Everyone at the briefing room table was turned towards the screen at the head of the room, alternating between studying the information displayed there and giving their attention to one of the two officers bookending it. Isaac stood to one side with John to the other, the two seemingly taking it in turns to speak. Kelly turned her attention from one to the other accordingly, taking the opportunity to try and piece together the puzzle on the screen in the gaps between their explanations.
"So they are messages?" Talla leaned forward a little from her place to Kelly's other side, looking to the head of the room, sounding a mixture of intrigued and cautious. Fitting really, given her position. A certain amount of curiosity about all things exploratory was good but Kelly was glad their Security Chief had a more than healthy dose of wariness when it came to the unknown. "Why can't we understand what they're saying?"
"That is a good question, Lieutenant." Isaac made one of his usual smooth motions towards Talla with one of his hands before turning a little back towards the screen, indicating the shifting data there as he went on, "Commander LaMaar and I have analysed these messages, as you call them, multiple times and have, as of yet, been unsuccessful in our attempts to extract precise details from the information."
"Is it corrupted in some way?" Ed had one arm propped on the table, his hand near his mouth as he scanned the screen. Kelly could see the furrow in his brow that told her he was deep in thought, trying to figure it out, much as she was. Everyone at the table was confused but keen at the same time, wanting to make this make sense. That brought her a sense of comfort in the face of so much uncertainty: the crew of the Orville had proven countless times just how well they could work together, the sorts of things they could achieve if they put their heads together. For just a moment she had to supress a smile, an effort made all that much easier when John spoke up from the front and called her attention back to the problem at hand.
"That's one way of putting it, yeah." John gestured at several lines of code that were wavering and, Kelly noticed upon studying them a little more carefully, fractured. "We're not sure if it's been corrupted at the source or if it was made that way."
"What do you mean?" Bortus was never one to stay quiet when something didn't make sense. Clearly it wasn't in a Moclan's nature to ignore such things.
"There's some inconsistencies in the source data that I can't figure out," John went on, calling up a bigger display of the data in question. It didn't make nearly as much sense to most of them as it did to him, Kelly suspected, but he would dumb it down enough for them to follow along. "Like this here?" He gestured to a line that looked so cleanly broken it was almost as though someone had taken a knife to it. "I can't wrap my head around how that'd happen naturally."
"So it was made broken?" Gordon glanced around the table, clearly at a loss. "What's the point in that?"
Ed lowered his hand to the table if only to avoid muffling his voice when he spoke. "Was there any indication the staff at Outpost 31 came to the same conclusion?"
"No, Sir, nothing like that," John said with a shake of his head. "We can ask them when we get there, but honestly? If they didn't figure that out as well then they're really not the guys for the job. No offence."
Kelly glanced around the room and saw no arguments, not even the very beginnings of one forming on anyone's face. Clearly they were in agreement. "Outpost 31 isn't really made for this sort of thing," she offered, not because she felt the need to defend people she had never met but because it was worth highlighting that this was their job out here. "Everyone has their specialities."
"Yeah," Gordon agreed, shrugging a little. "Theirs is growing food or whatever and ours is kicking space butt."
"Not quite." But Kelly was smiling as she said it, turning back to the front just in time to see a similar expression fade from Ed's face as well. "Were you able to decipher any of the information in the messages? Anything at all?" She was looking at Isaac and it the Kaylon who answered her.
"Fragments of words only, Commander. There was nothing conclusive and, unfortunately, too much damage for us to piece said fragments together."
"Anyone like jigsaw puzzles?" Talla had leaned back in her seat.
From the other side of the table, between Bortus and Gordon, Claire spoke up at last. "If this information has been intentionally corrupted, as you say, what does that mean for us?" She glanced across at Ed and Kelly. "It's entirely possible that whoever sent these messages needs our help, yes, but—" She let her words drop off there, waiting for the two commanding officers to pick up on her thread.
Ed spoke first. "If they're intentionally corrupted then there's a chance this is some kind of lure."
"To what end, Captain?" Bortus' voice had taken on that guarded quality that Kelly thought she was pretty familiar with by now. After their time spent together on Regor II she thought she was a fairly good judge of him in general nowadays. It was hard to spend that sort of time with anyone and not get to know them. It had certainly worked in her and Ed's favour, giving them a deep and unwavering understanding of one another, not always for the benefit of all those around them but never to the detriment of their work on the Orville. That was what they aimed for anyway.
Ed had turned back to the table and those seated around it more now, meeting Bortus' gaze first of all but looking at them all in turn, if only for a moment. "We won't know that until we get more information. Admiral Halsey told us to keep our guard up, and I think by this point we know better than to go waltzing in anywhere without a healthy dose of scepticism." Kelly watched Ed glance in Isaac's direction. She had known what he meant by the remark, they all had, and none of them needed the reminder of their close call with the Kaylon, but clearly Ed believed it was worth reminding them all anyway.
