102583.1
CMDR LaSalle, E.
LOCATION Boreth Sector
MISSION Responding to distress call from long-missing USS Shklovsky.
OUTCOME A SHORT 26 of 78 crew saved, all bodies recovered. USS Shklovsky lost to magnetar.
KEY PERSONNEL
- CAPT Mirazuni, A.
- CAPT Grant, S.
- CAPT Draz, S.
- CMDR LaSalle, E.
- LCDR T’Veras, A.
- LCDR Sh’ow, R.
The events of this mission took place aboard USS Endeavour and USS Shklovsky.
This officer and others were aboard USS Endeavour for routine skills recertifications, when the ship encountered a distress signal on a retired frequency. We determined it belonged to the USS Shklovsky, Nova Class, and missing for 14 years now. The search had been terminated 5 years prior.
That would be strange enough, but it was found in close proximity to a magnetar in a low-power state, and the lights were pulsing in-time with the magnetar. 61 life signs were disappearing and re-appearing at the same cadence. We also received a “glitch” in the automated distress signal every 47 seconds which upon further analysis could be identified as the voice of a woman singing a lullaby. Text was also sent in the message of “We’re still here!” Clean transporter lock was not possible through the magnetic interference, so an away team was ordered. This team was commanded by Captain Grant, with Captain Draz, myself and LCDR Sh’ow forming the rest of it.
At our beam-in point, we noticed that vine-like plants had overgrown much of the ship interior, but in a somewhat orderly manner. Certainly well past containment at their origin, but not obstructing movement or much of our view, staying to walls and some objects like benches. It seemed they were being irrigated purposefully by a drip sound along the walls. This may have been an early attempt to extend life support, or at least oxygen, possibly food. Aside from the plants, the interior of the ship was surprisingly orderly and clean. There was no recent sign of the crew. A discarded doll was present, which would match records that exactly one of the people aboard was a young dependent of one of the crew. It could not be determined how long it was sitting there. Transporter pattern-enhancers were deployed at our beam-in site for exfil.
We made our way deeper into the ship, and it remained very quiet, very clean except for the fairly orderly overgrown plants. As we came upon Engineering, one important change to the scenery was discovered. Bioneural gel packs tied together in strange, almost totem-like bundles hanging from the ceiling. The warp core was offline, and consoles had no power. LCDR Sh’ow determined via tricorder that the gel packs appeared to be transferring all power to Deck 8, the bottom deck of the Nova Class, containing antimatter pods, landing gear, and the core ejection system. The decision was made to move to Deck 8.
The turbolift was operational, but it took us to Deck 5, and from there, would not budge. We decided to look around for anything helpful while we were there. This was the crew deck. We were able to look into all the crew quarters as we walked the corridor, and LCDR T’Veras spotted a room with crib and music box. As she entered to investigate, the music box began to play the same lullaby as we heard interspersed in the distress call. The room belonged to an Ensign Okafor, apparently the mother of the one child aboard. Searching for any meanings here, I asked LCDR T’Veras to check for any codes in the lullaby such as the numerical sequence of notes aligning to coordinates or room number on the ship, phase-variance, anything. The search came back negative. We pressed onward to the cargo bay on that deck, which was right next to Medical.
Here, we found 78 stasis pods, one for each of the crew, all completely functional. None of the occupants had any neural readings at all though. As we examined them, one occupant held a note in Vulcan script “We will come back for you.” Ensign Okafor was located, and she held a picture of a child. Mother and father? The Vulcan male was later determined to be the chief medical officer, so his concern could have been professional, but we found his note was not a threat, but a promise meant to be reassuring. It did not reassure us in the moment.
It was at this point that LCDR T’Veras voiced the hypothesis that I had too easily dismissed in Engineering to voice. What if they were in the gel packs? Their neural activity transferred there presumably for some advantage in power consumption, or to decrease life support needs, maybe more likely to negate the need for a food supply when replicators use a lot of power. That explained the stasis pods at least. The neural transfer I’m still not as sure about other than fitting under the umbrella of survival. At this point, I found many medical journals and notes nearby and at a quick glance they proved to be about transferring consciousness. Theoretical papers on possible methods, some warnings about projected success rates, ethical warnings, etc. along with the doctor’s own notes.
As we voiced this aloud, the turbolift across the hall opened up as if on cue. We believe we were heard, and allowed to proceed now that we at least began to understand. Captain Grant bid us to move along to the turbolift as Endeavour notified us we had one hour left before they would beam us out no matter what to avoid being trapped in the magnetar.
We were taken to Deck 8 finally, and were greeted to the sight of many more bioneural gel packs, but this time literally fused together. The different faces of the crew pulsing in and out of view. At first, one of the screens nearby contains the message inserted into the distress signal “We are still here!”. It then changed to three different conflicting messages: 1. Bring us back. 2. We are new life. 3. Let us go.
We were then able to converse with a couple of the crew one at a time, Ensign Okafor, who seemed to be reaching out to us the whole time, and Commander T’Vess, then a chorus of voices together.
Commander T’Vess was advocating for the return of the crew to their bodies even while acknowledging a calculated 20% success rate. Ensign Okafor was speaking for herself and others who simply wanted to die (She was later joined by CMO Ramirez in speaking this desire). The chorus of voices was calling itself “New Life”, and appeared to be a gestalt or collective of minds that had merged, saying if we merged all the others remaining with it, it would be able to somehow allocate power to live and escape. To be clear, the others wanted no part of what would be akin to Borg assimilation, or at least that may be the most concise way to describe it here as my observation.
They made clear if the collective voice was even correct that it could use enough power to break free if they merged all, they could not be untangled later, and Endeavour could not keep itself out of the magnetar and tow out the Shklovski also, nor try to boost its power to give us further options.
Those wishing to die, if granted their request, would slightly boost the odds of returning the crew to their bodies by using less power, but not overwhelmingly.
It is this officer’s opinion that all choices presented were bad and ethically complex. As we received the 5-minute warning from Endeavour, a decision had to be made.
Captain Grant chose to transfer those we could back to their bodies, and beam out all stasis tubes. I then left to move the pattern enhancers to the other cargo bay at a run, joined later by LCDR T’Veras.
Back on Endeavour, we were told that 26 of the 60 remaining crew were brought out of stasis alive.
For what it matters, I believe Captain Grant made the least-bad decision available, consistent with Starfleet values and ethics. This was not unanimous among the away team, but a decision was made, and we saved the lives we could.
RECOMMENDATION I would recommend no one pursue this sort of consciousness transfer in the future. Fortunately, all of the notes should have been destroyed in the magnetar by now.
RECOGNITION Captain Grant, for calm leadership on the away team, and making an impossible decision when we needed to.