"Take us out of orbit, Lieutenant Commander," Parouge said, as he settled back in his chair.
"Aye, sir," Chan replied. She touched a few controls on the helm console, which brought up the impulse engines to one quarter thrust, which was sufficient to pull the Alexandria free of the gravity well that surrounded Deneriba II. The viewscreen showed the departure angle, with the gibbous planet showing a lot of its rust-coloured surface and bands of similar-coloured clouds that rode high in the carbon dioxide atmosphere. "We're up to ten psol," Chan reported. She could feel the dull hum of the impulse engines through the deck plates, a sensation that would become more pronounced once she pushed the impulse engines to maximum thrust.
Beside her, Allende was taking a turn at the helm console, while the regular officers had the day off. Allende was there for the simple reason that as a command-rank officer, he needed familiarity with all bridge systems, and the only way to acquire it was to actually work shifts at those consoles. He found it a pleasant change. The first officer reported, "Course laid in for Starbase Fourty-Four."
"Ascension to orbital plane at fourteen degrees, and shifting to galactic plane," Chan remarked. "We should be clear for warp speed in two minutes, twenty-one seconds. Speed now twenty psol."
"Very well."
As usual, Chan kept her attention focused on two displays, one showing the current speed of the ship and the second on the local gravity fields, a combination of the fields generated by Deneriva II, the other planets in the system and the system primary. That would determine what kind of warpfield to generate and how stable it would be. Nevertheless, she thought back at the planet that she and others of the crew had just visited.
The bridge crew had two minutes to somehow use up. Allende asked, "So, Chi, is this about the first archaeological mission that you've been on?"
"Well," the Odonan admitted, "the first one in a long time. Actually, there are similarities between this world and Kroos. Some of the technology used to create the containment domes and the inhabitable areas come from Kroos."
"That underground chamber was amazing," Allende remarked. He was referring to a mammoth underground structure that consisted of a central room containing relics related to the planet itself. Branching off of that were four long corridors, each borrowed through bedrock for distances of upto three kilometres. All along, illuminated by lights set up by the archaeology teams led by Dr. T'Laur, the expedition leader, the crew could see the artifacts, including artwork, possible technology or icons of some importance and other objects gathered up from many expeditions put out by the alien race. More interesting were these statues, representing a wide variety of alien beings, which had been placed at regular intervals along the corridor. At the base of each was an inscription plate, written in an alien language.
"What was really fascinating was that races we recognize, if only through archaeology because they're gone now, are found all in one corridor."
"You don't think that these corridors represent each quadrant of the galaxy, do you?" Allende asked. "It was what you had talked about down there."
"Well, if we could visit those other quadrants and see what is there, we might find the others, although given the time frame, those races could be gone and forgotten too. It's just too bad that we can't interpret the star charts they left. It seems that they represent the galaxy, but I can accept that T'Laur's explanation might work too."
"But if these people had travelled all over the galaxy, the question would be how."
"Indeed," Chan agreed.
"If only the ancient inhabitants had left a key like using the Preserver language."
"Unfortunately, they must've dismantled their own Preserver monument. Nothing was found in the system."
"That's too bad."
"It is."
The time counted down, as the starship speed built up. The computer eventually signalled that the local gravitational fields were now sufficiently inconsequential to allow the ship to go to warp. "We're at thirty-two psol," she reported, "and we're cleared for warp."
"Go to warp," Parouge ordered simply. Chan tapped at the necessary controls that would make the nacelles force the negative-energy motons in the superconducting coils in the nacelles into an organized pattern that would meld all their individual warpfields into one that surrounded the starship. In essence, the Alexandria would become a particle with properties similar to the moton and be constrained to travel faster than light. Chan always thought it curious that as far as observers on the Alexandria were concerned, the discontinuity existed outside the ship. It was as if the starship maintained its speed, and the whole universe had accelerated beyond light speed in the opposite direction. On the viewscreen, she could see that the starlight that was coalescing in the centre due to relativistic effects-as the image was uncorrected for the infinite speed of light approximation-and then as the ship made the transition over what was called the "Einstein barrier," because a ship could not travel at the speed of light, just faster or slower, the stars seemed to have exploded into streaks that rushed towards them and shot past them on all sides.
