Leóne's communication attempts with the Phoenix from the Nuntio

Concealed beneath the visor of her helmet, a minute smirk emerged on the face of Elisha Leóne. As she was scouring the schematics of the Nuntio trying to find a viable point to attempt sending a signal of scattered light to the Phoenix, she had somehow missed the obvious: an expanded science lab with a series of rectangular windows on one wall with a vista to the surrounding stars.

Elisha reached over and gently grasped the arm of Feline security officer positioned just ahead of her.

"Lieutenant M'ata... this may seem a bit anti-climatic, but according to these schematics there is a suitable science lab right next door to Sickbay... to the left side of this main entrance."

As the Orion released the arm of the Caitian, she signaled for the security officer to lead the way.

When the felinoid woman looked back at her, the Chief of Ops of the Phoenix immediately noticed that the blue light from her eyes was gone. Now, only the familiar blue color of her slitted orbs was showing. Her voice had lost the eerie, multivoiced echo that it had and was back to her species typical purring sound as she answered her obvious question.

"Yes, Lieutenant, it's gone. I think it went back to the otherrs so as to warrn them of what is now at stake."

Pulling out her tricorder, Mrriish recalled the data she had recorded on it prior to boarding the Nova class starship.

"Accorrding to the specifics of the Nuntio, all science labs werre converrted into data collecting, prrocessing and trransmission centerrs. This ship had been rrefitted to be an interrstellar mobile inforrmation centerr; kind of miniaturre flying Memorry Alpha, with extended computerr banks, added sensorrs and amplified trransmission equipement. No wonderr the Zetarrians jumped on this ship like kittens on candy; fully operrational in norrmal space, they could use it to literrally trransmit themselves accrross Federration Space almost instantly!"

As they progressed, the security chief pointed a door to her, visible through the faint shimmering of a forcefield.

"Therre is yourr comm centerr, Lieutenant. On yourr orrder, I'll deactivate the forrcefield with a prreset timerr to rreinitiate it exactly two seconds afterr deactivation; just enough time forr us to go thrrough without being... followed."

With a smile evident across her flawless olive skin, Elisha  confirmed.

"The clock is literally ticking lieutenant. Let's get in there pronto and see what we can doI"

She then prepared herself to lunge into the redesigned science lab the moment the forcefield was deactivated.   

They both went in swiftly and smmothly as M'ata deactivated the forcefield with a three second timed interruption; just enough for them to get in between two shimmerings of the energy barrier. As it reactivated, there was a sudden flash of red and blue, the tell-tale sign that some Zetarrians had escaped the field into the surrouding circuitry.

"Let's move in beforre they figurre out which way to follow us."

The nearby door was manually slid open and revealed what should have been a standard starship research lab. It looked familiar enough, with it's control stations and computer terminals, but to the expert eye of the Phoenix Chief of Ops, it was clear these were all data processing stations and communication systems, just looking at the unusual number of screens looking blankly back at them. 

And, on the far wall, there were several portholes from which they could see the imposing hull of the much larger Avenger class science ship.

After perusing and reviewing detailed schematics on the Nuntio's secondary exterior running lights, the Orion officer had removed several console coverings and was laying down on her back deep inside an integrated section when she located a conduit that she could access control over its energy flow.  Her intention was to interrupt the flow in a manner to cause a flashing of the exterior running lights of this vessel. Her hope was that this would catch the attention of someone aboard the USS Phoenix and thus a means of communication could be established.

It took some time to tap out the extended message to the Phoenix. Despite Morse Code being a rather antiquated communication tool, it was times like this when it still proved invaluable. Elisha had studied this code extensively in a Communications class back at the Academy and experimented with it regularly to say proficient with it. She realized that this first message was rather lengthy, but she wanted to convey key information during this first transmission.

