To kill a virus...

Posted on Sun Feb 28, 2021 @ 6:17pm by Lieutenant JG Finchley Kerr & Commander Ajani Carter & Lieutenant Skot Ryder & Lieutenant Commander Ethan Brash & Lieutenant Commander Dr. Elisabet Intarrah Ph.D MD & Ensign Jak Summers & Staff Warrant Officer Jax Grenhorn

Mission: Episode 2: Rising Tides
Location: Bridge
Timeline: MD07
1733 words - 3.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Commander Ajani Carter sat in the center chair. The shuttles had been modified and were right now being piloted by the three most gifted pilots she had ever seen. At the Helm was the fourth, a new addition to the ship who was normally on 4th shift, she was... well she was as cocky as any other pilot was! Kerr had taken up his post at tactical, her new XO was manning the XO station, a small console attached to the rail behind her, Ethan at Ops Lise was manning the Science station and Chief Symmons was at the Engineering station. This was her senior staff, all on the bridge for what was either going to be a monumental operation, or a firestorm; she was hoping for the first frankly.

"Ethan," she said "Are all the shuttles in place? And is the main deflector configured" she knew both were a yes but she wanted to make sure that there was nothing to go wrong."

"Main deflector is at one-hundred-one percent," Ethan declared, swiping one of the windows away from his console as he confirmed it, "shuttles are waiting for launch."

"Very good, power the deflector to active status, and launch the shuttles. Have them make ready and move to their starting orbits."

A double-tap on the screen preceded his response, "activated," he swiped another control, leaving behind a solid green light, "waving the flag!"

Carter nodded and turned to her Science Chief. "Lise, have you determined the extent of the virus on the planet? How far it has spread?" They had been running scans for the last few hours, they had lost a probe or two in the process to the extreme winds, that didn't seem to have let up their entire time there.

"The Virus' survivability is impressive. Resistant to perhaps all known wavelengths." Lise brought up the virus configuration on the main viewer. "The Virus has an engineered and layered protein shell. Very sturdy and resistant, but it is not airborne. It requires a liquid medium for it to be transported because its structure is not capable of airborne flight. Muon Radiation can destroy the virus. However..." Lise mentioned...

"However?" she asked fearing the response. She didn't like it when Lise did this, stopping for effect.

"The only other way to destroy this virus is to sterilize the entire planet. All of it. every moss, insect, plant, and single-celled organism. Without a host, the half-life on this virus is ten minutes. Its survivability is so rugged, it can even infect bacteria." Lise mentioned. "But to wipe out all life on a planet to destroy a virus, Ajani. can you do it? We either take a chance with a Muon sweep. Which I project a ninety percent probability we would destroy the Harvesters on this planet, or we kill its vectors, and render this planet a lifeless sterilized rock... She sighed. "We can detonate a plasma burst in the Atmosphere to flash-ignite it. The atmosphere will be destroyed and the oceans will flash-freeze into ice in a vacuum environment. But I must note, I'll be submitting an official protest to Starfleet Command if we do this..."

"We are not there yet Lise. Let's try the sweep first."

"Finchley" she looked round at him "Prepare the shields, we are going to have to get in close and that storm is going to bounce us around, I would really like it if we didn't become a lighten rod!"

"Aye Sir, configuring shields to displace any magnetic anomalies that could affect our course" Finchley replied.

"Please shape the shields for a more aerodynamic profile Finchley. Make the Eagle as flyable as possible please"

"I'll make it feel like we're still in spacedock Captain" Finchley replied jokingly.

"Great" although she had spent a lot of time in spacedock and really had no love for any of them anymore.

Last, but not least was Symmons, her chief of engineering. "Chief," Ajani said to Symmons, "Please make sure my ship didn't fall apart" she smiled as he turned around, no doubt to say something.

From Engineering the deceptively sweet voice of Staff Warrant Officer Jax Grenhorn came over the speakers. "Captain, the chief is head deep in a console, but he assures me that nothing will fall off his ship!" there was a smile in her voice, Carter was sure of it. She liked Jax, and the dinosaur in engineering so she decided not to bite. "Understood chief"

"Let do this" Carter said, "Ethan, give the word to the shuttles to start their sweep, Helm please begin our descent we need to be no higher than 25 miles but no lower than 19 miles above the surface. That storm is going to try and kick your ass Jak, don't let it." As he looked over his shoulder at her she smiled "I wouldn't let it" she said. Her background was that of a pilot and she had done it all.

