Mission 2 - The Great Escape

[lucasausems]

Luke was holding it together, for now...

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[KendleRJ]

Cindy arrived just moments before Astra and Williams did. She gave a happy smile at Nav and Yvildr. "Just need the Doctor and Williams and I will give you my plan of action. Have you found out anything new?"

Nav shifted from one foot to the other, more preoccupied with what the Orion's had done to Frankie than what new things could have been discovered. It took all of her will power not to begin repairs and immediately oust the invader to their systems with extreme prejudice and not just a little bit of personal satisfaction. She felt violated. On behalf of the ship and the entire crew. She felt... oddly motivated to take care of this issue above all else, as though their very survival depended on it. And perhaps, in her mind and her frame of thought, it did.

"Nothing new, Captain Cindy," she said, staring at the equipment, still unravelling the issues in her head. "Just working out the best way to manage the invasive program, and then work towards countering future attempts." At least the ones that human minds could conceive of in their limited capacities.

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[Amanda Rose]

Cindy looked at Nav and Yvildr and then gave a warning look at Williams. She noted that Astra was still in front of him. "Concerned about something Williams? I am not letting you blow up this ship. We need it."

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"I will explain. Vivyra is an unwitting experiment. Everything that she told us, she absolutely believes and probably has been true for most, if not all of her life. We are the test subjects and this shuttle is reporting back the results. Someone is likely watching us and this experiment. I propose that we make the experiment look like a failure - like Vivyra's abilities wear off once she's off the planet. The only problem is that her keepers will likely come calling, which means that the Orions will want to scrub away all the evidence. That includes us and all the Orion women on the planet below. We have a duty to make sure that none of that happens."

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"First, I suggest Nav and Yvildr that you figure out how to falsify the results. Williams, I want you to create a realistic city, so much so that the Orion sensors will think that they are scrubbing the real settlement below. I will go down to the planet to make sure that the inhabitants know what is going on. And no objections from you, Williams. Neither you or Phil can cope with Vivyra's people's ability. Phil's done a good job fighting it so far but even you fell to it."

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"Last chance for improvements and suggestions or thoughts on this plan...."

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[lucasausems]

[Cmdr Phil]

"Oh gods, woman, we all fell to it!", Luke shouted. Then immediately turned red and then lowered his head. "Sorry..."

Phil shook his head, drawing in a long slow breath in through his nose and out of his mouth. He'd seen entertainment shows from the early 21st century where an officer could still get away with clouting a subordinate around the back of the head as an admonishment and occasionally, just occasionally, he could see the appeal.

"With you gone, who will be in charge of the ship?", Luke asked.

"That would be me," observed Phil, pointedly tapping his insignia. He hadn't expected CIndy's experiment in egalitarianism to have a side-effect of making rank a matter of option. Perhaps it was a side-effect of the mind-altering pheromones...

[lucasausems]

[KendleRJ]

First, I suggest Nav and Yvildr that you figure out how to falsify the results. Williams, I want you to create a realistic city, so much so that the Orion sensors will think that they are scrubbing the real settlement below. I will go down to the planet to make sure that the inhabitants know what is going on. And no objections from you, Williams. Neither you or Phil can cope with Vivyra's people's ability. Phil's done a good job fighting it so far but even you fell to it."

Nav flicked her eyes up to the Captain, her mind compartmentalising the problems she was unravelling to listen fully to what was required. Nodding briefly at the Lieutenant and then back at the Captain, she said, "Of course, Captain Cindy. We can start working on it right away." The truth was she had already been working on it for the time it had taken to find the mechanism and fathom what it had been actually doing and waiting rather impatiently for the Captain and everyone else to arrive. Nav made a mental note to thank Alice again... she had no idea what was wrong with her, but certainly... barrelling ahead was not going to solve anything. It might have saved the day, or made this a thousand times worse. Either way, she had some ideas as to how to go about unravelling and falsifying, mock signals, carrier waves, alternate cross signals and... she stopped for a moment, looking up again.

Had someone said something? Because she wasn't sure if she'd heard a damned thing beyond the churning of her brain, trying to take chunks out of the problem at hand. So she moved to one of the terminals and started the process, happy to be away from the new gadget she dreamed of disassembling in many different ways...

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[Azaria]

"First, I suggest Nav and Yvildr that you figure out how to falsify the results. Williams, I want you to create a realistic city, so much so that the Orion sensors will think that they are scrubbing the real settlement below. I will go down to the planet to make sure that the inhabitants know what is going on. And no objections from you, Williams. Neither you or Phil can cope with Vivyra's people's ability. Phil's done a good job fighting it so far but even you fell to it."

Yvildr nodded absentmindedly and rubbed at his snout. Falsify the reports... well, an easy enough way could be to just write over the reports with some other, similar experiment and just fill in the blanks.

He leaned over to Nav, "Had you pupated yet, or do you recall the pandemic on Ultramangus IX?"

The incident had been some years ago, but Yvildr really wasn't good at pinning ages on Humans - botany was his area of specialty, not mammology. Did Humans pupate?

He grunted and shook his head. "The populace became sterile after contracting an alien disease. They attempted to reboot their systems with aphrodisiacs, genetic treatments, and other nimby pimby hogwash. Their last attempt was with hormones... it failed spectacularly. Turned to a type of cloning, only way they procreate now...... ANYWHOM, I have a copy somewhere of the field study report. We could grab some of the best bits of the last experiment and plug it into the data here. just replace ovaries and such with... hmmm... stink glands, and Borthartks your uncle!"

"What do you think?"

Tag NAV

[T-Prime]

[Cmdr Phil]

“That's my point, you're a guy. Guys aren't exactly fit for command at this moment." Undeterred by Phil's expression, Luke plowed on: "so, with that in mind, who of the women will be in charge of the ship?"

Phil nodded, “Point taken.” He paused for a moment, running through the chain of command mentally. Cindy had already selected Vodden for the away mission, so she was out of the equation. Pity, as she was in the best place to countermand any order she believed to have been made by an officer whose judgement was being influenced adversely. All the others he could think of were either too junior, lacking in confidence or experience, or equally vital exactly where they were.

Unless… OK, she wasn’t technically in the chain, as an assignee, but…

“Lt Norquay,” he addressed Marian, who had been covering communications in a bid to be both useful and at the heart of any action. “Kindly draw a phaser from the store and keep it set to stun. I’ll carry on giving the orders, but if you suspect I am under undue influence, you have my permission to stun the heck out of me and any other male officer similarly suspect, at your discretion, at which point you will alert the away team so that the Captain can advise on any further action required. I do, however, expect you to keep your camera running and the footage available for review by the Captain on her return and not to be passed onto any third parties without her specific clearance. Is that clear?”

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