From jrbowman@kih.net Mon Jun 8 20:06:20 1998 Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 09:48:12 -0600 From: Gershon To: INDIGO FLEET List Serve Subject: USS CONSTELLATION: Full 360, Part I ---OFFICIAL INDIGO FLEET TRANSMISSION--- Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 12:04:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Gershon Subject: USS CONSTELLATION: Full 360, Part I FMD 6.1145 Sickbay -- Deck 12 Bradford looked at his watch. He was never a clock-watcher, but he couldn't help it. It was better to look at the watch than to look at Captain Paraskevopoulus, suffering from an unknown illness that was causing a rapid mental breakdown. "Captain Parrot" was lucid...now, but for how much longer? A metal collar provided the neural stimulation to reorient the CONSTELLATION captain to his surroundings, but Bradford knew it was only a stop-gap measure. Sooner or later, the collar would be ineffective and the captain would slide away into insanity. Unknown to the Captain, the Chief Medical Officer and the captain's daughter, Ursula Reichstein, had made a secret arrangement. After a particular level of cognitive loss had set in, Paraskevopoulus would be declared mentally incompetent by Bradford. Reichstein was only 15, but she *was* his daughter and his closest relative. She would make the medical decisions for the captain, and she had already agreed to put the captain in stasis. He would remain there until Paraskevopoulus could be transported to earth. There was a war on, however. No trips yet, not even necessary trips such as tranportation of 'frozen' bodies. *Definitely not good for morale*, thought Bradford. Bradford looked over his files. He had already heard the news about the LEXINGTON and the PROMETHEUS. He would have paid money for better news, directly into the coffers of whatever controlled FedNet. So would the crew. "Doctor Bradford!" Bradford turned around, now face to face with Commander Umberto Bertoli, the newly-assigned "Combat Advisor" of the CONSTELLATION. "Greetings, Commander. Sick? You don't mind being treated in an unpainted whorehouse?", asked Bradford with a grin, referring to Bertoli's comment about the recently repaired sickbay. "Well, I'm not sick. Physically sick. Maybe the Counselor could provide a better diagnosis. Sorry to unload on you doctor, but I'm something of a motor mouth. You don't want to see me liquored up!" "I'll make a note of it. What's on your mind, Commander?" "What about that new ensign? The Flight Control Officer? Ensign *Ares* Sindel?" Bradford laughed. "I see. You got the name wrong!" "Got everything else wrong, too. I like agressive women. I don't respect people I can easily push around, and if that aggressive person is particularly fetching...." "Commander...if you're thinking about a romantic relationship with the Ensign -- " Bertoli held up one hand. "No thank you, doctor, I'd like to avoid a Board of Inquiry. I know not to mess my own bed. Besides, I definitely got on the wrong foot with her...I can tell. Now, that sweet little civilian on board...?" Bradford stood up. "You mean the Captain's daughter? You mean the Captain's **fifteen-year old** daughter?!" He had to look more closely, but Bradford thought he saw Bertoli turn green. "Oh boy. Sheesh. Remind me to read the manifest more carefully." The Commander grabbed a PADD and double checked the information. "Well...how about that? Uh...you're not going to tell our captain I was about to make a pass at his daughter?" "No, but I'll have Kzar keep an eye on you," answered Bradford with a half- smile. The CMO thought that might not be a bad idea. Bertoli examined the picture more closely. "Well, Bert, try to get that out of your mind," he said, ignoring the doctor. "Who would have thought... there's only one generation between her and The Parrot?" The Commander left, and Bradford was almost glad. He reconfigured his PADD...and then it hit him. The answer. ************************************* FMD 6.1200 Deck 10 -- Gymnasium Ursula took a peek into the classroom of the CONSTELLATION. Pretty pictures, cutouts, permdisps and holomobiles, appealing perhaps to a four or five year old. There was a sort of art to it -- clearly the work of an accomplished decorator, a pedagogue of great skill. The desks circled the main desk, but the funny displays Ursula remembered as a fixture of her own desk in Germany were turned off. School is out. The entire deck was almost empty. Ursula wondered how long that would last. Every family on Deck 10 had been evacuated; random probability was the only