.--. .... --- . -. .. -..- .-.-.- / - .... .. ... / .. ... / .-.. .. . ..- - . -. .- -. - / .-.. . --- -. . .-.-.- / .-- . / .- .-. . / -... .- - - .-.. .. -. --. / .... --- ... - .. .-.. . / --.. . - .- .-. .. .- -. ... .-.-.- / - .... . -.-- / -.-. .- -. / - .-. .- ...- . .-.. / ...- .. .- / .- -. -.-- / . .-.. . -.-. - .-. --- -. .. -.-. / ... .. --. -. .- .-.. / --- .-. / -.-. --- -. -.-. . -. - .-. .- - . -.. / -... . .- -- / --- ..-. / .-.. .. --. .... - .-.-.- - .... . -.-- / -.-. .- -. / . .- ... .. .-.. -.-- / .. -. ...- .- -.. . / - .... . / -... --- -.. .. . ... / --- ..-. / .... ..- -- .- -. --- .. -.. ... .-.-.- / -- --- .-. . / .. -. ..-. --- .-. -- .- - .. --- -. / ..-. --- .-. - .... -.-. --- -- .. -. --. .-.-.-

On the Phoenix, some Jonathan Livingstone's lights in his thick head feathers started all to blink in the same, definite pattern. The Avian officer's head jerked up, his huge eyes now blinking in synch with his sheereess.

"Something wrong, Lieutenant?" Counselor Bijoû inquired, noticing immediately the curious pattern and reaction.

"Our short range sensors are receiving very peculiar signals from the Nuntio. Photonic emissions following a definite pattern. It comes from their navigation lights. One moment..."

He didn't speak, using his direct connection with the ship's instruments to have the computer analyse the signal, compare it to the ship's data banks, identify it and then decode it before transfering it into sound transmission through the universal translator, once the computer recognized a communication nature of the pattern. From then on, the universal translator rendered instantaneously the communication. All of this took barely a couple of seconds. On the bridge speakers, they could all hear the message in Federation Standard but in the recognizeable voice of the ship's computer.

 "Phoenix. This is Lieutenant Leone. We are battling hostile Zetarians. They can travel via any electronic signal or concentrated beam of light.They can easily invade the bodies of humanoids. More information forthcoming."

"Ingenious," commented Livingstone. "Using standard light emitters like the navigation lights of the ship, they can communicate with us without these electromagnetic beings able travel through the photon emissions. It would disperse their patterns in all directions with the light itself."

He turned to face his commanding officer.

"Captain; we can use the same method to safely resume communication with the away team. We will not have any visual, unfortunately, but I can integrate the translating matrix to instantly convert those photonic codes into verbal speech."

Responding to the information from the X'Ell, Syntron turned to the CSO.

"Affirmative Lieutenant Livingstone. Send them an update of our current status and inform them that we will continue to communicate in this manner until we have resolved our situation."

"Acknowledged, Sir; Counselor Bijoû, I have reconfigured your secondary communication control to transmit through our own navigation lights in the same manner the Nuntio did. Just send transmissions from there as you normally would; the computer will take care of the translation from here to there and back again through speakers."

"Aye; transmitting now..."

The captain leaned back slowly into the center seat. While not an ideal solution, this method would at least remove them from the veil of darkness from which they had been shrouded in terms of communication between the ship and its away team.

From the inside of the Nunto science room console, Elisha began tapping out the same light message for a second time when she inquired to the two in the room looking out the pothole.

"Are either of you seeing any message being returned back or at least a signal that our message was received?

Just as she wondered, the reply came in. Although she could see on her small monitor the same simple signs as of her original transmission, she heard the computer's well known feminine voice translate it instantly to her.

"Away team, this is the Phoenix. We are receiving you. You have within this transmission the translation matrix for you to install and then speak directly to us through your photonic encoding procedure. The Captain sends his congratulations for a job well done, our last log entries about our present condition and request a report on your current situation. Please reply."

As the response was coming in the door to the space opened with a woosh, and Commander Riker and Commander Sschaell entered.

"Please give me some good news" Riker asked.

Grabbing Rogers shoulder and hand Riker helped him to his feet. Looking over at the Saurian Riker just smiled.

"He is alive, and here to help us, I count that as good news"

"Agreed; Commander Schaell, Firsst Officer of the Nuntio," the red and blue scaly officer said to Rogers. "Commander, how well-qualified are you with transsporter ssysstems?"

"Commander Rogers, your timing is impeccable! We have just received a translation matrix from the Phoenix that would appear to be tailored for you to install." Elisha then handed Rogers a PADD with the complete set of files and information organized in a designated digital folder.

