Season 16: Episode 2: A Night at the Opera

[Rayek trLhoell]

Commander Rayek tr'Lhoell
[Erewhon - Transport Site]

Rayek waited expectantly for an answer to this question; while he waited, Ramort pressed the hologram more.

[Erewhon | Landing Site]

"On which grounds do you hold us here? We are free citizens requesting the right to exercise our freedom to return to our duties on our Ship."

To this query and statement, T'Sana looked to Ramort.  "This is Lyssarian territory.  Your free citizenry to the Federation means little here, if you do not have the means to pay your fees or abide by our laws.  You would expect the same if we were in your territory."

.

[USS Discovery|Bridge]

"Sir, I've lost the connection," she said. Dammit. "Wait....the shuttle," she said, mostly to herself. She clicked some buttons. "That's it!! I am in," she said. "The interface from the shuttle is slightly more stable...because it's still docked inside, the radiation isn't affecting it as much," she said. She could, hopefully, bounce the signals off. "I will try to contact Commander tr'Lhoell," she said. She issued a "comms" call over the transmitter, that would, hopefully, go directly into the Commander's ear, if not to the rest. "We're working to get you out. I can't receive, just send. Stand by...don't do anything I would do."

"Captain, anything you want me to relay before I lose the signal? I can tap into their general planet-wide system for at least thirty-five seconds..." that's how long it took for them to kick her out last time.

Rayek tilted his head slightly as he listened to the voice in his ear.  Her instruction was an easy thing to accomplish since he doubted he would ever have the same response to a situation as she.  Still it was reassuring that the Bajoran was one of those working on the problem.

[T'Rea]

"I'll reroute any extra power to you," she said, pressing buttons.

While waiting for that analysis to complete she could turn her attention back to Rajagopalan's request. Almost immediately she was able to recognize the problem--data was coming in through the forward sensor array and auxiliary sensors at a rate faster than the processing script could reconstruct outputs, which meant they were progressively falling behind real time readings... She started to check through the algorithm, trying to find the bottlenecks and either simplifying the requested computation or rewriting it to be more efficient. It had been a very long time since her coding and computation skills had gotten this intense of a workout, but the more she worked, the smoother it seemed to go, and she did her best to briefly explain her updates to the Ensign, "Here I applied the Jacobian, and here I made use of Satak's theorem to cut down on the number of operations required. If I check the timings again---yes, it's fast enough to keep up with the high frequency frame rate now.  If you reinitialize the script you'll be able to see the latest outputs in real time." She just dearly hoped they'd be able to learn something immediately applicable from it.

[Ensign Rajagopalan]
[USS Discovery | Deck 1 | Bridge | Science Station 1]

"Thanks T'Rea, I'll give it a try." Rajagopalan answered. He had used the last few minutes to prepare the full catalogue of known decay signatures for all known subatomic particles. As soon as he got the renewed feed of data through on the bridge console he began a check against the catalogue and watched as the computer spit out a list of probably matches and percent certainty of each match.

"Captain, I can confirm the presence of hyper-energons." It was at the top of the list with a 96% certainty. "This variety seem to carry energy between 4 to 8 electron volts. That's the right range for any number of molecular bonds in the hull material--tritanium bonds are right in the middle of that range, so it will be particularly vulnerable.

"Rajagoplan to Kedan. I'm sending the energy distribution of observered hyper-energons your way. I recommend you check the peaks against the bond dissociation energies of the most common hull materials. They'll be most vulnerable, if there's anything you can do to stabilize those bonds specifically."

Even as he was still speaking, his eyes were skimming through the rest of the list. The percent certainty value next to the second particle on the list had been climbing steadily and had now crossed over the 80% certainly threshold. High enough to report. He kept the comm channel open with Kedan so he would be able to hear the same report he announced to the bridge. "I also seem to be detecting subquantum pulses." He hadn't been able to seen them before--at least pushing the sensor frequency to it's limits had paid off! "I'm not sure if our energy shields can catch that kind of ultra-short time scale burst without modification." But he certainly wasn't an engineer (or a particle physicist for that matter). Instead, he forwarded all the spectral details he had for the pulses to Kedan, M'Nia, and McNair in addition to displaying it on one of the bridge's forward displays for anyone here to see.

When he glanced up to check that the information was displayed properly his eyes couldn't help but slide to the radiation exposure display nearby and he found himself nervously glancing between it, T'Rea on his right, and the Captain on his left---Their total received dose since arriving in this system was still a fair way below lethal, but it was creeping up into the range for radiation sickness now. And considering the rate at which they had accumulated the dose was also high, more sensitive members of the crew would likely start to display symptoms any minute, if it hadn't already begun. He swallowed heavily. Was he nauseous or was that just his mind playing tricks on him? How much of the remaining 30 minutes would they actually be able to use?

[James Ramort]

Commander Rayek tr'Lhoell
[Erewhon - Transport Site]

Rayek waited expectantly for an answer to this question; while he waited, Ramort pressed the hologram more.

To this query and statement, T'Sana looked to Ramort.  "This is Lyssarian territory.  Your free citizenry to the Federation means little here, if you do not have the means to pay your fees or abide by our laws.  You would expect the same if we were in your territory."

.
[...]

[Lt. Jg. James Ramort]
[Erewhon | Landing Site]

Her refusal was... quite clear. They were not allowed to leave. And once again. Her choice of words was telling. Their rights were not respected here.

