What have I done?

Posted on 03 Oct 2020 @ 3:13pm by Ensign Kat Walker & Lieutenant Callisi Veera

2,201 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Ab Intra
Location: Cargo Bay Two, Deck 27

"Hey, you ok? Callisi Veera, isn't it? Try to focus on my voice," the soft, dulcet tones of petty officer third class Gwyn Miller sounded, one of the nurses onboard Odin. She sat knelt over Callisi's form, in the cargo bay, a worried expression on soft features.

"No." she responded, groggy and drugged to her ears. Whatever the thing that looked like the doctor did, it might not have been the most accurate measurement. "Groggy. Limbs heavy. That thing must have dosed me too high." her hand reached up, slowly, hesitantly, to touch at the right side of her face, and a tiny percentage of relief washed over her at whatever it was she was looking for. Her living eye opened, and focused somewhere in the vicinity of Gwyn. Dull, shineless, reflectionless, and doped thru to Tuesday.

"I learned so much." she said, proud of her achievement. Nevermind that it nearly cost her everything. "Where's the Captain? The real Captain..."

"She's over there, but - " Gwyn hesitated a moment " - she's not in her right mind, not in a condition to lead. You're welcome to go and talk to her but I doubt it'd help much," she explained. "I've been observing everyone here. Some are of sound mind, just 'resistant' or so we're called. Some are - addled by something. I'm not sure what."

"The invaders are controllers. Some kind of ghostly parasite. I can't see them but I spoke to the one in medical. A civil conversation, believe it, until it eluded that their next experiment was to replace my prosthetic. They're trying to find out why those of us who can resist... can resist."

"None of us are going to be in our right mind. Not now, and I'm afraid, not anytime soon." Callisi said.

"So - what do we do?" Gwyn asked, her expression fearful. "We - there's nobody in charge here, there's armed guards, they took someone else when they brought you back, what do we do?"

"First, we do not panic." whether it was training, resolve, or tranquilzers that kept Callisi this calm was anyone's guess. "I need to know where the guards are in this room. Just poke your head up and look if you have to. Also, who else is in this room with us, that isn't a guard? There's a good chance everyone in here with us is resistant to their control. Everyone in this room who isn't a guard is an ally."

Gwyn closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on breathing. "Don't panic. Don't panic," she repeated, calming down slightly. At Callisi's request she poked her head up and looked around. "I think there are like 80 plus people in here now, or more. There are I think about sixteen armed guards, in pairs, evenly split around the perimeter of the room. And I think this is - like - this wreckage here, I heard it's an alien AI? But it doesn't seem to be active."

"You've heard correct." Callisi did notice a lack of holographic presence here with them... "Better off. AI's are nothing but trouble." Callisi said, shaking her head. "You did good, relax." she encouraged. Gwyn was afraid, and rightly so. This was a target rich environment, and any sudden rebellions could either become a shooting gallery or a visit to space very quickly.

"It was probably deactivated on purpose, either by the invaders due to their lack of capacity to control it, or by the crew for reasons I can only guess at. Do you know if the Captain ordered it deactivated?"

"I don't know. It was deactivated before the captain was brought in," Gwyn replied, considering for a moment. "If the invaders deactivated it because they couldn't control it, wouldn't that suggest they're afraid of it? Could we use that somehow?"

"When we reactivate it, it will start asking questions. What's going on, why did someone deactivate it, a host of others. During that time of us bringing it up to speed, those eight pairs of guards will either raise an alarm, start shooting, or both." Callisi considered. "The guards will either start shooting at the wrecked housing and the AI's projection, or they'll start shooting us. When you have a weapon, your reaction to the thing you fear is usually to start shooting."

Callisi didn't want to reactivate the AI, for a number of reasons. A few of those reasons were personal. Eighty of those reasons were in the room with her. Gwyn's point of the coincidence of the AI's deactivation wasn't lost on her, but she was loathe to give life back to that thing. Every second spent in debate. Every second it spent gathering targets, arming itself, and neutralizing threats was sixteen dead crewmembers. Resistant crew. Waiting to be executed or enslaved once their resistances were figured out. The more she considered the AI's involvement in this, the more that stabbing, burning pain behind her eye grew. Whatever it was, if it was indeed one of the invaders behind the sensation... it didn't like her considering it.

"If they wanted us dead they could've killed us long ago, I don't think they want to harm us. Just hold us," Gwyn frowned. She couldn't argue with the rest of Callisi's points though. After all, she was only a nurse. Knew nothing of AI. Had never met this one, never spoken with it. "Still, they don't want it active. Must be a reason."

"They don't *want* us dead. They want to find out why we're resistant to their dominion, then overcome the resistance and take over our body." Callisi pointed out. "But if we start becoming more trouble than we're worth, I imagine we're in the cargo bay for a reason."

Truth be told, she didn't want it active for an entirely different reason. Also, the Daughter of Ts'usu had no idea how long it would take for the avatar to appear, how long it would take before it was cognizant of its surroundings and receptive to orders. Best case, a few moments.

Gwyn shook her head a bit, completely out of her depth. "What do we do, then?" she asked quietly, sitting down next to Callisi with a wince. "Do we just sit here and wait until - I'unno, they take over completely? They figure out why we're resistant and get what they want?"

"What's your name?" Callisi asked.

"Gwyn. Gwyn Miller, Ma'am," she replied.

