Boimler threw down his PADD in frustration. It smacked off a cushion next to Mariner before dropping to the floor with a clang. She barely acknowledged the sound at all, instead keeping her eyes locked on her own PADD. Page after page of information flicked up, but she paused for none of it.
"Buddy…I think it's time for a rest. We've been at this for hours." Rutherford spoke up from his own seat on Boimler's other side. He was right of course. Having sent all their messages they had settled in Boimler and Rutherford's shared room to trawl through all the literature they could find. Earth, Vulcan, and Starfleet had produced no immediate information, but with a promise to come back if they found something.
The three of them could barely keep their eyes open anymore (even if Mariner refused to admit it). They had left T'Lyn with T'Ana and Tendi in sickbay. Boimler sincerely hoped they were having more luck.
He looked up to Rutherford's concerned face leaning down from the top bunk. "I guess…I guess we'll work better after a little sleep."
"No." Mariner cut in. "No, we haven't found it yet. We can't let Tendi down."
Her face was drawn and jaw tight. Dark circles were under her eyes as she played with a loose strand of her hair, eyes still fixed on the PADD. Even when Boimler hopped off his bunk to sit on the floor against her side she didn't look up.
"Mari, we're not letting anyone down. We can't think on this little sleep. Remember, T'Ana said it's moving slowly. Let's have a little nap and try again as soon as we're refreshed." He gently reached for her PADD but she slapped his hand away.
"What about if you just lie down? Here." He gently pushed her down until she was laying her head on a nearby cushion, weight on her right side. He then pulled the blanket off his bed and tucked it in around her so she wouldn't be cold if she insisted on staying there until morning. He dimmed the lights before jumping into his bunk and watching her surreptitiously. It wasn't long before he saw the PADD slide from her hand and her head go limp on the pillow. Satisfied, Boimler rolled over into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.
He was abruptly jerked awake by someone landing on his bunk with a thud. "Mariner, wha.."
"Nope!" Ah. Rutherford. He brushed away the disappointment that had crept in uninvited and sat up. Mariner was still dozing where he'd left her last night, drooling on her pillow.
"I think I've got what might be happening to Tendi! Look-" he shoved his PADD into Boimler's face. "In these fairytales they tell the kids, they tell them not to go into the forest or they won't come back right. They then go on to say that you can see the faces of the naughty children who've gone in and become part of the forest in the shadows. Looking at this with the other stories, the motif of faces in the trees occurs a lot. What if Tendi's DNA is being rearranged to become the same as one of those trees on the surface?"
"You really shouldn't sound so hyped that your friend might be turning into a plant, man." Rutherford's excited storytelling had woken Mariner. She sleepily blinked up at them with big, brown eyes before yawing and sitting up on her knees so she could see the PADD too.
"You wouldn't think so, but once I worked out what was going on it was much easier to create an algorithm to search for the perfect solution."
Boimler scratched his head. "Can't T'Ana just…fix her DNA? That sounds like something we should be able to do."
"Weirdly, it doesn't seem to have come up before. At least, not like this."
"Yeah," Mariner interjected, "normally we could just cut off a problem limb and grow a new one. But, in this case that would be cutting off her head, so maybe like, a last resort."
Boimler was keen to get off the subject of possible decapitations. "But Rutherford, you said you'd found a solution?"
"Yes! So, now I just needed to find a way of rearranging Tendi's DNA back to the Tendi we know and love. And it needs to be something that will do it quickly and thoroughly. Guess who used to do that? Turns out, Bynars. Before doing the synaptic processor lobe replacement thingy. Turns out, in one of their museums, they still have one of the things they used to do it with. Apparently you just need a "close genetic match", and it can pick out the set of DNA that you should have, and correct it, reversing whatever transition has happened. Guess they used to have some issues with their modifications going wrong and needed a way to reset it."
"That seems…like a weird thing to have. But whatever, it solves our problem! Let's go steal that thing!"
"Hold your horses." Rutherford cut in. Boimler chuckled at the reference while Mariner shot him a dirty look. "Several things: we need to clear this with everyone else, call the Bynars, call D'Erika, then we need to call your mum."