Of course, she was correct. They had entered foreign ground and now were subject to their laws. Between the established powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, there were treaties that dealt with the status of Diplomats. Extending traditions from earth and many other cultures, they offered special rights and protections to travelling diplomats and created what essentially were legal bubbles around them. Creating a special status shielding them from prosecution and prevented their holding.
As Officers of Star Fleet, they generally were authorized to handle First Contact Scenarios. Vital cornerstones of the diplomatic landscape of the galaxy. So they should have been protected by these treaties. But his culture didn't seem to respect these treaties. Since they had their database, they must have known about them. Still, they decided to not act according to them.

He had to find out if there even was a similar notion of diplomatic status here:

"Sorry, I meant no disrespect. If I might inquire, given we face a complexe legal situation here and we do not want to cause any further disturbances. Might I inquire about the legal status we currently find ourselves under?"

[Ensign Rajagopalan]
[USS Discovery | Deck 1 | Bridge | Science Station 1]

"Thanks T'Rea, I'll give it a try." Rajagopalan answered. He had used the last few minutes to prepare the full catalogue of known decay signatures for all known subatomic particles. As soon as he got the renewed feed of data through on the bridge console he began a check against the catalogue and watched as the computer spit out a list of probably matches and percent certainty of each match.

"Captain, I can confirm the presence of hyper-energons." It was at the top of the list with a 96% certainty. "This variety seem to carry energy between 4 to 8 electron volts. That's the right range for any number of molecular bonds in the hull material--tritanium bonds are right in the middle of that range, so it will be particularly vulnerable.

"Rajagoplan to Kedan. I'm sending the energy distribution of observered hyper-energons your way. I recommend you check the peaks against the bond dissociation energies of the most common hull materials. They'll be most vulnerable, if there's anything you can do to stabilize those bonds specifically."

Even as he was still speaking, his eyes were skimming through the rest of the list. The percent certainty value next to the second particle on the list had been climbing steadily and had now crossed over the 80% certainly threshold. High enough to report. He kept the comm channel open with Kedan so he would be able to hear the same report he announced to the bridge. "I also seem to be detecting subquantum pulses." He hadn't been able to seen them before--at least pushing the sensor frequency to it's limits had paid off! "I'm not sure if our energy shields can catch that kind of ultra-short time scale burst without modification." But he certainly wasn't an engineer (or a particle physicist for that matter). Instead, he forwarded all the spectral details he had for the pulses to Kedan, M'Nia, and McNair in addition to displaying it on one of the bridge's forward displays for anyone here to see.

When he glanced up to check that the information was displayed properly his eyes couldn't help but slide to the radiation exposure display nearby and he found himself nervously glancing between it, T'Rea on his right, and the Captain on his left---Their total received dose since arriving in this system was still a fair way below lethal, but it was creeping up into the range for radiation sickness now. And considering the rate at which they had accumulated the dose was also high, more sensitive members of the crew would likely start to display symptoms any minute, if it hadn't already begun. He swallowed heavily. Was he nauseous or was that just his mind playing tricks on him? How much of the remaining 30 minutes would they actually be able to use?

[Ensign Kedan]
[USS Discovery | Deck 5 | Auxiliary Engineering]

"Thank you, Ensign, we will get to work on this asap. Keep us advised if you find any more details. Every little bit might help. Any chance you could find any patterns in the waves of Energons hitting us?" 

The screen in front of him began showing lines upon lines of readings. Models showed dissolving atomic bonds. Splitting apart after being excited to such a high degree by the incoming particles and radiation that the previous rigid bonds that were the only separation between their feeble carbon bodies and the emptiness of space around them. Their time was really running out.

Seeing no other way he began the first simulations. He couldn't know what held up the others in his team but he needed to be able to present something to the captain at last.

[Buck McNair]

[USS Discovery | Bridge]

Vila simply nodded. "The transmitters are responding!" she called out. She sent the signals to the open channel. "Captain, to you," she said. "McNair, I'm sending it to you, too. Maybe you can interface it with whatever you have," she said, tapping out the commands quickly, staring straight ahead-focused.

"Thank you, Lorut." Buck replied as he pulled the signals up to his own work station. It was a bit out of his league, and he could manage with rudimentary sciences that the Academy had taught him but he hoped that all the data lined up - or at the very least made sense.

[USS Discovery - Deck 1 - Main Bridge]
Before the Captain could really respond to the Bridge, the comms cracked and he heard the away team. He frowned, and answered.
"Be advised Away Team, we have reason to believe the facilitators have ulterior motives.  We are about to be forced to dock. We do not yet have a way to withstand the increasing radiation in the system and our shields are close to failing.  If we are forced to the station, we will continue work to break us all out of here."
He turned to the bridge. "Good work, Lorut. For the probe, to silence it, use the observation protocols. We can coordina-"
WARNING, deflective shield failure. Radiation levels rising.  Lethal levels in 30 minutes.
".. of course we are losing time. Even in the shadow of the planet.  Mr Graham, plot a route to dock with the station. Mr. McNair, we are running out of options.  Have we tried attuning our shield's frequency to match the radiation?"

Well.

That wasn't a good sign.

Lethal levels in thirty minutes and they were already cutting into precious time. Buck's jaw clenched as he tried to think his way out of this. "It's worth a shot, cap'n," Buck ruminated, glancing over at the captain with a look that said he would just about try any good idea at this point. He began to bring up the shield frequency, getting a lock on it as he studied it and the radiation data that they had so far. "Well here goes nothing." He pressed a couple of commands on his work station and held his breath, wondering whether the frequencies would match or they'd land in deeper trouble.

"Should be able to match in a few minutes, according to our data."

