U.S.S. Merrimac [landing party]

[BrianM]

Doc was momentarily taken aback by Sorek's ... outburst. This place ... something is very wrong here. He disliked the order to remain behind in the control room, even though this was a wise choice under the circumstances. Doc felt a twinge of fear for the away team members about to enter the atrium, especially under the command of Sorek who was definitely behaving out of character.

"Aye, Commander. I'll wait here and monitor everyone's vitals. But the moment something goes wrong, I want you and the others to pull back."

Sherman prepped his tricorder to display a real time diagnostic for each of the team members who were about to enter the atrium.

[tomcat]

Sorek led the team forward, he and the security officer entering the atrium first. His tricorder began to take environmental readings as their eyes took in the sights.

They were standing on the second tier catwalk of the botanical room, its high-rounded ceiling still another thirty feet above them. Though plants still grew, they were grossly oversized and unnatural. Vines that would normally be as thick as a rope hung from rafters and braces with the circumfrence of trees. The metal catwalk had been bent and distorted by the weight of some of the vegetation that grew up through, or rested on the frames.

The science officer read his tricorder. The atmosphere was roughly 60% nitrogen and 40% oxygen and temperatures were maintained in the 90's. It was then that the security guard tapped on Sorek's suit. He looked to where the crewman stood at the edge of the catwalk, looking down to the lower level of the atrium and followed his gaze. The science officer raised an eyebrow as he saw a multi-faceted object that was suspended in the air, rotating. What also caught his attention was the human starfleet officer that sat by the aesthetic, but artificial stream that ran in the center of the chamber, staring back up at them.

[donimator]

Sorek motioned to the crewman to keep his weapon lowered as he took a step closer to look down at the 'entity'. Oh, it was guised as a Starfleet officer, but until Sorek had some proof he would treat it differently. If it was a crewmember, certainly he had been altered in some manner that may pose a threat. In any case, there was knowledge to be gained here.

"Hello. I am Commander Sorek of the USS Columbia. Your ship has been damaged and we are here to offer assistance. Can you tell me what has happened here?" Best not to relay the extent of the damage or the fate of the crew at this time, he thought, "Are there others here with you?"

Sorek focused his tricoder on the form, working quickly to isolate the background. He wanted to confirm first, that what he saw was true. Hard scientific facts to back up the visual. Secondly, he tried to get a reading of some sort on the other object.

[tomcat]

"Hello Commander Sorek, it is a wonderful pleasure to meet you." The lips of the starfleet officer moved but the voice was from far away, hollow and echo-ey, as if in a grand hall. Maybe it only spoke within their minds, but the unnatural sound and visual of the woman mouthing the words caused the security crewman's skin to crawl. The woman continued, "We... I... am Lt. Commander Blair Jones and I am here to assist you."

Again it was as if the voice came from an elsewhere, but now readings on the figure began to run across Sorek's tricorder. There was a definite living energy contained within the body that was once Lt. Commander Blair Jones, but the Vulcan could see that the body itself was most assuredly dead. The pallor of the skin; the slack hang of naturally taut musculature; and the fact that there was no standard biological activity within the woman's body, such as a heartbeat. The security crewman held his phaser at his side, but he clenched it tighter still as the ghoulish looking woman continued to convey her message.

Sorek began to move towards, and then down the spiral-metal staircase - the crewman walking hesitantly behind him. They circled down until they alighted on the vegetation-covered floor of the atrium. Sorek had received more readings via his tricorder - a magnificent spectrum of light energy. X-rays, ultra-violet rays, gamma rays, and visible light that were at levels that should have killed any living organism in the room, but were instead bent and re-formatted into new ways that shielded and even stimulated the life contained. In essence, it was like the natural light rays were altered and had became a super-food for the plant's photosynthesis - thus the strange over-growth.

The Vulcan looked at the large, multi-faceted constuct that hung in the air and wheeled of its own accord, in the center of the room. Sorek knew the object was the source - or at least the focus of the power present.

Suddenly, from above came Doc Sherman's alarmed voice. The physician had become impatient and entered the atrium with Telek, the other security crewman, and his fellow medics.

