S2:M6 Please Don't Stop the Music(1)

[Kaia Tabbris]

[ USS Shran - Mess Hall ]

As Esdrill stood by the replicator systems, Tabbris could do nothing but watch helplessly as his eyes scrolled through the replicator's database. His neck quirked to the side as he stopped as he laid eyes on the image of a circular disk, ridged and littered with pockets. "Waf-full. Will your body be nourished by this sustenance?" He pondered out loud as a brilliant swirl of lights appeared in the middle of the replicator leaving a waffle behind in its wake. Snatching it from the replicator's base, he bit off a large corner before turning away. Tabbris could only imagine how he appeared to those gathered in the Mess Hall as his tongue wagged with pieces of waffle hanging at his mouth. "It's so dry!"

Waffles are meant to be consumed with syrup or jam. I prefer uttaberry.

At the sound of the Mess Hall's doors whooshed open, Esdrill snapped the neck of the Bajoran to watch as a reptilian bounced into the room. His eyes widened at her sight as a sinister smile spread across his lips, "Does she belong to me, Tabbris?" The scout questioned of the Bajoran as he attempted to take in another bite of the dry waffle, the crumbs falling off his lips and falling to the floor.

I believe she is a property of the vessel.

The Bajoran's eyes glanced at the list of recommended beverages that accompanied this meal for optimal nourishment. "Whole Milk-ilk-m-ilk." Esdrill was amused by the function of the tongue as he turned his attention back to the replicator. A glass of white milk appeared at the base of the replicator and Esdrill greedily snatched it before practically finishing the beverage in one fell gulp. He cringed, "Tell me the creature's name so I can beckon to her. She'd make a lovely gift for my queen." Esdrill began cooing from a distance after placing the replicated glass of milk back on the base to be recycled for later use.

Kelly.

Before Esdrill could open the Bajoran's mouth to speak, an approaching voice caused his attention to sharply shift as he pivoted on the heel of his boot to face the oncoming Security officer. Tabbris couldn't help but notice the way the chief regarded him with his eyes. "I'm well," the Keer scout replied as he regarded the Betazoid's blackened eyes staring at him point-blank. Tabbris attempted to muster enough courage, enough strength, and the sheer determination of will to compromise the Hippocampic connection the two shared. In the Bajoran's form, the cloud being's eyes widened as if he was on the verge of wretching all over the Mess Hall floor before a strangled cry of, "Help!" escaped the Bajoran's lips.

HELP!!!!

Esdrill coughed loudly and grabbed at his stomach, "Indigestion," before plastering a fake smile and dropping it quickly. The Bajoran could feel the scout quicken his steps as he made his way towards the Mess Hall doors. "Foolish, Bajoran. Do you know how much energy is required to sever the Hippocampic connection? You'll be useless to me in a less than an hour. I need to find another host." The dread that Tabbris' consciousness felt was magnified by a thousand.

"Out of my way, Kelly," Esdrill spat, nearly kicking the raptor out of his way as he approached the doors.

[ USS Shran - Science Labs ]

Vanessa shrieked as the communications signal suddenly went dark after attempting to reach out to the Bajoran. Huffing to allow the heat to drain from her cheeks, she turned to the Science chief. "Ensign Kaia is not responding to any of my messages and his combadge signal is completely dead." She placed her head in her hands before sliding them up and letting them run through the crown of her sun-kissed blonde hair. Closing her eyes to regain her composure, she inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly as she trilled her lips. When her eyes fluttered open once more, a crazed man sporting a thick mustache, abizarre metallic apparatus in the shape of a glove crackling with electricity, while completely decked out in early late 19th century garb appeared crazed at the Science Lab doorway.

The ensign ducked underneath her station's console, "AHHHH!!! KILL IT, CHIEF!!!" Vanessa peered up at the El-Aurian, who introduced her to a creation from his holo-novel based on the the early scientific pioneer, Nikola Tesla. Sheepishly standing tall, she brushed her bang to the side before narrowing her eyes, "Fine. Invite the hologram with a terrible sense of style to the party but not the actual life of the party. Where are you going?" Vanessa was growing more and more frustrated with the feeling of having to babysit her superior officer as he called out for a mek'leth at the replicator system. Luckily, Ensign Kaia had brought them back on at full capacity and the system was now working within acceptable parameters.

