There is no intercom or doorbell button on the control panel.
Waite looks at Kylah, raises an eyebrow and says, "OK, I'll knock if you want."
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There is no intercom or doorbell button on the control panel.
Waite looks at Kylah, raises an eyebrow and says, "OK, I'll knock if you want."
"A logical assumption and suggestion," T'Var says.
The doctor turns to Collins. "I strongly advise we make this attempt at communication with those in the Transporter Room."
T'Var glares at Waite -- almost daring him to refuse helping the group in this manner.
Collins hollers through the locked door, "This is Lieutenant JG Jeremi Collins of the Starfleet vessel USS Yorktown. Do you need assistance? Can you let us in?"
After a moment, only T'Var can barely hear stirring through the locked door. Then a voice you all can hear and recognize calls: "This is Ens. Hayes. Thank God you've come!"
Kylah's eyes widen with relief. She then closes her eyes, nods and murmurs, almost to herself: "Of course. Hayes... and Delaney..." But after a second she scowls and lifts her knife, clasping it more tightly as her relief dissipates and the edgy wariness rushes back.
It takes her a moment to put her thoughts into speech, which she aims at T'Var in a hushed and hurried voice. "There is--there may still be danger in there. They need help but we must not let our guard down."
"Hayes!" Collins shouts "Can you open this door?" She stands prepped for any inevitability, phaser ready.
Rangin goes back to monitoring the oncoming Sakathians on his tricorder.
"Agreed, Ensign," says T'Var. "I am sure the others are also aware of this possibility."
The doctor gives Kylah a brief smile. "We must trust and rely on our crewmates -- as they must be able to trust and rely on us."
"Yes, I can open it," Hayes calls. She pauses. "Is Dr. T'Var with you? Are any of you... infected?"
Rangin sees from his tricorder that the zombies will reach you, assuming they can get through the hallway door through which you just came, in less than eight minutes.
(duplicate post)
"Yes, I am here," T'Var replies. "Possible infection, though not complete alteration at this time."
The doctor pauses a moment, then continues. "What is your status, Mr. Hayes?"
"Hayes" Collins asserts "Open the door so we can get in before the Sakazombies get here." She barely refrains from adding "dammit" to her instructions
There is a long pause. "Mr. Delaney is here. We're both fine. We have three Sakathians with us, one of whom is... possibly infected." Another pause. "Um, likely infected."
You can all just barely hear what seems to be an argument in the background.
Then you hear Delaney's voice, a bit louder than Hayes's: "With all due respect, Mr. Collins, I think it would be best if we not open the door." Several of you think that you've never heard him sound so formal.
"That doesn't sound right at all. Could they be being held hostage in there? After all, if anyone could get the transporters working and get out of here, it would be Mr Delaney." Rangin's concern echoes through his voice.
"We cannot remain here," T'Var reminds them. "We have altered Sakathians directly behind us."
The doctor looks about at the others. "If our crewmates are in danger, then we must help them."
T'Var grips the crowbar tightly. "I suggest we proceed inside -- with a great deal of caution."
Kylah nods at Rangin and T'Var. The stress of holding back her feelings is making her temples throb. Making a quick decision, she speaks up, still softly if only to make sure no one on the other side of the door can hear her: "I strongly suspect Chief Porr is in there, and may be the one in charge...even though I also suspect Director Geb is with him. Indeed, she--she may be the one who is infected."
Pourtash looks at the Communications ensign again and cocks his head. "How could you possibly know that? What's going on with you, Mr. Kylah?"
Kylah looks at Pourtash as evenly as possible. She is not surprised by the question. "It is not knowledge but suspicion, or perhaps I should say deduction," she says quickly. "Porr is the security chief here and has access to both the requisite weapons and the central disabling of the communications panels; further, we have heard nothing from either him or Director Geb since this disaster started.
"Either they evacuated the station or they have been in hiding, and I see no rationale for anyone to avoid contacting us except for those responsible for this reprehensible experiment. One for which they will have to answer to the Federation for misuse of our trust and resources."
She moistens her lips. "As for why I believe Geb might be infected, that--that is instinct. I do not believe Porr would protect anyone else but Geb. And if I may add as a final comment, Lieutenant Delaney did not sound to me as if he were under any duress." Kylah takes a deep breath and adds coolly, "With respect, sir, is this really the time to cross-examine the one person who has offered the most salient observations on this mission? We should be pooling information and ideas, not suppressing them."
At last she falls silent, furious and wishing she could control her burning face. There. That should suffice. Let them write me up for insubordination; if we get out of this, I'll have plenty of ineptitude to report to the Captain myself.
