Witnessing the effects

Posted on 16 Dec 2020 @ 5:13pm by Lieutenant Xu Chang Lau & Captain Jonathan Reynolds & Commander Amelia Fox & Lieutenant Commander Aidan Datari & Lieutenant C'Tora Kuroka

Mission: Mission 5 - Season of the Witch?
Location: Meladoste colony
Timeline: MD 4 1600
1449 words - 2.9 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Amelia stood looking in wonder as she could see grown men and women running around acting like little kids. Some were playing what appeared to be kiss chase, others had little model spaceships they were pretending to fly them around. One sat off to one side, crying and holding their knee having fallen over.

Most of the equipment was either non-functional or was in security lockout mode. No one seemed to know what the equipment did, let alone enter their authorisation code to activate it.

Amelia spotted Jon and the 1st landing party and headed over to him. "Captain. You weren't exaggerating, were you? It's pretty obvious why they stopped transmitting, I doubt anyone knows how to. Any indication of what happened?"

C'Tora moved to the crying male holding his knee and pat his head. " It's ok, I'm going to make your hurt go away." he said with a warm smile. c'Tora cleaned up and healed the scrapped knee. "There you go, all better." As the male jumped up and ran back to join in with the others playing.

C'Tora walked back over to the away team. " I have still found no definitive reason as to why everyone is acting this way, So far all my tricorder readings have been inconclusive. Perhaps we're overlooking something." He muttered softly to himself. " If anyone finds any sick or injured please bring them to my attention."

"Thank you doctor," Jon said after him.

"It's very odd. I'm going to go see these other colonists. See if the same fate has beheld them. It seems however we have to approach on foot. Something about respecting the journey. I'm going to take Natasha and True with me. I was going to bring Leighton but she seems a little off. I'm worried she's being afflicted. Keep an eye on her number one.

So I will take Datari too," Jon said. "Come on number one we both know he's brought his Ushaan. I'll be fine."

"Very well Captain." She turned to Aidan. "You're responsible for the Captains safety during this meeting, understood Lieutenant?"

The Trill chuckled. "Yes ma'am I'll keep him safe," he promised, patting the Andorran mining tool he carried. "Won't let him out of my sight."

"Get Morgan and Xu coordinating the shuttles bringing down the supplies. We might as well get that sorted. We know where on the colony we can store it all.

Do you want to check out the supposed trading post and the logs of who round here has recently been or is still here?" he asked Amelia. "We could be dealing with something that's come in from that avenue."

"I can access the colonist records through their computer system and see who's been coming and going. I believe there are also some traders still in the colony who we can talk to."

"I'll test the communications array to see if we can get through to the Andromeda." Michael stated. He wanted to make certain that there would be communications between them and the ship.

Behind Jon, a couple of middle-aged officers ran past kicking a football. Suddenly for the briefest of moments, Amelia wanted to join in running after the ball. She watched them disappear behind a building and she shook her head and took another deep breath to clear her senses.

Xu saw the First Officers almost imperceptible jolt of excitement at seeing the two men playing with the ball... As to what triggered the rush she was unable to tell so she snapped open her tricorder, thinking nothing more off it and started running her scanning devise over those that were nearby and obviously suffering from something yet to make itself known.

"You okay there number one?" Jon asked. "You seemed to disappear for a second."

"Yes, I'm fine Captain," Amelia responded to Jon's voice. We'll meet up when you get back from your visit to the locals and we can compare notes."

She turned to Xu "Come on, let's see what the central computer will tell us." She had to resist the urge to run towards the central command building of the colony but instead started walking at a deliberately casual pace.

"Aye sir!" Xu fell into step besides Amelia still sensing something a little off about the First Officer but she once again put it down to the fact they were planet side, which made a welcome change.
"What do you make of all this sir?"

"I don't know but I sure as hell don't like it." Amelia replied.

As they walked, Amelia’s speech patterns and posture started to go through subtle changes.

“Whatever is going on down here, it certainly didn’t show up in the initial scans when the colony was established. Like, you’d think they have mentioned this to someone or, ya know, chosen a better place than one that’s totally whacked. I just hope the Captain gets some info out of those Nomads. The Captain is a bit dreamy isn’t he but he’s not by Savvy-bear.”
She patted her stomach that was just noticeably swollen “Mommy and Daddy are going to take good care of you.”

They entered the main building and the master control room for the colony. Amelia approached the terminal and stopped. A look of confusion crossed her face. “Erm…. What are we supposed to be doing again?”

"Lieutenant... are you feeling alright?" tricorder in hand, Xu subtly turned it on Amelia to grab some scans while she had the opportunity... Something was defiantly off.
Confusion, worry and a tumult of other feelings bombarded Xu... something was not right here.

“Hey, I’m cool, I just…. Ahhhhh” Amelia suddenly grabbed her head and sank to her knees. She cried out. “Ahhhhh, that hurts,” Amelia started to look frightened. “My mind is going… can’t think….” She looked panicky at Xu. “Help me!” She scrunched her eyes up tight.
Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, she stopped. It was if her brain had just rebooted with new information. She opened her eyes again looked at Xu with a look of complete innocence and smiled sweetly. “Hi, you wanna play?” She got to her feet and looked at the computer terminal with distaste. “This is SOOO boring, let’s do something fun!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia spotted a replicator. Without warning, she bolted over to it. She tapped on the panel which lit up. “Hey! Give me a teddy!”
The computer responded, “There are over 5 million teddies on file, please specify.”
“Give me a cute teddy with grey fur and a blue nose!”
Apparently, this was enough information for the computer and a medium-sized stuffed teddy appeared with grey fur and a blue nose.

Amelia picked it up and hugged it. “I love you.”

She skipped back to Xu. “You want to share my teddy?”

At that moment, someone in s Starfleet uniform came running in. It was a man and he had lieutenant pips on his collar but he was acting like a child too. He ran up to Amelia "Hey that's cool. I want one." and he tried to take the teddy from Amelia.

Amelia didn't like this and shouted in his face "That's mine." before she balled up her free hand into a fist and swung at him. She laid him out cold with a single punch.

Immediately she looked horrified at what she had done and burst into tears, clutched the teddy tightly to her. She then ran over to XU and threw her arms around her, obviously trying to get some comfort.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry.... I didn't mean to hurt him... He was trying to take my teddy." She got out in between huge sobs.

The slight Asian women had just been watching, confused more than anything. She tapped her combadge.
"Chang-Lau to Doctor Kuroka... Can you get to my location... Something is wrong with Lieutenant Fox!"
Xu didn't know if she should approach the first officer or leave her to 'play' with her new friend.

C'Tora tapped his combadge. "Acknowledged, I'll be there shortly." About a half minute later C'Tora sprinting through and arrived on scene. he saw the unconscious crewman and moved quickly to him and began treating him. " Mild concussion, nothing to severe. Xu what is going on here and how did this man get hurt?" He asked as he continued to treat the patient.

Again she tapped her Combadge, hoping she could reach the Captain.

"Chang-Lau to Reynolds, we have a situation sir!"

=^=Reynolds here. What's going on Lieutenant?=^=

"Captain... we may have a bit of a problem!" she offered, biting her bottom lip.

END