Her eyes widened in fright as he tossed the heavy, replicated weapon in her direction and she jumped to the side to avoid getting hurt. The mek'leth lodged into the floor and Vanessa peered down at it with disgust. "Sure, why not, make me work during the party and ruin my manicure while you're at it," she complained as she grabbed the mek'leth at the weapon's hilt and pried it from the floor, almost knocked over by the weight and the sheer force that was needed to dislodge the weapon. Turning on her heel, she faced the odd pair as she brandished her new weapon, "Lead the way," Leighton responded as she gestured towards the door impatiently.

"No, seriously, lead the way because you're sweating alcohol and you smell a little funny. No offense," she responded with a shrug, clearly meaning to offend. Angelically, she batted her eyes twice and waited for Tempest to take the lead. Turning towards the hologram, "Nice 'stache," she mentioned as the sarcasm dripped freely from her lips.

[Djann Tempest]

[USS Shran-Science Lab]

Lead the way

Leighton hadn't caught the mek'leth and seemed even more reticent to use it. "The hologrid's safety's are off Ensign. Just...stay behind me I guess". Tempest started to move around the workstations and make his way toward Tesla. "Nikola, I'm drunk and you know I can get mean. Perhaps you should just return from where you came huh?" he called out as he closed the gap slowly yet deliberately.

"And miss running amok on your ship? I wouldn't miss this for the world!" Tesla exclaimed as he punctuated his sentence by striking out with the gauntlet. Seeing what was building Tempest held the specially constructed mek'leth in front and hoped his idea would be functional. Electricity arced from the glove straight for him and the Ensign but was drawn to the conductive weapon Djann held forth. The mek'leth got hot in his hand but he held tight when he saw the current hadn't discharged but was dancing on the surface of the blade.

"This might come as a shock to you Nikola" Tempest flipped the bladed Klingon around in his hand into a throwing position. "But I don't have the time for this right now".

Tempest threw the crackling Klingon weapon as hard as possible, his cybernetic arm whirring as he accelerated. The weapon glinted in lights of the lab, piercing through the gauntlet and pinning Tesla to the wall, howling in pain.

"Ok, now let's make our way to the bridge. Time is not on our side and logic knows what is happening in between here and there" Djann said as he retrieved his Mek'leth from the wall. Tesla slumped to the floor, apparently defeated.

[USS Shran-Corridors]

Leighton stayed behind Tempest but was more helpful than expected. Keeping an eye on their back and occasionally slashing at an errant, partying attacker. Closing an access hatch behind them, Djann collapsed for a few moments trying to catch his breath. He could feel a bit of heat emanating from the rotary parts of his arm. Rarely had he had to continuously chop or fling it around like he had fighting his way through the corridors. Luckily the strain was much less since the power pack in the prosthetic took care of a lot of the work. Regardless he was sore and tired but his moment of rest was over. "Let's roll" Djann said as he crawled up the ladder, continuing to the bridge.

[USS Shran-Bridge]

The Jefferies tube access panel burst open at the rear of the bridge with Leighton tumbling out first. Tempest quickly followed, grappling with a humanoid dressed in bright robes who was bopping their head to a beat only they could hear. Djann held his Mek'leth in between his teeth as he attempted to get a better hold on his opponent. They rolled back and forth a few times before he saw an opportunity. Rolling so that the partier was over him, Djann braced with his back and kicked the dancer back into the Jefferies tube hatch, sending them tumbling down the shaft.

Standing up on wobbly feet, Tempest brushed himself off. Looking to the XO, a Doctor he didn't recognize and Lt. Filitov. "Commander, Doctor, Lieutenant" he nodded and said by way of greeting. "There's a cloud of...something headed this way. We detected strong neurogenic radiation and have determined they're the byproduct of some strange brainwaves. It's a lifeform or lifeforms and I'm certain that it's responsible for the havoc already occurring. It emerged from the Nebula we skirted a few days ago. We had to fight our way up here but I'm concerned about Ensign Tabbris. His comm cut out in the middle of a conversation with Leighton here and we haven't been able to raise him".

