Lieutenant JG Alexander Dinoulis knelt against the carpet, steadying himself with one hand as he carefully ran the tricorder over the area where Daniel Ryan was last seen. Lieutenant Jorrell had promptly notified security when her companion had vanished, giving them a rare opportunity to study the scene before any potential clues could fade. She now hovered impatiently at the periphery of the security zone they had erected, speaking in low tones with Turek as her body language radiated her displeasure. Alexander did his best to ignore them, but he could not help but overhear a significant portion of their conversation as Rhianna's voice increased in volume.
"…I don't know, Turek. He wasn't exactly forthcoming. He looked pale, a little sick, but he didn't seem overly concerned by it. So I wasn't either. I'm not his mother."
Turek responded quietly, calmly ignoring the impatient tapping of her foot against the floor.
"No, I didn't notice any buzzing or humming when it happened. Nor did I hear any whining, crying, whistling or shrieking. Noone materialized to snatch him away. It was sudden. One minute we were talking, the next--he was gone. No warning." She said reluctantly. "I don’t know what else I can tell you."
"Thank you for your…assistance." Turek said dryly, clearly dismissing her as he stepped away.
Without bothering to reply, the unsmiling CEO turned on her heel and marched down the corridor, making a beeline for Main Engineering. Alexander averted his gaze to avoid eye contact with either party, becoming immediately transfixed by his tricorder. He stifled a surprised gasp as he registered the unexepected readings.
Immediately alert, Turek turned in his subordinate's direction with a questioning gaze.
"You have detected something." It was more a statement than a question.
Alexander nodded as the readings continued to rapidly flash across his screen.
"I'm registering unusual molecular displacement traces in the area where the Lieutenant last stood. They're slowly fading."
He looked up at last, handing Turek the tricorder. The Vulcan accepted it readily, pursing his lips as his eyes flew across the data. Dinoulis was right. The traces were rapidly becoming fainter. If they hadn't reacted as swiftly as they had to Jorrell's call, they might never have picked them up.
"Prepare a summary of your findings. We will alert the Captain together."
Pleased that his contribution might be important enough to be brought to the Captain's attention, he swiftly rose and left the continued search of the secured zone to the others, eager to begin his own analysis.
*************
"Are you alright?" Ari Denyri asked quietly as he materialized from the shadows of the office doorway, spilling light from the corridor into the darkened room.
Rhianna had been sitting at her desk, her cool hands a small comfort to the throbbing at her temples as she hid from the noise and chaos immediately outside. Insulated from the sound of tools, shouting and clattering equipment, she guiltily recalled Daniel Ryan's disappearance and her subsequent behavior with the Chief of Security. If she only felt better….if she could only concentrate…..
Realizing she was slow in responding to Ari's question, she sighed.
"I'm fine." She growled, irritated at his unwelcome interruption. She couldn't seem to find five minutes of peace today….five minutes without somebody wanting something…..five minutes to collect her thoughts.
She was exhausted. After successfully modifiying the deflector dish to enhance the ability of the short range sensors, she had hoped for a significant finding. Yet her work had yielded nothing. There was still nothing to be seen out there. She had given the Captain impulse power--not that it mattered. Prometheus wasn't going anywhere until they knew what happened to the others. Still, she immediately began work on bringing the warp engines back online. It was only after a wave of dizzyness had nearly overpowered her where she stood that she forced herself to retreat to her office. Temporarily. She had hoped noone had noticed her momentary weakness, but apparently her sharp eyed, busy body assistant had followed her. The nausea had been brief and infrequent in the beginning, but it had steadily increased to an almost intolerable level, giving her cheeks an unhealthy olive tinge.
"I think you should see a doctor." Ari announced in a voice that brooked no argument.
"I will." She said agreeably. "Once we can give warp 2."
Ari was saved from the inevitable argument to follow as the ship collided with another gravitational eddy, nearly knocking him off his feet. Rhianna wasn't so lucky. Caught off guard, she fell forward against the corner of her marble desk, it's sharp edge slicing cleanly into her forearm.
Once the tremors had ceased, Ari continued where he had left off.
"Let's go. I'll help you."
"I said I'm fine. Relax. If I feel sick enough, you know I'll go." Her attempts at reasonableness sounded false even to her own ears.
"Bull." He snorted. "Besides, I think Mirana should check out your hand. You're bleeding all over your paperwork." He said more gently.