"Why, to all three of those." Mariner stopped halfway to the door.
"Well, for the first one, you know this. Then, we can ask to kindly borrow their artifact. For the latter two, we need some close genetic matches to you and Tendi."
"Okay, Tendi I get, but why me?"
"We will also need two closely related people to operate it, and I can't really think of another pair."
"Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm sure we can manage one more mission together. Let's go tell the others!" She shot out the door.
Boimler and Rutherford followed at less than a full out sprint, messaging Ransom to meet them and the medical team in sick bay. Ransom, T'Ana, T'Lyn, Tendi, and Mariner were all already there. They were all listening with interest as Mariner filled them in on what Rutherford had found. She waved them over to join the group.
"...so, all we have to do is call a couple of people, steal a random artifact, pop it on Tendi, and she'll be fixed right up! Rutherford seems to have nailed it."
"Good thing too. We didn't pull up shit." T'Ana replied. "Seen a bunch of DNA modifications before but we tried all of the working solutions that were used and no dice."
"It was fun learning about all of those at least! And now we know how to fix things." Tendi smiled from her bed, looking a little tired but not overly worse for wear. The mess on the back of her neck seemed to have incrementally expanded, but Boimler wasn't too concerned by that.
"Yes! Do you feel up to calling your sister then? She seemed to be a little…" Rutherford scratched the back of his head instead of finishing his sentence.
Tendi put her hand on his arm. "Don't worry, I've got this. I'll ask her to be here as soon as she can. You guys concentrate on contacting the Bynars and the Captain."
"I'll call Mum. Boimler, can you see about handling the Bynars? You're much more diplomatic than me." Mariner trotted off to a different area of sick bay to make her call.
Ransom was once again looking like he had been about to say something, so Boimler took pity on him. "Commander, would you mind joining the call with me? I think this will need all the negotiation skills we can get."
Probably for the best Mariner was doing something else. Boimler loved her, but delicate negotiations with no immediate threats of murder involved were not her strong suit. Luckily Ransom was happy to accept the offer. They moved to the opposite side of sickbay to take the call.
It seemed that the Bynars had someone for everything. At least at this damn museum they did - getting from the primary contact to the museum was fine. But by Starfleet these museum people. He couldn't believe the amount of times they'd been put on hold then transferred. He was holding onto his chill by his fingernails by the time they appeared to reach anyone who knew anything about the thing they actually wanted.
Finally. Okay, deep breath in, deep breath out, and…negotiate! The first part of the call went well, with them easily establishing that the artifact they wanted was indeed there, it did what they thought it did, and was simple enough to operate. It was the "can we take your precious artifact to fix our friend please we promise we'll bring it back" that proved an issue. Even the "okay then can we come to your museum and touch it a little" didn't prove fruitful. They did however agree to look into the process and see if they could create something that would replicate it.
"For fuck's sake." Boimler cursed quietly under his breath. He guessed it was a totally reasonable response, but his friend needed help dammit!
Random put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "At least we know it would work now. We just need to convince them to let us use it. Or, let's be real, they just have to dig up the schematics from wherever the hell they are; they've got to be recorded somewhere."
Boimler knew he was right really. He hoped the others had had more luck with their respective phone calls. Tendi appeared to have finished hers up so he walked back over. T'Lyn and Dr T'Ana were staring at her neck again, but she was all smiles.
"D'Erika says she'll be right over! It'll be great to see her again."
"Better than Mum." Mariner stalked back to the group. "She's caught up in some sort of serious meeting stuff. She says she'll get out of it as soon as she can, but it could be a few days. I also tried Dad, but he's in the same thing."
"I mean, a few days seems fine. We might need that time to negotiate actually getting hold of the damn thing anyway. They seem reluctant to let us have it, even for a little while." Boimler added.
T'Ana cut in from behind. "Actually, it might not be. You need to hear the results of T'Lyn's analysis."
