Starlog 47, February 1st, 2152
Oh my, these Kreetassans are quite touchy people!
We met them yesterday and they seemed nice people even if a bit aloof, so the Captain decided to have them visit our ship. They were so quiet and polite that I myself didn't complain about their visit even if we had just met them.
Everything went well for a while: they visited Engineering, the observation deck and Doctor Phlox' sickbay (wild animals included): they just observed and made polite, discreet questions.
Then they went to the mess hall and something changed their mood. They left the ship, disgusted, despite the Captain's prayers. We still don't know what the hell happened because the universal translator wasn't functioning properly and Hoshi obviously hadn't had the time to learn their language.
So now everyone is in a bad mood, included T'Pol. The Captain is in his quarters and it would be wise not to disturb him for the next few hours.
I really can't understand what could've happened in the Mess Hall.
I think sometimes T'Pol should learn to shut her mouth. I stumbled upon Hoshi some hours ago and she was still fuming because T'Pol almost told her the incident was her fault.
"Try to learn from failure. It could help your next first contact be more successful." She said, mocking T'Pol's detached voice.
"Don't think about her. You know how useful you are for us." I tried to cheer her like this and she smiled and thanked me, but obviously she was still upset. Hoshi's very insecure (more than me actually) and people reprimanding her when she's not even guilty it's not good for her.
I had lunch with her and Travis and we discussed about the incident:
"What if they just don't like being touched? Remember how uncomfortable they looked when the Captain tried to shake their hands?" Travis enquired.
"They looked that way the entire time. Besides, they didn't really lose their temper until they arrived here in the mess hall." I answered.
"Are you staying for the movie tonight?" he asked. Trip keeps entertaining us with his twisted taste for movies.
"What's playing?" I asked, suspicious.
"Wages of fear. Classic French film." It sounded like another horror film, so I snorted "No, you'll like it. Things blow up." Travis reassured, noticing my expression. I like when things blow up.
"Oh, sounds fun. Hoshi?"
"No, thanks. I'm turning in early." She answered. She was clearly still depressed over the incident.
"We might need a translator. Those subtitles go by pretty fast." I insisted. Actually I can speak French (not as well as she can anyway) but I just wanted to lighten her mood. But I'm afraid I just worsened it.
"I've had enough language problems for one day." She said standing. I've been a fool.
Now I must hurry up or the movie will begin without me.
Starlog 48, February 4th, 2152
It's over, thank God. But still, I'm a complete idiot.
It all started with the movie: when the screen came on we could only watch images from Sickbay and the Situation Room instead of the movie. I called the Bridge but they didn't know what the hell was going on.
We were still trying to resolve the problem when I got a call from the Captain:
"Malcolm, come to Cargo Bay Two immediately. There's an unidentified life form here." he urged.
I told Serrano to come with me and we got to Cargo Bay Two as quickly as we could.
I entered first and I immediately saw crewman Kelly wrapped in a huge white filament. Upon seeing us the creature tightened its hold around her. Apparently it was disturbed by our lights because it lessened its hold as soon as we lowered our torch.
Thankfully Kelly was still alive but she was not the only one trapped there: Mike Rostov was trapped as well. When he saw us he told us to leave but it was too late: the creature grabbed the Captain first, then Trip and then Serrano as well.
"Get out of here! Go!" Trip screamed, and I went out quickly, closing the door behind my back, cutting one of its tentacles in the process.
I'm still so very ashamed of leaving. I thought that, had I been trapped, no one would've known of us being there, but still.
I immediately called for T'Pol and we met in the Situation Room, along with the remaining superior officers. I advised to evacuate the entire deck as a precaution and Travis suggested that maybe the Kreetassans had left that being out of rage, so T'Pol decided to try and contact them again.
Doctor Phlox examined the tentacle I had inadvertently cut – his penchant for strange creatures doesn't stop even in front of such a danger. He found out that the creature was capable of superior mental functions.
And then I was an idiot.
"If it's intelligent maybe we can communicate with it. The frequency distortions, they look a lot like the phonetic patterns in certain Andorian dialects." Hoshi pointed out.
"With all due respect, Hoshi, we're not talking about nouns and verbs here. It could take you days to learn a language like that, even if it is one." It went out harsher than I wanted it to be. I didn't want to say that Hoshi isn't good at her work or that languages are rubbish but just that we were in a hurry.
"What other choice do we have? Give me a chance." She retorted, sounding hurt.
T'Pol agreed with me and the doctor informed us that the creature was highly photosensitive and that maybe EM radiations could've stunned it, so I went to assemble some EM emitters.
On that moment I didn't think about what I was going to do. It seemed just normal to stun an aggressive alien who threatened my fellow officers' and crewmen's life. I didn't realize what I was actually doing.
When we started firing with our emitters it was quite obvious that it was working – the creature was disturbed. But instead of being stunned it started tightening its hold on our men even more, so much that they screamed in pain. Doctor Phlox soon told me to shut the emitters off and after that T'Pol told me to withdraw. I went away knowing that at least they were still alive and well – until my arrival.
The doctor explained that our men's nervous system was linked with the creature's one, something like a symbiosis. They were slowly melting with the creature and we had to divide them as soon as possible – and without hurting the being.
T'Pol told Hoshi to start working on the language but I felt that it would've taken too much time and I tried to follow another path. First of all, I suggested to create a force field to contain the creature before it could invade the whole ship. T'Pol approved my idea and told me to hurry, which I did; I only had a prototype of that field but I worked as quickly as I haven't done in my entire life. I don't think I would've been able to work like that without that fear.