"Yes ma'am" Jak replied turning back to his station with a grin. He was one of those who had just been trained using new methods and the newest holographic systems. His station was also state of the art and he worked it like he had grown up around it all his life.

"Shuttles are scanning away!" Ethan added after the fact.

The ship started to shake as they dipped into the atmosphere of the planet. The storms started to throw the Eagle around but the expertise of her bridge crew kept them all firmly in their seats. On the view screen plasma licked around the bow of the Eagle as they entered the atmo, they could have come in so slowly there wouldn't have been any heat but Jak was a good pilot and they needed to get things moving, thus they entered at orbital speeds.

Alarms blared from Ops. Ethan tapped to confirm a system error, sending the blinking red window away. "Interference is weakening our contact with the shuttles." He moved over slightly to another part of his console, entering in a new balance configuration, "Increasing signal throughput to compensate."

Ajani forced herself to remain seated, it did no one any good for her to show her concerns. "Helm, increase our decent profile by 5 degrees and lower our speed by 10 m/s." It would get them down quicker without taxing the ship too much. "Ethan, pull power from the weapons if you have to." she added, "Finchley, how are the shields holding up?"

Ethan nodded at the Captain's suggestion, keeping his focus on his work.

"Forward shields are holding for now Sir, but we're having to draw power from the aft shields to maintain them" Finchley replied "I'll try to keep them as balanced as I can" he finished.

Skot had been monitoring the situation from his station and was impressed with how the crew was handling everything. After hearing the latest update from Ethan, Skot began to go through the current sensor data to try to find a solution when he spotted it. "Commander, there seems to be a clear spot in the storm about two thousand meters to port. Moving the ship there may help with the interference. That combined with the increased power may be enough to punch through."

"Jak" said Carter. The young pilot brought the ship around in a wide arc trying to stick with the wind direction. "We have arrived," he said looking at the view screen and then back down at his console. All the ships flight systems were still well in the green.

Carter nodded, she liked a crew who could do their jobs without being micro-managed. "Okay, do we have a completed scan yet?"

Lise worked quickly and fast. Examining the area in question. She then spoke up. "A radius of ten kilometers from the base site has been infected." She checked her scans. We will need to sterilize twenty kilometers of the planet's surface, the virus will survive a limited plasma bombardment, but without anything to infect, the virus' half life will be forty-eight hours."

"Neutrinos first please Lise" Carter said, Ethan power the main deflector and prepare to 'shower' the target area." The Bombardment was a back up plan, for now they would try the neutrino shower, see if they couldn't 'deactivate' the virus.

A new window appeared on the Operations console and Ethan grabbed it, bringing it to the forefront. The custom script loaded into it would, in theory, safely increase power to the deflector until the area in front of it was saturated with neutrinos, only firing once there were enough for the aforementioned shower.

"Program activated. Power increasing. Deflector shots calculated. Ready to go!"

While they couldn't see the main deflector she knew that it was glowing a bright blue. They also couldn't see the Neutrinos but someone had laid a false image over the main display so Carter could see them wash over the target area. A bar on the right hand side of the screen started to drop, that was the indication of how much of the virus there was left. She let it drop of zero and did a 5 count before she ordered it shut off. With one more scan Carter conceded that this was the best choice. The virus was gone, the shuttles were now back in the bay.

"Launch a stealth satellite to monitor the area. Also put a probe in orbit above the colony, have it warn us if it detects any of the virus again"

Lise spoke. "Another purpose; learn who comes back here." She noted as simply and bluntly as ever. "The sort of people who use these types of weapons are intrinsically connected to their crimes. They... pride themselves in the ideology that they can kill anyone at any time. To a killer... His or her crimes is like a fine vintage of wine. Perfectly aged, and he and she will always return here at random moments to relive the emotions again and again." She mentioned. "The concept of power over life and death is as addictive as the most powerful narcotic. Probe away... The weakness of the devil; Pride. Paradise Lost."

[Cloaked ship in orbit]

"The Federation vessel has neutralized the virus Captain" the officer said.

"Interesting..." the Captain replied, deep in contemplation.

"Orders Sir?" the officer asked.

"Once the Federation vessel leaves we'll wait twelve hours then go down and see what's left..."