"Warp speed achieved," Chan reported. "All systems nominal," she added after a quick glance at the status displays showing nothing out of line. "Accelerating normally to warp six. Estimated arrival time at starbase fourty-four is three point nine days."
"Almost four days to go over all that we saw and learned at Deneriva II..."
Far below the bridge, on deck twenty, one of the cargo decks, ensigns Idna Scambelli and Martin Schuster were moving along the shipping crates that had been brought on board from Deneriva II. They contained more artifacts and other material that had been uncovered by the archaeologists at the underground sites, and were being sent to the starbase for eventual dispersal to universities and research centres across the Federation. Scambelli and Schuster were cataloguing the contents and confirming that the right artifacts were in the right containers. Once the contents were complete, they were sealing the access hatches and adding labels so that the containers would eventually reach the proper destinations, despite what could be many transfers between ships along the way.
As they approached the last of the containers, Scambelli said, "You know, sometimes it's disappointing serving on a ship like the Alexandria, since we end up spending so little time at planets like Deneriva II. We saw only a fraction of what is there."
"Yeah, and that's just underground. I mean, the surface had been scoured by scavengers and other archaeologists from alien races, but underneath, there was more, a place untouched since the ancient race there built it."
"But we move on," the woman continued. She aimed her tricorder at a data chip embedded in a label plate. Those who had packed the container on the surface had entered into that the physical description of the contents. Schuster scanned the contents of the container, and then had Scambelli download the data into his tricorder. The information was compared, to make sure that everything matched up properly. If it did, as it had in this case, then Schuster would use his tricorder to alter the visible pattern on a piece of electrosensitive material mounted on the side of the container. That would change tiny components in the material from white to black, forming a non-powered display label, giving the continents, a tracking code and the final destination for the container. It was all routine work. It was just too bad that they did not find any discrepancies, since that would allow them to open the container and examine the contents personally.
Schuster moved ahead of his companion to begin to scan the next crate, since his task took somewhat longer than Scambelli's. As he started to scan, he heard a strange rustling sound from behind him. He turned to look. At the same time, Scambelli screamed. Something, about a metre and a half tall, green and like a plant, with broad leaves an many vines, but moving almost like an animal, had come out from between two of the containers and grabbed the young, attractive woman from the waist and below. She fell, as if tripped, and started to struggle with the plant, even as the vines wound around her legs and squeezed, and other vines moved upwards on her body.
"Idna!" Schuster yelled, momentarily paralyzed by fear. The triffid had tentacles around her neck, and though she was trying desperately to pull them off, she was not succeeding. The sharp-edged vines were puncturing her skin and drawing blood from many wounds. "Oh god," he mumbled, unsure of what to do. He realized instantly that he could not physically help her, and looked around for any kind of weapon. Many things came into view, but nothing he could use. "Idna, hold on."
The woman screamed, as she kicked and struggled furiously, with enough force that leaves were ripped off and vines shredded, but there was just too much of the plant. It started to drag her, while acid from its vines were burning through clothes and skin. Released from fear and uncertainty, Schuster ran to a nearby intercom unit and punched the shipwide alert button with his fist.
On the bridge, the frantic voice came out of the speakers quite loudly. "Security!" Schuster shouted. "There's something down here! It got Idna-Ensign Scambelli. Big green thing! My god, it's tearing her up, dissolving her with acid. Oh god! Down here, deck twenty! Somebody get down here!" Those frantic words were almost immediately followed by the whooping-type sound from the alert klaxons that repeated itself several times in quick succession before the voice of the computer came on, "Intruder alert! Deck twenty, section three. Intruder alert! Deck twenty, cargo hold two."Suddenly gripped with her own sense of fear and panic, Chan turned away from the help console. She could not just leave the station, but she also had to do something about what was happening in the lower decks. Her appearance of being torn between two duties was quite clear on her face, even as the captain was looking right at her.
Parouge got out of his seat, and said simply, "Chan, you're with me. Lets go."
The Odonan woman virtually sprang out of her seat, and was almost too anxious to get to the turbolift. Her Odonan speed got her there well before the captain arrived. Once inside the lift, she grabbed onto the control handle and said simply, "Security code two." That command instructed the turbolift to go to the closest station to where the alert had been turned in. Chan looked at the captain, and asked the simple question, "How did it get on board?" She did not even want to think of what had happened to the crewmember who had been attacked. Parouge had no reply.