Slumping into one of the auxiliary command chairs to the left of the XO in the Captain's chair, Djann looked to the Doctor. "and please, Doc. Replicate me an anti intoxicant. There's only so many holograms I can slay on a 3 hour old buzz".

[Jenna McKinson]

[ Bridge ]

Jenna shook her head. Her patients yet again decided to trod off before she could finish her care. Lieutenant Commander Garrison had run off before Jenna could give a proper warning to her. Jenna bound and ran through the crowd. Despite her patient's condition she moved swiftly. Jenna was not out of breath, but mildly irritated. She needed to be firm with her while respecting her authority. She took a moment to compose herself.

"Leftennant Comander. I abhor how you just treated yourself. I plead with you to sit for a moment and not move. I believe you are concussed and speaking from experience I know what it's like when they go south. You put yourself at unnecessary risk. I don't need you dropping on your birthday celebration day," Her tone was professional, but she knew she may face discipline later. She however did not care as she didn't want the Birthday girl to become comatose on her special day.

[Kinley Garrison]

[ Bridge ]

Jenna shook her head. Her patients yet again decided to trod off before she could finish her care. Lieutenant Commander Garrison had run off before Jenna could give a proper warning to her. Jenna bound and ran through the crowd. Despite her patient's condition she moved swiftly. Jenna was not out of breath, but mildly irritated. She needed to be firm with her while respecting her authority. She took a moment to compose herself.

"Leftennant Comander. I abhor how you just treated yourself. I plead with you to sit for a moment and not move. I believe you are concussed and speaking from experience I know what it's like when they go south. You put yourself at unnecessary risk. I don't need you dropping on your birthday celebration day," Her tone was professional, but she knew she may face discipline later. She however did not care as she didn't want the Birthday girl to become comatose on her special day.

[bridge]
"All right. Lock out the life support too. I don't want to run out of oxygen before we fix what's wrong with the holodecks." Kinley ordered as she held her head in her hands, trying to block the light with her hands, to little help. It was just so freaking bright in here... or was it just an aftereffect of getting knocked on the head? She wasn't sure.

The response from the scientist wasn't very reassuring. A member of their crew going silent was not good. "Tempest," she said to the scientist, "Can we make contact with this lifeform? Maybe on a frequency of light or sound?  And do we have the location of Tabbris? if so, could it be possible to filter out this potential being somehow? Perhaps the Transporters? It hurt to think clearly, as her ideas sounded ridiculous, even to her, but she tried to put on an air of confidence.

Dr. Jenna finally caught up to her, and began lecturing her. She definitely deserved it, she had to admit. Getting up and walking out of being taken care of, when she obviously needed it; probably not one of her best decisions she had made, but she had to. She knew most of the crew still didn't trust her; and who would blame them? Here she was, only freaking 20 years old, and somehow in the Second chair. She just wanted to prove that she was the right one for the job, not just because the higher ups thought she was cute and all. "You're probably right, doc. I... I just can't stop now.

[Kachina Filitov]

[bridge]
"All right. Lock out the life support too. I don't want to run out of oxygen before we fix what's wrong with the holodecks." Kinley ordered as she held her head in her hands, trying to block the light with her hands, to little help. It was just so freaking bright in here... or was it just an aftereffect of getting knocked on the head? She wasn't sure.

Dr. Jenna finally caught up to her, and began lecturing her. She definitely deserved it, she had to admit. Getting up and walking out of being taken care of, when she obviously needed it; probably not one of her best decisions she had made, but she had to. She knew most of the crew still didn't trust her; and who would blame them? Here she was, only freaking 20 years old, and somehow in the Second chair. She just wanted to prove that she was the right one for the job, not just because the higher ups thought she was cute and all. "You're probably right, doc. I... I just can't stop now.

Bridge

Katcha nodded.

"Da Kommander." She replied.

Not being too familiar with the Ops console, it took her longer that it should have done to find the controls for the life support system. Once she found them, she restricted it to Bridge access only before encrypting in with a password.

"Done Kommander." She reported. "Ze life support system has been restricted to access from ze Bridge only and I have locked access by a passvord." She added.

