The Beginning of the End… (Part 2)

Posted on 10 Dec 2017 @ 6:22am by Commander Rhyan
Edited on on 14 Jan 2018 @ 10:48pm

1,619 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Errand of Mercy
Location: USS Redemption, Science Lab 2
Timeline: ED7: 0600

Rhyan stepped through the doorway into his laboratory and threw himself down beside the all-too-familiar workstation. Having just completed his duty shift on the bridge he was now facing another gruelling eight-hour shift sifting through virology research to aide in the search for a cure for the Hadronus virus. As if that wasn’t enough pressure on him, he still had not made any progress with the Zal virus either. This made him cup his face in his hands and lower his head to the workstation below.

After a few moments of peaceful inattention the door chime to his laboratory alerted him to a visitor. Although interruptions were not unexpected in his lab, nobody was scheduled to see him this evening. Without much more thought he muttered the word “come” and heard the door to the laboratory hiss open.

“Commander,” an excited, feminine voice shouted from behind him. Rhyan recognised it immediately as Lieutenant Tigan, the Trill science officer recently assigned to his team. She seemed flustered but excited as she waved a padd in front of her as she approached the Vulcan. “You will never guess what Major Afton just discovered about the virus!”

She thrust the padd into Rhyan’s hands and stood to attention as she watched him thumb through the contents. The Vulcan could feel his heart racing faster as he digested the information contained within the padd. He couldn’t believe what he was reading.

“Are you sure this is correct?” Rhyan held the padd out in front of him, directing his gaze between it and the lieutenant as he spoke. What Major Afton had stumbled upon was science that went beyond the combined knowledge of the entire Federation. He had never known a species to be able to phase part of its RNA outside of normal space-time. Of course, there were known incidents of whole organisms phasing between normal space-time and other dimensions, but to be able to do that on a molecular scale – and only for part of their genome – was astounding. No wonder they had made little to any progress on curing the Hadronus virus.

Or the Zal virus, Rhyan thought to himself excitedly.

Lieutenant Tigan shook her head furiously. “Yes, sir.” She snatched the padd back off him, typed a number of commands into it, and then returned the device to him. His eyes darted through the various analyses of the previously hidden DNA structure and then returned to his subordinate.

“Doctor Afton had had no success in defining the RNA sequence?” He asked.

“No,” Tigan replied, stepping closer to Rhyan in the process. As she did so he caught the faintest hint of her perfume on his nostrils. “She nor the computer recognise the particulars of the hidden fragments. That said,” she paused to catch herself a breath, “the doctor’s efforts have allowed us to create an algorithm to detect the full RNA sequence”. She accentuated the word ‘full’ as she spoke to emphasise the importance of the discovery that Keisha had made.

Rhyan glanced down at the padd again, studying the new RNA sequence as it rotated on the screen. There was something familiar about the sequence, but the familiarity did not seem to originate from his time spent in the Ee Research Institute. Something just didn’t seem to add up to him. He looked back towards Lieutenant Tigan. “Are you sure the computer has been unable to find any similarities between this sequence and anything we have on record?”

The lieutenant stepped towards Rhyan, placed one hand gently on his shoulder, and took the padd once more from him. “There is nothing in the medical database that is remotely similar to what the doctor has detected. There is no species alive that has RNA – or DNA – sequences like it.”

Grinning, Rhyan looked at Tigan and then turned to face his workstation. “Computer, cross reference the genetic sequence contained in Lieutenant Tigan’s padd with the Federation’s archaeological database. Restrict the search parameters to the research database on Starbase 54 and then expand the search if no results are forthcoming.”

The computer responded in the affirmative as Rhyan turned to face the lieutenant once again. He could see the confusion on her face, and tried his best to explain the hunch that he had. “I would have thought,” he began, “for an archaeologist, you would have thought a little bit outside of the box on this one.”

“What do you mean,” she asked, looking more puzzled by the second.

