M'Benga squatted near the corpse with his triquarter and a few other diagnostic tools. "This is the third time I've run this, Captain. It's all coming back the same. DNA is scrambled and if you look at this," He raised one of the arms of the corpse," You'll see that the skin has been degraded to the point of being so smooth, we couldn't even pull a print."
Pike nodded towards the doctor, "Computer, run an attendance for all crew and guests upon the ship."
Confirmed. Running.
La'an dropped down from the turbolift's ceiling catch and wiped her hands against each other. "I've checked the shaft entrances and the latch for the lift. From what I can tell with my scans is that the body was placed on top of the turbo lift by dropping it from one of the other floors. There's some evidence of that..." She gestured to the deep purple bubbled skin. "Has splattered out from a fall. There's some…evidence... of the impact against the lift's casing walls around Deck 7. Running the calculations, that puts the drop on Deck 11." **
"That deck is all living quarters." Una's mind was racing through living quarter assignments.
Attendance Complete.
The captain nodded confirmation to La'an, "Good work. Go ahead and get cleaned up." He turned toward the nearest panel screen, "All right, let us have it then."
All crew and guests present and accounted for.
With an arched brow, Pike turned back to the body, "Then who the hell is this…"
"Might I suggest a physical head count, sir." Una stepped forward having already brought up the entire personnel manifest on her handheld.
"-Careful, Deckland." M'Benga's brow furrowed as he helped get the body upon the transport bed.
"Y-yes, Doctor." The young medical student grimaced as he tried desperately to not touch the body as much as possible.
Ignoring the student, Pike turned to La'an. "When you're cleaned up, run the head check with Una. And Doctor, can you get any trace of that sequenced and sent to Una. They might as well scan for remnants and traces while doing the count. I'll report to the admirals and see if we can delay picking up the air filter or assigning it to someone else. I don't want anyone on or off this ship."
M'Benga had the body placed on a medical bed and secured a isolation field around it. His medical students, Deckland and Corsair, were running samples of the purple tissue and he stood staring at the results so far on the screen.
Chapel entered the medbay while fixing some hair behind her ear, "Quite the day."
"Yes, quite so."
"Any hint yet at who it is or are we still grasping for straws here?"
"The DNA is scrambled. I don't think we will be able to work back from it but for now, I'm more concerned over how a scrambler like this got on this ship."
"Yeah, we should have gotten some kind of hit of unauthorized substances through the tele-fields. Unless…do you think someone carried it on?"
"It would have to be or it was assembled on the ship." His voice dropped to a whisper which caused Chapel to move closer.
"So, you're looking for the components of the substance."
"Exactly."
"Anything I can do to help?"
"Hmm, keep your ears and eyes open. Also, can you check over their work? I want to spend my attention on this."
She nodded and whisked over to the work desk where the others just loaded new samples. "How's it going over here?" She smiled and looked towards Deckland and Corsair.
Corsair looked up from the scope and shrugged, "I don't know anymore. I mean," They shrugged kjm, and stretched their arms behind their head, "I think I just don't get the point. Like, why even go through all of this? Why is it so important to desecrate a person and make it so hard to identify them."
Deckland leaned back and turned to both of them, "Seems like a lot of extra effort. And removing the head too? Seems a bit much."
Corsair nodded, her blue antennae bouncing with the motion, "Right? Why bother with removing the head when you have a scrambler like this…" She motioned towards the screen above them with the images of their sample upon it.
Nurse Chapel nodded and placed her hands on her hips. "What would someone do with just a head?"
Hemmer was heading to Engineering after just fixing a power panel out in docking bay that unexpectedly had stripped screws. Grumbling to himself about the lack of attention by the docking bay mechanics, a familiar scent wafted towards him. He followed the scent which was down his path anyway and he stepped to the outer side of the corridor.
He knew it was her, hoped it was even, and slowed his steps as he got closer. Up ahead was a large circular port window that had a wide ledge. Many guests and homesick crew members would often pause here, some would crawl up on the ledge to gaze out into the stars. It was no surprise she had found it and was spending time here.
Curled up on the ledge, Three held her knees to her chest and looked out into the illuminated space. The ship slowed its travel an hour ago and she took the opportunity to look out upon the passing, distant solar system. She was facing away from Hemmer as he approached and seemed lost in her own thoughts.
"How's the view?" Hemmer tilted his head, letting his sense fill in the scene before him.
With a wide smile, she turned towards him, "A little overrated." She scrunched her nose with a chuckle. "It's better to see you, Hemmer."
A heat rose in his cheeks, and he fought from showing it. "I've heard you've kept busy on the ship, how is that going?" He battled awkwardly against fumbling through small talk. He was never one for it. But Uhura's frequent visits to engineering gave him practice.
"Yes, they've all been quite wonderful helping me catch up and learn new things. It's been nice to find spots like these though, to get some space."
"Oh...I'm sorry, I-"
"Oh no! Not you, Hemmer. I always welcome your company. I just stopped here to let this little guy a chance to get some pure sunlight." She held up a cutting suspended in a bulb of water. "Meilyn in Botany let me grab it after helping with the season's pruning."
"You've been helping on Botany?" The warmness traveled to his heart and he grinned, "Meilyn doesn't let just anyone assist."
"Yes, I stumbled in one day and they put me to work and now it's one of the most relaxing part of my day. I haven't gotten to see these bloom yet."
"You should soon. They're seasonal bloomers and quite beautiful. Their petals emit a low frequency meant to attract pollinators, but it also allows me to perceive them fully. Also, when the petals drop, they make a great candied treat."
"Oh, have you made them before?" Three was enraptured.
"Only a few times before."
"Will you teach me when it's time?"
Hemmer cleared his throat, "Of course. As you wish."