T'Lyn stepped forward, holding her PADD. "I decided that this problem was worth some intense study, so I stayed up all night to see what I could discern. I took a number of readings at different times to provide me with a range of samples. I have determined that the spreading of this mutation is not linear as I thought. It appears to be exponential." - Worried murmurs came from her friends. - "So we may not have as much time as we thought. I am unsure this artifact will work if all of the subject's original DNA is lost."
She paused, walked in front of Tendi, put her hands on her shoulders and met her eyes. "But do not worry Tendi. I will fix this problem. I find this a desperate situation, and in which case I will take the suggestion of Mariner. I can retrieve this object for you, while Mariner can retrieve her mother from her situation simultaneously. By the time we return D'Erika will be here. You will be okay."
Mariner was tapping her fingers against her thighs as she thought. "You can't do that by yourself, not even you. You'll need help…and there's not enough of us for two proper teams. Fuck. Boimler, ideas?"
Boimler desperately searched through his memory for a solution, but no viable ones came. He shook his head and looked away; he never liked letting Mariner down. Her mouth was set in a hard line as she looked round for ideas.
"Quite the pickle you're in there."
Boimler jerked his head up and looked round. Counting the people in the group, he suddenly realized that there was one more present than there had been a few seconds ago. The red starfleet uniform was correct, four pips was fine, but who was wearing it was not. He stepped back, inadvertently colliding with Mariner who stepped forward. She caught him before he could fall and set him back on his feet.
"Q!" She exclaimed, "Are you here to be helpful, or to fuck around? I assume you've been listening to our serious situation and are of course planning on fixing it immediately, no questions asked?"
Boimler easily picked up the sarcasm in her final sentence. The last time Q had randomly appeared they'd ended up in some sort of hellish escape room type situation, with Rutherford and himself blinded and receiving aural instructions from Tendi and Mariner respectively. Something about "trust exercises" apparently. The only upside to that had been that he and Mariner were the winning team, with bragging rights for the rest of the week. He'd actually set a picture of that day as the background for this PADD.
Q smiled slyly and replied. "A little of column A, a little of column B. I can guarantee Ms Tendi here will be alright, and in return I want something from you."
"Goddamit it! Fine, I'll play live B with you! At this point I don't know why you just don't go and rile up some random Klingons though."
"It's not the same! Ahh Mariner, we're going to have so much fun! Everyone else is invited too of course." He looked hopefully round the room. Everyone else suddenly found the ceiling to be incredibly fascinating.
"Annnnndddd, the help?" Mariner prodded.
Q smiled again and snapped his fingers. A figure appeared beside him with a slight gasp. They were wearing a red, standard Starfleet uniform, one pip at their collar. The cut of their uniform indicated they were likely female, and they stood slightly shorter than Boimler - more around Mariner's height. Oddly, a pair of gloves had been added to their uniform. That didn't really stand out when he considered the fact that they were wearing a space helmet inside the ship. It also wasn't lit from the inside but was tinted, completely obscuring the person's features.
Rutherford and Tendi looked at each other in confusion, while T'Lyn studied the newcomer in detail. Boimler was glad she wasn't looking at him like that, it was very intense. Mariner just narrowed her eyes and said, "Who the fuck is this?"
"They're going to help you."
"You brought us a person? I thought you were going to give us a hand!"
"They will help! You take them with you to go and grab your thing, and I'll make sure you have the required DNA matches here when you get back."
Mariner narrowed her eyes. "That sounds awfully reasonable from you."
Q shrugged. "I saw an opportunity to get you to agree to the game I wanted, while still getting to see how you handle your half of the task. Should be amusing but non-lethal, so perfect."
"Most of the things we do are amusing but non-lethal! Why not just stalk us on those?" Boimler cut in.
"Why do I do anything?"
That was a fair enough response really. Who knew why Q did anything.
"Just one thing to add…" Q spoke up again. "The continuum do have certain rules they don't care to have broken. Because I love you so much, I have brought you your best chance of success. But for your own sakes, do not aim to find out who they are. I'll still have enough time to make your lives hell before the others can do anything."
With that said, he vanished.