The turbolift car came to a stop. As the doors opened, Chan jumped out, as if she was starting a race. Several other security people were already there, along with a team from the medical department. The badly-shaken ensign who had turned in the alert was still standing near the intercom, and was being comforted by one of the security officers.
Chan also saw what was on the floor, a liquid that was obviously blood, along with a clear, acidic fluid that bubbled the paint on the bare metal floors on this deck, and which caused the blood to clump. She also saw dropped equipment, and pieces of clothing. Also on the floor were several of the leaves and sections of the vines and other pieces of green matter. Chan looked at the most intact leaf, and saw that it had the fang-like projections on the underside, but no spore pods. The leaf was also somewhat smaller than the leaves that she had seen previously.
"Any sign of it?" Chan asked, to the man who was scanning the mess with the tricorder.
"No, there are no readings," he replied, as he continued his work. With her sharp eyes, Chan could see the instrument herself, and she could not see anything in it that the man could not see.
A trail of blood drops ran down the corridor, and it turned into a shorter one. A very shaken security officer was coming back from that shorter corridor, with a phaser in hand. When he saw Chan, he said, "Ma'am, you should-" He could not get the rest of the words out.
Stepping towards him, she asked, her voice tinged with urgency and even a little hint of fear, "What?"
He just pointed. Chan walked over to that corridor, and looked down. Then she wished she had not. What was left of Ensign Idna Scambelli was lying against the end of the corridor. Chan could identify a leg, but not much else, beyond the fact that it was organic remains, most of which was charred by some kind of acid. The aroma was overwhelming. The corridor had only one way out, a small door. That the triffid had travelled through the door was even more freightening, since now it could get around the ship. The door led to a stairwell that connected various levels below the hanger deck, and had access to ducts and piping that could reach many sections of the secondary hull.
"Oh my god," was all that Parouge said, as he stood beside Chan and looked at the remains. Then he turned away.
Chan did so as well, and then guided him away from the scene. In truth, she had seen some pretty gruesome things in her days on Alfe Kree, but she was sure that Parouge had not. War in this century was mostly vapourizations and burns, and nothing like this, so the true gruesomeness was often spared. She said, "We'll have to seal off this section of the ship. The triffid could be anywhere."
"Of course," Parouge said, immediately regaining his senses. Unlike Chan, he could not easily call up images that compared to what he saw in that corridor.
"Whatever it is, it knows enough to go through doors. Clemsen said a couple of days ago that it might be a sentient life form."
"It is still dangerous," the captain remarked.
"Intelligence makes it even more dangerous. It knows how to hide."
Dean O'Grotty drew the unfortunate task of gathering up the remains and putting them into a stasis chamber that had been brought to the location. As he worked, Parouge gave the order to evacuate the rear sections of the secondary hull that were equipped with its own air processing system. Isolation doors were closed over all approaches to that part of the ship, and access to operate them was limited to the bridge. Even if the triffid had figured out how to work the controls, they would not respond. Power to the cargo transporters were also shut off, just in case.
"It's obviously in there," Tashur said, as he and many of the other senior officers gathered in sickbay. The ship psychologist was talking to Schuster to try to help him over the shock of seeing what had happened. At the same time, he got a good description of the plant, which was relayed to Chan. The Odonan woman had seemingly put herself in charge of this mission to find and stop that triffid and any others that were down there, although Tashur constantly tried to reassert his authority. "We have to get rid of it somehow," he said, stating the obvious.
"We can't risk depressurizing the whole section," Etcheberry said. "We don't have enough air in reserve to repressurize that section, without reducing pressure in the rest of the ship."
"Phasers do not appear to be effective in stopping it," Tashur replied, "mostly because it does not have a solid mass that we can hit, and it also appears to be quite redundant. It can continue to function, even after losing large sections of itself."
"Fortunately, it's an immature plant," Chan commented. "It's barely a metre and a half tall, with no spore pods yet. It was too small to, ah, consume all of Ensign Scambelli." Parouge was about to say something abut Chan's callousness, and then remembered that Odonans usually do not evade their thoughts with comforting words, but just stated the obvious. The concept of the euphemism was unknown to Chan and her people, so she had to improvise on the fly.