"Well, that's our way out of here, behind that locked door. Perhaps before we do anything else, it might be worth asking why they haven't left yet, given all the troubles. If they are not under duress, then behind a locked door would be the safest place to be."
"Hayes, who is in there with you and Delaney?" Collins asks "and why won't you let us in?"
Delaney says, "Security Chief Porr, his wife Veling, and a Sakathian science tech, Merrike Jovel, are here with Hayes and me. Veling is infected." You hear an angry voice raised in the background, but Delaney continues, "Porr denies it, and I'm no doctor, but it sure looks like it's true. She's unconscious now, but well along in the... change. The, um, transformation. If one of your party is infected as well, I don't think we'll want to have them together." He pauses. "If you order me to open the door, Jeremi, I will. Ma'am. But I'd advise against it."
Pourtash looks astonished. He can't take his eyes off Kylah.
"Fujishiro was attacked," Collins says through the door, "but since this so far has only affected Sakathians, it is unsure if she will 'turn'. In any case, we are in jeopardy, so we need to get in there and secure the door behind us. And, I have a phaser, so we do have a means of defense, however meager it is." She pauses, looks at her group, turns back to the door and says firmly "Lieutenant, let us in!"
T'Var awaits the outcome of Collins' order. She will want to examine those inside as soon as possible. And hopefully, they will all be able to get off the station, finally deal with what this horrific experiment has created and put an end to it.
Hearing that Chief Porr's wife is the affected party makes Kylah close her eyes in understanding. This makes sense as well. Porr was clearly protecting someone, and if not Geb...
Where is Geb, then? Kylah worries about the fate of the Director, whom she tried to engage in a collegial relationship. But the flicker of concern must be shaken off, and she does so, albeit with difficulty. She feels guilty enough about the people they abandoned in the lab after the disaster started; focusing too much on the other victims will surely drive her mad.
She also ignores Pourtash's stare. She's grown used to such looks after some of her seemingly preternatural deductions proved correct. Of course, she wasn't entirely correct here, but close enough--and as good as she can expect under these circumstances. Her heart is racing and her emotions have been careering from terror to outrage to desperation and back again. If the door doesn't open quickly and they don't resolve the situation, Kylah is quite certain she'll lose control of herself altogether.
...Assuming the altered creatures don't destroy her first.
Rangin is surprised by the accuracy of Kylah's statements and nods in respect to her. He waits to see if the door will open while keeping an eye on the tricorder showing the oncoming changed Sakathians
"Aye, aye, ma'am," Delaney says. After a moment, the door whooshes open.
You enter and find yourself in a chamber about 20 meters on a side. A transporter control console of Sakathian design faces a platform with five transporter pads. Several wall panels have been removed and the guts of the transporter mechanism are exposed. The room is quite warm.
Delaney is standing by the door control; Hayes is with him. They both look sweaty and tired. Delaney has dark stains - blood? - on his right sleeve. "It's good to see you all again," he says. "I wish it were under different circumstances."
In one corner of the room, a Sakathian woman is lying, apparently unconscious, on the deck. She would be attractive, were it not for her unhealthy dark-gray pallor and the blood which has crusted around her eyes and ears. She trembles from time to time. Porr is kneeling next to her, holding her hand. He only glances up at you before turning his attention back to her. Another Sakathian woman, older and almost gaunt, stands nearby, looking uncomfortable.
"Are you injured, Mr. Delaney?" T'Var asks.
While awaiting his reply, the doctor kneels next to Porr, then scans his wife with her medical tricorder.
Once everyone is inside, Collins secures the door, then goes to the control console. While examining the markings, she asks "Do the transporters work?"
Kylah looks warily at Delaney, then at the exposed transporter panels. She fears the answer to Collins's question is "no," though hope springs eternal.
She also remembers that according to Rangin's calculations, the altered Sakathians will arrive at the previous hallway in eight minutes--no, less than eight, now. Time is not on their side. "May I suggest, Lieutenant, that if there is any need for tools or potential weapons, perhaps one of the Sakathians can help us search the locked rooms outside? There is still time before the infected Sakathians reach that area."
Delaney glances down at his sleeve. "This? No, it's from fighting... one of those things. It's not my blood. I'm uninjured." He turns to Collins, who can't make heads or tails of the console. "The transporter was offline for maintenance when we got here, ma'am. No one else was here, though, and none of these folks are transporter techs, so I've been putting it all back together the best I can."
Waite and Pourtash carefully set down Fujishiro, who is still unconscious, and Waite tries to make her comfortable on the deck.
The older Sakathian woman, Merrike Jovel, hears Kylah. She glances at Porr, turns back and says, "I can help you get into the locked rooms on this hallway. I don't know if there's anything useful in them, though."