justification for her presence. Her mother probably thought she was still on vacation, neither of them watched FedNet and Ursula turned hers off in Room 1020-23 (next to 10-Forward!). Ursula didn't want to think about her mother: what was her mother thinking, what was she doing? She couldn't even send her a message -- "strict Starfleet communication only"! It was hard to imagine her father did this for *a living*, watched exits and entrances like this, scenes replayed several times in several different situations, evacuations, deaths, the fall of empires and the birth of new ones. It made her self-dedication, and self-isolation shrivel in meaning compared to that of her father's. A friendly Petty Officer provided her with some extra class C jumpsuits. Ugly things, but her father was wearing the same type of unisex, black collared garments. It was time to center herself in her art. She had ended all meditation, as her conscious mind was not surrendering itself to the void. Four hours or so in the gymnasium would put her on the right course, where objects didn't declare war and blow things up, but remained right where you put them until it was time to break them. When Ursula entered the gym, there were a handful, five or so non-coms and officers who squeezed out the time in their overtaxed schedules to work out. Ursula looked no different than the others, a young yeoman, perhaps. It took a few moments to get used to, the hard laughing, and sometimes obscene joking. Two females were sharing some dirty joke with another male, who burst into laughter. Another male was jumping rope, a third was working with some kind of ball with arms. Finding an empty mat, Ursula began her *tai-chi* exercises. The skills and poses in tai-chi were essential to a martial artist, but it took decades to properly incorporate them and use them. Until then, they were useless in combat. Ursula had other skills until that day came. She had been working five minutes, the strain of some joke finishing overhead. "...and the parrot turned to the cook and said, 'Lady, I just want to know one thing -- what did that tribble do to piss you off?'" The man laughed, big belly laughs. The other man stopped skipping rope. "Another one of your parrot jokes, Howard? Parrot themes seem to be sneaking in. A running theme from the ship's wit? I'm impressed." "I can't help it," smiled the older woman. "It's parrot season." The other woman laughed. "Cute. You can let the captain hear that. Maybe he'll just think you're too ignorant to pronounce his last name." The other two listeners ooed. "Petty Officer Anson...first, I don't think the captain's in any condition to complain. Second, I think the captain knows how we feel about him, if he's any kind of captain at all. Who ran during our engagement with the Kraggons without firing a shot? That will be the only thing Captain Pair-a-sku-*Vop*-o-lus is ever remembered for. If Zeeta Torr'n were still alive, the Kraggons would have been given a black eye as a going-away present. When Torr'n was on board, you *knew* she was captain. With the Parrot, the ship is on autopilot." Anson walked over to the woman. Ursula tensed, rehearsing in her own mind. There was no fight. Anson stood face to face with the jokester, Howard. "I'll let you know one thing, Howard. When someone takes command of a starship, that person earns my respect. I'm not one of those jackasses who thinks I'm smarter than the captain. I know my limitations, and I suspect he has strengths we don't know about. I don't joke about my Captain. If I ever hear you joking about the Captain to anyone who doesn't serve on this vessel -- " Howard raised her arms, a universal gesture of peace. "I've never joked about the captain to anyone not on board! I wouldn't make this vessel cause for embarassment, and if someone called the Captain, 'Parrot', say, from the NOVA or the PROMETHEUS, they'd need a med-tech to get my boot out of their ass! I'd be raising hell right along side you, you know that... don't you?" "All right," Anson answered with a smile. "I'll buy you a drink when we get back to 10-Forward. You have only fifteen minutes left for workout, you know?", he said, concerned, as he picked up the rope. "Hell, I just use my time to gossip and tell bad jokes!" "Yeoman?" It was the other person, the one not included in the joking or arguing. "Yeoman??", he repeated. Ursula turned around. Everyone was looking at her. Her concentration vanished. "Uh...I...." "Remove your foot from your mouth...and spot me." The supplicant had moved to the exo-weights. Ursula did as