Rhianna glanced down at the dark green droplets slowly pooling on her desk in surprise. Without protest, she allowed Ari to take her by the elbow and lead her from the room. Wordlessly, she followed him to Sickbay and remained unusually docile throughout her examination.
"How long have you felt this way?" Mirana Keset asked as she gently probed the engineer's forearm, repairing the superficial damage within minutes with a dermal regenerator. It was her other ailments that concerned the doctor. Although the symptoms themselves weren't unusual--she had dealt with scores of similar cases since Prometheus had entered the anomaly they were in--she was surprised that Rhianna had allowed things to get this bad before coming in.
"I don't remember." The engineer shrugged in response.
Mirana didn't respond, frowning instead at the results of the tricorder scan. She repeated the tests, hoping the machine was in error. There couldn't possibly be another explanation.
"Rhianna, this is important." She said tersely. "how long has it been since the nausea and dizzyness began?"
Before she could answer, Rhianna's eyes widened in dismay. A soft, strangled sound emanated from her throat as the roaring in her ears began.
Mirana grabbed for her wrists, but clutched futily at air as the other woman gazed at her in supplication and promptly vanished.
The doctor uttered an angry oath, glancing once more at her tricorder readings to assure herself she was correct, and activated her commbadge.
" Keset to the Captain. I need to see you."
***********
"Magnify." Mirana ordered.
The three dimentional molecule on the viewscreen rotated slowly as it simultaneously increased in size.
"This is glyceraldehyde." She paused as another molecule materialized beside it, a mirror image to its fellow.
"So is this. They are isomers."
The senior staff members who had assembled for her explanation remained silently puzzled, but Colin Becker interrupted impatiently.
"You'll have to explain, Doctor. I'm afraid I'm not up on my biochemistry."
"Isomers are molecules with the same structures and molecular formulas but with different spacial arrangements of atoms. They are often mirror images of each other."
Pointing to the first molecule, she continued.
"This is an L-isomer, meaning it has an arrangement of atoms attached to the left side of it. It's counterpart is a D-isomer. It has the same attachment of atoms to the right side of it."
The group regarded her silently, curious as to where she was going with this, and Mirana had every intention of obliging them.
"Glyceraldehyde is commonly found in the humanoid chemical structure. But only in D-isomer form. The biochemical make up of all humanoids is in D-isomer form. L-isomers of any type have never been found naturally in carbon based life forms. Yet Rhianna Jorrell's entire biochemical signature went from D to L-isomer form in the moments before she disappeared. That means that every atom and molecule in her body simultaneously rearranged themselves to form mirror images of the structures they should be. If I hadn't seen it myself I would assure you it was impossible."
She paused to allow this to sink in.
"Her entire biochemistry changed?" Mark O'Conner frowned, a hint of doubt in his voice.
"Apparently so. That might explain her nausea and dizzyness. Cross referencing my records, 73% of the crew members who came to Sickbay with similar symptoms in the past day or two are among the missing. Those that are still aboard have had an increase in symptoms."
Silently, she added, I should have seen the correlation earlier.
"Perhaps the same thing occurred to Lieutenant JG Ryan. We picked up molecular displacement traces when we searched the area he was last seen." Turek offered.
"Why haven't you picked them up before?" Colin asked.
"They fade quickly. Lieutenant Jorrell had the presence of mind to notify me within moments and we responded immediately. If she had delayed even a few minutes more, we would have missed them."
"You believe that there is phasic involvement?" Mark interrupted.
"Perhaps." Turek reluctantly conceded. "It would require further analysis."
Colin's expression hardened as he leaned forward across the table.
"Then analyze. We're closer now than we've ever been to an answer and we're not leaving this room until we have one."
***************
Fighting the disorientation that threatened to overwhelm her, Rhianna held onto the biobed she was sitting on for dear life. By the time the room had stopped spinning, she became aware that both Ari and Mirana were gone. As were most of the medical staff. A lone nurse stood quietly at her side, armed with several pieces of equipment and directly facing her across the biobed were Naeve Sevril and Daniel Ryan.
"What happened?" she asked, furrowing her brows in confusion.
Noone spoke until the nurse had run a tricorder over her and nodded in Naeve's direction.
"Good." Naeve said. "You've transitioned successfully."
"Transitioned?" Rhianna echoed.
Daniel grinned with obvious satisfaction, ignoring the engineer. "The sensor modifications worked."
He glanced in the nurse's direction.
