Theories come together

Posted on Sat Jul 3rd, 2010 @ 10:48pm by Commander Basil Hart & Commodore Edward Fannin & Commander Krang Darkmoon & Commander Dhindara Vrel & Commander Raven Adams

1,325 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Silent Steps Of Murder
Location: Various
Timeline: Present

Basil rushed down the corridors of the space station. As he did so, he tapped his comm badge. Commander Darkmoon, this is Dr. Hart. I may have an explanation for the murders. The Captain may want to hear this as well!"

"I'm in my office Doctor. I'll wait for you to arrive." Krang answered.

As he hurriedly entered the security chief's office, he greeted the N'gagi. "Has the Captain been notified?"

"No, he was going to be my next call." Krang said tapping his commbadge. "Krang to the Captain, please join us in security at your earliest possible convenience. We have some possibly important news on the murders."

Fannin acknowledged the call and stepped into the security deck several minutes later...

====

Dhindara was on her way up to security. "Vrel to Adams. Raven, have you gotten any more results? I'm on my way up to security to try and see what we can work out, want to join me up there?"

"Adams here. Nothing new. I sent all I have to Captain Fannin and Commander Darkmoon. I haven't heard anything since."

"Hmm, can you still meet me in security?" Dhindara asked. "I'd like to present our theory, and see what we can do to test it and catch that thing."

Our theory? I guess it could be seen that way, but in reality they'd both come up with it separately. "I can meet you there," she said. "Adams out." She put away her work and headed for security.

====

Fannin walked up behind Raven and Vrel, "Hope this is good news."

Dhindara waited for Raven to arrive, then rang Krang's doorbell.

"Come in." Krang called from where he was standing in front of the replicator. He was ordering yet another cup of coffee and was chewing on another carrot.

Basil nodded nervously to the new arrivals.

"Hi," Raven said as the two women walked into the room.

"Sir," Basil started, "I think we may be dealing with a copycat serial killer. The murders are made to look exactly like those of Jack the Ripper."

"That's because they are Jack the Ripper," Raven replied calmly. "Or, an alien entity that posed as Jack the Ripper. Known also as Redjac."

Dhindara nodded. "Indeed, I have come to the same conclusion." She took a seat, then explained. "I had a patient recently, Krang has met him to see if he could be matched against any physical evidence collected, who has experienced dreams of a nature connected with the murders. It was a clear telepathic influence on him, from an outside source, and I have ruled out anybody who is or was on the station who could have done it, including myself. What we need now is a means of capturing the entity, and of destroying it."

Krang started trying to pull up some information on the PADD he was holding. "Wasn't there something similar in a mission report by Admiral Kirk and his crew on the Enterprise?"

"Yes," Raven said. "It's in the report I sent you earlier."

Basil nodded. "I remember reading that. i don't know if it's feasible to inject everyone on station with the equivalent of 'Happy Pills', though. And what about those who refuse? We can't FORCE the civilians to take the medicine... The station is what might be termed as a 'Target-Rich Environment'. The entity can possess anyone at will. With the population of this station, isolating it into the body of one of the 'anesthetized' personnel would be problematic at best..."

"Agreed. With Starfleet personnel you can make it an order. With civilians, though, it's a different matter," Raven said. "I don't know if the diplomats have any suggestions. Perhaps you could say there was a rare virus on board and you were simply inoculating everyone against it?"

Dhindara nodded. "Releasing a gas into the station's environmental controls that works like happy pills should be an easy solution to that problem", she suggested. "There is no need to reveal the truth just yet, and I doubt the civilians have a means to prevent breathing station air, even if some do object." She paused, then added. "I have a suggestion for catching the entity, though. We need a volunteer, who will not be breathing the station air and, indeed, be injected with a substance that increases susceptibility to fear. This should lure the entity into that person, who should be restrained. Once that is done, we should be able to force it into a computer by reversing the fear-inducing process on our volunteer. With a subspace containment field around that computer unit we should be able to keep it trapped, until we figure out a way to neutralise it. We'll need to take exact scans of our volunteer, once possessed, to figure out what frequency to set the containment field to. Every energy being has to operate at a certain band of frequencies, so there is a way to counter it."

"What about a katric jar?" Basil mused aloud. Then grasping on to the idea, he spoke more confidently. "Katric jars are meant to preserve a Vulcan's katra or soul, why not use it as a trap for the Ripper entity? We could bait a katric jar with something attractive to the entity, and trap it in there when the entity tries to possess whoever is inside..."

"Hmm", Dhindara pondered. "That does sound interesting. I have no idea whether it'll work on the being, but it's probably going to be our best shot. The problem is, who will volunteer to become the host of the being, while everyone else is on happy meds? I thought about volunteering yourself, but Raven here has a good point, my telepathy is strong and could be a danger in its own right, even when I'm physically restrained. I don't know whether, possessed by the entity, I'd be able to keep enough control to keep it from using it against others."

Krang just looked around the room. This conversation was way outside his scope.

"I don't think so," Raven said, answering Dhindara. "You would be too powerful a tool in the hands of RedJac. We need a non-telepath, if we can." She looked at the doctor. "A katric jar might be effective, if we can somehow make it seem like the best opportunity to get off the starbase."

"Well, we know this thing lives on fear. If everybody's pumped full of Happy Gas, and the station's under lockdown until the murderer is caught, Redjac may want to duck into the Jar because the Vulcan Katra that's in there will be its ONLY way off the station. It may not like it, but when it gets hungry enough, it will try to possess the Katra. How about we publish a report that the Katra of a Vulcan diplomat is going to be transported to Vulcan for Re-fusion? That would be quite a honeypot for an entity that lives by generating fear in others. A diplomat travels a lot, is hard to keep track of, and nobody would suspect a Vulcan of being a mass-murderer..." Basil warmed to the idea as he proposed it.

Raven looked at the others before responding. "It might work. If we could get it IN the container, we could trap it there. We have to put enough pressure on it now to make it want to leave. Maybe locking down the starbase so it can't leave any other way will force it to take drastic measures?"

"This is all over my head. Let's take what we have to the boss and see what he wants to do with it." Krang suggested.

"I agree. This really isn't our decision to make," Raven said.

OFF

Commander Basil Hart
Chief Medical Officer
Starbase Typhon

Commander Krang Darkmoon
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
Starbase Typhon

Commander Dhindara vrel
Chief Counselor
Starbase Typhon

Commander Raven Adams
Chief Intelligence Officer
Starbase Typhon

Commodore Edward Fannin
Commanding Officer
Starbase Typhon

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