[Ensign Kedan]
[USS Discovery | Deck 5 | Auxiliary Engineering]
Thus having his station prepared he called out for the rest of the Team.
"Kedan to M'Nia and McNair, I set up a work station for us in Auxiliary Engineering. Please report to Deck 5 for shield reconfiguration."

Ensign, I'm en route.

Buck looked over to the rest of the bridge team, excusing himself as he transported his way down to Deck 5.

[USS Discovery | Deck 5 - auxillary engineering]

"Very unstable," Vila replied, tightly. "The radiation and distance are really doing a number on the connection," she said. It frustrated her, but she was smart and resilient. "I am going as fast as I can. McNair, how're you doing?" She asked.

No sooner had he arrived in the makeshift work station, he had been hailed by Lorut, asking for an update. "Standby Lorut, just got down to Deck 5," Buck brought out his PADD to see how his previous work was coming along. "In relation to the matching frequencies, it should be all matched. At least that's what my PADD is showing me, please advise if it is not the case."

With that out of the way, Buck turned to Kedan and raised a brow. "So, what do we have so far? What can we do with the time we've got?"

[Lek]

[Lt. Jg. James Ramort]
[Erewhon | Landing Site]

Her refusal was... quite clear. They were not allowed to leave. And once again. Her choice of words was telling. Their rights were not respected here.

Of course, she was correct. They had entered foreign ground and now were subject to their laws. Between the established powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, there were treaties that dealt with the status of Diplomats. Extending traditions from earth and many other cultures, they offered special rights and protections to travelling diplomats and created what essentially were legal bubbles around them. Creating a special status shielding them from prosecution and prevented their holding.
As Officers of Star Fleet, they generally were authorized to handle First Contact Scenarios. Vital cornerstones of the diplomatic landscape of the galaxy. So they should have been protected by these treaties. But his culture didn't seem to respect these treaties. Since they had their database, they must have known about them. Still, they decided to not act according to them.

He had to find out if there even was a similar notion of diplomatic status here:

"Sorry, I meant no disrespect. If I might inquire, given we face a complexe legal situation here and we do not want to cause any further disturbances. Might I inquire about the legal status we currently find ourselves under?"

[Erewhon - Transport Site]

Lek listened to Ramort's exchange and the final piece of the puzzle dropped into place. While he said he wouldn't offer his opinion unless someone asked for it, but he couldn't hold this in. He turned to the human, figuring as long as he didn't talk to Rayek, he was keeping his word.

"I think I get their angle here. This is all a con. They invite you here, create an 'offense', then shake you down for 'fees or fines', It's an old scam, real old. Thing is, a contract is an agreement, we never agreed to anything since their rules were impossible for our eyes to see, so there couldn't be an agreement, so their scam is nothing but air. We are not subject to their rules and we are being detained extra-legally."

[Rayek trLhoell]

Commander Rayek tr'Lhoell
[Erewhon - Transport Site]

[Lt. Jg. James Ramort]
[Erewhon | Landing Site]

Her refusal was... quite clear. They were not allowed to leave. And once again. Her choice of words was telling. Their rights were not respected here.

Of course, she was correct. They had entered foreign ground and now were subject to their laws. Between the established powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, there were treaties that dealt with the status of Diplomats. Extending traditions from earth and many other cultures, they offered special rights and protections to travelling diplomats and created what essentially were legal bubbles around them. Creating a special status shielding them from prosecution and prevented their holding.
As Officers of Star Fleet, they generally were authorized to handle First Contact Scenarios. Vital cornerstones of the diplomatic landscape of the galaxy. So they should have been protected by these treaties. But his culture didn't seem to respect these treaties. Since they had their database, they must have known about them. Still, they decided to not act according to them.

He had to find out if there even was a similar notion of diplomatic status here:

"Sorry, I meant no disrespect. If I might inquire, given we face a complex legal situation here and we do not want to cause any further disturbances. Might I inquire about the legal status we currently find ourselves under?"

The hologram T'Sana regarded Ramort with a peaceable smile once more.  "At present, because of the issue with the unreadable Terms of Service and the incident involving the insult to the other Guest, your group's status is currently under review and on hold.  You are not under arrest, but we require you remain here as we cannot risk more members of your group causing disruption to our paying Guests."

[Erewhon - Transport Site]

Lek listened to Ramort's exchange and the final piece of the puzzle dropped into place. While he said he wouldn't offer his opinion unless someone asked for it, but he couldn't hold this in. He turned to the human, figuring as long as he didn't talk to Rayek, he was keeping his word.

"I think I get their angle here. This is all a con. They invite you here, create an 'offense', then shake you down for 'fees or fines', It's an old scam, real old. Thing is, a contract is an agreement, we never agreed to anything since their rules were impossible for our eyes to see, so there couldn't be an agreement, so their scam is nothing but air. We are not subject to their rules and we are being detained extra-legally."

The hologram seemed to take interest in Lek's words to Ramort.  She didn't argue his statements, she just listened before turning to Rayek.  "We appreciate your patience and will inform you of the Facility Manager's decision as soon as it is determined."

Rayek shook his head.  "That's not good enough.  I think it would be beneficial for both our peoples for us to meet with the Facility Manager in person.  Please, make that arrangement."

[Lorut Vila]

{USS Discovery| Bridge}

The Ops officer was nearly bested. NEARLY. But she wasn't one to give up so fast. Just as fast as she'd connect to a signal, she'd lose it. She had tried all the tricks she knew, and even some she didn't, but had thought up in that very moment. She didn't do well with situations she couldn't a)code or b) shoot her way out of.

