of bacteria on each unit just under the spout. The exact same spot on each unit." i said to the group of Officers. "I have ordered my teams to decontaminate the units as well as take massive amounts of samples. Let me know if you need anything more Captain." i said, beginning to walk for the door, putting my pad back where it belonged.

 

[DeafeningSilence]

Valravn straightened, twisting her hair into a french braid as the USS Horizon's mechanics shifted, moving her shuttle into its proper position. She had just arrived - being held back as doctors forced her to stay on Earth. A bullet between the ribs wasn't too bad, in her opinion.


The almost inaudible hiss of hydraulics brought her back to present time, dragging her back to the shuttle she had just landed. Stepping out, she pulled on a black coat over her red dress, before striding over to the nearest panel. Typing in a series of codes, she scrolled through the ships log, catching up on the latest information. Virus. Possibly suspicious. Scanning the officers' files, her eyes widened slightly. The ship was filled with some of the best officers of the century. Sliding through the current time data, she located the Captain. Valravn would have to notify her of her presence.


Finding the nearest exit, she stepped in, bracing her hands against the railing. The levels flew past in a blur, and almost seconds later the doors opened, revealing the sterile white room.