[donimator]

Sorek maintained a practiced calm as he carefully logged his readings and slowly advanced. He glanced intently at the security crewman to try and capture his eyes - a reassuring Vulcan glance that he hoped would calm him. Doctor Sherman's voice disturbed the calm. "Hello, Doctor Sherman. This is Lt. Cmdr. Blair Jones. She has offered to aid us in the exploration of her atrium. Truly fascinating plant species. Wouldn't you agree, Doctor?"

"Are you alone in here, Commander Jones? The Doctor noticed some injured personnel in the corridor and your ship is damaged, which attracted our attention. We would like to offer any aid that we can provide."

[tomcat]

Jones was pretty, or had been when her body was truly alive. Now it seemed an automaton like out of the classic Earth tale, Frankenstein. Now that they were closer, the security officer could see that the woman's eyes were open, but they did not move, nor did they blink. She tried to give expression to the face but it was weak and so the smile came off more as a grimace.

"We have taken this form to better communicate with you, but I can see that something is wrong. You find it unpleasant. Have we done something wrong?"

From above the garden, on the catwalk, Doc could see that there were other crewmen bodies littered about the atrium. The plants had grown up and over them obscuring most. These were the survivors of the U.S.S. Merrimac - all had huddled here when the ship was damaged and slowly died. It was awful.

[BrianM]

"Humph ... fascinating", Doc grunted sarcastically in response to Sorek's question. The sight of all the dead crew, who likely suffered horribly as the life support on their ship slowly failed, sickened the physician. This 'thing' had murdered all these people and now Philips as well, and it wondered if it had done something wrong.

Doc continued to monitor all present, adding the 'entity' to his scan to see if he could discern something about it. It wasn't biological, which meant this was likely a job for the engineers rather than a medic, but it couldn't hurt to gather as much information as possible.

[donimator]

"There is no need for charade. If you wish to communicate you may do so in your incorporeal form. It is discomforting to see the dead of our species animated. This ship has been missing for some time and our mission is one of investigation...and discovery. We want to understand what happened to this ship...and this crew." Sorek turned away from the body of the Lt. Commander and refused even to address the spinning object. He turned slowly through a circle as he talked, observing the room and the away team for any subtle changes or oddities.

[tomcat]

"Pardon the discomfort," said the entity. "It is not our wish to cause discomfort to you, but it is not within our abilities to renew the life of this carbon-based flesh. We only wished to provide a means to communicate with you so that we may help in your passage." She looked at her hands and her arms, "It is strange but I can still remember this form. I remember when we... I was... Lt. Commander Blair Jones... before the damage. Before the attacks. Before they came to save us."

Sorek's ears picked it up and he quickly glanced at the woman. What had she said? He had heard it before. It was the same voice that they had heard on the bridge of the Columbia... when Downer had been listening to the sounds that eminated from the Katyon Cluster... from the stars.

Doc read his tricorder. He was absolutely correct in his assumptions. There was nothing alive about the form below, in a human sense. But his tricorder did pick up the immense energy reading that was standing before Sorek. The tricorder began to detail the entity - it was a form of intelligent plasma that was giving off dangerously high levels of ultra-violet radiation, although he was getting no warning signs. In fact, the high-level radiation exerted was being altered and transferred into healthy rays of light and heat. As the energy stars of the Cluster was being refracted around the derelict Merrimac, in this chamber it was being focused. The super-light is what had increased the plant life and thus the oxygen and nitrogen built up to high leves within the chamber. It could have sustained the surviving crew - food from the vegatation, air, and apparent warmth - all focused around the object floating in the center of the room.

The doctor made some mental calculations. The Mac had been gone for sometime, but these people could have survived in here. Why were they dead? And why did she say they saved us?

[BrianM]

Doc moved forward to stand beside Sorek, holding out the tricorder for the Commander to see. "Are you getting the same readings as I am? If the ship lost power a while back, these people could have lived in here for quite some time ... because of that." He gestured towards the floating object. Looking around the chamber, Sherman asked no one in particular, "So why are they dead now?"

