Shadi Zatra: Tasty Monster Slayer

Posted on Sat Feb 15th, 2020 @ 8:06am by Lieutenant JG Fal'twip Ru'fiz & Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra & Lieutenant Mar Megara MD & Lieutenant Dinui Locke (loch)

2,032 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: S1.5:1:A Time To Heal
Location: Main Engineering Workshop
Timeline: MD26 16.45

To look at it you'd never think of it as a city flattening piece of ordnance. The smooth pill shape of the two-meter long device was capped with rapid firing manoeuvring thrusters, ready to jinx it out of the way of point defence fire in the final moments of its death dive. It might have been a probe, though the lack of exterior sensor housings paid no attention to that theory.

It was only with the interior casing removed, revealing the terminal guidance sensors, impulse motor, and the fist-sized lead coloured orb marked 'EXTREME DANGER: DO NOT DE-POWER', that the true nature of the Mk 10 Advanced Capability antimatter torpedo came into its own. A more lethal ship killer Starfleet could not have designed, and the primary heavy weapon of Starfleet's battle doctrine.

Except when it came to making the Myriad go boom, where it failed miserably.

"Lo and behold, the Fuckfist of the Blood Goddess!" Shadi had her talons outstretched over her upraised head like a mad prophet. "Of course, it won't do much againssst conventional shield deflectors, but it will make subspace-dependent tech useless, like the Myriad's dysphasic shielding." She dropped her hands and faced the others before her. "Or so we hope. Either we crack the Myriad's egg or he cracks oursss. It's our job to ensssure the first one. So... any ideas how to test it?"

“Point it at something we do not like and see what happens?” suggested Meg with a smirk.

Gaz had been standing next to Shadi and Meg, looking at the antimatter torp with a look between a grimace and little assumption that it would pull through. Of course, that being said, Shadi looked like she was having fun on her end with the whole mad scientist look going about. "Don't fucking...." He took a deep breath, stifling his annoyance. There was a million different ways to test the powerful nature of the torpedo without needing to use it. "We use it now, more than likely someone's going to notice. If they notice, they'll adapt. If they adapt, we have nothing. Either we can plug the stats into a hologram and run it through different scenarios or we hope for the best."

"I would've already done that except I don't know how to simulate the dysphasic shielding," Shadi said. "At leassst with no degree of accuracy."

"How about someone from the science team who can provide you data?" Fal'twip hopped up onto the stool beside the open warhead. The rabbit-like Leporidite gave Shadi the side-eye, his ears perked all the way up and his visible white fur filled with so much volume it held an audible hum. "During the flight through the upper atmosphere of the Carpathian sun, the ships sensor pod was running at full bore. You need someone from the science team to translate the data, to pick out the readings of the Myriad's shielding against the roar of the solar winds."

Shadi gasped. "Yes! That's exactly what we need! Everybody get out of the way and give the rabbit some ssspace." She stretched her arms out and began clearing room. "How much do you need for a quick translation? We need it fast, but accurate. Or maybe one at a time. No! In a special order: accurate, then fast, then accurate, fast, fast, accurate, accurate, fast."

Fal'twip's fur bristled like a ferromagnetic fluid near a positive pole.

"'Rabbit'? Is it the fur, or the big fluffy ears that makes you think I'm a rabbit?" the astrobiologist said with a cutsey little snarl of rage. "I don't hear anyone insulting you to their face. But than again not a lot of lizards make it out into the cold without a comet flattening their evolutionary glide path!"

Whilst the two crazy scientists went to work bouncing off one another, Gaz folded his arms - trying to keep track of where the conversation was headed. Of course, he wanted to make sure that they knew the weapon would work and that there would be as minimal (or no) casualties, during testing. But with the way things were going between Shadi and the Leporidite, he readied himself to get in between them in case they decided to kick off with one another. "Now ladies, you're both beautiful. Can we please keep on track?"

"DO I LOOK LIKE A WOMAN?!"

Fal'twip was not tall. In fact, he was four feet from paw pads to ear tips if he was that. But as he hopped from the stool and onto the table, he stalked over to Gaz, violet eyes almost glowing with incandescent rage.

"Not only is this ship GROSSLY misproportioned for a mammal of my size, not only am I treated as some cutesy ODDITY to be gogged at and cooed over, but my WORK is more often than not overshadowed by large lumbering primates like yourself who took xenobiology because it was an ELECTIVE and not a PASSION!" the bristling ball of static electricity fizzed a little as Fal'twips left foot began to hammer nervously on the tabletop. "I am a SCIENTIST! I am a RESEARCHER! I passed over a FELLOWSHIP at the Ingram Institute Of Advance Sciences on Risa! RISA!! Do you know what sort of cutting edge biological research they do there! I GAVE THAT UP TO WORK WITH THE GLUE EATING REMEDIAL STUDIES CLASS!!!"

He leapt at Gaz.

Shadi snatched the angry little scientist out of the air and locked him in a head to toe restraint maneuver. "He was just being polite," Shadi scolded. "Now I don't know about you, but it's not every day I get called beautiful, even if it was by a milk-drinking sssimian." Her dark eyes regarded Gaz with a mixture of admiration and condescension. "As for you... well, you did complement my evolutionary glide path." She set Fal'twip down and ran her hands over the pronounced curve of her hip which she popped to one side. "I gotta' say, rabbit, you sure know how to flatter a lady, but can you put a cap on your libido for a moment? Captain Remas gave usss a job to do."