Dr. T'Var's scan of Veling Porr, the unconscious Sakathian woman, shows that her endocrine system is going haywire. She's producing the organic chemical eghullel, the Sakathian rough equivalent of adrenaline, at massive levels - and despite her unconscious state, her heart is racing. Her brain function is severely impaired, and there is evidence of rapid degradation of the synaptic pathways. From the Vulcan healer's limited experience with Sakathian physiology, she suspects that the woman's prognosis is terminal, and that she'll die in perhaps 20 to 40 minutes.
Security Chief Porr barely acknowledges T'Var's presence. He is entirely focused on his wife.
"Good. Let me know if I can help" Collins tells Pourtash. She turns and hands the phaser to Kylah "Go with her," Jeremi indicates the older Sakathian woman, "Tools, weapons, med supplies, whatever you think will be useful. And get back her as quickly as possible." She goes over to Porr and puts a hand gently on his shoulder "Doctor T'Var will do what she can. I know you'll want to stay close and help if you can, so please give me your weapon so I can defend the room if necessary"
Though electrified with nerves, Kylah gives a tight nod at Collins to accept the assignment and gladly clutches the phaser, shifting her dagger to her left hand. She casts a grateful look at Jovel and moves to the door, hoping the other woman will follow.
"Lieutenant Delaney," she says quickly as she lingers in the open entryway. "Is there anything in particular you need to repair the transporters? Anything I should look out for? And Chief Porr..." Kylah hesitates, knowing he hasn't looked fondly on her throughout the mission, and his distraction might hinder him from assisting in any way, but she holds out hope nonetheless. "Have you successfully stopped any of these--" About to say 'creatures,' Kylah quickly readjusts, bearing in mind that the man's wife may turn into one at some point. "--These attackers? If so, where are they most vulnerable?"
She will wait to hear the responses before she'll move quickly with Jovel; she knows, for security reasons, the others will certainly close and lock the door behind her, leaving her and Jovel alone.
Porr's eyes only flick briefly up at Collins. He does not give her the phaser on his belt. He also does not respond to Kylah. T'Var thinks he might be in shock.
Delaney says, "Thanks, but I have the tools I need. I don't think I need anything but time."
Fujishiro moans and her body goes rigid. Dr. Waite wipes her sweaty brow with his sleeve.
Kylah and Jovel slip out the door, and Pourtash seals it behind them. "Knock three times and shout, and I'll let you back in," he says.
Hoping she hasn't made the worst, and last, mistake of her life, Kylah hurries to the supply room first. "Please open both rooms, starting with this one? I'll check the supplies while you search the other room, all right?" Her voice is tense and sounds loud in the empty corridor--and even as she speaks, she's straining her senses to pay attention to whatever might be going on outside the sealed doorway to the rest of the station.
Kylah's breathing is shallow, her mouth dry as a bone. She glances at her tricorder's chronometer to gauge how long it's been since Rangin judged the distance between them and the infected.* Then, as she stares at Jovan while impatiently waiting for the Sakathian to unlock the doors, she realizes that this stranger might be the last sentient being she ever sees. Kylah blurts out a belated but genuine: "Thank you for doing this, Jovan."
* In other words, time check pretty please?
T'Var motions for Collins to join her off to the side -- away from Porr and his wife. She updates Collins on Veling's condition.
"I do not know whether she is truly infected or not. Or if 'death' in the normal sense of the word means 'rebirth' as an altered Sakathian."
Once the doctor is finished discussing this situation with Collins, she will check on Fujishiro.
Jovan says to Kylah, "You're welcome, but I'd do just about anything to get out of that room." She looks nervously both ways, up and down the access corridor. She then punches in multi-digit codes on the door control panels of each room, and the doors open at once. In the Supply Storage room, there are eight racks of clothing, cleaning supplies, emergency rations, plastic containers of drinking water and several dozen personal hygiene kits. In the Machine Shop, a slightly bigger room, there are three workbenches, each with a rack of Sakathian tools, some of which look familiar to Kylah from the earlier tool closets she's seen. There are now less than four minutes before the altered Sakathians might arrive.
T'Var finds not much change to Fujishiro's condition, although her fever is slightly worse than the last time T'Var checked.
Not even four minutes, Kylah thinks grimly as she hastens into the Supply Storage room to take as many of the items as she can handle. She calls out to Jovan and asks her to do the same. Rations. Water. The Yorktown won't arrive for another two days; if we cannot transport to the shuttle and still manage to survive this, we'll need all the sustenance we can get.