[Lawrie McGellen]

[Bridge]

Lawrie looked to the flurry of newcomers to the Bridge and smiled.  "Can aah be useful here or should ah go find mahsel' somewhere in the Sickbay?  Dr. Lawrie McGellen, lately come aboard and been kept outta mischief by the lovely Ms. Filitov for a while!"

[Michael Ferdinand]

Engineering

Kalro watched, baffled at the continuing emergence of bizarre events regarding the ship and its holographic projections.  Not for the first time, he felt like pulling the plug on the entire holo-network.  Though... who knew if it was even possible to do so?  The ship might no longer be responding to commands.   Everything seemed to be malfunctioning across the board.

Never mind that the only person around who could disable the holographics was... the holographic officer.  There might be a bit of conflict of interest there.

But something about the goings-on caught his attention.   Something about an inbound life-form.

"Captain... could the ship be the victim of some kind of alien threat trying to assert control over its systems?  Could this be the first shot fired in a battle that we don't even know we are fighting?"

[Engineering]
"You could be right." Alyssa said. "And with that being our only theory right now, I'd say it's worth it to explore that theory." Her attention turned towards the holographic Chief Engineer. "Karen, what have you found?"

Karen shook her head. "Umm...nothing yet, Captain.  I'm going through all the logs now and....hold on." She began frantically tapping on the console as she scrolled through the data being presented. "It looks like someone accessed the holomatrix a few nights ago. But this is strange. The holodeck was activated and the system crashed for about half an hour."

"Who accessed the holodeck at that time?"

Karen's delicate fingers continued to scroll for the information with a bit of frustration. She had been asking for weeks to get a direct link with the computer for the sake of saving time, but the captain had rejected that idea. Something about the sensitivity of certain files. Whatever. Finally, she found the information. Her holographic eyes bulged for a quick moment as she braced herself. "Sir...you did."

Alyssa went silent. Her mind began imagining scenarios where that was true. Was she sleep walking? It wouldn't be the first time. Was she too drunk to remember? Or was it that someone was trying to cover their tracks.

"Send a report to my ready room with that log entry and then purge that file." Alyssa said. "I want you to initiate a fractal encryption code on all main computer systems."

Meadows to Bridge: I'm encrypting the computer. There may be an intruder on board. Send security teams to begin their sweep.

Meadows to Soren...Zadi: There is a possible intruder on board. Watch for any suspicious activity and act accordingly.

"Kalro, if there is an intruder, I need you to also start conducting your rounds."
-----
[As Zadi- Messhall]
The Ensign's outburst piqued Zadi's interest. He could sense there was something off about the young man but couldn't put his finger on it. There was a great sense of inner turmoil, but Zadi couldn't say what the cause was. He wasn't a counselor nor did he truly care about anyone's inner struggles as long as it didn't endanger the ship.

Meadows to Soren...Zadi: There is a possible intruder on board. Watch for any suspicious activity and act accordingly.

Understood, Captain. Zadi out.

Well, it must have been the Operation officer's unlucky day. Zadi didn't care. He reached out towards Tabbris and grasped his shoulder. "That's enough, Ensign. Why don't we have a little chat."

[Kalro Zolarim]

Engineering

Kalro's gaze lingered on the Captain.

Either someone was posing as the Captain to gain access to ship's systems...

Or the Captain was the source of the troubles that the ship was now embroiled in.

"Kalro, if there is an intruder, I need you to also start conducting your rounds."

He frowned slightly.  Certainly.  He'd just go door to door and ask if anyone had seen anything unusual.

"Sir, there is a chance that the shuttles and runabout remain unaffected by this computer breach, as they have independent systems.  I'd recommend that you proceed to the shuttlebay and run command and control from there.  Not only would you have access to independent computer, communications, and transporter equipment, but you'd be able to evacuate quickly in the event of a catastrophic systems failure.  I'd feel better leaving you alone if I knew you'd be safe."

All of that was true, of course.   Unmentioned was the thought that isolating the Captain in a runabout would enable him to be absolutely sure that any imposters were not genuine.

[Jenna McKinson]

[ Bridge ]

Dr. Jenna finally caught up to her, and began lecturing her. She definitely deserved it, she had to admit. Getting up and walking out of being taken care of, when she obviously needed it; probably not one of her best decisions she had made, but she had to. She knew most of the crew still didn't trust her; and who would blame them? Here she was, only freaking 20 years old, and somehow in the Second chair. She just wanted to prove that she was the right one for the job, not just because the higher ups thought she was cute and all. "You're probably right, doc. I... I just can't stop now.