Isaac tilted his head, angling it enough to make it clear that he was looking around the table. Perhaps wisely he remained quiet. For a few seconds so did everyone else.
"Whatever happens," Ed went on, "we play this smart. We get to Outpost 31, we examine all the data, and then we make our plans. And we stick to them."
Kelly kept her face neutral. Making plans and sticking to them was easier said than done, and a fine idea in theory, but in space? They both knew better. But she wasn't about to challenge Ed directly in front of everyone, especially not after all that they had been through together. As his First Officer it was her job to question his judgement but not in front of his senior staff. She wasn't here to undermine him or his authority.
"Isaac, John, keep at it. We've got a little time before we reach Outpost 31. See if there's anything more you can dig up from what we have." The two officers acknowledged and Ed turned to the rest of the table. "Dismissed."
Kelly remained where she was as the rest of the senior staff excused themselves, briskly heading off to their respective stations. In next to no time at all it was just the two of them and Kelly suspected Ed had wanted that to be the case, that he had hoped she would remain as well. Without a word he rose from his seat and walked to the screen: Isaac and John had left the data displayed there, perhaps suspecting that the two commanding officers would want to examine it a little more closely. Kelly had a hard time believing either one of them would have done it by accident.
Rising from her seat Kelly moved to the front of the room as well to join him, loosely linking her hands at the small of her back as she stood beside him, watching the information flow. She watched and she waited and she studied, taking in as much as she could in the time it took the man beside her to speak again.
He only kept her waiting for a minute. "I don't want to lose any more people, Kel."
For a second it felt like her heart was at risk of dropping into the pit of her stomach. It took every ounce of strength she had to keep her hands where they were, to keep herself from reaching out and laying one on Ed's arm, or his back, his shoulder, any part of him she could reach so that she could give him some small semblance of comfort or reassurance. "We won't let that happen." When she turned her head it caused him to do the same, bringing his eyes to hers so she could reassure him that way instead. "We've got this," she told him, wanting him to believe it as much as she did, part of her needing him to share her conviction.
It hadn't been so very long ago that she had told him she believed in him, that that was why she had pushed for him to get the Orville. It wasn't because she had felt sorry for him, it hadn't even really been because she wanted to make up for the pain she had caused him during the collapse of their marriage. Kelly had pushed the way she had because Ed Mercer really was a great officer, one of the best the Planetary Union had to offer, and she had genuinely believed, with all her heart and soul, that all of those qualities that made him such a great officer would carry over to command. Kelly had known for years that Ed was destined to be a captain, she had known that he had wanted it obviously but she had figured out on her own early on in to their relationship that he was a good fit for it.
But when he stumbled? God, it hurt to see him like that. She could see it in his eyes now, the fear of failure, that dread that he would put a foot wrong and people would get hurt. Because Ed wasn't worried about hurting himself, he had never been afraid of that and she knew that he would gladly take any and all pain himself if it spared someone else, but seeing others suffer for any mistake he perceived to be his own? It killed him. Every time it happened it killed him that little bit more. Kelly was deathly afraid of Ed losing more of himself than he could recover and had vowed early on into her commission aboard the Orville that she would do everything in her power to keep that from happening.
Kelly would protect Ed the same way she knew he would protect her, with her life if she had to. Not because she had to, not because she was his First Officer and it was expected of her to have his back, but because it was the only thing that felt right. Because it just made sense to her. Because she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't.
"We've got this," she told him again, taking one of her hands from her back then and laying it to his instead, high up, close to his shoulder, holding his gaze all the while so he would see her conviction and her belief and hopefully take just a fraction of it into himself.
Ed drew in a breath, holding it in his chest for a few seconds as he stood there looking back at her. When he spoke Kelly heard the steadiness there and couldn't help but smile, relieved and satisfied: "We've got this."
Talla was the third one off the shuttle after Captain Mercer and Commander Grayson, quickly taking stock of her surroundings as was expected of her in her position as Chief of Security, noting all of the possible exits and, respectively, attack routes that a hostile force might use if they found themselves under siege. She did a swift - and admittedly rough - count of the personnel present, taking in as many details as possible. The more information she had to work with the better she could do her job, at least in her experience.
The decision had been made to bring a shuttle to the Outpost rather than docking the Orville herself as a whole and not one of the crew had voiced any sort of complaint, least of all Talla. The last time the ship had been taken in to dock in an unfamiliar location it had been seized and hijacked. None of them were in a hurry to relive such an event, she was sure, and as she followed in the wake of the Captain and the Commander she found herself glad that they were taking more precautions this time around. It made her job a little easier if nothing else.
