Laying the ground work

Posted on Sun Jun 6th, 2021 @ 2:30am by Lieutenant Vanessa Jackson

Mission: The Mentarin Effect
Location: Main science lab

James walked into a section of the ship he honestly thought he would never see. However the current mission made this meeting a must do. He walked in and found the office he was looking for and even the person he needed. "Lt. Milumad I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time.". Asked James firmly

Whatever James expected to see, he probably did not expect to see a number of beakers filled with fluid, computers spitting out data as if lava was flowing from a volcano, and a tall brown blur rushing around the lab like time was running out. "Huh? What? Who?" Amelix exclaimed as she dropped a pipet filled with something. "Who are you?" She beamed at James happily. "Are you my new assistant? I always love new assistants! I could just happily bring you into the experiments! Oh, I always forget to introduce myself! I'm Lieutenant Amelix Milumad, the only Tygarian in Starfleet. Have you met one of us before? We're quite rare. In fact, I'm the only female that has ever left my home world. Did you know that? Maybe you did. I'm always surprised at who knows what. And what can I do for you?"

"The captain gave me an assignment but I need help from your department if I am going to get the job done to his satisfaction," said James.

"He did?! What did he do? What does he want? I'm always here to help serve!" Amelix replied excitedly. She called out to her Assistant Chief, "Oh, Vanessa! Look! We have a guest! Are we at a point that we can pay attention to something other than data? I mean, I know that we have a few things going on but apparently this fine young man wants our help for the Captain!"

James could not believe what he was seeing and trying to follow the logic was almost enough to give him a headache. "The captain would like us to work together to formulate a plan in order to help the people on the planet below us. I need your help to determine how many atmo scrubbers we need and how they should be deployed. My department can build them and deploy them we just need the where and how many." Said James as calmly as he could he seemed to remember one thing about Tygarians and that was they were easily excitable.

"Atmo scrubbers?! Oh! Right! I think I was working on those. We were working on those, weren't we, Lieutenant Jackson?" Amelix asked her Assistant Chief. "I'm pretty sure that was one of the projects we had going in addition to the sorting out the transporter beam issues. Yes, that was what again?" She rushed over to a console and said, "It was my understanding that we were going to allow the people to clean their own atmosphere. Is that not right, Vanessa?"

"We talked about the placement of the scrubbers and how many we'll need," Vanessa said from one of the other computers. "That was one of the options the Captain was going to offer the Mentarins. The transporter problem is first. The colonists have to change the way they mine in order to stop the pollution, but the scrubbers will help ease the problem while we work on long-term solutions." She gave the man an empathetic smile. Meeting Amelix for the first time was definitely an experience.

"See! We have everything well in hand!" Amelix exclaimed happily. "From what my last data showed, I think that one scrubber every 200 kilometers should do it! So, let's see, what was the planet's diameter again?" Amelix tsked and then asked Vanessa, "What was it again?! Oh, and make sure not to drop the biosulphuric solution! That could have rather unfortunate effects!"

Vanessa turned back to her console and pulled up the data on the planet and sent it to Amelix' console. "There it is." She wasn't going to comment on the biosulphuric solution. She hadn't dropped anything since her first year in college, and that was only a cleaning solution.

James was just watching the byplay between the two officers and found rather quickly that this was not a normal tennis match between the two but more like a zero G three ball tennis match he was so far out of his depth that he was having a hard time just keeping the conversation straight in his head. Though at least he had an idea now it was looking like it would take a couple thousand scrubbers to do the job but he needed the exact number so he waited and watched the match play out

"We have done a preliminary analysis of the atmosphere and what we need short term and over time," Vanessa continued. "Here's that data, too." She sent that, as well, to Amelix' computer. She turned to Lieutenant Wayne and gave him a sympathetic smile. "Just waiting for the Chief to give the final word."

"Which word is that?" Amelix replied with a toothy grin.

Vanessa grinned back. "Concur, authorize, approve, take your pick."

"Come on! Come on! A little humor here and there is good for you!" the Tygarian proclaimed. "Seems that we will need 2137 scrubbers. That will give us approximately 26.389 cleaner atmosphere in the short term. Too much more than that might be a shock to the inhabitants' system, anyways. They're used to breathing in all that yucky stuff. Can you imagine?!" She looked over at Vanessa and then at James. "You would think that they would take better care of their planet! Such a shame! Such a shame! I bet it could be rather beautiful. I wonder what effect all of our work will have on not only the environment but other species. We could be giving a distinct advantage to previously disadvantaged species that had adapted to this yucky environment, you know."

James had a feeling Amelix was about to go off on another tangent. "Thanks for the information once we get approval from the planet and get the scrubbers built I will be wanting to meet again to discuss placement and the like," James said calmly as he headed for the door and away from the bonkers chief science officer.

"Wonderful!" Amelix called after James. "I'm sure that we will think of all sorts of improvements by the time that you get back!" the Tygarian called to James' back.

'Oh ruddy hell what have I gotten myself into.'. Thought James as he walked to the lift and back to engineering

When James had left, Amelix turned to Vanessa and said, "I think that we need to bring him here more often, don't you? Seems quite competent, though a little too serious! We need to help him put a little fun in life! After all, it is all about exploring and experimenting, right?!"