Jenna sighed and shook her head. "I worry about your safety. I have personal knowledge on the subject. The mind is nothing to scoff at. Looks like I will have to treat you here. I know you are needed here, but I need you to stay put. Now I am going to treat another one if the runaways," As she stated it she sighed.

Jenna walked over to Tempest. "Ok Mr. Slither let's get you treated," She said. "Let's check that cut on your head. Does anything else hurt?" As she asked, she removed the shirt that Tempest was using as a bandage. She then put a proper bandage on the wound, but not before cleaning it to stave off infection. "I hope I don't have to leash these two," She thought as she worked. 

[Djann Tempest]

[USS Shran-Bridge]

[bridge]
"
"Can we make contact with this lifeform? Maybe on a frequency of light or sound?  And do we have the location of Tabbris? if so, could it be possible to filter out this potential being somehow? Perhaps the Transporters?

The XO had suggested this a few minutes before and Tempest had been monopolizing two of the science stations at the rear of the bridge. Work was taking slightly longer because of the encryption, not that it was a bad measure. Djann saw Leighton was using a security console to try to get an eye on her plants back in the lab.

"Leighton, I need you over here. I'm sure your plants will survive but only if the whole ship makes it so let's focus on something productive huh?" the CSO called out in as authoritative a voice as he could muster. He hadn't had a chance to get an anti intoxicant from the Doctor quite yet.

Leighton glared over at him for trivializing her concern about her work. "How would you like it if I had holograms dancing all over whatever time crystals or weirdo crap you have running in the other labs?" the Ensign vocalized as she made her way over to the science station.

"My weirdo crap in the other labs may erase us all from reality so we'd better hope they don't but fine. Just monitor the readouts from this rotating spectral scan for any coherent patterns or output. I'll deal with the infra-range frequencies" Tempest said as he sent the scan to her screen.

I've seen some reports of creatures like this. All neural energy or telepathic imprints from some sort of crazy scenario. All classified or unsubstantiated but not one of them was a..positive force if I remember right he thought as the earpiece pressed harder up against his ear. His fingers pushed a slider up on the console slowly to sweep the frequency band, switching to lower and lower notches. "Bingo. Resonance" he said. "There's a sub-harmonic resonance in the 30hz range. That's not the signal itself but a byproduct but now we know where to look. It's in some factor of 10 from the resonance. I'm guessing fairly high...".

Doubling over on the deck and pressing his head to the floor, Djann tore the earpiece out. Huffing and pressing his hands on either side of his head he struggled to shake it off and get back on his feet. "I found out where they communicate" he said softly at the expense of the pain in his head, "but I doubt we could have any way to actually talk like it. It overloaded the sensor path once I honed in on it at about 300 THz. An EM field growing stronger as it approaches the ship."

Sitting back down at the station he snapped his head up. "Commander Garrison, I do believe we may be able to disrupt the cloud now that we know what frequency range they communicate at. I'll need someone from engineering to know if it's even possible for anything on the ship to emit the kind of EM emissions we'd need to generate".

[Michael Ferdinand]

[Engineering]
Alyssa shook her head. "No." She stopped hard on the statement, accentuating the period and bringing it to life. I am not about to abandon my crew by running away and hiding." she said firmly. She understood she was the Captain, but she quite frankly didn't care.  Alyssa was cold, harsh. She had killed multiple people without a sliver of regret. She recalled the pleas of a previous Commanding Officer as he begged for mercy, begged for his life. And her response? She smiled as she depressurized the airlock, waving goodbye as he got flushed out out of the Odyssey class Shran. She would be damned if something like this would stop her. "Go on your sweeps, Kalro. Dismissed."

As Alyssa dismissed the security officer, she could hear the music growing louder. Curious, she walked to the main entrance and peaked her head out. The beige and metalic bulkheads were gone, replaced with bricks shrouded in darkness. The red carpet had been replaced with a stained hardwood floor. The lights in the hallway strobbed creating a pulsating headache for Alyssa. The program. It was spreading?

