by David Smith
Commander Olga Romanov and Lieutenant Callum Taylor blinked at her in surprise before turning their attention back to a small window in the door of one of the Jefferies tubes that carried mechanical and electrical services through the hull of the ship.
The two engineers were clearly worried and were whispering in hushed tones that O’Mara couldn’t quite make out over the more widespread mumbling from the crowd of engineers behind her.
She cleared her throat a little theatrically and trying to sound sunny, up-beat and completely and totally innocent she said ‘Oh. Hey guys. I was just passing by. What’s . . . occurring?’
Romanov never took her eyes off the window.
‘We don’t know. Lieutenant Taylor had just tried purging the plasma conduits that serve the inertia damper grid and one of the conduits must have worn through. We suffered a fairly minor plasma leak.’
O’Mara’s heart was pounding and she felt like her stomach was dropping through the floor. ‘Is that . . . er . . . dangerous?’
Romanov still couldn’t tear her eyes away from the window.
‘Not in itself. It’s a minor conduit so the breech only released a few kilos of plasma, and that had already started to cool.’
O’Mara’s mouth was dry.
‘Soooo . . . why are we all standing around looking through a window?’
Romanov looked around for the first time. She was about to explain but looked uncertain and instead stepped aside and gestured to the window.
O’Mara shuffled forward and as she looked into the more dimly lit service duct beyond, Romanov explained quietly ‘There must have been some kind of contaminant in the plasma that survived the purge.’
At first, O’Mara didn’t see any particular issue, but as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she noticed something odd about the conduits in the space. Something odd about everything in the space, in fact.
Was it all glowing? No. It was sparkling.
Her brow furrowed. Everything in the Jefferies tube was sparkling. Now what would cause that?
Behind her, Romanov was still talking.
‘We got really lucky. Once the alarm went off Lieutenant Taylor followed breach protocols, vented the space and sealed it up again, ready for inspection and repair, but before he opened the door, he made a visual check and noticed that residue.’
O’Mara barely heard her. Why was everything sparkling? There was very little light in the space, yet every single surface sparkled like the display in the window of a jewellers shop. It was almost as if . . .
As if everything was covered in diamonds.
She began to back away and worried for a moment that her bladder might cut loose.
‘Well. That is odd isn’t it??’ squeaked O’Mara.
She continued to back away, bumping into the throng of engineers.
Romanov looked at her curiously.
‘Incredibly odd. Oddest thing I’ve ever seen’ gabbled O’Mara. She tried to smile with confidence but instead let out an involuntary, nervous and obviously false giggle while still backing slowly away from the window, stumbling past more engineers as she went.
‘Odd, odd, odd. Of course, I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life, and have absolutely no idea what’s causing it.’
She could see the gears grinding in Romanov’s mind and as the engineers thoughts coalesced, her eyes narrowed and her grip on her beloved lump hammer visibly tightened.
Still backing away, O’Mara could hear her own heart beating and didn’t need a mirror to know that her face was flushing bright, bright red. ‘Right. I’ll be off then. My science team don’t know anything about this. This sort of thing, I mean. So I’ll be up in one of the labs if you need me. Which of course you won’t, because you engineers are completely brilliant and are in total control of the situation.’
She turned to sprint off but bounced off something large, immovable and wearing a Captain’s uniform.
She looked up to find Captain Hollins looking down at her with one eyebrow raised in suspicion. Beside him Skye L’Amour was still giving her that filthy ”You’ve really done it now” look.
‘Oh. Morning sir.’ She started to back away, but felt sure she could feel the heat of Olga Romanov’s temper rising behind her.
‘Good morning Aisling’ said Hollins very calmly. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this mysterious contamination, would you?’
‘Um. Well. No. Not really.’
In her mind, she drew a straight line between Captain Hollins suspiciousness and Commander Romanov’s anger and imagined a perpendicular to that line which suggested a nice safe exit route.