she was told, like any other yeoman. ******************************************* FMD 6.1245 Sickbay "So why do they call him 'The Parrot'? Paraskevopoulus isn't that hard to pronounce -- " "Quiet." Ursula sat on the biobed as Bradford examined Ursula's DNA. "Your arrival might have saved your father's life." "How so?" "Since I can't find the source of the disease, I believe the 'disease', as it were, is being recognized as a natural part of the body. The multiplicity of symptoms, the etiology suggests that the Captain has suffered from an alteration of DNA. Now, when you alter the DNA of something, you kill it, in over ninety-five percent of the cases. Indeed, the madness that the Captain is suffering will eventually kill him. "The problem," continued Bradford, "is that we have no DNA on record before the Captain arrived on board the CONSTELLATION. He arrived by shuttle on OMEGA, and our only record is the one we have since he got here. I believe the disease has been incubating longer than that, but without an older transporter record or epithelial sample, I can't figure out what part of the DNA is causing the problem without mapping and counter mapping the entire genome. At least, not with the computers here, and not in time. "But...half of your genes are the Captain's. In a sense, one half of his DNA is *your* DNA. You are the best record, barring any diseases that alter your DNA. You're in excellent health, you don't eat any carcinogens, the telomeres -- the tips of your chromosomes -- haven't shortened significantly because you're not old enough for that to happen." As he talked, he showed Ursula the PADD that compared her DNA and the captain's DNA side by side. The display faded back. Some sections matched protein per protein, others diverged wildly. "If we had your mother's blood, we would know everything." "But from what you've said, I only half of my father's genetics. What if I don't have the right half?" "Then we're back to square one. When I have your chromosomes separated, I'll know everything. If there are errors, I'm going to examine everything. I suspect all of the significant errors to rest on the same gene. "Odd...I wanted to use transporter therapy. Replacing a transporter pattern with an earlier pattern from the same person can work under the right circum- stances. However, a synthetic mutagen will help me repair a damaged chromosome...I just have to find it...." "When will I -- when will *we* know?", asked Ursula. "We'll see," answered the Doctor. ***************************************************** FMD 6.1315 Sickbay The two doctors looked over the PADD. Dr. Jennye Ryes was the aCMO to Bradford. "Well, doctor", asked Ryes, "what have you found?" "Hmm...every chromosome checks out okay, except one. I knew it would have to be in some regulating gland, like the adrenal or the pituitary. You can check out what I've found here. Father and daughter share some genetic material, particularly at the kidneys and the adrenal glands. They'll be prone to the same diseases, but the chromosomes don't match up at this particular pair.... If the problem is on a chromosome that Ursula *doesn't* share with her father, there should be a perfect match. "Notice here...the structure of the mitochondria. The nucleotide bases match quite nicely. However, you can see the errors in the base pair sequence. Put bluntly, doctor, here is the beginning of a brand new disease. Residing in the adrenal gland, and able to mask itself in such a way that it can't be found by ordinary scanning. As far as anyone would know, the captain was simply born this way. "Who could do something like this?", Dr. Ryes asked. "Well...the Romulans have the most experience in base pair sequence research. They've come up with some interesting mutations on their own; Romulan bioresearch has really picked up. Whether *they* engineered something like this, I can't say. I'm going to check the captain for residual proteins associated with synthetic mutagens. I'll bet my standing on the Federation Board, however, that this was *not* natural! Illness just doesn't work like this!" "So when can you have Captain Paraskevopoulus cured?" "I'm going to go ahead with a slow cure. He'll still have to wear the collar, but with chromosome therapy, the symptoms should completely reverse themselves." Jennye Ryes smiled. "Can I buy you a drink yet, Doctor Bradford? I didn't catch any errors in your explanation...I think you've found the key to the whole thing. "Not yet. I'm going to prepare a synthetic mutagen base first...I want to do this *right*." Ryes smiled, saving