The five lieutenants, Ransom, and T'Ana turned to face the stranger, who was shifting nervously from foot to foot. Boimler didn't really know how to feel about this. Q's threat about not uncovering their identity implied that it was someone they might be able to identify by face or name, but who should not be here at all. Alternate universe, time traveller, or a celebrity who really should be doing something else were the only options that came to mind. He hoped for the last of these.
Remarkably, Tendi seemed to recover first. "Well, I was going to suggest we just get D'Erika to pick it up on her way, but I guess this works too. What shall we call you, Ensign?"
"Umm, you can call me Ensign…Socks?"
Mariner laughed. "No, I can't do that seriously for however long this takes. Pick a better code name."
"X?"
"Nope."
"Okay then…Sky?"
Hearing no objections, Ransom stepped forward and stuck a hand out. "Welcome to the Cerritos, Ensign Sky. I'm Commander Ransom, acting captain at the moment. These are Lieutenants Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, T'Lyn, and Dr T'Ana. Did Q brief you on the problem?"
Sky gave his hand a firm shake. "He did, sir. Glad to be aboard."
Ransom then turned to the regularly scheduled crewmembers. "I guess we're going with, and I can't believe I'm saying this while no one is shooting at me, Mariner's plan. I will update the Captain of the revised plan while we head to Bynaus so your team can prepare. Please try to keep the chaos to an absolute minimum."
Boimler was absolutely ready to do this for his friend, but stuck his hand up just to clarify something first. "Sir, will we have the backing of Starfleet here while we're…y'know…robbing a museum?"
"If it comes to it, I'll take the heat. None of my crew are dying of something preventable on my watch. Besides, we're going to give it back as soon as we're done, with a nice apology note and as much chocolate as they want. No need to tell Starfleet."
As the team got ready to exit sick bay, Rutherford spoke up. "Uh, guys, I think I'm going to sit this one out."
Boimler blinked in surprise. "What?"
"You four seem like you should be able to handle this just fine by yourselves. I'll stay here with Tendi and we can act as your on-call support."
Boimler ignored the obvious implication that he wanted to keep an eye on her. That made sense. Hopefully Sky had some engineering knowledge, and if not T'Lyn was probably reasonably capable.
They left T'Ana, Tendi, and Rutherford to their own devices in sick bay. Ransom accompanied them out as he needed to set up the ship to respond to Sky, as well as get them a combadge and quarters - they needed to be given a private room so as to conceal their identity. Boimler felt he might have to hold Mariner back from doing some spying, as he could see her burning holes in Sky's back as they walked with her stare.
Ransom headed back to the bridge as the remaining four made their way to the bar. T'Lyn and Sky led, while Mariner and Boimler followed a few steps behind.
He spoke to her softly. "Don't."
"Don't what?" But she also kept her voice low, so it was clear she knew what he was referring to.
"I know what you're thinking. Don't try and spy on the mysterious Ensign after they've gone to bed for the night. That's stalker behaviour, Mariner."
"But what if they're secretly evil?! We don't know anything about them!"
"Then ask them things, like a normal person. Also, Q brought them here. They're more likely to be just plain weird rather than evil. That seems more his sort of thing."
She grumbled at him as they sat down together. The four were certainly getting some side eye, what with one person seemingly having forgotten to de-kit after a spacewalk. Sky didn't seem to care though, chatting away happily with T'Lyn and looking around as if to inspect everything.
"Ah dammit, I forgot to get any drinks. Boimler, could you-" Mariner started.
He didn't have time to react before Sky leapt out of their seat. "Ooooh, I can do it! Then I can test out if the replicator will work for me!"
Boimler watched with incredulity as they hopped out of their seat, bounced to the replicator, got three drinks, and set them on the table. A water for T'Lyn, and something green for him and Mariner. He sipped it. Delicious.
Sky then caught on to the suspicious looks the others were giving her and laughed nervously. "Lucky guess."
Further questioning revealed that Sky was from Earth, did have Starfleet training, and was fine being referred to as they/them. With the basics established, Mariner then ran through her plan with the group. Once everyone was clear, they finished by their drinks and headed off to rest before the mission.
Boimler was not that surprised when he had to grab Mariner by the collar to get her to go in the correct direction for her room instead of just following Sky.