Her head throbbed as she stepped back into Engineering. She tried to shake herself out of it, but it was no use. "It's spreading." Alyssa muttered. "The program is spreading?" she said this time more audibly. "What would happen if the program takes Engineering?"

[Daniel Howell]

[Engineering]
The voguing men continued their dancing. They twirled, hit the floor in death drops, got back up, and did it again. However, when Howell interacted with them directly, they stopped. With no word they drew their pistols and took aim.

"Howell, get out of the way!" Alyssa cried out.

The militia men fired their pistols. Confetti and streamers shot out at a high pace, shrouding the line of fire with the party favors. They broke the tension in the room with shrieks of "yasssss" as they resumed their dancing, moving through the room as they did so.

Alyssa was extremely confused on what happened. She had no idea what was going on. Being unable to assess what was a danger and what wasn't frustrated her greatly. If she couldn't get a grip on the situation soon, something that was actually a danger could slip under her nose and endanger the entire crew.

"Howell." she hissed at the engineer, approaching him and the militia men with caution. "We need your help over here."

She peddled back to Karen and the rest of the entourage, brushing her hair into place as she moved. "Right. Karen, can you or Howell run a diagnostic on the holomatrix and the computer core as a whole. Go system by system if you have to. I want to know why the system is acting up. Is it a virus? A glitch?"

Engineering
The men were bouncing up and down like Kangaroo's on drugs to some music he hadn't even heard of before. He took an stance, and looked them right in the eye as they drew pistols on him. He blanked the Captain yelling to him to get clear, not once taking his eyes off the Militia men. Real stupid idea this time Dan... The men fired the pistols, releasing Confetti and streamers, turning Engineering into a night club. Before Howell even had a chance to assess what had happened, he found himself on the floor, his ears ringing from the party popper pistols and short on breath where one of the pistols had fired and hit his chest. He stumbled his way up, aided by one of the desks and shaking his head trying to clear his ears from the intense screeching happening inside them. He rose to the Captain barking at him for his help. "I'm commin'." He chuffed out, slurred and out of breath.

Howell carried himself to the panel where the Chief and Captain where, and listened in on the plan. Dan took a few seconds to study the information displayed and to input a few key commands before reporting "Whatever this is, its in every major system, but the Holomatrix looks to be affected worst. Going system by system to isolate it would take hours, hours we don't have."

Engineering
"Captain... could the ship be the victim of some kind of alien threat trying to assert control over its systems?  Could this be the first shot fired in a battle that we don't even know we are fighting?"

[Engineering]
"You could be right." Alyssa said. "And with that being our only theory right now, I'd say it's worth it to explore that theory." Her attention turned towards the holographic Chief Engineer. "Karen, what have you found?"

Karen shook her head. "Umm...nothing yet, Captain.  I'm going through all the logs now and....hold on." She began frantically tapping on the console as she scrolled through the data being presented. "It looks like someone accessed the holomatrix a few nights ago. But this is strange. The holodeck was activated and the system crashed for about half an hour."

"Who accessed the holodeck at that time?"

Karen's delicate fingers continued to scroll for the information with a bit of frustration. She had been asking for weeks to get a direct link with the computer for the sake of saving time, but the captain had rejected that idea. Something about the sensitivity of certain files. Whatever. Finally, she found the information. Her holographic eyes bulged for a quick moment as she braced herself. "Sir...you did."

Alyssa went silent. Her mind began imagining scenarios where that was true. Was she sleep walking? It wouldn't be the first time. Was she too drunk to remember? Or was it that someone was trying to cover their tracks.

"Send a report to my ready room with that log entry and then purge that file." Alyssa said. "I want you to initiate a fractal encryption code on all main computer systems."

Meadows to Bridge: I'm encrypting the computer. There may be an intruder on board. Send security teams to begin their sweep.

Meadows to Soren...Zadi: There is a possible intruder on board. Watch for any suspicious activity and act accordingly.

"Kalro, if there is an intruder, I need you to also start conducting your rounds."

Howell shrugged, focusing at Zolarim "Possible, that could only be done one of two ways, directly through the sub-space communications dish or using the ships prefix code - but for that they'd need Data charts for the command and engineering consoles, not to mention getting the prefix in the first place, and frankly I haven't seen that done in years." He finished, before setting straight back to work on finding more information.

