Beeply was a Exocomp serving on USS Roger Bacon, a Nebula class ship. She spent most of her time hovering around the Jefferies tubes upgrading all the things. She had increased the range on the sensors by 10% and reduced the cycle time for the phasers by half a second. She did want to go on more away missions but hadn't plucked up the courage to put herself forward for them.
The USS Roger bacon had received a distress signal from a research station studying a nebula that just didn't quite fit any established theories. It was a very small base with only 6 crew and no weapons of any kind, its shields were also very unpowered, the shuttle's shields were stronger. The base had transported in part of the nebula, it then started to react and outputted a lot of Theta Radiation.
The Senior Staff were all gathered in the Conference Room.
Chief Engineer Fayi, who was a Benzite explained "All six life signs are still there, they seem to have all withdrawn to the Holdout chamber, that should keep out most of the radiation but with the Theta radiation damaging all ship systems that protection will not last. The Theta radiation means we cannot get a transporter lock, but if bring narrow beam subspace signal amplifiers we can get a lock."
Chief medical officer Dun, a Scotsman "Even in full hazard gear you can speed 15 minutes on the ship before getting more radiation poisoning then we can treat here. Since the first symptom is impeded judgement I request the authority to order an immediate withdrawal backed up by threat of court martial."
"Granted" said the Captain, who has a Vulcan.
The captain then continued "How we just consider who to send, I consider it logical to send only one office, the minuscule increase chance of success does not justify the doubling of risk," the rest of the staff nodded. "The systems in the station will me acting very unpredictable so we'll need someone with experience in engineering to be able to come up with solutions, Secondly to reduce risk we should send someone with natural resistance to this radiation.
...
Beeply just happened up be in the tube above this room. She opened a hatch and floated down into the room. The security officer, an Andorian glared at then snorted, she barely ever used doors. "Captain, I volunteer, I'm nearly immune to Theta Radiation and have been a engineer since I was built 3 years ago," gushed Beeply.
"Fayi, is she as qualified as she says" asks the captain.
"I can't speak of the radiation resistance as she keeps upgrading herself but here engineering skills are the highest rated on the ship," vouches Fayi.
"You are assigned the mission, report to shuttle bay 3 in 15 minutes" commanded the Captain.
Beeply did here what was said next as she had already returned to the tubes. She got to the Shuttlebay in just 2 minute and spent the rest of the time downloading everything that might help with the mission and designing some tools she might need so she could replicate them quickly. She downloaded date on the layout of the ship, personnel files, Theta radiation, and all the research the station had already submitted.
At the 15 minute some people arrived with a huge crate filled with tools. All the tools were inferior to what she could just replicate near instantly so she wasn't even going to open in the crate. They loaded it into the shuttle. Then the pilot arrived, he was a raven, raven's having become fully sapient around about WW3, they had also grown to about 3 feet tall. They stayed away from humans encase they decided to blow up everything again and had a separate first contact with the Vulcans the humans were not told about for a century when the Raven revealed there Sapience so they could join Starfleet. Like most ravens he wore a necklace around his neck from which extended two telescopic robot arms.
"You finally got to do an away mission, I must say its about time," said the Raven you was only known to most as Raven, as his true name was one of one of many raven secrets that they kept for no reason.
"I only hope I don't mess this up somehow," worried Beeply
"That'll be nearly impossible, you've tinkered with every system on the ship, have you ever messed anything up?" encourage Raven.
"Well no but I guess its possible," said Beeply slightly less nervously.
They now arrived at the airlock and docked.
"I'll have to leave once your on the the station," explained Raven.
"Of course, no point sticking around and getting irradiated," agreed Beeply.
Beeply got into the airlock, pressure equalized and she entered the ship. She heard the rubble of the shuttle departing. She immediately replicated a signal amplifier and just it to here self, this one wouldn't just let were beam up but allow crystal clear communication with the ship.
She looked around, all the consoles and wall panels were already broken. The turbo lift obviously wouldn't work either. But the shaft would still be there and no right down to the lowest level where the holdout room was.
The doors to the turbolift was locked and beginning to corrode together. She used a phaser she and replicated onto herself on the shuttle and cut and hole though. She went down and soon reach the life chamber in the middle of the shaft. She then noted the gas around here was giving glowing rhythmic flashes, it was like it was trying to communicate with her. But she didn't have time to investigate it until all the people were out, she simply flashed part the same sequence just to confirm it had noticed.
He blasted throw the lift then out of doors at the bottom. Very soon she reached the very very thick doors to the holdout chamber. It would take hours to phase through them, she checked the plan, the walls around the holdout chamber were just as thick and tough all the way round, it even had its own life support so there were no tunnels to it. Even if she opened if it would just let the radiation in, even the minute it would take to set up the signal amplifiers and beam them out would cause permanent damage.
She would have to contain, remove, neutralise or otherwise deal the radiation. Then she could explode her way in.
The gas around her was still flashing. She decided it was time to try to communicate, she responded the the flashes varying them slightly. More flashes came back, she responded again. More flashes and responses, this time faster. Then they kept going back and forth faster and faster. But the universal translator wasn't getting anywhere as there was no context. She would make some. Taking some mass from the debris around about she replicated a holoprojector. She shows various this the flashes replied, that must the name for the thing. With robotically fast thinking she got though dozens of things a second, to any human they would be a blur. Then the universal translator had enough and they could communicate.
"You understand me now" flashed the Gas.
"Yes," confirmed Beeply
"Are you going to run away?" asked the Gas fearfully.
"No," reassured Beeply.
"Why did the the others run" asked the Gas.
"Because you would kill them" explained Beeply.
"What does kill mean" asked the Gas
"When something has been killed they cannot do, think, or feel anything ever again for ever" surmised Beeply.
"That sound very very bad," noted the Gas
"It is," confirmed Beeply.
"Why do I kill, I don't want to, it just happens," ask the Gas
"You make something called Theta radiation, it kill all organic life, and damages nearly everything else" explains Beeply projecting some diagrams to explain.
"Will I kill you?" asked the Gas very very worried.
"No, you only do very very little damage which I can easily fix" reassures Beeply.
"How can I help you" asks the gas.
"You could try pulling yourself to the top of the station, they I can get these people out without you killing them" suggests Beeply.
The gas tries that but every time he pulls gas away more gas flows in to take its place it is clear after a few minutes that it isn't going to work.
"Please kill me" asked the Gas
"What!" said the Beeply
"If I am killed I can't do anything, which means I can't kill, 1 killing is better then many" explains the Gas
"I prefer no killing" intones Beeply.
"Please hurry I can feel myself spreading" begged the Gas
Beeply then thought. So the gas fills whatever container its in, so we just need another container. But it will corrode any container it is in and escape. Just about the only thing it doesn't corrode is myself. I guess that means I have to be the container.
"Gas how big was the container you were brought here in," ask Beeply
The Gas uses flashes to make a brief image on the container, it is a cylinder measuring 1 metre across and 2 meters wide. He might be able to compress it to half the size or so but no way it'll fit in her.
Guess she just has to get bigger then.
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