"You'll notify one of us immediately if anyone else crosses over in Sickbay."
She murmured an affirmative reply as she left them, her mind already on other duties.
"What's going on here?" Rhianna demanded, the improbability of her situation dawning on her at last.
"Come on." Naeve took her arm. "We'll explain everything on the way to the science wing. We could use your help."
Rhianna allowed them to lead her down the corridor, secretly grateful for the physical assistance as her mind and body struggled to grasp the situation. They passed several people along the way--all crew that had been previously missing--but Naeve would not answer her questions until they had reached their destination.
As they entered the science wing,, Rhianna was startled by the sheer volume of crew members milling about the various stations with sheets of printouts, manuals, and tools. To her surprise, Ensign Lira Toket was directing a group of crewmen, waving an isolinear rod vigorously in the air to illustrate a point. Naeve tugged gently on her elbow and pointed to the far end of the room. They weaved through the masses, heading for a large console located there.
"Now." Naeve said, as she pressed several keys on the display before her. "Let me show you something."
Rhianna shifted her attention back and forth from the animation of the ship to the stream of data that ran concurrently alongside it. As the representation of Prometheus hit a gravitational and then a magnetic field, a spark of blue light coursed along the length of the ship. She read the last line of data twice before she shook her head.
"It can't be." She said flatly.
"It is." Daniel firmly countered her. "We've been piecing the data together as we go, and this is what we're seeing. I didn't believe it either at first---but it's true. Check the hydroponics bay results."
He brought up a schematic of the life sciences section, adding in the most current sensor feed and stepped back to give Rhianna a better view.
Half of the plants existed in a different phase of matter. As did half the living organisms on Prometheus. According to the calculations she had been shown, the gravitational and magnetic fields in the pocket of space they were in had an unusually high concentration of kariyon particles. Because of their rarity and diminutive size, sensors did not regularly detect these particles unless modified to do so. With each successive collision between Prometheus and the fields, the ship was exposed to high levels of kariyon radiation, a substance highly reactive with organic matter. Rhianna was unfamiliar with the computations of the biochemical changes they had undergone--that was Science and Medical's forte--but it was clear that the kariyon particles had forced over half of the ship's crew to have phased into a different state of existence.
"Why are some of us affected and not others?" she asked Daniel.
"Some people can naturally resist the effects of the radiation longer than others. Those headaches and nausea we had were the symptoms of the radiation interacting with our cellular matter. Nobody disappeared--we just couldn't see those that didn't exist in our own phase."
"So everyone's been here all along?" she asked in wonderment.
There WAS no sensor glitch…..the computer could see us all just fine. We were the ones that were fooled, not the sensors.
"We've enhanced the internal sensors to be able to track everybody that's about to phase over….our calculations show the rest of the crew will transition within the next 5 hours." Naeve added.
"And what happens then?"
"We don't know. " Naeve answered her. "But we need to think of some way to reverse the effects. Daniel says we can't exist in this phase very long."
"Cellular breakdown begins within the first 24 hours. Even those of us that have been here the longest can recover completely with medical attention if we can transition back soon. But if we all phase over and cant go back….we'll die." He said gravely.
****************
"Do you think it'll work?" Ari Denyri asked.
He had appeared in Engineering an hour ago, to his grateful CEO's relief and had been working nonstop ever since. Most of the engineers she had working under her were the junior members of the department, the neophytes. Her more experienced crew remained unphased, and so she wasted precious time guiding the green Ensigns and NCOs in what needed to be done. Ari had taken on much of the burden upon his arrival, freeing her to rig the shields with the modifications she had made.
"I don't know." Rhianna shrugged, her voice belying the weariness she felt. "We've got nothing to lose."
She and Daniel Ryan had run countless simulations and hypotheses until they had found one that stood a chance of success. An 84.5% chance, to be precise. Even so, it was the best idea yet. They were running out of time and couldn't afford to fail. If they had to resort to plan B, the probability of success dropped to a whopping 48%. Neither she nor the CSciO liked those numbers at all. Therefore, she concluded, they had no choice but to succeed in their plans now. Before they faded into molecular obscurity.
Her commbadge chirped, interrupting her musings. She recognized Naeve's voice. The Ops officer was probably on the Bridge, monitoring their experiment.
"Jorrell here."
<< Are you ready to proceed? >>
Before responding, Rhianna's eyes strayed involuntarily in Daniel Ryan's direction. He had remained by her side reviewing their calculations and specifications, giving occasional orders for modifications as they worked. He looked back at her now and shrugged, a wry smile on his lips.