Looking over the offered PADD from Leone, David smiled at the dignified simplicity of the translation matrix. Normal intra-ship comms used the optical data network and subprocessors, coupled through short range radio frequency pickup to transfer to comm badges, PADD's and tricorders or terminals. Of course, the term radio was a hold-over from the past, but the frequency range of radio and light were only separated by about eight magnitudes of frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum. Pattern recognition of light radiation is the same as radio waves, just at a much smaller wavelength. This matrix completely cut out the ODN network, for obvious reasons, and routed the short range RF communications directly through the digital-to-analog processor in the recieving device. David looked up from the PADD and addressed Riker, Leone and Schaell.

"Yeah, no problem with this sir. Simple yet ingenious. Give me a couple seconds."

Elisha Leóne then turned her attention to the first officer who had recently joined them as well.

"Commander Riker, since we have been out of communication for quite a while now, the Captain requests any recent log entries, just as those they have provided, regarding what has transpired here on the Nuntio, along with a report on our current situation and status."

Elisha Leóne gazed through her visor to the away team members and those from the Nuntio surrounding her as she spoke.

"Everyone needs to pull their insights and observations together so that Commander Riker can provide as much detail as possible to the captain by the time our chief engineer has this matrix ready to transmit."

Elisha then realized she was proceeding as if she was in charge of the away team here even though all she did was re-establish communication with the Phoenix. She blushed slightly as she immediately turned her attention back to the first officer.

"With your permission of course, Sir"

Leaning in until his visor was nearly touching Elisha's Riker spoke softly.

"Stepping on my toes eh? I should make you write the log entries for that..."

Before she could respond Riker winked and half smiled, as much morale boosting humor as he could muster given the situation. Leaning back up Riker continued.

"We need to cram as much detail as possible while still being quick. Now is not the time for volumes upon volumes of stuff to read through..."

Grumbling to himself Riker just kind of looked around slightly annoyed.

"I hate writing logs, always have. I think I get that from my father, he hated logs too. He always joked that was his favorite thing about the Maquis, less paperwork"

Snapping out of his small rant Riker pulled out a PADD and began to enter information.

"Everyone get me what you have, and we will figure out what we can put together"

The Saurian first officer however had another angle on the matter.

"Commander Riker, as much as ssome captains love paperwork, thiss is not the time. I recommend we report succintly our current ssituation and what we are about to do; mainly, force the Zetarians to ssit down and talk... or blow the sship and sstrand them here for ever... in lesss than twenty-six minutes."

"But Sirr... what about us... and the crew of the Nuntio?"

"Lieutenant... M'ata is it? Well, that'ss where trassporter masstery would come into play."

He looked at Rogers with his enormous eyes.

"Commander; would you be able to connect all the ship's transporters in sequential action to deactivation of the forcefields?"

Turning towards Riker, Schaell pointed to Leone's tricorder.

"Commander Riker; could your opss officer access your away team's combadge ssignals and those of the Nuntio's crew and perssonnel and ssend them in one compresssed bursst into the transsporter ssysstem? Thiss would need to be done exactly at the very moment of transsporter activation and not before; unlesss we manage to sshorten the contact time and delay it at the lasst posssible moment, the Zetarrians would be able to use it to try to get to uss during the data transsfer."

His large eyes blinked for a moment before he continued.

"Ssince we would have to do sseveral successsive beam-outss, these activation ssignals should be randomized throughout the sship sso as to avoid the Zetarrians predicting where the next  one would be... and finissh lasst with uss... and all that within the next 22 minutess."

After closing the access door on the bottom of the console, Elisha Leóne stood up and addressed Schaell as she began interacting with her Ops PADD.

"I have our away teams' combadge signals already programmed into this PADD. I just need to add Nuntio's personnel into this as well."

After completing this undertaking a few moments later, she moved on to the next task.

Looking back up at her colleagues, the Orion announced "I have an encrypted randomized program now synchronized with all combadge signals. These are correlated in a series of group transports based on current location of personnel."

Elisha then turned her focus to the first officer. With her fingers poised in position above the PADD, she noted "Just awaiting your word Commander Riker to proceed." 

