Sample sizes and sequillae

Posted on Tue Sep 6th, 2022 @ 11:33pm by

Mission: The Lost Brother
Location: Shuttlebay.

The young security guard checked her credentials and nodded "You're cleared to enter Ms. Bryant"

"Excellent, are you allowed to answer questions for me about it? Ensign...?"

"Murphy ma'am. And, within reason, yes ma'am"

Again with the Ma'am, this place is going to give me a complex. "What number of person am I to be entering?"

"6 ma'am."

"Who else has been allowed access?" her brow furrowed and she didn't think she was going to like the answer.

"Captain Carey, XO Stoffels, Commander Wagnor, Dr. Rutherford and myself, though I have not set foot past the door. The final two did extensive scanning and forensics work on the interior of the shuttle."

"Did they adhere to proper non-contamination protocols?"

"Uhm..."

"You don't know what I am talking about do you?"

"No ma'am."

"Computer, did Commander's Wagnor and Rutherford wear isolation gear upon entering the shuttle?

"Negative."

You mean to tell me, that those two yahoos were onboard this ship, without masking their bio-signs or sealing their boots so they didn't track bio-matter onboard from OUR ship...and NOW after the fact, they want me to do an analysis that should have been done before anyone touched anything?"

"That's what my orders say, yes ma'am."

Her eyes flashed with icy rage, and the man actually backed up a pace at the sight of it. "They treat me like I'm a second class citizen because I don't wear dots on my damn collar" she snarled to no-one as she stalked into the office that was beside the shuttle bay and queued up the logs. She noted every footfall of both men and everything either of them touched so that she could factor out contamination from the Resolution's own bio available substances. "I should NOT have to tell them about proper procedure in a case like this. I know...i KNOW Starfleet protocols are more stringent than what I'm used to."

Tying her hair back she secured it with a tie that glittered around her pale hair, like a crystal of ice. She then clasped a pair of bracelets around both of her feet and activated them. A flicker of light crawled over her feet, and there was the faint scent of ozone as the biomatter and particulates on her shoes met an unpleasant end. It wasn't fun to have a forcefield directly underfoot, but it was better than contaminating something she was charged with finding the origin of.

"Computer begin recording, verbal log of first walk-through of Shuttle of Unknown Origin, hereafter called Sue. Entering the main door, Sue's lights are active but at half illumination. The air has been recycled and has no immediately discernible scents to it. As one approaches the pilot's seat there is an air vent above,directing air towards the left. Particulates would collect more on the left hand side of the cockpit, along with any debris from the pilots."

Paige walked with careful steps to the place where she figured the air flow would have pushed any debris and unfastened a panel. Underneath it was a scrub filter, and in it was the particulate matter she'd hoped was in there. "Computer, beam contents of Scrub filter, panel 31a, to my personal lab under a level 7 quarantine field."

She ran a swab over the keys of the pilots chair "Label sample, Cockpit 1." Another swab over the xo's seat which he labelled cockpit 2. Yet another in the air vent dumping air into the cockpit, as something of a control. It was unlikely to be contaminated by foreign substances, as it put air out into the cockpit. Systematically she worked over everything in the fore of the tiny ship.

There was a drip that she heard, and registered as unimportant. Slow, and sounded like condensation coming off a tube. A faint hiss of something followed the drip. "There is a drip behind panel labelled c-14. "

The faint scent of almonds made her wrinkle her nose, mostly because she didn't LIKE almonds. It faded and she went back to her work, then a faintly sharp smell pinched in the back of her nostrils and combined with the increased scent of almonds she threw her respirator over her face in a practiced gesture. The smell faded immediately, and she took a deep breath to clear her lungs.

She shook with combined fear and anger, before she stalked from the ship and snapped at Murphy "Get Commander Wagnor here, immediately."