She grabs an armful of the rations and water, plus one personal hygiene kit just in case T'Var might find anything useful in cleaning or dressing wounds; rushing back to the transporter room door, she drops off the supplies, then asks Jovan to take more rations and water while Kylah races to the Machine Shop. Here she'll take any tool that might be useful as a weapon, especially if she spots anything like the laser cutting instrument that Rangin had. Again, when she has all she can carry, she returns to the Transporter room to drop the goods off.
On her last trip she eyes the cleaning supplies. If there are any cleansers that might be toxic--lye, bleach, ammonia--she'll request that Jovan take some as well.
When nearly three minutes have passed, she decides there's not enough of a buffer left to take anything else. She rushes back to the Transporter room door with one of her armfuls of supplies, kicking the door and yelling to be let in. Whoever opens the door will be asked--no, ordered, higher rank or not--to help carry the supplies inside to make sure they get everything in time.
IN order to keep an eye on the oncoming creatures, Rangin will stand outside in the corridor, monitoring with the tricorder, to keep Kylah and Jovan informed as to the situation while they rummage in the other rooms.
Collins again tries to persuade Porr to let her use his weapon, since she gave hers to Kylah.
What, exactly, does Collins say to Porr? Dialogue, please.
Kylah and Jovan virtually empty the two rooms of usable things. They get it all inside the transporter room just as Rangin's tricorder scan picks up altered Sakathians within 20 meters. Rangin realizes that the readings of the zombies are very similar to those Dr. T'Var took of Porr's wife.
Rangin will carefully and quietly take Dr. T'Var to one side, hopefully without raising too much suspicion, and confirm the horrible truth of what is likely occuring in this very room.
"Thank you for the information, Mr. Rangin," T'Var whispers. "I suspected as much." The doctor sighs. "Well done."
It looks as if the group will have to hold out in the Transporter Room until either the transporters are up and running again or the Yorktown arrives to rescue them.
At least they now have a few useful supplies, T'Var notes as she looks over what Kylah and Jovan were able to find.
"Chief Porr," Collins speaks calmly but there is urgency behind her voice, "Again I ask for use of your weapon. Doctor T'Var is doing all she can for your wife, and I know your mind is elsewhere, but please. We are defenseless right now, as Kylah is in the hallway with our only phaser. So please, either loan me yours, or help Delaney get the transporters on line so that we can get to our shuttle."
Kylah looks a bit longingly at the water and food rations. How long has it been since they ate? She realizes this whole siege began in the middle of breakfast. It's hard to believe it's been less than a day. Right now she could happily eat two of the emergency ration kits, boxes included. But it's not her call, and she certainly won't be the one to suggest chowing down while a woman is dying, and possibly turning into a cannibal, right before their eyes.
She turns away from the goods she and Jovan recovered and--with reluctance--returns the phaser to Collins. "Here you are, Lieutenant," she says quietly. "Fortunately it was not needed."
Next she moves to Delaney. "Sir, is there anything any of us can do to assist? If there is any need of translation, for any labels or anything like that, I will do my best. Though I expect Jovan would be of more assistance than I." Kylah glances at the tools she grabbed, somewhat haphazardly. "Are any of those of use to you?"
Porr does not look at Collins, but silently shakes his head. He continues holding his wife's hand.
Kylan and Jovan are now back inside the transporter room, and Pourtash locks the door again.
Delaney says, "Thanks, Mr. Kylah, but none of the transporter components is labeled with anything other than what look like serial numbers, which aren't much help to me. And I've got the tools I need, as I said before." He looks harried but determined as he pieces the transporter back together.
"Rangin," Collins believes she knows the answer but asks anyway, "will the door hold up against the Sakazombies?"
Rangin considers what he knows of the creatures and scans the door to get further information and give him time to form his judgement.
Kylah checks the tools she and Jovan brought in to see which can be used as weapons, if any. If there's anything worthwhile she'll suggest to Collins that they be distributed to the able-bodied without weapons such as Delaney, Hayes, Jovan and Waite. She'd also be glad to get anything better than the knife and tools that she, Rangin and T'Var have.
The same goes for any of the cleaning supplies--if there's any ammonia, bleach or lye that can be weaponized as a makeshift Molotov Cocktail. She knows lye can do a lot of damage to flesh, and ammonia and bleach can be lethal as well.
T'Var will continue to provide whatever medical care and comfort she can while awaiting the possible battle to come. Hopefully, the door will hold. If not....
The doctor plans to deal with each situation as it occurs to the best of her abilities. Of course, getting the transporters working again would be quite helpful. Unfortunately, T'Var has no skills in this area. Even a Vulcan does not know everything.
"Delaney, how goes it? Is there anything you need?" Collins resists the urge to pace the small room, and finds herself hoping the Yorktown makes record time getting back to them.