Tashur continued, "Has the botany lab been trying to determine what could stop these things, some kind of toxic gas or whatever?"
"Not that I know of," replied Parouge. "However, it seems unlikely that they could find something that would work on this short notice, without having dire effects on the crew, for example. We know next to nothing about this particular life form."
"It's possible," Chan started, "that widespread upper-band radiation, perhaps into the gamma bands, would stop it by disrupting large sections of it at once. Other methods could put the ship or members of the crew at risk."
Tashur pointed out, "We don't have any means of hitting the plant with higher-band radiation in any kind of controlled manner."
The small group continued to discuss their options, although to Chan, it sounded more like they were arguing. About the best plan that they could come up with was to somehow trick the plant into a small portion of the lower cargo deck and either depressurize that section only or else grab onto it with a transporter beam. The only problem with that approach was that they had no way of luring the triffid anywhere. What would they use as bait, besides another member of the crew?
Once the group broke up, Chan left sickbay and returned to her post on the bridge. While there, monitoring the course of the Alexandria to Starbase Fourty-Four, something that did not require too much mental effort on her part, she thought of an idea. It was such an obvious idea that she was surprised that neither she nor someone else had thought of it before. Because the plant could be anywhere in the rear part of the secondary hull, it was still very dangerous. Something had to be done, quickly.
Another beeping sound disturbed the silence on the bridge. The sound came from the intercom panel on the captain's chair, which was now occupied by Allende. He tapped the button and said simply, "Bridge here."
"This is Lieutenant Morrison in engineering, sir," the man started, speaking a little frantically and as if he was short of breath. "We spotted the plant thing. It was in the rooms in deck twenty-one, under the gardens. I was working on the tractor beam-"
"Was anybody attacked, hurt?" the first officer asked urgently.
"No. We saw it coming, and got away easily. It doesn't move very fast, and a human at running speed can apparently outrun it."
"I understand. We'll have to revise the regulations to keep more of that area clear." Upto now, authorized personnel, mostly engineers, were allowed in to do necessary maintenance and repairs, but they went in with security escorts carrying heavier weapons.
"I have no intention of going back there as long as that thing was around."
Once he shut off the intercom, Allende looked towards Chan, and muttered, "Damn."
Chan really did not think the epitaph was directed at her, although she had a large part of the blame for bringing this problem up to the ship. Hearing the message also made her feel more concerned, "Am I correct in saying that the tractor beam controls is outside the sealed-off section?"
"Yes," Allende said softly.
"How did it get through the isolation doors?"
"It didn't," the first officer replied, and he got confirmation from the officer at the security console. According to him, none of the isolation doors were opened.
"Then what does that mean? Is there more than one?"
"That's possible," Allende replied. "Alternatively, it can move faster than we know and might have gotten out of the isolated area before we could seal it off. We've been underestimating it for too long."
"Now we'll have to seal off the entire secondary hull and evacuate everybody there."
"Warp engineering is down there."
"The triffid was in the tractor beam control area, so that means it is within easy access to all kinds of approaches to engineering. We'll have to evacuate all of the secondary hull until we can get rid of it-or all of them if there is more than one. We'll have to seal off the connectives between the primary and secondary hulls, which is the only way to contain it."
Such a decision was not for Allende to make. He turned away from Chan and towards the communications console. "Ensign, locate the captain for me."
"Right away, sir," came the reply from the young man.
"Commander Allende, with your permission, I'd like to go to one of the electronics labs."
"For what reason?"
"I have an idea."
For some reason, Allende felt a little chilled when Chan said "I have an idea." He had read her personnel file, afterall. "What is it?" he asked.
"We need to convert a phaser to fire a wider-angled beam with radiation at higher levels, gamma radiation even..."
Chan left the bridge, without really sure if she had Allende's permission or not. Afterall, she had been in charge of missions before, and it almost came naturally to her. Once she got into the turbolift, she really did not care about what Allende was saying, or thinking. She just had one thought on her mind. She had to get rid of the triffid in the lower hull. It was her blunder that brought it on board and put them at risk, so it would have to be her that got rid of it, without risking any more lives. Nothing else was acceptable. It was the way that it had to be, and if she was going to disobey orders because of it, she would deal with it later. Only then would that matter.