He looked straight back up at the Chief she'd found out who'd accessed the Holmatrix and then straight across at the Captain, eyes bulged in surprise. He held his stare for a few seconds, before looking back down at the computer, the obvious step was to lock the computer out, but Dan had a hunch on this one, so he decided to run a new program he'd been working on. He looked back from the terminal and shouted "WAIT!" to the Cap's orders to lock it out with an encryption key. "There's a hidden command line hard-coded into the main core's BIOS. If you lock out the computer with an encryption key, its set up to overload the computer core. We'd loose every system on the ship. Anti-Matter containment, life support, everything." He glanced at the Chief before looking straight back at the Captain.

[Engineering]
Her head throbbed as she stepped back into Engineering. She tried to shake herself out of it, but it was no use. "It's spreading." Alyssa muttered. "The program is spreading?" she said this time more audibly. "What would happen if the program takes Engineering?"

Dan expressed a compassionate look on his face and softened his voice. "Ma'am, if this thing, whatever it is took engineering, there truthfully would be no way to tell what it would do, but it would have access to weapons, propulsion, Warp Core, main power, everything. It could activate the auto destruct in seconds and no-one would even have the time to blow their noise."

[Michael Ferdinand]

Engineering
"WAIT!" to the Cap's orders to lock it out with an encryption key. "There's a hidden command line hard-coded into the main core's BIOS. If you lock out the computer with an encryption key, its set up to overload the computer core. We'd loose every system on the ship. Anti-Matter containment, life support, everything." He glanced at the Chief before looking straight back at the Captain.

Dan expressed a compassionate look on his face and softened his voice. "Ma'am, if this thing, whatever it is took engineering, there truthfully would be no way to tell what it would do, but it would have access to weapons, propulsion, Warp Core, main power, everything. It could activate the auto destruct in seconds and no-one would even have the time to blow their noise."

[Engineering]
Alyssa swore. Her head was throbbing and now the only possible plan she had had was shot down by her engineer. "Umm.." she began but trailed off as the music grew increasingly louder. She couldn't think straight and it was making her increasingly more frustrated. Could she get anymore frustrated? She could feel her blood pressure rising as she tapped her commbadge.

Meadows to Bridge: We have a problem. The program's about to take engineering. Kalro suggested it might be an alien life form. If we can't solve this in five minutes, be prepared to give your authorization for the auto destruct sequence. We'll blow this ship up before it can rip the control out of my hands.

Realizing she was saying this in the middle of Engineering, Alyssa shrugged off the awkwardness of the situation. "Okay. You heard what I just told Commander Garrison, so I hope we can get this solved real quick. Suggestions?" she asked. She understood this was the penultimate peril, and she hoped that Howell would understand that they would be better off destroying the Shran than allowing it to fall into the wrong hands.

[Kinley Garrison]

[USS Shran-Bridge]

The XO had suggested this a few minutes before and Tempest had been monopolizing two of the science stations at the rear of the bridge. Work was taking slightly longer because of the encryption, not that it was a bad measure. Djann saw Leighton was using a security console to try to get an eye on her plants back in the lab.

"Leighton, I need you over here. I'm sure your plants will survive but only if the whole ship makes it so let's focus on something productive huh?" the CSO called out in as authoritative a voice as he could muster. He hadn't had a chance to get an anti intoxicant from the Doctor quite yet.

Leighton glared over at him for trivializing her concern about her work. "How would you like it if I had holograms dancing all over whatever time crystals or weirdo crap you have running in the other labs?" the Ensign vocalized as she made her way over to the science station.

"My weirdo crap in the other labs may erase us all from reality so we'd better hope they don't but fine. Just monitor the readouts from this rotating spectral scan for any coherent patterns or output. I'll deal with the infra-range frequencies" Tempest said as he sent the scan to her screen.

