Sleuthing

Posted on Sun Mar 29th, 2026 @ 6:51am by Commander Grace Vetur & Lieutenant JG Peri Valeri & Lieutenant Commander Yivliph Ra-Gruvloveii & Lieutenant Commander Anahera Chernova & Staff Warrant Officer Madelyn Steele & Ensign Rishi Chabbra & Lieutenant JG T'Avia Espinosa

1,566 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Preservation Instinct
Location: Power Station

As what was requested, Madelyn led T'Avia and Anahera to where she took the samples from, and had connected Peri into the commlink.

"It was right here, where I took the samples from." gesturing towards that area.

"And here are the odd marks" Madelyn was doing a live feed for Peri to see, drag marks and scuffs with residue.

"Those drag marks are curious," commented T'Avia. She took a deep breath and felt something strange. Something was happening to her body, and she felt like dancing.

"And over there." Madelyn pointing towards the coupler that she had reattached to bring the power station back online. "Is what was unconnected, causing the power outage to the main building."

Overcome with a sudden sense of euphoria, T'Avia spun around with her tricorder out and giggled like a young girl at recess. she got a bit dizzy, and stumbled a bit grabbing onto Madelyn's shoulder. "Strange...hah. That is" she tried to breath and contain the wave of ecstasy.

T'Avia showed her tricorder readings to Madelyn. It was evident that there were trace amounts of an airborne hallucinogenic vapor in the air, clearly hitting the half Vulcan more than the others.

"Lieutenant Espinoza," Peri said, growing concerned. "Are you okay? You sound...giddy." She'd seen the Vulcan in several moods--all of them serious. She ran another scan of the team. "I'm getting new readings. Can you take samples of the air and soil for analysis?"

"Maybe, I should gather the samples." Anahera said. "I'm less affected."

T'Avia steadied herself. "Yes, that would seem logical. Something seems off, the air tastes... sweet."

"Sweet?" Peri asked over the comms. "Do you need me to beam you to the shuttle?" The doctor wasn't here, but she could at least scan the scientist and, if needed, get her back to the ship.

"Your concern is touching, Lieutenant, but I am fine. The effects are mild and will pass" replied T'Avia. "There are Vulcan techniques I can use to raise my tolerance. What is important is determining what has affected me. It has to be airborne. The last time I felt like this was around an Orion female, but I don’t believe any Orions were listed as being here. We could be dealing with some sort of pheromone."

Pheromones? Had anyone checked the planet for those? Peri shook her head. If so, it would have been the science officer. "Madelyn, how do you feel?"

While she waited, Peri scanned for pheromones.

T'Avia Espinosa began to think. "We have not seen much animal life, hardly any," stated the science officer.

"Scanning," Peri said, as she changed the search parameters. There weren't any animals in the immediate area. But if she wanted to get a wider scan, she needed to be in orbit.

She tapped her combadge. "Valeri to Ra-Gruvloveii. Sir, permission to launch the shuttle into low orbit to scan the planet for animals."

'Granted,' Yiv replied over the comm. 'Make it fast though - we don't want to be caught on the hop if there are pheromones and invisible kidnappers about. We might need to book it out fast.'

"Lieutenant, animals are not the only thing that can produce pheromones. Some plants do as well, some naturally, others through engineering" stated T'Avia. "It’s not my area of study, but given where we are..."

"Yes, sir," Peri said, taking in what the science officer said but not responding to it. "I'll keep an eye, so to speak, on the away team, just in case. Valeri out." She quickly prepped the shuttle and launched, scanning the area for all plants, animals, and insects in the area. When she got as much as she could, she headed around the planet for a global survey.

When she was done, she landed the shuttle in the same place she had before. "Valeri to Ra-Gruvloveii. There are no animals on this continent, but the others do. Plant life is also more abundant and there are more insects on this continent."

Madelyn was trying to process the actions of T'Avia and how she was reacting to something in the air. She seemed drunk, and she hadn't seemed to be having any effect. She was getting ready to answer Peri.

"So far I am not feeling any-." to her nostrils came a scent, which was sickly sweet to her, in fact she had the sudden urge to hurl. This scent just hit her wrong. "I think I am going to hurl-" Madelyn making a mad dash towards the door which was nearby, and was outside where she lost the contents of her stomach.