"As ready as we'll ever be." She said ruefully.
"I'm sending the signal to the Bridge. Hopefully the Captain will see what we're doing." Ari said softly.
<< On my mark……now. >>
************
Colin Becker frowned at the writhing, colorful masses that would expand and contract across the viewscreen, changing shape and size within minutes. The magnetic fields were beautiful to look at, but they were his deadly nemesis today. Following the Doctor's discovery, the crew had worked hard to make sense of their situation.
And they had.
To a point.
After modifying their sensors, they knew that the region of space they were in was filled with karyon particles, the culprit of their current dilemma. They knew half the crew existed in a different phase than themselves. They also knew it was only a matter of time before they joined the others.
Colin was particularly aware that his own time was drawing near. The nausea had gotten worse, and his headache had become so intense that it blurred his vision at times. He said not a word to his first officer, by the other man's white faced expression, it was obvious he didn't feel much better.
"Captain…." The tentative voice belonged to the young Ensign his XO had assigned to man the Ops station.
"Yes." Colin answered tersely, his eyes half closed as he pressed a finger to his throbbing temples.
"Navigation control has been rerouted to Main Engineering." He announced nervously.
The statement roused the other officers to immediate alertness as they peered at their own displays. Engineering had taken control of Navigation and Weapons.
" Engineering,, report!" Colin shouted into his commbadge.
<< It's not us, Sir. None of our stations are responding to our commands. >>
"Shall I lock them out, sir?" The forgotten Ensign at Ops asked.
Sounds like Rhianna Jorrell already did. Let's hope she has a plan.
"No. It sounds like they have something up their sleeves. Let's see what they have in mind."
Slowly Prometheus tilted to starboard, came about, and headed into space. After a few moments, Colin realized they were targeting an alarmingly large gravitational field and it seemed Rhianna had no intention of changing course.
"They're taking us right into it." Mark frowned. "All that'll do is accelerate our phasing over. If the ship doesn't go first."
"Patience." Colin ordered, hoping his faith in his invisible crew was not misplaced. "I can do a command override at any time if I feel I need to."
The viewscreen filled with a fluorescent orange and pink so bright that the bridge crew had to avert their eyes. The ship began to tremble slightly at it's close proximity to the field. Still, it did not stop, heading closer to the pulsating mass.
"Sir…..they're charging phasers." The Ops officer's voice cracked.
"Weapons?" Mark repeated, eyeing the Captain nervously.
When is the stubborn fool going to override?
"Firing photon torpedoes!."
Before he could speak, Colin fell back against his seat as two pulses of energy raced from the ship, speeding on a direct course towards the seething mass. The field seemed to shrink and then suddenly expand and rush towards Prometheus, bathing the bridge in bright orange light as it swallowed the ship and spit it out the opposite end. Buffetted by the wave, Prometheus spun several times before coming to a stop.
Struggling to rise as he waited for the room to stop moving, he shouted,
"Damage report!"
"Shields 100% intact, Sir. No damage."
All heads turned towards the speaker. Naeve Sevril was standing, albeit with effort, at the Ops console, clutching its base for support. Although her voice was shaky, the grin on her face couldn't be any wider.
Colin smiled in response. "Glad to have you back, Lieutenant Commander."
"It was Lieutenants Jorrell and Ryan, Captain. They enhanced the shields, and filled the torpedoes with a compound that would react with the karyon particles. The biochemical reaction it triggered----"
Colin held up a hand to silence her. "I'm quite fascinated by the science involved but I'm sure the Lieutenants will be able to explain it all in their report. Right now, I want you to report to Sickbay. I'm sure we'll all be keeping Dr. Keset busy in the near future."
As he watched her go, Colin sighed in relief that their plan had worked.
"Leuitenant Jorrell?" He queried after activating his commbadge.
<< Sir? >>
"It's nice to hear your voice again. Do we have warp?"
<< Of course. >>
Her tone implied she was insulted that he even had to ask.
"Good. Get us out of here. Warp 3. And, Lieutenant, get yourself to Sickbay. That's an order."
As Prometheus picked up speed on a course back to normal space, Colin sighed with relief once more, the sound echoed by his first officer.
"That's enough excitement for a while. Don't you think, Commander?"
"I couldn't agree with you more, Captain." Was the fervent reply.
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