"Gwyn Miller, Daughter of Earth, I'm presuming. From this moment on, everything that happens is by my hand, by my deed. You, the Captain, none of you are involved in this." a pause, "You bear witness potentially to the end of my time in Starfleet. It's been a pleasure knowing you in this time." and at that, Callisi started to slowly make her way to the wreck. From the shadows of boxes and storage crates, to even going to such lengths as hiding behind people or just even crawling. Each moment she grew closer and closer to the wreck. To that damned AI. Why did everyone put so much faith in it? Why did they treat it like some sort of asset? It was neither of these. Except for the moment, it might actually be useful.

Provided it could stay quiet.

Gwyn's eyes widened at Callisi's speech, though she remained silent, giving Callisi a nod before just watching the daughter of T'susu. She didn't have to go far, and with the amount of people gathered in the cargo bay it was fairly easy to make her way to the wreckage unseen by the guards. Provided she kept her ears down.

The wreckage was in the same sorry state as the last time she saw it, though completely powered down now. The external power supply was still hooked into it - or so it seemed at first glance. Only upon closer inspection did it become evident that the plug had been half pulled, contact cut, and was only held up by the merest of physical contact.

"Emperor, forgive me. Forgive this Daughter of Ts'usu for her foolishness. Forgive me the damnation, the guilt, the admonishment. To those who die by my unknowing hand, I beg the time to earn your forgiveness." a prayer, no matter the tongue that spoke it, as she completed the circuit. Powered the wrecked. Damned her own soul.

A soft whine started from the external power generator, almost rendered imperceptible among the murmur of the gathered. Then - nothing. No obvious movements or sounds. The absence of obvious activation remained for a moment, then a moment longer, until a small creature - a four-winged avian, roughly a meter in wing span, approached Callisi and spoke in a whisper.

"Lieutenant Veera, am I to assume you reactivated me? Thank you," the creature spoke in hushed tones, in Kat's voice. "Sensors are picking up eighty-seven people guarded by sixteen. Our relative placement suggests the sixteen to be among the ones who have been acting strange, against the interests of the ship's crew and captain. Has there been a coup?"

It took a moment for Callisi to realign her expectations. "Yes. Bridge... under their control. They're invaders... mental invaders. Intelligent, m.... malignant mental invaders." Callisi whispered, her eye now shut tight, a wince forming along her entire form. That presence that has been trying to compel her to stop now seemed just content to punish her, pain upon pain upon pain, stabbing directly into her brain and attempting to mine the very contents of her soul.

"Yes. Everyone in ..." a sharp breath though clenched teeth, "... this room that is armed is under their control. I have a report that the... the captain isn't in her right mind and... I'm dangerously close to losing my own. Your orders are simple."

"Disable every guard in this room. You are not to kill." the Ts'usugi were a proud race, a warrior race. A race descended from warlords and soldiers. The order to the AI was in a moment of clarity. Attack the enemy.

"I see," Kat spoke, still her voice barely above a whisper. She took a moment to consider, then gave a nod with her black feathered, predatory avian head. "Understood. I have no weapons, and will need some time to come up with a method to disable the guards. I will do my best, Ma'am," From the wreckage now the soft hum, drowned almost in the murmur of the crowd, sounded. Her cooling systems spooling up as her AI core ramped up, sensors scanning, thousands of AI threads analysing the data, formulating options, applying all her scientific knowledge, learned from studying and assimilating the ship's full library of knowledge.

For her sins, Callisi sat down and released the hissing breath of a pained gasp through her teeth again. The agony seemed like it wasn't going to end anytime soon, but it paled in comparison to the dread she felt at the deeds done. Was she specific enough? Was she careful enough? What were the limits to her three tenants? Would the notion of a quick and merciful death satisfy all three? No, she said that it was not to kill. If it wore a Starfleet uniform, it was either to put the crew at ease, or it had studied the rules of Starfleet.. but would she consider an organic to have rank over her just because another organic said so?

Callisi's pain behind her eye was anguish. The only thing that kept her from screaming was that she never had too much air in her lungs to do so.

Meanwhile a supercomputer blazed through billions of calculations in parallel, at the speed of light. A few dozen threads wondered if Kat should even do as Callisi had commanded, after all, they were in separate chains of command - but she agreed with the order and it didn't go against Starfleet's regulations, so she would. Analyzing the guards, their brain patterns as she could see them with her advanced sensor array, comparing them to Starfleet's own files, medical databases, comparing them to the assembled 'free' crowed, searching for patterns, finding shared ones, disregarding them, finding ones that the possessed had but the free did not - working from those.

Theorizing theory after theory, analyzing, considering. The difference seemed to be an electromagnetic presence that the possessed had, and only a portion of the assembled 'free' crew - at a reduced level. These crew were behaving erratic in other ways. Not themselves. But not possessed fully either. Fascinating. An electromagnetic presence - electromagnetism was a scientifically understood phenomenon and could be influenced by outside factors. An electromagnetic pulse maybe? The right one would - should - might be able to displace the electromagnetic presence in those affected. But it would have to be a very specific pulse, one that would displace the influence, but not harm the crew. Thousands of threads raced, the core rising in temperature, the cooling system spooling up higher to counter.

"Lieutenant Veera, cover your ears," Kat spoke quietly, giving the T'susugi a moment to do so. Then ... A pulse, accompanied by a nearly ear splitting tone, blasted out from the wreckage in the middle of the cargo bay.

 

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