"Captain Mercer?" a voice called from just ahead and a man stepped forward to offer the Captain his hand. It was taken and the two shook as the man went on, "My name is Doctor Fleming, I'm in charge here at Outpost 31. I oversee the projects that we run here."
Talla was listening but only in so much as she needed to, doing another sweep of the area where they had paused, taking in the clean and efficient design of the place, the minimalist approach they had taken with the white walls that almost reminded her of a hospital in their sterile appearance. If she worked in a place like this she had a feeling she would go out of her mind, it was all so plain and indistinct. Did people lose their bearings here a lot? There was nothing defining about any one area over any other that she could see, every doorway and hallway entrance looked the same and as she glanced up over their heads she saw several identical balconies overlooking their location. She made a note to keep them clear of this area if they had to make a break for it. Far too many vantage points for attackers from above.
"If you'll follow me, we have all the information we were asked to collect for you and your people." Doctor Fleming was a nondescript man himself, Talla noticed, with dark and unremarkable hair, an equally unremarkable face that you would struggle to pick out of a crowd, and if she had to guess she would have put his age somewhere in the late forties or early fifties. Talla suspected he might have been older than all of the Orville crew present but without asking there was no way of knowing and she knew enough about human culture to understand it wasn't the done thing with women. Or maybe that rule only applied to human males. Maybe she would ask John or Gordon later.
The crew followed Fleming down one of the bland hallways to a doorway that had a designation stamped into a plate outside of its door and Talla noted the digits as they went in - RL-29-3B - before taking a look around. It was a conference room of some sort, she thought, or at least a meeting space for the researchers who called the Outpost their home and place of work. There were panels for information projected into the space directly above the table's surface running its whole length from one end to the other and as she rounded the corner of it and came around to its other side she noticed the information was projected identically on both sides so that a group of people could all view the same facts and figures without clamouring to get a decent view. Clever.
"This is all the information we've received since the transmissions started coming in," Fleming told them, standing on the other side of the table, knotting his hands together and then separating them again, only a few seconds passing before he repeated the process. Either he was nervous or he was used to having something to do with his hands and the absence of some sort of task was bothering him, even if it was only subconsciously. Talla suspected it was a combination of both.
"And when did the transmissions first start coming through?" It was Commander Grayson who asked, her eyes only briefly leaving the information presented for them.
"Around four or five days ago?" Fleming voiced it like a question and when they all just looked back at him he cleared his throat a little awkwardly. "Four days, I believe. I can confirm that for you?"
Talla couldn't be sure but she thought he couldn't wait to get out of the room.
"That would be useful, Doctor. Thank you." Isaac had opted to speak up then, actually causing Fleming to jerk a little in place as if the sound of the Kaylon's voice was startling to him. Talla glanced to her side to find Captain Mercer looking down at her, obviously coming to the same conclusion: the man was on edge.
"All right. Okay. Well—" Fleming fidgeted on the spot for a few moments and then reached behind him to pop the door open again, accidentally knocking a couple of other buttons before he successfully struck the right one. With an awkward nod at the group he took his leave and they waited until the door closed behind him before saying anything.
"He couldn't get out of here fast enough," Commander Grayson said, frowning, looking around before she moved to the other side of the table, opposite the Captain who remained in place beside Talla. John and Isaac approached the table as well, the former staying on their side of the table while the latter moved around to analyse the data beside the Commander. "It's like I said," the Commander went on, bringing the Captain's gaze up with her words. When their eyes met over the projected screens she said, as if by way of conclusion, "Spooked."
The Captain let out a breath, saying as he did so, "Let's see if we can figure out why, shall we?"
What followed was a good ten minutes of back and forth between Isaac and John that Talla couldn't really join in on but much like the Captain and the Commander she studied what she could see and drew what conclusions she could. For a while all their two specialists - for want of a better term - seemed to do was re-examine the information they had been given, using the raw data to go further in depth than they had been able to with the relayed data provided to them by Union Central. They exchanged what sounded to Talla like half-formed ideas and suggestions, a kind of verbal shorthand that she supposed made all the sense in the world to those in their line of work. It made her wonder what the day-to-day life had to be like in Engineering and just how much it would make her head spin.
"Huh." It wasn't much of a noise at all but Talla looked down the table at John, as did everyone else, even as he tapped several keys and enlarged a file that did not look familiar to any of them. Captain Mercer moved closer and Talla found herself doing the same. Isaac and Commander Grayson were obviously looking at the same data on the other side of the table. "This is new," John said, looking to his side at the Captain. "We didn't get this in the data dump from Union Central."
"Why wouldn't they include it in the packet they sent us?" Talla looked across at Commander Grayson who was wearing a questioning look that she imagined was very similar - if not identical - to the one on her own face.