First, Chan went to the armory on deck eight to sign out a phaser. She actually picked an older, larger model known for its extra power capabilities. It would be easier to work with than the newer models with their component electronics. She took that to the electronics lab, which she found empty. As she got to work, she heard over the shipwide intercom the orders to evacuate the entire secondary hull, and seal it up as if the Alexandria was about to undergo a separation of the primary hull from the secondary hull. The ship could do this, but it would be a permanent separation. As that announcement was made, Chan also heard the distinctive sounds from the klaxons that indicated another intruder alert. The carnivorous plant had been spotted on the deck just above the gardens. At the same time, Chan also could sense that the warp engines were being shut down. That was to be expected, she knew, since it was not safe to run the warp drives with the main engineering sections evacuated. Hearing these announcements, and thinking how the ship was being progressively crippled because of her own stupid blunder made Chan more determined to complete her plan.
Chan disassembled the phaser, and took a key transtator circuit component over to one of the microscopes, a large device with two eyepieces that could magnify an image upto several thousand times, and present it or test it in a variety of wavelengths. Using electroprobes, Chan started to take the transtator apart, and then reassemble it after making some subtle changes to the circuitry. The relatively primitive Federation technology made these modifications possible. On an Odonan ship, the necessary adjustments could be produced on a control chip and then replicated for use in a standard weapon. Here, she had to make the modifications carefully, without any guide or instruction.
The hardest part was to test whether or not the modifications would even work. She had to adjust and manipulate the resonating crystal so much she was sure that its efficiency would drop dramatically and she was not sure that the modifications would even hold. When those sensitive modifications were complete, Chan had to bring over the entire phaser unit and put it under the microscope to manipulate the parts, some of which were only a millimetre in size. Such things, she knew, could be accomplished when replicators could be used to produce such items. However, the dexterity and nimbleness of her finger made such work possible. Still, it took longer than expected, as Chan ran into problems, some of which she had never anticipated. The phaser guide beam could not be used since the disruptive beam was over a wide angle, and the guide beam would generate interference patterns within the overall beam. Chan had to disable that part of the weapon. The power drain would also be much more intense, so she had to reinforce those connections to allow them to withstand the heat and the power flows. Even so, firing her modified phase would make it hot, perhaps too hot to handle. If Chan herself used it, she knew, none of those things would be a problem for anybody but her.
Parouge and Allende walked into the electronics lab, just as Chan was finishing her work. The sound of the doors whoosing open startled the woman, who sat up from a hunched position behind the microscope, and turned to face the newcomers.
"Chan," Parouge started, sounding a bit angry. "What are you doing here?"
"I came up with a plan to convert a phaser to a weapon that is more effective against the triffids. I had to see if I could do it and if it would work."
The captain cut her off, saying, "You have no authorization to make these changes. The first officer said you just left the bridge."
"He gave me permission to go."
Turning to the first officer, he asked, "Allende?"
The man answered, "I was starting to say something, and Chan took that as approval. She moved simply too fast for me to stop her, or for the message I was giving to get through to her. She probably would not have listened anyway."
"You have to learn, Chan, that you can't go around this ship and-"
Now it was Chan's turn to talk over somebody, saying, rather loudly and firmly, "What we have to do right now is to destroy that plant thing down in the secondary hull before it figures a way to get out of there. It's my job to get rid of it."
"Who gave you that job?" Parouge demanded.
"I was responsible for it coming on board. It has already killed one crewmember on board, and was probably trying to attack those others. They were aware of its presence and got away in time. The next person might not be so lucky. Now, we've got the secondary hull cleared and the warp engines shut down. Our weapons aren't designed for hitting something like that, so we have to made adjustments to make them effective. That's what I'm attempting to do here."
Captain Parouge knew that the outburst was out of line for someone under his command, but he also had to realize that Chan had once been in a position of authority and it was not easy to give up that authority. In addition, it was the general practice among Odonans that if a situation came up that required their attention, they tended to disregard the niceties of the command structure and simply did the job. He knew that there was a problem down in the secondary hull, and that Chan was the best person to deal with it. He made the decision to let her deal with it, and would handle her insubordination at a later time. "Very well," he finally said. "Lieutenant Commander, you are out of line. You must remember that this is not an Odonan starship, and you have been exposed to the way that the Federation does things. This incident... will have to be dealt with more thoroughly later."