"With all due respect," Peri said over the open comms, "She can't come on the shuttle until her stomach is empty and her clothes are clean."

"Don't worry I won't be coming on the shuttle dirty." Madelyn replied.

Grateful that she carried wipes, and a small bottle of water. Madelyn used those items. Rinsing her mouth out, the chief engineer, then took a drink gazing around her.

Something caught her eye, it was the power station along with the research building. The lights seemed to be pulsing, going dim then going back to their proper brightness. Then an occasional flicker. What was causing them to do this?

Could there be something else that was drawing energy from the power station?

Her eyes narrowed, Madelyn started looking around.

There had to be something, probably not obvious. With all the plant growth who knows what could be doing this and what it looked like.

Where was it, where was the thing that was siphoning the energy?

"Has anyone noticed the fluctuation in power to the research building and the power station?" Madelyn opening up communications on her comm badge.

Moving around, looking through the brush, she didn't see anything yet, she turned to look back at the power station stepping back to see if she could see if there was anything on the roof of the research station, when her heel caught on something . She losing her balance falling on her behind. What did she trip on?

Scrambling to her knees, Madelyn looked, and pulled up some of the vines that were covering something.

"I have found something that doesn't look right, it looks like something that is sending power somewhere. Would you come take a look?" Madelyn staring at the offending conduit.

Lieutenant T’Avia Espinosa approached. "If we can find where the power is being rerouted to, we are likely going to find something important. Perhaps even where Counselor Rose was taken."

'Alright, form up on Warrant Officer Steel,' Yiv replied. 'We do this together from now on - if the power is being re-routed by whatever took the Counsellor, there may be strength in numbers.' He closed the comm channel and sighed. Of course, there might just be the same weakness in numbers too.

"Definitely numbers would be lovely, this way we won't have to worry about anyone else being grabbed. Even though that was the plan originally, I just still didn't like it. " Madelyn stated.

She turned to greet T'Avia and Anahera, "I am hoping that we find the counselor as soon as possible."

"I do as well," replied T'Avia. "The fact we have found no living survivors from then colonist that were here is disturbing."

"That is even more of a concern. " Madelyn hmmnned as she regarded this conduit. Since they didn't know what this was powering it wouldn't be a good idea to just unplugged it. Though... She adjusted her tricorder to get a better reading in order for them to track this down. "We really can't be just using a phaser to clear the foliage off this conduit, but, we can follow it. I've adjusted the tricorder to where the energy can be picked up, compensating for what is covering it. Which seems to be creating some sort of distortion."

Peri didn't like it. She sent the data and the conversation she heard to the ship. "I can't follow them, ma'am. Whatever is making them giddy is interfering with scans."

"We'll try it from here," Grace replied. "Do what you can to keep an eye on them. And keep an open comm-link to Ms Steele. We can't afford to lose anyone else. Beam them back to the ship if they get any worse. Either way, check in every fifteen minutes. Vetur out."

Then Grace turned to Rishi. "See if you can find them or where they're going."

"On it, Captain," replied Ensign Chabbra. "I'll track them" he added.


Grace didn't want to just sit and do nothing, so she pulled up the station and colony's logs to see if there was anything there of note about the planet and any unusual occurrences. If nothing else, it made her feel like she was doing something productive--and useful.

On the planet, Peri began to scan again for pheromones while she monitored T'Avia and Madelyn in case they needed to be beamed up to sickbay.

A post by

Lieutenant Commander Yivliph Ra-Gruvloveii
Executive Officer
USS Ontario

Lieutenant Commander Anahera Chernova
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Ontario

Lieutenant JG T'Avia Espinosa (NPC- Bálor)
Acting Chief Science Officer
USS Ontario

Staff Warrant Officer Madelyn Steele
Chief Engineer
USS Ontario

Lieutenant JG Peri Valeri
Assistant Chief Operations Officer
USS Ontario

Commander Grace Vetur
Commander
USS Ontario

Ensign Rishi Chabbra
Science Officer

 

RSS Feed