Maybe Malik or tr'Lhoell had learned something from her, and would use a small bit of force in the form of phaser fire against their holographic captors. Yeah, yeah, it was supposed to be a first contact situation, but the needs of the few and all that, or whatever it was. Bullshit is what it was-the greater good had never included HER or her people, after all. She was dwelling.

She looked to the Captain for orders as McNair spoke.

"Thank you, Lorut...Standby Lorut, just got down to Deck 5...In relation to the matching frequencies, it should be all matched. At least that's what my PADD is showing me, please advise if it is not the case.

She glanced at her own console. =/\=You did well. Thank you. she said. She clicked off.

"Sir, what now?" She asked, trying her best to keep the frustration out of her voice but if he didn't make a call in the next twenty seconds, SHE would. And everyone on that ship knew that if Lorut made her own calls, intergalactic war could very well break out.

"Science, how's that probe coming? I am going to lose the connection any second," she said, trying to sound calm but urgent instead of the "slightly annoyed and panicked" she actually felt.

[T'Rea]

[Ensign Kedan]
[USS Discovery | Deck 5 | Auxiliary Engineering]
"Thank you, Ensign, we will get to work on this asap. Keep us advised if you find any more details. Every little bit might help. Any chance you could find any patterns in the waves of Energons hitting us?" 

The screen in front of him began showing lines upon lines of readings. Models showed dissolving atomic bonds. Splitting apart after being excited to such a high degree by the incoming particles and radiation that the previous rigid bonds that were the only separation between their feeble carbon bodies and the emptiness of space around them. Their time was really running out.

Seeing no other way he began the first simulations. He couldn't know what held up the others in his team but he needed to be able to present something to the captain at last.

[USS Discovery | Deck 1 | Bridge | Science Station 1]
Both scientists were listening intently to Ensign Kedan across the comm and at his request Rajagopalan sent a meaningful glance in T'Rea's direction and she gave a nod of acknowledgement, "T'Rea's checking it now," Rajagopalan promised even as he watched the percent certainty of subquantum pulses displayed on his screen tick passed the 95% threshold and turn green on his display. The corresponding improvement in statistics also enabled the automatic generation of a number of associated properties. "In the meantime, I'm sending some additional info on the subquantum pulses. Their resonant frequencies are inherently random, but I'm feeding you the histogram of observed of pulse durations, if it's useful in adjusting energy shield parameters."

"Science, how's that probe coming? I am going to lose the connection any second," she said, trying to sound calm but urgent instead of the "slightly annoyed and panicked" she actually felt.

As if  queued by the Lieutenant's question, T'Rea received a call in report from M'ura informing her that the requested basic probe was prepared with lead shielding and loaded into a deck 5 launch tube. "Crewman M'ura reports that probe as loaded and ready to launch from tube 5P7, sir," she reported, deciding it was better not to mention that it was mostly luck that lead-lead bonds of the privative added shielding had turned out to be at the lower tail of the observed energy distributions of hyper-energons. It should indeed be enough to give the probe better longevity against that particular variety of radiation than the many other less-protected probes they had been utilizing up till now---even if it extremely limited the probe's other capabilities.

Information relayed, she turned her attention back to her console to try and assess the ebb and flow of hyper-energons concentrations over time as Kedan had requested. She quickly decided it was in fact the ultra-low-frequency/long timescale intensity changes they were most interested in, and now that she knew what to look for, they had a several hours worth of data she could down-sample and fit. She'd use a starting guess of 0.5 mHz in the fitting script... but the thought was momentarily interrupted by a quiet chirp from the console---her analysis of the shuttle's full scan dataset of the station shielding frequencies had either completed or self-terminated in an error state. "Ensign Rajagopalan, can you check on the shuttle dataset analysis?"

[Rayek trLhoell]

Commander Rayek tr'Lhoell
[Erewhon - Transport Site >>> Administration Waiting Room]

Rayek shook his head.  "That's not good enough.  I think it would be beneficial for both our peoples for us to meet with the Facility Manager in person.  Please, make that arrangement."

The hologram paused for a moment during which time Rayek was certain that T'Sana contacted the Facility Manager.

His certainty was proved correct as a minute later T'Sana announced.  "The Facility Manager has agreed to meet with you and your group. Hold still for transport."

And with that as the only warning, the Away Team suddenly found themselves caught up in a transporter beam and materializing a moment later in a pristine white waiting room. Not unlike in design or appearance as the Erewhon station's arrival area.  Were they back on the station? In an administration area perhaps?

[Tekin Nevir]

[Ensign Rajagopalan]
[USS Discovery | Deck 1 | Bridge | Science Station 1]

"Thanks T'Rea, I'll give it a try." Rajagopalan answered. He had used the last few minutes to prepare the full catalogue of known decay signatures for all known subatomic particles. As soon as he got the renewed feed of data through on the bridge console he began a check against the catalogue and watched as the computer spit out a list of probably matches and percent certainty of each match.

"Captain, I can confirm the presence of hyper-energons." It was at the top of the list with a 96% certainty. "This variety seem to carry energy between 4 to 8 electron volts. That's the right range for any number of molecular bonds in the hull material--tritanium bonds are right in the middle of that range, so it will be particularly vulnerable.

"Rajagoplan to Kedan. I'm sending the energy distribution of observered hyper-energons your way. I recommend you check the peaks against the bond dissociation energies of the most common hull materials. They'll be most vulnerable, if there's anything you can do to stabilize those bonds specifically."