I needed to assess the creature's sensitivity to bioelectric stress so I went to see Doctor Phlox – and I was an idiot again. Partly it was because the Doctor had spoken of that creature with his usual detached, naturalistic attitude and I was annoyed about that.
Since the tentacle was still alive I told the Doctor that I wanted to perform some tests on it.
"What kind of tests?" he asked.
"I need to determine how much bioelectric stress it can tolerate." I answered.
"May I ask why?" he asked again.
"I'm trying to create a force field to isolate the cargo bay, but if it's going to work, I have to calculate how much of a jolt it will take to repel the organism without killing it or any of the people it's taken." I explained. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to me, but the Doctor felt different and he refused to let me test the tentacle like that because that was actually an intelligent being.
He told me that I could've gained the information I needed another way with a microcellular analysis.
"How long would that take?"
"Less than an hour." He answered, but it was too much for me.
"In less than an hour that thing could spread across half a deck."
The doctor insisted that he didn't want to torture an organism and that we couldn't be certain of its intentions against us. But this wasn't something I could discuss at the moment.
"I admire your interspecies ethics, but until Hoshi tells me she's found a way to communicate with it, I have to assume its intentions are hostile. Now, if you don't mind." I said, again more harshly than I intended.
"If you want information to help you construct your force field, you'll acquire it under my supervision." He said quietly. The man is quite sweet but headstrong.
"I'm sure I don't have to remind you, Doctor, I am the ranking officer here." I pulled out like a complete idiot but I didn't know what else to do to persuade him. He, though, wasn't impressed:
"Not in my Sickbay, unless the Captain says otherwise."
"The Captain is in no condition to offer an opinion." I retorted.
"Precisely." He said defiantly. I understood that he really wouldn't have let me do it, so I had to accept his conditions.
"Fine. Your rules, but we'd better get to it."
And it worked, it didn't even take a long time.
"We needed very little time to get those information, as you can see." Phlox said with quiet voice.
Only then I realized what an idiot I had been all the time. I had gone to sickbay to torture a sentient life form without even bothering to ask if there was another way. Just because it didn't have eyes to show its real soul or a voice to show its pain and its thoughts, I had felt free to treat it like an object.
"Doctor, I must apologize for being so rude." I told him.
"You are under a great stress. Apologies accepted." he answered with one of his ominous smiles "And moreover… I have observed that Humans tend to become irrational whenever they feel guilty." he added softly. And then I also realized that he had hit the target but I couldn't bring myself to answer.
My staff and I had very little time to run our scans. T'Pol and Hoshi had managed to understand the creature's language and to create a translator and I still don't understand how they did it.
Thankfully the force field worked and we could approach the creature. Hoshi started "talking" to it and we found out that it simply wanted to go back home – it had inadvertently landed on the Kretassans' ship some time before and so it had gotten to our ship.
When Hoshi told it we would've brought her back it slowly unwrapped our men; they needed some simple medical care but they're all well.
I'm not proud of myself, not at all. Doctor Phlox, T'Pol and especially Hoshi can be happy with their selves but I can't. I behaved like an idiot from the first moment and I think I know why.
After bringing the creature on its planet I went to check on Trip, still nervous about hurting him with the emitters.
"Come in!- he gestured with a smile. At least I knew he wasn't mad at me.
"How are you feeling?" I asked worriedly.
"To quote you, 'I'm fine'. But I mean it." he smiled.
"I apologize for hurting you. I wasn't aware of the consequences." I said shamefully.
"Never mind. The creature was photosensitive… anyone else would've done the same. You couldn't know."
Instead I could've known. I tried to hide my discomfort but Trip perceived it nonetheless.
"What's up?"
"Nothing. I'm fine."
"Malcolm, please. I know that look. What's wrong?" the man will never let you be.
"I wanted to save you at any cost." I started.
"You bet it! We were trapped!" he retorted.
"It's not that. I made things… and took decisions… too hurriedly because I wanted to take you out of there." I confessed. It was hard for me to open up like that but I needed to be honest, to face the problem.
"If you're talking about the radiations, I've already told you…" he began, but I interrupted him.
"This wasn't the only rash decision."
"Given the situation, it's only normal that you were in a hurry. That being almost killed us, of course you were!" he said soothingly.
"You don't understand the problem" I murmured.
"Then tell me what the actual problem is. Spit it out!" he coaxed.
It's not easy for me to open up, even to Trip. I feel almost naked, defenseless. But again I couldn't restrain myself with him and I broke: "The problem is that the creature took you while I escaped. I failed to protect you, Commander. And after that I acted hurriedly because of my fault, because I was responsible."
"Malcolm, you didn't fail." he told me very gently "Had the creature trapped you as well, would that have been of any use for us? Tell me."
"No." I answered "But I had to be trapped in your place. Instead it trapped you and I failed."
" How many times will we need to have this conversation before you get it? We were next to it, you couldn't prevent it from taking us, you couldn't take our place! Hell, it almost trapped you as well!"
I listened to him, my eyes looking at the floor.
"I know you feel responsible for all of us. But you didn't fail and you definitely have no reason to feel guilty. Got it?" he said matter-of-factly.
I smiled slightly: "Thank you, Commander."
"Malcolm. We-are-off-duty. It's-Trip." He chanted raising his eyes to the heavens. I had to laugh at that.
"Care to join me for dinner, Malcolm? It seems to me you need to be fed as well."
I hadn't imagined that a real friendship could be so wonderful.