 Turning from his console Rogers nodded an affirmation at Lieutenant Leone that the transporter's were set, then spoke to Commander Riker.

"All set sir. The initial beam out will commence with the main personnel transporter's on deck two, then cycle to cargo and back. Total elapsed time for complete evac will be eight minute's from initialization."

With a simple nod Commander Riker gave the instruction to proceed

" Now, let'ss sssee if they are in a mood to talk," said the Saurian.

He went to a side console and deliberately activated the whole board. In a moment two clouds of lights, one blue and one red, sprouted from the console to rush at him. He was bathed in the colorful dispaly for a few seconds until they seemingly disolved right through him and his giant lanky frame fell to the ground.

Then, for a moment, his face contorted into a display of the same colors and all the hues in between, while his opened mouth contonrted hideously as it croaked with ghoulish-souding low sounds, as if he was trying to speak yet could only do so at an extreme slowness.

The eerie display lasted for long seconds, until the colors resorbed into his large eyes. Then slowly he stood up. his eyes glowed red.

"You are intent on destroying this vessel. You will stop this or we will destroy you."

The voice, with it's strange ecoes in the open, unmoving mouth of the Saurian, sounded emotionless; yet there was such malevolence in it that it make them all shiver. But then, the unnatural light his eyes turned blue.

"You are intent on destroying this vessel. Do not delay or they will destroy you."

Reaching over to a panel Riker pressed the button and brought up the self destruct counter. Currently reading 11:45...11:44...11:43...11:42

"In case you guys forget we are on a timer here, so you want to hurry this up. We all die in less than twelve minutes."  Riker said, with as much of a commanding tone as he could muster.

Elisha checked and re-checked all of the readings on her display before looking somewhat nervously at the first officer.

"Sir," she almost whispered within her headset "before we leave, how we are going to free those remaining Nuntio crewmembers that are possessed? My scans indicate that less than half that crew are still alive... forty seven if these readings are correct."

The Orion's aqua-colored eyes stayed fixed on the first officer as she awaited an answer.

Looking over Riker's face grew cold.

"If they are dead, then there is nothing we can do for them. If they are alive, then we have less than twelve minutes to get them out of here."

Glancing back over to the Saurian, whose eyes still glowed blue.

"Everyone on this ship dies unless you let those people go. Check the minds of those you have possessed. There is not a man or woman of any species wearing this uniform..."

Riker touched his suit around his chest and continued.

"Not a man or woman wearing this uniform who would not lay down their lives to save the innocent. If we let you off this ship who knows how many people are going to die. If we blow it up, I can tell you that number will be a hell of lot lower"

For a moment, the light in the eyes of the Saurian flicked from blue to red and back to blue and again to a bloody hue in fast succession as his whole body trembled and collapsed on the floor. The battle of lights continued and spread to his whole face while his mouth contorted grotesquely with low croaking sounds coming out of it all the while.

And then, a haze of red and blue lifted from the entire body. For a moment, the reddish glow flew straight at riker and envelopped him like a cloud. But a second later, the blue fog reconneceted with it. Both clouds swirled a moment all around the Phoenix first officer, sending sparks all accross his EVA suit and then, they moved to a nearby console which started to light up crazily and erupt in a display of sparks. Then, everything became quiet.

"Guess you were convincing, Sir," security officer Deloit said to braek the cold silence.

"Eleven minutes to self-destrruct," chief M'ata announced. "What about all those surrvivorrs? Therre arre forrty-seven crewmembers of the Nuntio still alive... all rreading as possessed by a Zetarrrian... corrrection; twenty-fourr arre now rregisterring as unconscious and no morre as occupied by alien brrainwave signals.  Same condition forr half of ourr people still in main engineerrring..."

Riker was kneeling by the unconscious Saurian when he stood up and snapped his fingers.

"Of course, I know someone who might be able to tell us a thing or two. Now that we are safe for the moment"

Pulling out the portable holo communicator from his pocket Riker activated it, and with a flicker Doctor Gray appeared. Looking around almost paranoid the doctor examined the rooms and the walls.

"Those things were trying to take over. Rewrite my code, I shut myself down to stop them. If they were drawn to me they are going to know what is going on."