Even as he was still speaking, his eyes were skimming through the rest of the list. The percent certainty value next to the second particle on the list had been climbing steadily and had now crossed over the 80% certainly threshold. High enough to report. He kept the comm channel open with Kedan so he would be able to hear the same report he announced to the bridge. "I also seem to be detecting subquantum pulses." He hadn't been able to seen them before--at least pushing the sensor frequency to it's limits had paid off! "I'm not sure if our energy shields can catch that kind of ultra-short time scale burst without modification." But he certainly wasn't an engineer (or a particle physicist for that matter). Instead, he forwarded all the spectral details he had for the pulses to Kedan, M'Nia, and McNair in addition to displaying it on one of the bridge's forward displays for anyone here to see.

When he glanced up to check that the information was displayed properly his eyes couldn't help but slide to the radiation exposure display nearby and he found himself nervously glancing between it, T'Rea on his right, and the Captain on his left---Their total received dose since arriving in this system was still a fair way below lethal, but it was creeping up into the range for radiation sickness now. And considering the rate at which they had accumulated the dose was also high, more sensitive members of the crew would likely start to display symptoms any minute, if it hadn't already begun. He swallowed heavily. Was he nauseous or was that just his mind playing tricks on him? How much of the remaining 30 minutes would they actually be able to use?

[USS Discovery | Bridge]

"Thank you, Lorut." Buck replied as he pulled the signals up to his own work station. It was a bit out of his league, and he could manage with rudimentary sciences that the Academy had taught him but he hoped that all the data lined up - or at the very least made sense.

Well.

That wasn't a good sign.

Lethal levels in thirty minutes and they were already cutting into precious time. Buck's jaw clenched as he tried to think his way out of this. "It's worth a shot, cap'n," Buck ruminated, glancing over at the captain with a look that said he would just about try any good idea at this point. He began to bring up the shield frequency, getting a lock on it as he studied it and the radiation data that they had so far. "Well here goes nothing." He pressed a couple of commands on his work station and held his breath, wondering whether the frequencies would match or they'd land in deeper trouble.

"Should be able to match in a few minutes, according to our data."

Ensign, I'm en route.

Buck looked over to the rest of the bridge team, excusing himself as he transported his way down to Deck 5.

[USS Discovery | Deck 5 - auxillary engineering]

No sooner had he arrived in the makeshift work station, he had been hailed by Lorut, asking for an update. "Standby Lorut, just got down to Deck 5," Buck brought out his PADD to see how his previous work was coming along. "In relation to the matching frequencies, it should be all matched. At least that's what my PADD is showing me, please advise if it is not the case."

With that out of the way, Buck turned to Kedan and raised a brow. "So, what do we have so far? What can we do with the time we've got?"

{USS Discovery| Bridge}

The Ops officer was nearly bested. NEARLY. But she wasn't one to give up so fast. Just as fast as she'd connect to a signal, she'd lose it. She had tried all the tricks she knew, and even some she didn't, but had thought up in that very moment. She didn't do well with situations she couldn't a)code or b) shoot her way out of.

Maybe Malik or tr'Lhoell had learned something from her, and would use a small bit of force in the form of phaser fire against their holographic captors. Yeah, yeah, it was supposed to be a first contact situation, but the needs of the few and all that, or whatever it was. Bullshit is what it was-the greater good had never included HER or her people, after all. She was dwelling.

She looked to the Captain for orders as McNair spoke.

She glanced at her own console. =/\=You did well. Thank you. she said. She clicked off.

"Sir, what now?" She asked, trying her best to keep the frustration out of her voice but if he didn't make a call in the next twenty seconds, SHE would. And everyone on that ship knew that if Lorut made her own calls, intergalactic war could very well break out.

"Science, how's that probe coming? I am going to lose the connection any second," she said, trying to sound calm but urgent instead of the "slightly annoyed and panicked" she actually felt.

[USS Discovery | Deck 1 | Bridge | Science Station 1]
Both scientists were listening intently to Ensign Kedan across the comm and at his request Rajagopalan sent a meaningful glance in T'Rea's direction and she gave a nod of acknowledgement, "T'Rea's checking it now," Rajagopalan promised even as he watched the percent certainty of subquantum pulses displayed on his screen tick passed the 95% threshold and turn green on his display. The corresponding improvement in statistics also enabled the automatic generation of a number of associated properties. "In the meantime, I'm sending some additional info on the subquantum pulses. Their resonant frequencies are inherently random, but I'm feeding you the histogram of observed of pulse durations, if it's useful in adjusting energy shield parameters."
As if  queued by the Lieutenant's question, T'Rea received a call in report from M'ura informing her that the requested basic probe was prepared with lead shielding and loaded into a deck 5 launch tube. "Crewman M'ura reports that probe as loaded and ready to launch from tube 5P7, sir," she reported, deciding it was better not to mention that it was mostly luck that lead-lead bonds of the privative added shielding had turned out to be at the lower tail of the observed energy distributions of hyper-energons. It should indeed be enough to give the probe better longevity against that particular variety of radiation than the many other less-protected probes they had been utilizing up till now---even if it extremely limited the probe's other capabilities.

Information relayed, she turned her attention back to her console to try and assess the ebb and flow of hyper-energons concentrations over time as Kedan had requested. She quickly decided it was in fact the ultra-low-frequency/long timescale intensity changes they were most interested in, and now that she knew what to look for, they had a several hours worth of data she could down-sample and fit. She'd use a starting guess of 0.5 mHz in the fitting script... but the thought was momentarily interrupted by a quiet chirp from the console---her analysis of the shuttle's full scan dataset of the station shielding frequencies had either completed or self-terminated in an error state. "Ensign Rajagopalan, can you check on the shuttle dataset analysis?"