the imaginary drink for a friend. When Bradford was on the hunt, nothing could move him...it was best to leave him to do what he enjoyed more than anything. ************************ FMD 6.1915 Ready Room It was rare to see Bochu sweat over anything. He held a PADD in his hand. It was he Betazed part of his nature talking, over emotional. The task would be to reign it in. Only pure logic would be necessary to help the crew survive, he repeated, mantralike. When Bochu entered the Ready Room, he found Bertoli sitting at the Ready Room table. How did Bertoli even get in? As Commanding Officer of the vessel, Bochu was furious. "Commander *Bertoli*!" "Mud!", smiled Bertoli, as if he and Bochu had been old school chums meeting after a few years. Bertoli was smoking his pipe. "Decided to get in some early work. You always have to be on top of things." "And how, *Commander Bertoli*, did you get in this Ready Room? You're not even an accredited -- " " -- I sweet-talked that cute little Yeoman of yours. Kind of on the flabby side, but they don't all have to be model perfect, you know?" Bochu made a note that Yeoman Lind would have to be informed that *no* one entered the Captain's Office unless cleared with him first, regardless of rank. He told himself that if Tarmok were still on board, Tarmok would have fought Bertoli PADD and stylus to keep him from entering. "Commander...I'll be polite about this. The Ready Room can be used for staff meetings when I give permission. Other times, it is to be vacant." Bertoli smiled disarmingly. "Well, I might be here -- on board that is -- for a long time, possibly longer that you expect -- " "That's news to me." The two turned to face the newcomer. Paraskevopoulus, wearing his captain's uniform and neural collar. Behind him stood Doc Bradford. "Gentlemen...Commander Bochu," Demis said, turning to Bochu. "It appears the rumors of my passing are completely exaggerated." Bochu was stunned, to say the least. The way the two men smiled, grinning at each other, something good had happened. A cure! Or at least, something to slow the process down. Bochu hated the feeling he had, but the return of Paraskevopoulus to the captain's seat solved several problems. The problem of who actually commanded the CONSTELLATION. The problems of paperwork. The possible blow to morale of the loss of the captain. What to do about the captain's daughter. And finally, and most significantly, what to do about Bertoli, who was beginning to get on Bochu's Betazed nerves. Logically, the captain's return only meant well for the ship. Emotionally... he was glad to see Demis back. They had always communicated well, but had never been close. However, like it or not, it was quite comforting to see Paraskevopoulus behind his ready room desk with its Greek bric-a-brac, or even at the CONN. He was sure the rest of the crew would feel the same way. Bradford's smile was so wide it could have illuminated the room. "We've found an alteration in the Captain's DNA. Fortunately, not all of the Captain's DNA has been altered yet. However, a location in the adrenal gland has some strange proteins that produce synthetic mutagens that alter DNA. Definitely not a natural even. I've removed those cells from the captain. I've placed the Captain on chromosome therapy and am using synthetic mutagens to restore his health. My report follows." He handed the PADD with the caduceus to Bochu. "This means...you'll be back?", Bochu asked. Bertoli listened intently. "Back?", answered Paraskevopoulus. "You can bet on it!" Bertoli looked quite crestfallen. He managed a smile. "Glad to see you back, Captain." "Not so fast," said Bradford. "The process has to reverse itself at the same rate that it started for maximum safety. I want three days to pass before I even consider returning the Captain to active duty." "Since my condition is not contagious, Commander Bochu," Demis asked, "I wanted to ask if I might have the honor of attending this meeting of the senior officers?" "Permission granted...Captain." It was a load off Bochu's mind. "However... I have some bad news." Bochu downloaded the PADD message to the central viewer. ************************************************************************* For our bothersome junk-mail friends who cull e-mail addresses from posts: uce@ftc.gov jquello@fcc.gov sness@fcc.gov "As with everything else in life, I prefer to frolic to my own little kazoo." -- Masako Goto ***This message sent by an official member of Indigo Fleet*** Are you also posting your message to the newsgroup?!!! ---END TRANSMISSION---