Three to Quarters. Three, please return to your quarters.
Her heart raced and Hemmer could feel her anxiety building. Three swung her feet over the edge of the ledge and stood up, holding the clipping in both hands. He could hear the water trembling in her grasp. "I'm sure it'll be fine, I'll go with you." He held out his arm and a very quiet, stunned Three instantly threaded her arm in his.
The bridge was eerily quiet but it was as Spock liked it. For the most part. There were times for excitement where computing the different logistics and trajectories of a situation were something he even looked forward to but here, in the captain's chair…it was 'nice'.
The majority of the bridge crew was out and about on the ship dealing with the body situation. Here upon the bridge, he was doing his best to not start his own predictions and balancing of data. He would wait until someone relieved him and then dive in.
For now, he had to be ready and open should anything change within his own control. The turbolift, now cleaned and cleared for use opened and Oretgas stepped out, quickly taking her place after giving the previous shift member a pat on the shoulder.
Spock nodded to her, "Oretgas."
"Lt." Oretgas grinned back at him, "How's the chair today?"
"It is acceptable."
They played this banter before. At first, he responded with the chair being as comfortable and equally uncomfortable as expected. He even talked about how he did not prefer the thread count of the chair's cushion but found it within reason it should be where it is at to resist stains and put up with longevity. But, that was not what she was getting at.
"How are the parameters of your day?"
"Pretty great! I was just clocking in some flight training time with Three and I beat her 3-2 today!"
Spock cocked his head and lifted a Vulcan brow, "Your flight training with Three?"
"Yeah! She's got really good reflexes and usually beats me in small commercial and fighter craft. I totally smoke her EVERY. TIME. with anything bigger. But, today, LT. Today, I'm top gun!" She cackled.
"You two get along well then. "
"Sure, most of the crew like her. She's generally pretty quiet when not asking questions. Can't say much on the other two. They pretty much stay in their quarters all day. And when they're not, they're never apart. So, kinda unapproachable."
"I do not understand how two people are unapproachable?"
"I think some people are just creeped out by them?"
"Why are they …creeped…out?"
"I think them just being augments creep people out."
"We have fellow augmented crew members."
"Yeah, but they're personable, ya'know? One and Two don't talk to anyone except each other and Three. I think part of it might be that they're so behind everything. Like from another time." Oretgas lowered her voice, "I've heard some people on the crew think they're more like children since they're so far behind. Others think they're some kind of plant or trap by someone…like sleeper agents. Going by numbers doesn't help."
"Preposterous."
"Eh, maybe." Oretgas turned back to her panel. "I'll vouge for Three. The others…I don't know. They don't even log much time in the info-banks."
Uhura turned in her chair, "I would imagine it's all very overwhelming. Imagining just waking up one day and everything different, even your body isn't your own. It would be hard to trust anyone let alone everything you hear."
Oretgas nodded. "For sure. I hope when we get back to Earth, they'll find some sort of comfort."
Pike to Spock.
"Yes, captain?"
'Please, take this call in the ready room.'
Spock stood, headed to the attached room, and sat in front of the video panel. "Go ahead, Captain"
'We have a complication and I need to make sure we keep it on a need-to-know basis as long as possible.'
"Understood."
'Things just got real complicated.'
"I just paged her." Number One turned to the Captain who had just reached the augment's living quarters.
"And where were the others?"
"They were inside. I've also pulled the entire record log of entering and exits."
"Fantastic." Pike's words were positive, but his tone was quite serious. They were standing just inside the shared living space.
The shared quarters housed four sleeping pods against it's walls. Two on one side on top of each other and two one the other. They were standard crew space and not decorated to be anything more than flux living space. In the middle of the room was a large table and against the opposite of the door were a couple of desks with screens for information access. The space was warm and inviting but very much standard issue.
From initial inspection, it would appear that only one crew member occupied the space as the bunk on the bottom right had pictures and scraps of replicated paper taped up on the inside bunk walls and there was a line of trinkets on the shelving inside the bunk pod.
Hemmer and Three appeared in the doorway and she took a breath to look in, "Captain?" She still had her arm in Hemmers and he wasn't about to let her go. There was a crowd of people inside their living quarters. Many from security had tricorders along with other devices and were scanning the entire room. One and Two stood just inside the doors with their backs against the wall. Their expressions saying nothing.
They made eye contact with her and raised a brow in recognition. One was about to speak up but their head focused back on the captain and they closed their mouth, returning to their stoic expressions.
"Yes." Pike turned on his heal and was followed by Una and La'an. "Three…I'm sorry, I haven't gotten to catch up with you, is it still Three?"
"I haven't selected a new name yet so yes, Three still works."
"Perfect, Three." Pike took a breath, "I'm truly sorry to do this, but I do need to confirm with you your whereabouts in the last 24 hours."
"I'm sorry?" She was confused and showed it in every way. "I will of course... I just …what is this about?"
Taking pause, Pike scanned her over and took notes with his natural gift of perception and insight. "There was a body found."
Her face fell in surprise, "That's terrible!"
"Indeed. And terrible yet, it was discovered without a head."
Her shock deepened, "Where they able to discover who they were?"
"Not yet."
She cocked her head, not making any connections.
Instead of answering directly, Pike stepped to the side. Providing a clear angle through the crew and a direct sight to her bunk. She had replicated a few printed books earlier with her replication stipends and they were as she left them on the middle of the bed. But, those weren't what drew everyone's attention. It was the severed head tucked between her pillows.
**Liberties taken with the number of decks on the NCC-1701. Enterprise D captained by Picard has been reported with 42 decks which is said to be twice the length and 8 times the interior space of previous starships. For this series, NCC-1701 will have 21 decks until I can amend with proper updated data.