[USS Discovery - Deck 1 - Main Bridge]

As the bridge worked, the Captain glanced down at his hand.  A legion was forming on the back of it; a telltale sign of radiation poisoning.  The Bridge was on the outside layer; above them was hull plating and then space.  Even if there wasn't a total collapse, levels rose on the bridge just simply due to proximity.

As McNair put in his newest changes, the shields around the ship crackled as they tried to adjust to the new frequency. The Captain looked over at the schematics where an estimated countdown clock was showing.  He watched their remaining time dip down, and then back up, and then slow... but it was still counting down.

"Bridge to McNair... it worked for a bit, but then the frequency changed again.  I think the frequencies are changing too fast, and our shields were not designed to rotate that quickly.  Even the Borg protocols can't compensate.  It just takes too long for our shields to compensate, and by the time it does, the frequency is moving on."

He frowned, but looked at the counter again.  Their time was just about up.  "Lorut, unlock the armories and get security armed.  We may have actual company after we dock, and I'm too burnt to play nice."

"Helm... take us in.  Emergency docking procedures." he stated, tapping the all comm.

"All hands, this is the Captain.  Our attempts to shield ourselves from the radiation have failed, and we do not have enough time to try and get away from the system, nor are we going to abandon our crew.  I have made the decision to dock at the station.  I am well aware that this may be a trap anyway, but the alternative is losing the crew, who frankly are more important than the ship.  Once we dock, I am ordering the evacuation of Discovery to the station.  Security, be on heightened alert. Our goal once we are on the station is to find out how they repel the radiation and apply it to our ship.  Good luck to you all.  Bridge out."

Finally, he tapped his comm for the away team. There was no guarantee they would hear him, but he had to try.  "Discovery to away team. Shields are on the verge of collapse.  I am bringing Discovery in to dock, and we will handle whatever these Erewhons want to throw at us."

[USS Discovery | Deck 1 | Bridge | Science Station 1]
Both scientists were listening intently to Ensign Kedan across the comm and at his request Rajagopalan sent a meaningful glance in T'Rea's direction and she gave a nod of acknowledgement, "T'Rea's checking it now," Rajagopalan promised even as he watched the percent certainty of subquantum pulses displayed on his screen tick passed the 95% threshold and turn green on his display. The corresponding improvement in statistics also enabled the automatic generation of a number of associated properties. "In the meantime, I'm sending some additional info on the subquantum pulses. Their resonant frequencies are inherently random, but I'm feeding you the histogram of observed of pulse durations, if it's useful in adjusting energy shield parameters."
As if  queued by the Lieutenant's question, T'Rea received a call in report from M'ura informing her that the requested basic probe was prepared with lead shielding and loaded into a deck 5 launch tube. "Crewman M'ura reports that probe as loaded and ready to launch from tube 5P7, sir," she reported, deciding it was better not to mention that it was mostly luck that lead-lead bonds of the privative added shielding had turned out to be at the lower tail of the observed energy distributions of hyper-energons. It should indeed be enough to give the probe better longevity against that particular variety of radiation than the many other less-protected probes they had been utilizing up till now---even if it extremely limited the probe's other capabilities.

Information relayed, she turned her attention back to her console to try and assess the ebb and flow of hyper-energons concentrations over time as Kedan had requested. She quickly decided it was in fact the ultra-low-frequency/long timescale intensity changes they were most interested in, and now that she knew what to look for, they had a several hours worth of data she could down-sample and fit. She'd use a starting guess of 0.5 mHz in the fitting script... but the thought was momentarily interrupted by a quiet chirp from the console---her analysis of the shuttle's full scan dataset of the station shielding frequencies had either completed or self-terminated in an error state. "Ensign Rajagopalan, can you check on the shuttle dataset analysis?"

As the ship started making its way to the station, with the groans of hull microfracture echoing through the bulkheads, there was sensor data coming in from the shuttle. It appeared that there were multiple deflector emitters aimed at the planet, and while the standard graviton pulses were there, there was another signature as well:

Half of the deflectors were emitting exotic particles instead of gravitons.  The shields were multilayered!

[Lorut Vila]

{USS Discovery-Planet|bridge}

Lorut, unlock the armories and get security armed.  We may have actual company after we dock, and I'm too burnt to play nice.

"Aye, sir," she said. She rose, and headed for the armory, tapping her Comms as she did so. =/\=McNair, take over the Console, please. She clicked off, and then opened a second channel.

All security personnel, please report to the Armory. Another curt sign off. She waited a moment for them to arrive, and then armed herself, as well. She returned to the Bridge. "All security personnel are armed," she said, "and ready. If you need someone to go, I am prepared," she said, as well, hoping she wasn't too hopeful. She turned to Murphy. "Murphy, please be careful; the signals are already shaky," she said. She looked to the Captain. She felt the burns starting on her own body, but luckily, she had been through worse and could easily work with it.

"On your signal, I'll see if I can beam us out. Otherwise, we're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way." 

[Rayek trLhoell]

Commander Rayek tr'Lhoell
[Erewhon Station - Administration Waiting Room]

[USS Discovery - Deck 1 - Main Bridge]

Finally, he tapped his comm for the away team. There was no guarantee they would hear him, but he had to try.  "Discovery to away team. Shields are on the verge of collapse.  I am bringing Discovery in to dock, and we will handle whatever these Erewhons want to throw at us."

The doors at the far end of the waiting room had opened just moments before the Captain's voice was heard coming from Rayek's 'flip phone' communicator; muffled having been stuffed into his pants pocket.  Rayek quickly pulled the communicator out as the Captain spoke of the shields being on the verge of collapse.   He managed to open it and tap the privacy mode moments after the Captain mentioned bringing the Discovery in to dock.