"From the looks of the timestamp on the file," Isaac said, tapping a few keys, "it would appear that this transmission came into the Outpost's possession after you received the message from Admiral Halsey. This information was not included in the packet we received because it did not exist at the time of the transfer."
A simple enough explanation, Talla thought, but even she could see there was something about this file that made it stand out from the others. "Is this a bigger file than the others?" she asked, indicating the spikes on the screen in front of them.
"Yeah." John glanced to her. "Much bigger." He looked to Captain Mercer. "Sir, I'm pretty sure this file isn't corrupted." After a beat he added, "At least not as much as the others."
"You mean this one might have a message?" Their two commanding officers exchanged a look over the screen. "Well," the Captain said, sounding like he was bracing himself, "let's hear it, Chief."
John only had to tap a couple of keys to get the message loaded and playing and they fell silent, listening. At first it was just white noise, dead air almost, not unlike what Talla had heard in the mess hall when one of Olix's records finished, or right before it was about to start playing. It was followed by crackling and clicking, a series of whines and a snapping sound. Talla narrowed her eyes, tilting her head to listen, as if that would help.
The sound of the gasp was so sudden, so loud in comparison to the distortion preceding it, that she couldn't help the way her body tensed, every muscle in her frame tightening as if in preparation of an attack. To her side Captain Mercer jerked back involuntarily, caught off guard, and a quick glance showed everyone else had had the same reaction with the exception of Isaac. No surprise there.
None of them spoke, listening to what sounded like erratic breathing, a series of sounds that Talla suspected might have been frantic scrabbling over a rough surface, and then a voice sounded, rasping and yet still distinct: "Help me."
The message ended. Just like that. Silence fell and for several seconds no one spoke or moved. It was almost like they were all holding their breath, waiting for something else surprising to happen. They exchanged glances, each of them looking from one face to the next in turn.
Captain Mercer was the first to speak, looking to John as he did. "Can you trace the message?"
John and Isaac actually went to work at the same time, keying in commands for several seconds before the Chief Engineer could give a response. "There are coordinates in here, Sir, but they're buried under the distortion. It'll take us a little while to dig 'em out."
"How long?" The Captain was tapping the fingers of one hand on the surface of the table, lightly but with a quiet sense of urgency that had Talla suspecting she knew what was coming.
After another look at the data John said, "Not long, Sir. Maybe twenty minutes? It's just a lot of background noise we gotta dig through and set aside to get to what's underneath. It shouldn't take too long." Even so he waited, touching nothing else before an official order was given.
The Captain didn't keep him waiting long. "Go to it." He looked across at Commander Grayson then, glancing back at Talla to include her in his thought process. "Whoever's out there, whatever's happened, we're not going to be able to figure it out from looking at all of this." He made a vague gesture at the screens. "And we can't help them from here." The confidence in his voice had grown now. He might not have made the decision fully yet but he was well on his way, clearly. "Admiral Halsey said it himself: Outpost 31 doesn't have the staff or the equipment necessary to do what we can. We have an obligation to at least investigate this further and gather all the facts."
"And that means going out there," Commander Grayson concluded, pausing for only a moment before giving a small nod, clearly agreeing with him.
They both glanced in Talla's direction then, bringing her into the conversation directly. "Whoever they are," she said, "they obviously need help." She looked from the Captain to the Commander. "We have to try, right?" Because if they didn't, if they didn't at least try and they found out later that someone out there had died alone and helpless and in God only knew what condition, Talla for one would never be able to forgive herself. This was their job, their duty, one of the reasons they had all joined the Union in the first place. They had to try.
The Captain drew in a breath and nodded his head, decision made. "All right." Glancing in John and Isaac's direction he said, "Get all of this sent to the Orville as quickly as you can. You can compare it to what we have and fill in any gaps as we go." He turned back to Commander Grayson and Talla then. "Let's find Doctor Fleming and see if he has anything else for us before we get out of here."
He didn't, as it happened, unless they counted the obvious relief the man showed in being taken out of the equation. He was quick to shake Captain Mercer's hand and thank him for looking into the matter and as they parted ways Talla saw the way Fleming's shoulders dropped, the tension flooding out of him as they made their way back to their shuttle. It was a good thing the man hadn't been anywhere near what had happened with the Kaylon, she thought. He would have dropped dead of fear at the first sight of those cranial cannons of theirs.
She found herself glancing at Isaac as they departed, specifically the twin points of brilliant blue light on his faceplate. None of them had ever even suspected that they were the barrels of weapons, or that Isaac himself actually was a weapon. None of them had needed the reminder that there was still a lot about space and its countless inhabitants that they didn't know but every time she looked at the Kaylon now that was exactly what went through her mind.
Considering what they had just heard that probably wasn't a bad thing. Maybe it was actually for the best.