I've seen some reports of creatures like this. All neural energy or telepathic imprints from some sort of crazy scenario. All classified or unsubstantiated but not one of them was a..positive force if I remember right he thought as the earpiece pressed harder up against his ear. His fingers pushed a slider up on the console slowly to sweep the frequency band, switching to lower and lower notches. "Bingo. Resonance" he said. "There's a sub-harmonic resonance in the 30hz range. That's not the signal itself but a byproduct but now we know where to look. It's in some factor of 10 from the resonance. I'm guessing fairly high...".

Doubling over on the deck and pressing his head to the floor, Djann tore the earpiece out. Huffing and pressing his hands on either side of his head he struggled to shake it off and get back on his feet. "I found out where they communicate" he said softly at the expense of the pain in his head, "but I doubt we could have any way to actually talk like it. It overloaded the sensor path once I honed in on it at about 300 THz. An EM field growing stronger as it approaches the ship."

Sitting back down at the station he snapped his head up. "Commander Garrison, I do believe we may be able to disrupt the cloud now that we know what frequency range they communicate at. I'll need someone from engineering to know if it's even possible for anything on the ship to emit the kind of EM emissions we'd need to generate".

[Engineering]
Alyssa swore. Her head was throbbing and now the only possible plan she had had was shot down by her engineer. "Umm.." she began but trailed off as the music grew increasingly louder. She couldn't think straight and it was making her increasingly more frustrated. Could she get anymore frustrated? She could feel her blood pressure rising as she tapped her commbadge.

Meadows to Bridge: We have a problem. The program's about to take engineering. Kalro suggested it might be an alien life form. If we can't solve this in five minutes, be prepared to give your authorization for the auto destruct sequence. We'll blow this ship up before it can rip the control out of my hands.

Realizing she was saying this in the middle of Engineering, Alyssa shrugged off the awkwardness of the situation. "Okay. You heard what I just told Commander Garrison, so I hope we can get this solved real quick. Suggestions?" she asked. She understood this was the penultimate peril, and she hoped that Howell would understand that they would be better off destroying the Shran than allowing it to fall into the wrong hands.

[Bridge]
Kinley dazedly nodded, understanding only most of what he was saying. "Do whatever you have to, Tempest." She said, still trying to focus through the haze she was feeling, trying to ignore the rainbow lights that seemed to be boring into her brain.

Wait... rainbow lights? She looked up, and sure enough, a strobe disco ball was right overhead, flashing as if it had always been there. A heavy bass beat began throbbing, causing the floor and the bulkhead to tremble rhythmically. Oh great, the nightclub was back. "Filitov, has it reached the flight systems yet?" Kinley asked. Straightening up as she got a message from Alyssa, her face crossed into a frown. Was she out of her freaking mind!? Of course she was, this was Meadows, after all. 
Mhmm. We'll get to it when we get to it. Howell, do we have something that can emit a lot of electromagnetic radiation, and fast? Tempest has a potential solution here,=/\= She said, straining to hear as the volume grew louder, and the lights dimmed so the lights could shine brighter, causing Kinley's headache to throb, more than it already had.

[Kachina Filitov]

[Bridge]
Kinley dazedly nodded, understanding only most of what he was saying. "Do whatever you have to, Tempest." She said, still trying to focus through the haze she was feeling, trying to ignore the rainbow lights that seemed to be boring into her brain.

Wait... rainbow lights? She looked up, and sure enough, a strobe  disco ball was right overhead, flashing as if it had always been there. A heavy bass beat began throbbing, causing the floor and the bulkhead to tremble rhythmically. Oh great, the nightclub was back. "Filitov, has it reached the flight systems yet?" Kinley asked. Straightening up as she got a message from Alyssa, her face crossed into a frown. Was she out of her freaking mind!? Of course she was, this was Meadows, after all. 
Mhmm. We'll get to it when we get to it. Howell, do we have something that can emit a lot of electromagnetic radiation, and fast? Tempest has a potential solution here,=/\= She said, straining to hear as the volume grew louder, and the lights dimmed so the lights could shine brighter, causing Kinley's headache to throb, more than it already had.

Bridge

Katcha checked the console before looking aback at the XO.

"Niet Kommander. Ze flight control systems are unafecteed. I vill isolate zem now so ve can only access it from ze Bridge." She replied.

A few keystrokes later and she had the flight system isolated.

"Ze flight systems should be safe for now Kommander. Should ve head for ze nearest Starbase?" She enquired.