Rayek listened to the rest privately, even as the rest of Away Team was being ushered into the room by T'Sana.  Rayek hung back to respond to the call.

Acknowledged, Captain. I believe we too are on the Erewhon station - about to meet with the Facility Manager, to discuss the legalities of the incident involving Commander Lek. I will report back to you with an update shortly. tr'Lhoell out."

He closed the phone and then followed the others into the Facility Manager's Office.

[James Ramort]

[USS Discovery | Bridge]

"Thank you, Lorut." Buck replied as he pulled the signals up to his own work station. It was a bit out of his league, and he could manage with rudimentary sciences that the Academy had taught him but he hoped that all the data lined up - or at the very least made sense.

Well.

That wasn't a good sign.

Lethal levels in thirty minutes and they were already cutting into precious time. Buck's jaw clenched as he tried to think his way out of this. "It's worth a shot, cap'n," Buck ruminated, glancing over at the captain with a look that said he would just about try any good idea at this point. He began to bring up the shield frequency, getting a lock on it as he studied it and the radiation data that they had so far. "Well here goes nothing." He pressed a couple of commands on his work station and held his breath, wondering whether the frequencies would match or they'd land in deeper trouble.

"Should be able to match in a few minutes, according to our data."

Ensign, I'm en route.

Buck looked over to the rest of the bridge team, excusing himself as he transported his way down to Deck 5.

[USS Discovery | Deck 5 - auxillary engineering]

No sooner had he arrived in the makeshift work station, he had been hailed by Lorut, asking for an update. "Standby Lorut, just got down to Deck 5," Buck brought out his PADD to see how his previous work was coming along. "In relation to the matching frequencies, it should be all matched. At least that's what my PADD is showing me, please advise if it is not the case."

With that out of the way, Buck turned to Kedan and raised a brow. "So, what do we have so far? What can we do with the time we've got?"

[Ensign Kedan]
[USS Discovery | Deck 5 | Auxiliary Engineering]

"The Waves are hitting us constantly. Their changing energy levels are preventing us from adapting quickly enough, resulting in enormous strain to the emitters. We are also reading intense stress levels in physical shielding. Almost as if the Energons hitting us are of quasi particular nature. I am working on a way to reflect them from the Hull. If we can catch them in the shield before they manage to polarize the hull we can prevent a lot of damage to our system."

Relieved to finally getting started he pulled up charts of the Energons hitting them. Their energy levels constantly climbing higher and higher on the charts into levels that should be impossible under their known framework of physics. Only to fall and then start climbing again. Repeating in seemingly random cycles and with frequencies changing between each pulse.
Their shields rising and adapting constantly only to be hit with a sharp fall off and being in the completely wrong frequency band again, letting critical amounts of radiation and particles hit their hull, penetrating deep into the ship. It also seemed like their shield grid was loosing more and more power as they orbited the star.

Scratching his head he thought for a second before suggesting:

"We have to separate this issue. We need to find a way to address the stark frequency shifts and somehow find a way to protect the grid against the draining effects of the Energons on the Emitters."

[Erewhon - Transport Site]

Lek listened to Ramort's exchange and the final piece of the puzzle dropped into place. While he said he wouldn't offer his opinion unless someone asked for it, but he couldn't hold this in. He turned to the human, figuring as long as he didn't talk to Rayek, he was keeping his word.

"I think I get their angle here. This is all a con. They invite you here, create an 'offense', then shake you down for 'fees or fines', It's an old scam, real old. Thing is, a contract is an agreement, we never agreed to anything since their rules were impossible for our eyes to see, so there couldn't be an agreement, so their scam is nothing but air. We are not subject to their rules and we are being detained extra-legally."

[Lt. Jg. James Ramort]
[Erewhon | Transport Site]

"I fear we are within their jurisdiction though and thus subject to their laws. Normally we should be able to expect them being interpreted in a way taking into account our missing familiarity with their legal norms, but it seems the do not extend such niceties to visitors like us."

[USS Discovery | Deck 1 | Bridge | Science Station 1]
Both scientists were listening intently to Ensign Kedan across the comm and at his request Rajagopalan sent a meaningful glance in T'Rea's direction and she gave a nod of acknowledgement, "T'Rea's checking it now," Rajagopalan promised even as he watched the percent certainty of subquantum pulses displayed on his screen tick passed the 95% threshold and turn green on his display. The corresponding improvement in statistics also enabled the automatic generation of a number of associated properties. "In the meantime, I'm sending some additional info on the subquantum pulses. Their resonant frequencies are inherently random, but I'm feeding you the histogram of observed of pulse durations, if it's useful in adjusting energy shield parameters."

[...]

Information relayed, she turned her attention back to her console to try and assess the ebb and flow of hyper-energons concentrations over time as Kedan had requested. She quickly decided it was in fact the ultra-low-frequency/long timescale intensity changes they were most interested in, and now that she knew what to look for, they had a several hours worth of data she could down-sample and fit. She'd use a starting guess of 0.5 mHz in the fitting script... but the thought was momentarily interrupted by a quiet chirp from the console---her analysis of the shuttle's full scan dataset of the station shielding frequencies had either completed or self-terminated in an error state. "Ensign Rajagopalan, can you check on the shuttle dataset analysis?"

[Ensign Kedan]
[USS Discovery | Deck 5 | Auxiliary Engineering]

"Thanks, I will integrate it into our models. I could also require some narrowed down scans of the particle bands. I have a suspicion that they might be hitting something. The Degradation on the Hull is simply too great."