Fal'twip again leapt at Gaz, but this time aimed for his feet to hide behind. He poked his head out from behind the Security Chiefs knees.

"See! I am right! She is crazy!"

"Ai, Dios mío, todos se comportan como niños!" said Meg with a roll of her eyes. "Can everyone be an adult here for a moment? I do not need to heal broken bones from a brawl while I'm watching out for radiation poisoning all at once."

Shadi snarled at Meg. "Are you calling me a hatchling? She called me a hatchling!" she yelled at Gaz. "Could a hatchling fabricate a sssuperweapon against the Myriad?! No! Only the greatest Saurian technician ever!"

“Then start acting like it,” Meg retorted. “Instead of calling other scientists rabbits and growling at one another, we should be doing what we came here to do. I,” she added, taking out her tricorder, “am to monitor for radiation poisoning. And that is what I shall do.”

Dinui walked in exclaiming in clear annoyance, "Will ye stop actin' like ye'r fendin' off a mangled apricot hell-beast?" She held up a PaDD, "Iffen ye want t' test the weapon in the holo-deck Ah've been goin' over the data an' have a few test suggestions for runnin'."

Gaz was bemused (less amused, more annoyed) with the display in front of them as the rabbit and the serpent went about bickering. He had tensed up, his rifle coming up to shoulder itself as a natural instinct as Fal launched himself - though naturally getting plucked out of the air was amusing in itself. The conversation matter was confusing enough without Shadi thinking that Fal was getting at him because he had an amplified libido, nor did the rabbit coming to seek shelter behind him was met with anything but a blank expression bordering on irritation. "Right, children. If we're all done with out individual temper tantrums, Locke here has a point. WE all need to test the weapon, and cooperate with one another before I put someone in the naughty corner." His Yorkshire accent was heavier than normal, as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Let's here the suggestions before everyone erupts again."

"...I for one think the holodeck simulation would be a fantastic idea," the tiny scientific furball said from behind Gaz's leg. "Though, of course given the lack of solid theoretical research on the effects of subspace weapons, our simulation will have some holes in it. If only we had access to the Son'a or Breen archives, as their flaunting of the Second Khitomer Accord would present a wealth of data on how such devices act."

Shadi snorted. "Holodeck? Why in the bloody shit would we go to the holodeck when we have holoemittersss right here?" Looking up to the ceiling, she said, "Clee'san, we need a sssimulated rendering of this subspace ordnance'sss specs against sensor recordings of the Myriad dysssphasic shields." As an afterthought, she added, "Dysphasic shieldsss is what I named it, just in cassse the record doesn't come up easily."

The holo emitters hummed to life and new data sets began to appear. Sub space shear effects, gravitational lensing, exotic particle excitement. Then other terms began to appear, and new graphics began to grow like vines into a complex hedge row of tormented space time.

“Your weapon is crude, but effective. Primed to a maximal yield it would be .01% as power as a H-Gun, though the chance of forming a subspace lesion is minimal. As a tactical weapon it would be better used in waves to batter down these Myriad aggressors. ”

Admittedly, Gaz was still learning the inside and out of the ship's capabilities as well as the apparent quirks of the crew. Of which, he could see that there were many. He had glanced down at the rabbit by his leg, raising a brow - which was supposedly to be read as: get off my leg before I stun you. Though between him, the rabbit and Shadi, perhaps it was tactically wiser to keep Fal by his side. He watched as the holo emitters came to life, lights dancing all over the place as data sets appeared, everything coming together into a bigger picture.

"In standard English?" Gaz replied. "All I understood was to use the weapon in waves. Though with that comes tactical disadvantages too."

Shadi said, "I think it means to hammer it over and over again. Usually I fire everything at once."

"Hammering it over and over again is a better option than to fire everything at once and then ruin our chances later on if the first barrage doesn't work." Gaz contemplated. "Seeing as the Myriad's quite the adversary."

"Their technology is challenging to your level of advancement, but there is only so much I can do to counter that disparity. You lack the basic tools of the Ascendancy to build better tools with which to make Formation theory weapons or the use of hyperdimensional physics. Your...Silver Bullet...is a poor relation to even the least powerful of Morningstar Ascendency weapons." Clee'san reported dispassionately.

"Yeah? Well, I lost a leg to a Clock Maker and lived to tell about it," Shadi said. She looked down at her mostly regrown leg. Save for the prosthesis in her boot, it was the twin to the other. "Where'sss your Ascendancy now?"

"The fact that your own Meta Civilisation exists without owing that existence to the Morningstar Ascendancy is...troubling. But I know we will find answers. Your captain has made a pact to seek them out, and I will hold him to it," the nebulous intellect of a long-dead alien power whispered from the walls. "If I need to walk a path paved with the skulls of Myriad proxies to find my answers, it will be a path worthy of being taken."

Shadi didn't know what that meant exactly, but she liked the sound of it. "Blood Goddess be praised!" she cheered with her fist in the air.

 

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