Surgical Precision

Posted on Mon Apr 13, 2020 @ 11:05pm by Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes & Lieutenant Commander Arrda & The StoryTeller

Mission: The Nanjing
Location: Cargo Bay
Timeline: MD 2 || 0900 Hours

With a final nudge of adjustment to the tractor beam, Ensign Donatra Sine finished locking onto a prime piece of the former Borg Cube that looked the most intact of what was left of the wreckage. Sensor readings had indicated that the piece that they had selected still contained Delta Quadrant materials and it had been decided to pull that piece in for study.

"Ready to bring it into the bay on your mark," Donatra, a slim bald Deltan said demurely.

Arrda had stationed two guards outside of the bay, mostly to make sure that no one entered except for those who were authorized. That was himself, the tactical officer assigned to this research, someone named Henson, and Barnes. Now, he stood at the controls for the forcefield, eyes locked onto the information on that board. His hand hovered over the activator for the level ten forcefield and looked over to the Deltan woman. "Proceed."

A bulky Tactical officer named Henson with the rank of Lieutenant JG stood off to the side with a full array of weapons all pointed to the center of the cargo bay where the debris was to be set.

The Deltan nodded and being to tractor the debris in, careful to keep the beam steady as she reeled it in and set it down gently on the cargo bay floor. "Sample one, complete," she intoned.

As it touched down, Arrda erected the forcefield on all sides of the object. He didn't really want it touching the deck plating even, just in case. After all, they had no idea what had happened to the Borg cube, and he was doing his damnedest to not let it happen here. He then shifted his gaze to the scanner board while Barnes did a scan with his tricorder.

Tom, having arrived just a few minutes ago, pulled out his tricorder and activated it. He carefully approached the debris sample. Until today, he'd looked at the Borg as a far off adversary, one he never anticipated coming across despite how likely it actually was. Now, he was walking around carrying dormant nanoprobes. At least studying these scans during his upcoming dialysis would give him something to do.

"You can see where the common metals were," he remarked, pointing to impressions in the hull fragment where assimilated elements once were. "The tricorder doesn't recognize these materials, but it seems like some sort of dried paste or alloy. Taking random pieces of trash, from plastics to glass to others to create an outer protective shell."

Henson looked at the console and shook his head. "That thing is completely inanimate."

They arrived hungry and with only the most basic of instructions: Disperse. Consume. Multiply. Integrate. Their numbers were few—no more than a thousand. But that would soon change. Raw materials were everywhere. Iron, carbon, tungsten, monotanium, molybdenum . . . loose atoms of sustenance surrounded them.

"Confirmed," Tom said, getting up close and personal with a tricorder. "I'm not detecting any active Borg technology, nor am I detecting anything that could reanimate." Turning to the security chief, Tom asked, "What do you think, Commander? Not so menacing up close, are they?"

Arrda frowned, not so much at Barnes as at the situation in general. Alarms were screaming in the back of his head, telling him that there had to be something they weren't seeing, that this was too easy. But his long years of experience allowed him to silence those alarms, or at least hit the snooze button on them, and focus on what he could see.

Using the internal sensors, he scanned the debris currently within his forcefield. At first, nothing unusual, beyond what they had already discerned, showed. He narrowed the focus of the scan. And there it was. Anomaly. He frowned deeper.

"If the situation wasn't as it is, this would be fascinating," he murmured. "There are fracture points in the material. And in those places, the material wasn't just removed." His eyes came up and held each set in the room. "It was, in essence, surgically extracted."

Tom agreed with that assessment, though he lacked a method of which to comprehend it. "Extracted is right, but how exactly? Not even the finest transporter could beam elements right out of an alloy or matrix. Once they're fused, they're fused."

Arrda shrugged slightly and smiled even more slightly. "That's your department, isn't it?" he asked in a half-jest. "My job is to keep you safe while you do it." His expression became deadly serious then. "But to answer your question, no transporter we have or know of. But maybe we should do a sub-molecular scan of the material? Focus on those fracture points?" he suggested.