Commander Rayek tr'Lhoell
[Erewhon - Transport Site >>> Administration Waiting Room]

The hologram paused for a moment during which time Rayek was certain that T'Sana contacted the Facility Manager.

His certainty was proved correct as a minute later T'Sana announced.  "The Facility Manager has agreed to meet with you and your group. Hold still for transport."

And with that as the only warning, the Away Team suddenly found themselves caught up in a transporter beam and materializing a moment later in a pristine white waiting room. Not unlike in design or appearance as the Erewhon station's arrival area.  Were they back on the station? In an administration area perhaps?

Commander Rayek tr'Lhoell
[Erewhon Station - Administration Waiting Room]

The doors at the far end of the waiting room had opened just moments before the Captain's voice was heard coming from Rayek's 'flip phone' communicator; muffled having been stuffed into his pants pocket.  Rayek quickly pulled the communicator out as the Captain spoke of the shields being on the verge of collapse.  He managed to open it and tap the privacy mode moments after the Captain mentioned bringing the Discovery in to dock.

Rayek listened to the rest privately, even as the rest of Away Team was being ushered into the room by T'Sana.  Rayek hung back to respond to the call.

Acknowledged, Captain. I believe we too are on the Erewhon station - about to meet with the Facility Manager, to discuss the legalities of the incident involving Commander Lek. I will report back to you with an update shortly. tr'Lhoell out."

He closed the phone and then followed the others into the Facility Manager's Office.

[Lt. Jg. James Ramort]
[Erewhon | Administrative Area]

The Transport had placed them in a brightly lit room, separated into multiple areas by semi-transparent walls.
Along the adjacent walls of the area, they were in right now, multiple chairs lined the walls. Their shapes were somewhat deformed to accommodate a different anatomy. Multiple holes hinted at a set of extremities much more numerous than the standard humanoid physique.

Besides themselves there were no other members of federation species present. Their own holo-disguises had also been deactivated, a hint that they had indeed left the areas of the complex that were meant to be frequented by guests. He suspected that to the eyes of their alien guests the walls bore signage or even art just beyond his spectrum of vision. So much lost, so much context missing.

Before his minds eye he drew up some plans for some glasses that integrated sensors for multispectral vision and would be able to project varying spectral bands onto their glasses, reminiscent to a now obsolete technology used to cure visual impairment, they could offer future cultural ambassadors a way to pick up all that now was lost to them.

"This room is too empty for my taste, where is everyone?"

While talking a door embedded into one of the semi-transparent panels opened. Prompting them to enter.

In the space behind, a large lifeform was occupying a similar chair to the ones in the other room. It was shimmering in purple hues as if its exterior was made up from a compound similar to chitin. Its bodyplan featured multiple tentacle like appendages. Its face, or what he assumed to be their face, taking biological projection bias into account, featured two large black eyes, almost glowing from within. The slow and measured movements performed by the appendages and the slight tilt of their head as the group entered suggested a high degree of self control and intelligence. Again, he reminded himself to not project his own biological bias upon an alien species.

"It is an honour to meet you. My name is Lieutenant Ramort from the United Federation of Planets and these are my superiors, Commander Lek and Commander trLhoell. Thank you for taking the time to meet us."

[James Ramort]

{USS Discovery-Planet|bridge}

"Aye, sir," she said. She rose, and headed for the armory, tapping her Comms as she did so. =/\=McNair, take over the Console, please. She clicked off, and then opened a second channel.

All security personnel, please report to the Armory. Another curt sign off. She waited a moment for them to arrive, and then armed herself, as well. She returned to the Bridge. "All security personnel are armed," she said, "and ready. If you need someone to go, I am prepared," she said, as well, hoping she wasn't too hopeful. She turned to Murphy. "Murphy, please be careful; the signals are already shaky," she said. She looked to the Captain. She felt the burns starting on her own body, but luckily, she had been through worse and could easily work with it.

"On your signal, I'll see if I can beam us out. Otherwise, we're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way."

[Petty Officer Zull]
[USS Discovery | Deck 4 | Section 19 | Weapons Storage]

PO Zull was standing guard outside the Primary Phaser Access Control when the Orders arrived. Following basic security protocols the entire team had been on alert anyway before and more personnel been posted in front of vital sections of the ship.
The Order for general mobilisation and to arm was just the next logical escalation as part of often rehearsed plans for emergencies.
She didn't know what caused the new emergency, but she didn't need to know either. If the Bridge had judged the situation an emergency, it had to be serious.

"Acknowledged, on route to the armory!"

Making sure her shift mate covered to not leave the station unguarded she began a quick sprint to the armory. Speed could be of the essence and she had to return to her station as soon as possible, and doing so while carrying not one but two standard issue phaser rifles.

Back at her station she waited for further orders. Not knowing what to prepare for made her nervous. There were numerous plans for what to prepare for. Some called for the preparation of a corridor defense, some for operation of the phaser controls manually, some for preparing to quickly reposition personell to prepare for a moving defense scenario. Now they were only awaiting the orders to set in motion the scenarios.

"Phaser Control to Bridge, Awaiting Orders for Setting up Security Measures." 

[Lek]

[Lt. Jg. James Ramort]
[Erewhon | Transport Site]

"I fear we are within their jurisdiction though and thus subject to their laws. Normally we should be able to expect them being interpreted in a way taking into account our missing familiarity with their legal norms, but it seems the do not extend such niceties to visitors like us."

[Erewhon - Transport Site]

Lek listened and couldn't believe these Hyoomons were being so spineless! Where are their backbones? Something is drastically wrong when it's the Ferengi arguing to be aggressive.

"We need to be prepared to fight with blistering fury. I will not walk into a cell without fighting."