"I understand."
"Now, what are you proposing to do with the weapons to make them effective against the triffids?" He picked up the modified phaser, but could not see any overt difference between it and a regular phaser.
"I made two modifications," she started. "I altered the coil system and adjusted the circuits to draw more power and to generate a resonating phased beam at a much higher frequency. It has a more effective disruptive pattern on the protoplasmic structure of the triffid. In addition, I adjusted the emitter to spread the energy out over a greater volume. Because of the extreme redundancy built into this lifeform, we essentially need to strike it with multiple weapons at once."
Parouge knew the consequences that would result from firing that weapon. "Unfortunately, the shielding in the weapon housing would not be sufficient to contain the gamma radiation levels you're using. In addition, modifying the beam emitter in this fashion could result in significant radiation being directed back at the shooter."
"I'm aware of that," the woman replied. She tried to contain herself, since even she sounded like she was a little to boastful. "In time, we could produce safer variations of this type of weapon, but right now, we don't have the time. The forcefield belt I wear can easily contain the radiation that the weapon is emitting, especially since I can preset the device for optimum protection at those frequencies. It's no risk to me, sir." She did not say it, but the weapon as it was could be risky for anybody else to use. She could never say it out loud, but she somewhat liked the idea of having devised a way to attack the plant in a way only she could actually do.
Parouge stared at her for a few seconds. He knew full well the capabilities that the Odonan brought to the Alexandria. The forcefield belt would stop the radiation, while giving her the flexibility to stalk the triffid. It was the kind of flexibility nobody in a radiation suit could match. The only thing that bothered him right now, besides her apparent insubordination, was that she had become obsessed with the plant, just as she had become obsessed with everything else that had gone wrong since they first stepped on the surface of Transcestus IV. She was taking this as a personal failing. Part of the problem from Parouge's point of view was Chan's criticisms of ship procedures and the failings of its technology. The delay in clearing the affected section of the secondary hull might have allowed the triffid to move around more freely, and he also learned that it was impossible to totally seal off a section of a ship. There were crawlways and junction tubes and the rest that could be closed, but not sealed. Maybe they really needed those forcefield containment systems that were still being developed.
After giving the matter some thought, Parouge said, "Commander Allende, return to the bridge."
"Aye sir," he said, obediently just to show that to Chan, and then he left.
Chan looked at the captain, a person that at times she could not fully understand. Although Parouge did not have the reputation as a top commander in the Federation, he was competent enough to get a relatively new, top-of-the-line ship, and he was given important and demanding missions. The ship itself had most of the latest technology, and Chan was surprised at how well it was integrated and how well the crew adapted to it. On the other hand, she was not fully sure of the competency of the crew. Mistakes were made, and procedures rigidly adhered to even if an alternative would have been better. Chan found it curious that she was the one more willing to find and follow the alternatives, while the crew was more rigid in its procedures, whereas most Odonans tended to be rigid in their approach to things while the Federation, and humans in particular, were free-flowing and innovative. Maybe it was her time on Alfe Kree, when she was forced to improvise and think at the point of the moment. It would be in all of their best interests, she thought, if a little of what she had developed at Alfe Kree rubbed off on the rest of the crew.
"Well, captain, are you going to allow me to attempt to destroy that plant thing?" Chan asked, while staring at him.
"I would rather send somebody else, even if that person has to wear a rad suit."
"Why?" asked the Odonan woman, suddenly alarmed that despite what she had already said and done, her chance to correct her mistake was going to be taken away from her.
"I don't like the way you're approaching this. You seem to blame yourself for what has happened when it was not truly your fault."
"But I-"
"You will not talk unless I let you!" retorted Parouge, with a sudden flash of anger. He felt the need to reassert his command authority. He quieted just enough to make sure that Chan was not going to say anything, except to acknowledge that she had heard him and understood him. "Now, I have read your personnel files, and understand that you commanded a ship once, the Tola, and that you also were in a position of authority at the colony world of Alfe Kree. Although the records were incomplete, I did get the impression that in both cases, you made what you considered to be command errors. You have blamed yourself for whatever those alleged errors were, and you think that you should've done more, that you should've had more information or listened better to your subordinate officers-or had better officers. As the commanding officer, you blamed yourself for what happened then. Now, the pattern is repeating itself. You are fearing that you have committed another command error, and it is something that you and only you can correct. That is a dangerous approach to things. It makes people act irrationally, and do things that not only do not correct the error, but compound it. Chan, you are not the one to judge that you have made an error of that kind. It is the very random nature of our existence that sometimes things go wrong, and you could not possibly have had the information that would have prevented that error from happening."