She tried to sidle away from confrontation, but Skye L’Amour stepped forward, very deliberately, onto her foot, bringing a minor wince and pinning her in place.
‘I think Commander O’Mara might want to discuss some ideas she’s got about this sir. In private’ hinted L’Amour.
In safety, thought O’Mara, sure she could feel Romanov’s breath on the back of her neck and the mass of the engineer’s terrifying lump-hammer flexing the fabric of space-time as it drew near.
Hollins looked at O’Mara, at L’Amour and then at Romanov.
‘Ok. Commander Romanov, we’ll be in the Emergency Bridge’
He turned and strode back to the turbo-lift. L’Amour took her foot off O’Mara’s before grabbing her by the arm and dragging the reluctant Science Officer after the Captain.
Romanov seethed in the background and stomped off to her office, shouting commands as she went, her team scattering before her.
--------------------
Hollins very deliberately sat in the Captain’s chair in the centre of the Emergency Bridge and pointed to the science station as O’Mara ambled in after him.
As its name implied, the Emergency Bridge on Deck 14 was a facility which was only normally used in emergencies when access to the Main Bridge was not possible.
Whilst it replicated most of the functionality of the Main Bridge, it was much smaller, much more cramped, less well-lit and despite all the fabulous technology of the 23rd Century, always smelt slightly musty.
Hollins sat in the chair, staring down at O’Mara, who sat facing towards him, but was looking down at her hands in her lap.
After letting her stew for a minute and giving her time to prepare her confession, he said ‘Well?
O’Mara was still bright red and seemed to be glowing in the dim light.
‘Well, it’s like this. I’ve been going a bit stir crazy, what with us being stuck here at Hole again, and I had this idea, you see, and it was my idea and nothing at all to do with my team who were just following orders, and although I think it’s a great idea, I can sort of see that it might not seem so clever to anyone looking at it from the outside in if you take my meaning, not that . . . oww!’
O’Mara ruefully rubbed the ankle that Skye L’Amour had kicked and gave her a reproachful stare.
Hollins rolled his eyes. He was very fond of his Science Officer, but when she was embarrassed she blathered so much it was a wonder she didn’t suffocate herself.
‘Come on O’Mara, ‘fess up.’
She sighed and her shoulders slumped.
‘I’ve really stuffed up. We thought we could speed up the refit process by repairing the plasma conduits in-situ. We genetically altered some of the LOAVEs we had in stasis to act as nano-repair tools, eating contaminants and old carbon and laying down fresh, geometrically perfect carbon in its place.’
Hollins fought to control a moment of panic. The thought of an infestation of LOAVEs was a terrifying prospect.
‘I assume that hasn’t gone as planned, but I know you well enough to know you’d have a plan B too.’
She nodded. ‘We planned to use the purge system to induce a growth of the altered LOAVE type DNA structure, which we call GECLLs, to re-line the conduits serving the drain system for the labs. I didn’t anticipate the conduit with contaminated plasma splitting and releasing the wee beasties.’<
br />
‘Someone could’ve been killed’ said Hollins sternly.
O’Mara still couldn’t meet his gaze and sniffed back tears that were beginning to form. Like Hollins, she understood that regardless of the GECLLs, anyone caught in the Jefferies tube when the conduit had burst might’ve been killed by the plasma anyway, but her guilt and shame stifled any response.
Softly, Lieutenant L’Amour filled in the blanks.
‘We found out that in the purge protocol, the drain system is locked down and plasma is introduced, which sterilises the system before the redundant plasma is vented to space. The GECLLs we’ve made can’t survive any great length of time in open space as their DNA is very vulnerable to gamma radiation from the star. The limited mass in the system would prevent the GECLLs from multiplying out of control, and if all else fails we’ve cooked up a molecular acid that will break-down the DNA of the GECLLs in a matter of seconds. We thought we’d clean the drain system, repair it’s walls and by doing that prove that the GECLLs were safe to use.’
‘So what went wrong?’
