A Little "Bio" Matter

Posted on Thu Mar 10th, 2011 @ 1:00pm by Vice Admiral Iluvar & Commander Michael Evans M.D. & Ensign Matthew Lessly

Mission: Episode 1.4 - "Confusion in the Cluster"
Location: Science Lab One, USS Pandora
Timeline: Mission Day 03, 1014

ON: [[Science Lab One, USS Pandora, Mission Day 03, 1014]]

Matt entered the science lab, PADD in hand, and looked around. The science labs on starships never could compare to those on a research base, or any base for that matter, and while he was glad to be out in space again after a year trapped on the same planet... not even that... the same moon, he missed what it had to offer him as a scientist. Seeing that the piece of debris had already been transported to the science lab, Matt set the PADD down on one of the side tables and began by performing a visual inspection of the hunk of metal.

A short distance away, Sonya (PNPC) looked up from where she was making a few adjustments to the lab's sensor palate. The teams working on the categorizing and assessment of the debris had reported difficulties with background radiation which prevented accurate analysis. Hopefully the adjustments she had been making would help to reduce the interference. "We're ready to begin running initial tests whenever you are, doctor," she said, looking across the workstation in the direction of Lieutenant Commander Evans.

Evans looked at the bit of debris with eager anticipation. He always enjoyed lab work; it was sort of like a puzzle. He nodded at Sonya. "Let's see what we've got," he said.

"Initial tests confirm the unidentified material is definitely biological in origin," Sonya reported as she watched the results of the scans scroll across her display. It might have seemed mundane to repeat what they already knew, but there was a certain order to science and she knew that they needed to follow procedure or risk corrupting the entire analysis. "Secondary tests proceeding," she continued, tapping out the command sequence as she spoke, "Matt, would you collect a sample for secondary testing. We should be able to better determine the source once we've started a database comparison."

Matt nodded in response to Sonya. He grabbed a petri dish and a small, scalpel-like instrument and walked to the debris laying on the floor. Looking around for a good sample to take, he found a relatively large bit of the residue and scraped it into the petri dish. A little of the sample stuck to the scalpel before Matt knocked it off into the rest of the sample. "Here you go, Sonya." he said, handing the petri dish to his fellow science officer.

Taking the petri dish she was being offered, Sonya briefly glanced at the sample before slipping it under the nearby viewer. She leaned over, peered into the visual display, and began to make adjustments to the view. It took her only a few moments to bring the sample into focus. "There we go," she said, turning to glance in the doctor's direction, "What do you think, doctor?"

Michael peered carefully into his own display. "Clearly biological," he said gravely, then looked up with a short wink. "Increase magnification please," he said. "Animalia I'd guess," he muttered as the focus changed. "Degradation from exposure..." He shifted a filter. "Multinucleated with intercalated discs..." He frowned. "These remind me of myocytes found in muscle tissue with a high degree of conductivity and automaticity, like heart tissue," he said, "but there don't appear to be any sarcomeres for contraction. Let's bring up an intracellular diagram."

The clearly-rendered picture came up on the primary display. The typical organelles were to be found but appeared somewhat diminuitive, especially when compared to the large vacuoles contained within each cellular strand. "What do you suppose these are," Michael asked, pointing.

"I'm no expert on biology," Sonya replied slowly as she studied the visual display provided by the doctor, "but those vacuoles seem a bit larger than usual for...say...human tissue cells." She tilted her head slightly, as if the slightly different angle might help her to better understand the mysteries presented by the image before them.

Dr. Evans nodded in agreement. "Except for fat cells, quite," he said. "But I've never seen a fatty cell with this kind of design from any species. Even a cell designed to excrete specific substances doesn't usually have this sort of electrochemical conductivity," he mused. "Lessly, what do you think?"

Matt looked at the image on the screen, his arms crossed and nodded his head. "I have to agree. I can't believe that those cells naturally developed like that. Is it possible that they were artificially created, or genetically engineered?"

Mike quirked an eyebrow and nodded. "Very possible," he said. "Let's do a quick DNA analysis Lessly, see what we find," he suggested. "And, Sonya, would you mind extracting some of those vacuoles for a chemical analysis? I'm dying to know what's inside those buggers."

Matt nodded and took a syringe from a nearby tray. He walked over to the hull fragment and carefully collected another, smaller, sample for the DNA synchronizer. Inserting the sample into the small machine, Matt keyed the request into the console and stood back to wait for it to finish.

"I'll bet you are, sir," Sonya replied, flashing a smile in the doctor's direction. Despite the fact that they had entered this analysis thinking they may be looking at the remains of some unfortunate victim from the Markon's crew, which was still a fleeting possibility, Sonya could tell that the doctor was at least enjoying the prospect of attempting to solve their little piece of the mystery.

She turned back toward her workstation and began working with one of the samples that had already been prepared. The request to remove a few vacuoles for chemical analysis sounded simple enough, but it required careful precision if they were going to have any hope of getting the most out of their analysis. Even the slightest miscalculation could taint the results.

Dr. Evans stepped to peer over Lessly's shoulder while Sonya fiddled with the tedium of extracting the substance within the vacuoles. The computer made various "thinking" sounds as it processed the DNA sample submitted by Lessly, and Mike became a little impatient in his anticipation. Finally the representation of the DNA sample blinked onto the screen. Michael blinked back and leaned closer, giving a small whistle as his stomach gave a little flop. "Lessly, are you seeing this," he asked, hardly believing his own eyes. "This DNA is in a pi-helix formation!"

A strand of typical humanoid DNA had a double-helix formation, spiraling up like some sort of staircase. On the screen instead was a more squat, complex structure. When viewed from the top down it looked like a square tower that was rotated slightly at each interval, as opposed to the spiral staircase that one usually saw with the typical humanoid DNA. Even the DNA of species 8472 with it's extremely dense twelve-helix DNA had at least a somewhat familiar form; whatever was on this screen, however, did not.

Matt too double blinked as he stared at the representation being shown on the screen. "That can't be right." he said, slightly gaping, before asking the computer to reanalyze the sample. "A formation like this has only ever been theorized about in complex life. If this is actually what we're looking at, it came from a life form unlike anything the Federation has ever come across before."

"That's not all," Sonya said, looking up from the display of her own scanner, "If I'm looking at this right, there is more than enough vacuole storage in these cells to sustain normal life process, even in high metabolizing organisms. There are only a few species in the database who even come close. But take a look at this..." She pressed a control on the surface of her workstation and the image in the viewer was transferred to the visual display on the nearby bulkhead. "I'm not sure exactly what sort of material this is," she continued, pointing to a few areas highlighted in purple, "but I know you aren't going to find it on any menu in the Federation..."

"Fascinating," Evans said. "Reticulated. Highly polarized?" he queried, looking at the sensor data and receiving confirmation. He shook his head in bewilderment.

OFF

Lieutenant Commander Michael Evans
Chief Medical Officer/Second Officer
USS Pandora

Ensign Sonya Masterson (PNPC)
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Pandora
Played by: Capt Iluvar

and

Ensign Matthew Lessly
Science Officer
USS Pandora