"But the-"
Once more, Parouge cut in, saying sharply, "I said, you will talk only when I let you!" After a moment of silence, the captain continued, "One of the things that commanding officers have to realize is that not every command decision is the right one. Based on your inexperience with our procedures, and what information you had, and your own knowledge of such things as botany, your decision to take the escape pod back to the Alexandria is defensible. Nobody could anticipate any of what happened since then. On the Alexandria, you are part of the crew, part of a team, and in order for your posting on this ship to be a successful one for you and us, you will have to understand that. You can't put all things on yourself. Do you understand what I am saying?"
"Yes, sir, I do," Chan said in a more subdued voice. She also looked down from the captain, an Odonan signal of submission that was probably universal. She held out towards the captain the converted phaser in her hand, saying, "Whoever you recommend to go down into the secondary hull to find the triffid can use this. It should work as planned." When Parouge picked up the weapon, if only to inspect it, she added, "With your permission, I will return to my station on the bridge."
She started to walk towards the door when Parouge turned around and said, "Chan!"
"Yes?" she said, stopping just short of the sensor that would open the doors.
The captain walked towards the Odonan, and handed the phaser back to her. "You will be the one going into the secondary hull, but only because you are the one best able to use this device, if it works, and run away and protect yourself if it does not. I am not sending you there because of any private vendetta you are having, whether with the triffid or with memories you have."
Chan intentionally kept her voice free of whatever emotion she was feeling, and simply said, "Thank you, captain."
"You, however, will not go alone."
"What?"
"Regulations on this type of activity are quite clear. Nobody goes alone. You will choose somebody to accompany you."
"Is that wise?" Chan asked. "There is a risk of being ambushed."
"Apparently only if you don't know it is there. Since then, people are aware of it, so when they spot it, they can easily get away."
Chan realized that she was not going to win this argument. She knew the regulations as well, and they were similar to regulations on Odonan starships. Nobody went into this kind of mission alone. She returned to the security section, where she met her friend, Terry Clemsen, at the duty desk. He got up and walked over to her, saying, "I heard that you want to go into the secondary hull and try to get the plant."
"Parouge's already given me permission."
Looking at the weapon in her hands, the man said, "Phasers don't seem to stop that thing."
"This has been converted to fire mostly gamma radiation in a more dispersed pattern. I believe that it should work." Chan walked past the man and into the storeroom, to get a communicator. She needed that to contact the bridge since the isolation doors could only be operated from the bridge, and the intercom units and other computer terminals and various control panels had all been shut down.
Clemsen followed the woman, saying, "Chi, you can't go there alone. I've got to go with you."
"I'm not sure."
"There's no way that Parouge will let you go in there alone, and neither would you if you were the captain. I'm sure that Odonans think the same way too. They're sticklers for regulations."
"So I've heard," Chan mumbled.
"Besides," Clemsen continued, "you really don't know your way around there like I do."
"But it's dangerous for you."
"And for you?"
"Not as dangerous as for you. This gamma ray phaser is unshielded, but I'm not. You'd be exposed to the radiation."
"Then I'll just stand away from you when you fire it." Clemsen just stared at the lieutenant commander for a few moments, wondering how to convince her to let him come along. He somehow felt it was wrong to let her go down there alone, where the carnivorous plant was lurking, perhaps hungry for its next meal now that the area had been cleared. When rational, Clemsen felt he should not be so protective of the woman, since the forcefield belt and her training and experience in tracking down individuals meant that she could more than readily take care of herself. However, when he was in her presence, he found himself increasingly not rational. He was protective. He finally said, "If I don't go with you, you would? Who would you trust the most?"
Chan thought it over for the longest time, and then made the decision not because of what Clemsen was saying, but because of the time she was wasting. "Okay, you can accompany me. Get a tricorder and a communicator, and a phaser too-it can't hurt. Remember, we don't get separated down there."
"Of course."
(End of Part 9)