Skye sighed. ‘Lieutenant Taylor is what went wrong’
Hollins suppressed a sigh of his own. ‘Tinker’ Taylor was a great engineer, but had had a neurotic tendency to fiddle with things that he didn’t need to.
Skye continued. ‘As far as I can make out, he altered the purge protocols to try to clean three systems rather than one before venting the plasma into space. The stasis valves on the system opened, flooded the lab drains with plasma which caused exponential growth of the GECLLs. They did what they did, cleaning and repairing the drainage system, then found themselves being freed to work in the inertial damper system and the auxiliary power distribution system. That will have significantly increased their growth capacity and when the conduit in the inertia damper system sprang a leak they were also released into the Jefferies tube. As the plasma leaked out, safety protocols detected the pressure drop and locked the purge system down to prevent it depressurising the Jefferies tube when it vented.’
Hollins slumped in his chair. ‘Awesome. We’ve now contaminated three systems and a section of the Jefferies tubes with a potentially lethal bio-hazard.’
O’Mara nodded and blew her nose very loudly when Skye offered her a tissue.
The Captain rubbed his chin. There was no point in worrying about the back-drop to this just now; they just had to make sure it didn’t get worse.
With growing unease he realised that entailed an uncomfortable conversation with his Chief Engineer, and then in absolute horror he realised that if she opened the tube to attempt any kind of clean up or repair, she might kill them all.
He stabbed frantically at a button on the arm of the chair, and contacted Romanov in her office. ‘Commander, it is imperative that you don’t make any attempt to repair or even approach anything in the location of that breach!’
Romanov was evidently expecting the bad news. ‘I figured that too, sir. What have our helpful scientists done this time?’
Hollins hesitated. Romanov was not one to take bad news well.
‘There’s a contamination issue, Commander. We’re working on a solution.’
There was a deep, deep silence from the other end of the comm-link before Romanov spoke again. ‘It’s LOAVEs isn’t it?’
Hollins considered his reply carefully. ‘I can’t confirm that, but the Science team and I are . . . ‘
The comm-link went dead and the compartment was silent.
After a brief pause, Lieutenant L’Amour said ‘What’s that noise?’
Hollins shook his head sadly and sighed. ‘I believe that’s Commander Romanov issuing instructions to her team’
‘But we’re four decks up!! Surely we couldn’t . . . ‘
Hollins shook his head. ‘We’re getting off-topic here. We know what the situation is, so what do we do about it?’
O’Mara looked up. ‘Well it’s confined, so I guess we use the acid to clean the system, then replace the affected conduits the hard way just to be on the safe side.’
‘That sounds risky. What precautions will we need to take to remove the infected conduits?’
‘All the usual stuff, but I’d recommend evacuating the compartment and venting the atmosphere too.’
‘What about other systems?’
‘They should be fine. As long as the stasis valves hold, the GECLLs can’t get into any other systems.’
At that moment, the Emergency Bridge was bathed in the vivid flashing light of a red alert emergency and a voice boomed over the ship’s general broadcast system.
‘Red Alert! Doctor and Captain to Upper Engineering Deck, medical emergency!!’
--------------------
They bounded onto the Upper Engineering Deck to find the red alert lights still flashing although the klaxon had been silenced. There was a weird, surreal atmosphere across the deck and Commander Romanov watched anxiously as Doctor Katrin Mengele and Nurse John Langley stripped off their clothes ready to don the environmental suits being prepared for them.
Hollins tried really, really hard not to notice the Doctors stunning physique or decidedly non-standard issue latex underwear, and also chose to turn a blind eye to a series of suspiciously riding-crop-shaped welts on Nurse Langley’s behind.
Clearing his throat he said ‘What’s happening Olga?’
The little Ukrainian engineer looked truly worried.
‘We’re in trouble. O’Mara’s beasties have found their way into the main power transfer conduits.’
Hollins was taken aback. ‘How? How is that possible?’