Sherman tuned his tricorder on the nearest body, initiating a full diagnostic. Why indeed?

[tomcat]

The doctor's statement made the entity that had been Jones turn, "There has been no death here." Her echoey, calm voice continued, "You believe them dead only due to the stopping of their carbon-based body. My fellow shipmates and I have moved on. We were saved from death by the Kaytons. They came when the Merrimac had been wounded. They came when our life support was bleeding out into space. They provided this..." she gestured to the multi-faceted sphere.

"Is it some form of protective shield?" asked Telek.

Blair nodded, "Of sorts. It provides a comforting environment for us until we are ready to making the crossing... until you are ready to pass through. It is a gateway."

The doctor's tricorder began to feed him information on the dead body that lay close by, entangled in the vegetation. Save for the decomposition, which was quite slow, there was no evidence as to why the person died. The body showed no signs of disease, sickness, or emaciation from hunger. There was no sign of heart failure, or constriction of the lungs and muscles from the loss of air. It was as if the body just stopped.

Sherman looked to Jones and thoughts entered his mind, "Did the crewman's life stop, or leave?"

[donimator]

Sorek confirmed the readings between his and Doc's tricoders. He continued to monitor readings as he talked, "Crossing? That sounds like leaving this place. Why not just sustain life until a rescue ship arrived? The plant life in this atrium is certainly healthy. Why not just let them live here? Life as our species knows it. Our ship has experienced trouble of an unknown sort. We are well-protected and not in danger. Is this the doing of the Kaytons? We dot wish for any help as we are not in danger."

[tomcat]

"From what we have learned through our interactions with your species we know that from the onset of your existence that your carbon-based bodies are dying. It degenerates even as it grows only to degenerate faster at the terminus of your being. Then even you do not know whence your essence goes. The Kaytons see this degeneration as a disease for which they are willing to help, and thus they created this." Again the animated Blair gestured towards the floating sphere. Then it was as if the woman that was emerged in the speech - no longer referring to herself in the plural, "They offered everything that we set as our primary mission - to boldly go. To explore strange new worlds and new existences. I could not help but want to find out what it was they offered. The Merrimac was a dead ship. The plants you see now were not like this then. Our atmosphere was gone along with the radiation shielding. Only this option was available to us, and oh..." she paused, although whatever expression the body tried to make failed in its lax state, "what an amazing world did I enter."

She looked to Sorek, "Now they have come to help you. They have maintained the sphere for all who might wish to come."

Telek answered, "But as Mr. Sorek has said, we are not in danger. Our ship has not been compromised as had yours. What happened to the Merrimac?"

Blair looked to the Andorian, "We were engaged. The captain had given orders to investigate a small planetoid that orbits this cluster. Our mission had been to patrol the sector and deter all Orion pirate activity. Three ships set upon us and we fought back. The Merrimac was successful in destroying two and driving the third away. But the pirates were also successful in robbing us of our engines. Soon after the ship was damaged more severely as we were struck by small and large asteroids. That is when they came. They offered aid and protection." Again the gesture towards the sphere. "At first we did not understand. At first we tried to survive without them. But soon it was apparent that we could not. It was my order that led the remaining crew into this chamber. Most came to understand. We each made our transition when the courage was attained. Some resisted. I do not know what came of them."

[donimator]

Sorek interjected. A hint of passion crept into his voice, "But again, we are not in danger. If given a choice we would choose to live out our lives in the bodies we are in now. Perhaps at the end of our natural life. The end of this...this...disease the Kaytons call it, maybe then it would be more palatable. But now we have a choice and it is ours as sentient beings to make. Again, our ship indicated trouble. Is this the doings of the Kaytons? We demand to live our life as we choose and not have the will of others imposed on us."

[BrianM]

These people just let themselves be 'taken' away by this thing. What made them give up the fight to live? Maybe they're not really dead after all, just  ... suspended. Doc gritted his teeth and harnessed his rising frustration. In their current situation, it would not help to lose control. He addressed the entity, "If these people were allowed to 'move on' with the help of this device, could it be used to bring them back? We are here to help now, to return them to their former lives if they want it."