Ya Gotta Get 'Em Assimilated

Posted on Tue May 5, 2020 @ 6:51pm by Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes & Lieutenant JG Zander Devereaux & Ensign Autumn Rivers

Mission: The Nanjing
Location: Engineering Labs
Timeline: MD 3 || 0050 Hours

As the Chief Damage Control Specialist on the massive ship, Zander had programmed all Engineering and shipwide engineering-related problems to be routed to his console and if it were a serious enough alert, to his combadge. It was almost one am when his combadge chirped. "Computer to Lieutenant Devereaux. A Level Three Alert in Lab Four requires attention."

The short, stocky Engineer cocked an eye open and looked at the illuminated chrono on his wall. "Figures," he muttered as he got out of bed. "Computer, heat coffee," he ordered in a thick voice as he got dressed in his uniform. Age was catching up to him around his waist and he thought he saw a grey in his hair earlier that day. He muttered as he finished getting dressed and headed into his living room.

"Computer, what's the nature of the alert?" He asked as he grabbed the coffee in a steel mug that waited on a brewer he had gotten on Deep Space Ten.

"Unable to elaborate," the computer replied.

"Unable...worthless. That's why I'll always have a job," Zander muttered as he headed out of his quarters with a noisy slurp of his coffee.

Two minutes later, he walked into the labs, one away from where Autumn was working and tapped on the shoulder of a crewman there. "Hey. What's the alert, bub?"

The Bolian crewman jumped, surprised that someone else was up so late. He turned, saw the lieutenant and smiled. "Oh thank goodness someone else is working tonight. You know, I had just about resigned myself to working alone in this section. Do you know how hard it is to find a power drain without a working tricorder? No matter what I do, no one will loan me one, and I can't figure out why. Is there anything you can do to help me, Lieutenant?"

"Easy there," Zander told the jumpy crewman. "Should lay off the coffee. Stuff is bad for you," he said as he took a large drink of his coffee.

"Why do you not have a tricorder?" he asked as he set down his toolkit and opened it to reveal a smorgasbord of tools suited for Engineering, including a tricorder.

"I dropped it a couple hours ago," the Bolian replied with a shrug. I was climbing down a Jefferies tube after finishing a repair. I forgot to close my toolkit, I slipped and my tricorder fell two decks. It shattered into several pieces. When I tried to get a new one, my supervisor told me I'd used my quota for the month. I can't help that my hands are oily and that I keep dropped things. I mean, just last week, I dropped a plasma relay. If that'd been full, I would have burned my legs off!"

"Ke-rice," Zander mumbled as he handed over his tricorder and grabbed a spare. "Put a wrist strap on when you're using it or I'm coming for you personally. Now tell me what happened, what you were doing, and if you broke anything."

"I didn't break anything, I promise!" protested the crewman. "Well, at least I don't think I did. I received word that there was a power drain in this section. Without a tricorder, I had to use the wall-mounted panels for diagnostics, and everything they told me was fine, except for the fact that the diagnostics hinted at a twelve percent power drop. I just can't figure out where."

"Don't worry about that," Autumn said as she came into the room where the other two were. "In fact, don't worry about anything."

Zander turned towards her. "Huh? Oh. Doing some experiments?" he asked casually knowing that the Lagashi had permission to do some things with her onboard technology. He wondered if she saw a doctor or an Engineer and was just starting to ask something related to it when his eyes went wide.

"What the hell are those?" he asked when he saw the two weird drones coming behind her.

"Your new future," Autumn responded before they flew at Zander and the Bolian with their tentacles extending.

"Run!" Zander said without knowing why, but it sounded like a great idea and his legs were already in motion before a much larger tentacle came from behind the Lagashi and grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground.

The Bolian was about to scream, but a tentacle quickly wrapped around his throat and elevated him a full foot off the floor. His face started to turn blue and his hands reached up to grab the tentacle, hoping that he could pry himself loose.

"Oh fuck no you don't," the stocky Engineer growled as he swung up the tricorder that he had been holding and keyed a sequence into it one handed. The drones dropped, but not the tentacles which were controlled by Autumn.

"Nice. Electromagnetic pulse. Very clever, but not clever enough," Autumn said as nanite injectors formed on the claws around their necks and pumped both of them full of conversion nanites.

The Bolian wanted to scream, but he felt every muscle in his body lock into place as his blood burned with the injection. He could feel something crawl around in his body and borrow into his brain. Despite being without control of his normal functions, tears began to well up in his face. Why, oh why, did he have to be working this shift?

For Zander, the struggle was intense, but futile as the saying went. He fought hard and desperately but how do you fight something you can't see and is in your blood, brains and body? He slumped in the tentacled grasp, the tricorder falling to the ground.

Autumn retracted the nanite injector, then set them both down. "Now follow the instructions you're being given and welcome to the Nanjing."

"Orders," Zander echoed before he turned to head to where the voice in his head told him to go.

The Bolian's head jerked slightly from left to right as the Nanjing worked through the differing DNA and pushed past the various oddities that its overactive brain provided. "Or... Or... Dir... Dir..." The Nanjing programming finally took hold, and he turned to head for the lab.

Autumn retrieved the fallen tricorder and toolkit, as well as the drones which she was furious about and made a note to add protection against electromagnetic pulses. She herded the two men with two tentacles and sighed. Two more down and a whole ship to go. This was taking too long, but she wasn't giving the orders.

Inside the lab, Tom turned to see Deveraux and Crell enter the room. Had it not been for the ability to interface with Autumn outside the lab, he would have been startled by their arrival. "This way," he instructed both of them. "Please take a bed and rest for a couple hours. You'll need it."

Zander got on the bed and the Nanjing swarmed his body, entering through every orifice and began to work on his conversion. In his mind before his ability to think got shut down for the time being, he gave a grunt. I knew I should have gone back to Earth... and then he knew no more.

Crewman Crell climbed onto the bed and disappeared rather quickly under the liquified Nanjing. Behind both beds, Tom smiled. It would be a several minutes before he could communicate with the new additions, but right now there was little he looked forward to more. This was only the beginning.