Romanov scratched her head. ‘One of the systems infected was the auxiliary power distribution conduits. One of the functions of that system is to supply power to all the stasis valves that provide fail-safe protection for all the ships other power systems. I’m only guessing, but I think the LOAVEs found a way to cut off the power to the stasis valves so they could find their way into other systems.’
O’Mara couldn’t contain herself. ‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous!! Anyone would think they made a conscious decision. They’re not even LOAVEs, they’re just GECLLs. They’re nothing more than little bio-machines! Just bits of DNA!’
Commander Olga Romanov didn’t take kindly to being dis-respected. ‘I don’t give a летять ебать what you think! You got us into this mess in the first place.’
She took a menacing step forward and O’Mara backed away, subconsciously stepping back behind the Captain.
Hollins held his hands up to calm Romanov. ‘Never mind that! Who’s hurt?’
Romanov straightened herself up and led them across the deck. She headed towards the access chamber to the stanchion that connected the engineering hull to the port warp-drive nacelle, and talked as they walked.
‘Crewman Duvall was undertaking a survey of the main power transfer conduits that carry plasma from the warp-core to the drive coils. He opened the access way and began to climb, but felt a pain as he began to climb the access ladder. Lieutenant Taylor was about to enter the access way to offer assistance but I operated full safety protocols for a plasma breach.’
They reached the access hatch just as the Doctor began fastening the hood of her environmental suit in place.
The hatch of the narrow tube was open, but O’Mara could see the slight sparkling and distortion that suggested an emergency force-field had been put in place. The Doctor saw their approach and warned them.
‘Please stay clear. Nurse Langley and I will attempt to administer first aid to Crewman Duvall, but must do it in isolation. As we can’t risk contaminating the ship, the engineers will attempt to extend the emergency force-field around us.’
Hollins looked worried. ‘Is that safe?’
The tall, elegant doctor hesitated before answering. ‘Possibly not, but if we do not extricate Crewman Duvall it is a certainty that he will die.’
Hollins paused. They had to risk it. ‘Ok. Do it. Olga, get Chief Carstairs on the transporter. As soon as i
t’s safe to move Duvall I want the force-field dropped for exactly as many milliseconds as it takes to transport Duvall, the Doctor and Langley direct to an isolation room in Sick-bay.’
‘Understood Captain’ said Romanov and hurried away shouting orders as she went.
Hollins turned back to the Doctor. ‘How bad is it?’
‘Unknown Captain, but Commander Romanov has explained the issue with contamination and if you look into the space you will see my concern.’
Hollins edged forward and O’Mara followed, still standing in his shadow and peeking around him like a shy child.
Inside the access space, Duvall lay on the floor, moaning in pain, clutching his hand.
For a moment, O’Mara thought he’d done it again. Duvall was notoriously careless with his digits, having managed to not only lose a finger and a half in previous accidents, but also at least two bionic replacement digits too.
As she looked at him she suddenly understood why Romanov had prevented Lieutenant Taylor from rendering assistance to the stricken crewman. The side of one of Duvall’s fingers was glittering.
As if it was coated in a dusting of millions of tiny diamonds.
--------------------
They stood outside the isolation room, looking at Crewman Duvall who was heavily sedated.
The Doctor took a deep breath and O’Mara thought she heard the distinctive rustle of PVC under garments.
‘We’ve made Duvall as comfortable as we can and isolated the pathogen. It is definitely an infection with the viral material Commander O’Mara describes as “Jekylls”’ she explained.
‘Will Duvall survive?’ asked Hollins.
‘Yes, but we have had to amputate another two of Duvall’s fingers and also remove a considerable amount of skin from his hand and forearm that will require grafts, or possibly a prosthesis.’
O’Mara listened in horror. ‘The GECLLs ate his hand??’
The doctor raised one eyebrow. ‘An oversimplification, perhaps. They appear to have done exactly as you intended and replaced a matrix of contaminated carbon materials with a perfect tetrahedral diamond structure. Unfortunately they are unable to differentiate between contaminated carbon and living flesh.’