The engineer had been speaking rhetorically, but the security chief had a valid point. "Well, we won't be able to do a sub-molecular scan with a tricorder. We'll have to extract a sample and take it down to one of the science labs."

Tom shut off his tricorder and placed it into the holder hanging off his belt. "I'll go get a laser torch and start cutting away a few samples. In the meantime... a word of advice. Don't get too close to that thing."

The active scan by the humanoid bipedal being activated their own sensors and they rode the carrier beam to the tricorder with their own signals. From there, programs were accessed and launched.

Raw materials were everywhere. Iron, carbon, tungsten, monotanium, molybdenum . . . loose atoms of sustenance surrounded them. They broke off what they needed, shaped it to fit their programming, and put the particles back together according to a simple plan.

Nothing stood in their way as they spread apart, seeking out points of connection, all while continuing to devour and replicate themselves.

Henson did scans on other parts of the fragment, but came across something. "Sirs, are you noticing a pattern in the extraction?" he asked.

"A pattern?" Tom asked, picking up his torch. "If anything, the missing materials are common elements, which is odd considering they can be found almost anywhere out here."

"Look how smooth the surfaces are where the metals have been extracted," Henson said. "It's almost laser perfect."

"That hearkens back to the surgical comment Commander Arrda made," Tom remarked. "That can only mean that this wasn't done by hand. Whatever did this... it has some sort of extreme mechanical precision. And to do that to a Borg cube... I doubt even the Iconians had that sort of technology."

Tom paused. "You know... I wonder. Could we be dealing with some sort of inter-dimensional phenomena?"

"What about calling in the Lagashi?" Henson asked. "I heard she has a brain like a computer."

"That's because her brain is a computer," Tom flippantly remarked. "But I don't see what calling in Ensign Rivers will do. There's nothing on record that can remove materials at the molecular level, even in the Lagashi databases. The sooner we get these samples under a microscope we can start to get some answers... or at least the right questions to ask."

"Maybe send a sample of this back to Deep Space Ten and have them analyze it," Henson suggested. "They have more capabilities than a starship does."

"We can certainly do that," Tom remarked. He took his laser torch over to the piece of debris and began to carve out samples. "I'll cut out five for D-S-Ten, and then three for ourselves. The more eyes, the better."

"Then let's get it done and get out of here," Henson responded. "Being around this stuff gives me the creeps."

Tom activated the torch and began to cut. It was only then that he discovered how brittle the hull fragments were. "Oh my word," he observed. "This part will go pretty quick."

After a short time and several trial and error experiments, they were able to get the samples cut and secured.

"Now to start the analysis of the analysis and try to continue on," Henson said. "Ready to get this stuff out of here?"

"Very much so," Tom confirmed, placing the last of the samples meant for the starbase on an anti-gravity cart. "But I'm not looking forward to going to sickbay and getting rid of the rest of my Borg experience."

"Best of luck, Master Chief," Henson told him and meant it. "I wouldn't trade anything for your shoes, but I do wish you the best."

Arrda took time to ensure that the samples were as secure as he could make them. They were each separately put into secure cases. Those were then loaded onto two hover sleds. One was destined for S-Ten's lab, and the other would be taken to Science where it could be thoroughly examined. Each hover sled was then surrounded in a forcefield using miniature forcefield emitters placed on the four corners of each sled. He was taking no chances with these.

Finishing that, he looked up at Barnes. "I wish you the best in that too," he told the man sincerely. "But for now, these are as secure as I can make them. I suggest we move swiftly and get them into more secure locations for detailed analysis."

Tom nodded to the elder and much more senior officer. "Thank you, Commander. I'll see you on the bridge soon." With that, and a confident nod, Tom turned and departed the Cargo Bay, all the while considering what could have decimated a Borg cube so easily.