"Then we better hurry" Riker said pointing to the unconscious Saurian

Kneeling by the Saurian commander, Doctor Gray gestured for the medical kit. Thumbing through the kit he pulled out two stimulators and placed one right over the Saurian's right eye and one just below his jaw. As they blinked a red light the Saurian blinked and began to move. Riker and Doctor Gray helped him to a seating position, but before they could speak the panel on the bulkhead sparked again.

"You better go" Riker said to Doctor Gray

"You will get no argument from me"

As Doctor Gray disappeared his portable holo fell towards the ground, Riker reached in and caught it. Standing up he looked at the away team.

"Do we have enough power for a site to site transport? I mean can we beam them all to one central location?" Riker asked

"If we beam them all to one central location, then we can get in touch with the Phoenix and have them beam everyone out together. If they got our message they probaly have a secure area set up already, or are making one"

Walking over and looking at the timer as it counts down Riker continued.

"If not, then we better get some ideas and fast. I would be fine turning off this countdown if we could be assured those... things are gone"

"Commander... the Nuntio... sshe...  has to be desstroyed," hissed Commander Schaell as he wobbly got back to his feet. "Those energy beings... they can freely ssurvive and move in outer sspace. If they would manage to esscape thiss area..."

"You want to kill them all?" exclaimed M'ata half-shocked but growling with grimm understanding.

"Negative; they do," the Saurian explained. "The...  those few that sstill resspect other life and desspise those among them who would hold nothing back to garantee their ssurvival at any cosst... I gathered with thiss lasst brief contact with them that they want uss to make sure that the others will not esscape. They will try to hold them off long enough for uss to attempt to flee... if we can."

Glancing over at the self destruct counter Riker just nodded.

"They knew we were willing to sacrifice ourselves to save others, they are willing to do the same."

Looking back over at Rogers, Riker continued.

"This ship is going to blow up whether we are on it or not... so let's get out of here if we can"

"That can hold more than enough people." Riker said nodding.

"But we need to beam out our people... and none of them," insisted Schaell. Elsse, what happened on the Nuntio will happen again on your sship... and thiss time, they might ssucceed in esscaping from thiss area, even if it is devoid of ssubsspace. That'ss why i disabled all propulssion ssysstems on the Nuntio and put her in Grey Mode. At full impulse, il would take them the ssame time it took you to get in. And then, nothing would stop them."

"And how arre we going to... exorrcise forrty-seven people sprread accrross hundrreds of meterrs of bulkheads?" M'ata wondered.

The Nuntio's Exec went to a console besides where Leône sat and manually programmed the ship's comm system as he explained.

"Turn off the external audio receivers of your helmetss. At the exact moment Commander Rogers will initiate transsport, I can bombard every deck with a high-pitched sound, loud enough and piercing enough to damage any sspecies' hearing. The pain will be sso ssudden and intensse that the Zetarians will all react as they always do when their hosst'ss nervouss ssysstem is attacked; they will extricate themsselves, dissconnecting completely their own brain patterns from those ssignals. If we time it right, they will still be in too much shock to react when people will be beamed off. And if even one of them sstill manages to, your buffer containement trick will allow uss later to deal with them."

"But what about you? the Caitian insisted. "You don't wearr an EVA suit."

"We Ssaurians have much lesss auditory capabilities than mosst other sspecies, esspecially in the ultrassonic range. It will be painful but I will manage. Jusst don't forget me in here when times come to exit the sstage,"

Moving his hands over the Saurian's head, Riker made a half hearted attempt to cover the two holes that were his ears. Swatting away the Commander's hands, the Saurian nodded at the humourous gesture in understanding. Saurians did not restrain emotions like Vulcans did; they actually had none at all... except when their primary brain was knocked out and their savage, instinctive secondary brain took over. Anyway, their  snake-like head, devoid of any facial muscle, always seemed to smile all the time, so Riker beleived he was seeing there the first hint of what he tought an emotion since the Nuntio's commander had met the Phoenix crew. Good enough...

Standing up, he glanced over at the countdown timer.

"Get to it Mister Rogers... you have ten minutes to make it work."