Rhyan didn’t get a chance to answer her as the computer alerted them to a positive finding within the archaeological database. Excitement began to rise within the science officer as he instructed the computer to display its findings on the viewscreen at his workstation. Immediately a comparative infographic was shown on the display, identifying a positive match for the RNA sequence. As he glanced at the reference file he was not surprised to see that it had been a report that he had filed three years earlier while serving as the chief science officer on board Starbase 54.

Aeryn looked at the report and then looked back to Rhyan in further puzzlement. “You have seen this RNA sequence before?”

“I have,” Rhyan responded, suddenly now putting all the pieces to the puzzle together. It explained so much of what he – what the Redemption – had been exposed to over the past few years. In fact, Doctor Afton’s discovery might very well kill several birds with the one stone. She had just blown wide open the biggest mystery of the last century: who are the Ee, and where did they come from.

He continued, “Who were the most advanced civilization to have existed within our galaxy?”

Tigan frowned. “I – I don’t know. The Q?” She responded, clearly unsure of her answer.

“The Q may be advanced in a sense, but not in the way that I was thinking.” He worked the console in front of him again, briefly forgetting that he had started a conversation with the Trill science officer beside him. His attention soon returned, “Let me rephrase the question. Which ancient civilization were masters of space and time?”

“No?” Aeryn replied with an astonished look on her face. She had clearly come to the same conclusion as Rhyan, albeit with a bit of a nudge. “The Iconians?”

“The Iconians.” Rhyan repeated, finally loading up a display that cycled through all known information on the ancient race that was known as the Iconians. Images of their gateway technology, iconographics depicting their language and DNA samples, retrieved from the very Iconian outpost that Rhyan had spent many years stationed at, were some of the items that appeared on screen. “The Demons of Air and Darkness. They were an advanced civilization that disappeared from the Beta Quadrant thousands, if not tens of thousands of years ago. Nobody knew what had happened to them. That is, perhaps, until now!”

“Are you positive that is an Iconian RNA sequence?”

Rhyan shook his head in the negative. “I can’t be positive, but it all makes sense. They had the technology to be able to transport instantaneously across the galaxy. They surely had the ability to manipulate anything, including DNA or RNA, at the spatial level. And nobody ever knew what happened to them – for all we know, the Ee are the direct descendants of the Iconians!”

Aeryn looked to the bulkhead beneath her feet as though pondering something, and then looked back up at her superior. “Jut suppose that the Ee and the Iconians are related – how does that help us now?”

“It helps us because we now know where to look for answers. If this modified Ee virus is related to the Iconians, maybe there is something else in the archaeological database that could help Doctor Afton and ourselves in finding a cure.” Rhyan was never one to get his hopes up, but for the first time in days he felt that a cure was within his grasp. This was the biggest breakthrough the Redemption had seen in their current mission, and their on-going research into the Ee. Somehow he felt like everything was about to change for the crew of the Federation flagship.

His excitement grew as he began to issue new orders to his science officer. “Lieutenant, I want you to find Doctor Afton and tell her everything I have discussed with you. Tell her to abandon the medical database and start searching the archaeological database for answers. I’ll continue my work here and see if I can’t isolate an anti-virus from the new RNA sequence Keisha has identified.”

“Aye, sir,” Aeryn responded, her face visibly disappointed that she had been ordered out of the science lab. Despite her visible upset, the lieutenant complied with the orders and departed the lab immediately.

Rhyan remained behind and immediately cleared his workstation of all previous research avenues and started afresh. He knew the answer to all their problems was now within arms reach – it was now up to him to find it and grasp it. Maybe if he found a way to cure the inhabitants of Hadronus, a cure for both Zal and Sarah would make itself apparent to him.

As he lost himself in thought, he missed the laboratory door opening and closing once again…

OFF: Sorry guys for the very, very long absence. Real life finally caught up with me, but training is nearly done and I should have lots more free time soon. Trying to do a series of posts to tie up loose ends with my characters before we end the episode. Anyone feel free to pick up from any of my posts.

 

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