The Labs

Posted on Sat May 14th, 2022 @ 4:46am by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D & Commodore Jacob Kane & Lieutenant Commander Michael Ki

Mission: Ares Ascending
Location: Rondac Orbital Base - Labs
Timeline: MD-02 - 1240hrs
Tags:
3674 words - 7.3 OF Standard Post Measure

When Michael stepped into the lab he could not believe his eyes. It was as if someone had taken one of his dearest dreams and corrupted it with abandon. It was one of the largest medical labs that he had ever seen. However, the experiments that seemed to be underway, were outside any medical ethics that Ki had ever known. There were tubes with what seemed to be people inside of them. They were encased in some sort of fluid and some were deformed or partially formed. "What is this place?" Ki found himself whispering as he continuously scanned.

"Probably part of the old cloning labs," Kane replied. He'd seen some old holos of places like this in passing. The war was virtually over once he'd reached the service and he'd never really had an opportunity to see it up close. "I guess this is where they grew new Jem'Hadar?" he glanced at P'rel looking for some sort of affirmation.

Sweeping her wrist light around, she picked up familiar shapes and architecture, she couldn’t be sure this was the exact lab she had been in before but it was remarkably similar. She shook her head slightly; “not primarily. This was where the seeding codes were created, germinated and incubated, before being passed to hatcheries around the territory. The main focus here was the creation and storage of fully formed Vorta…in fact various historical analyses have posited that’s why Legate Damar chose here to open his offensive…that it was a personal message to the Weyoun clone….not that we’ll ever know for sure…”.

Kane motioned for the doctor to come forward. "This station looks like it might hold some medical records. See what you can pull up?"

Michael gave a nod of acknowledgement as he made his way over to the terminal. He placed his tricorder on a ledge near the terminal as he wanted to get a record of everything that went on. After a few taps at the console it hummed to life. He immediately encountered a secure access wall. Michael stood in deep thought for a moment, he was a doctor not a hacker, and yet he had a few tricks up his sleeve. Within a few minutes of maneuvering through some digital backdoors he was in the system and observing records. The records had no names but enough data to start with. "It seems that you are right and wrong at the same time. This facility used the cloning technology that the Dominion had. However, this was not from the war. These specimens are not Dominion, it seems that most of them are varied species from the Federation." The usual stoic Doctor had a small twinge of emotion when he said that. The idea that someone cloned Federation species could lead to any number of things all of witch Michael did not want to learn about.

P’rel motioned for the Captain and swept her beacon again over the lab, this room itself was small but it was one of a great many similarly sized rooms based on the scans. It was logical to assume that all were filled with similar equipment, equating to probably thousands of tall liquid filled chambers each capable of gestating a fully sized clone. She thought a moment, and considered the number of Vorta needed in alpha quadrant, multiplied by a maximum of ten clones each… Her own words resonated with her for a moment, that the Jem’Hadar weren’t fully formed here, as she took in the scale of the place. “It shouldn’t be this big…” she pondered aloud.

Kane was already doing the math. P'rel's comments combined with Dr Ki's assessment led to the conclusion that this was a far larger, wider-reaching operation than he might have guessed at first.

"We knew that someone was cloning Starfleet officers," he said. "But is this going further than that. You said 'varied' species. That implies more than just a few. How many samples could we be talking about here?"

Taking her own tricorder out, P’rel scanned one of the chambers as the doctor sifted through the console’s information. Based on how many chambers were here, and number of similar rooms from the scans of the structure, combined with the size of the structure, she was surprised at her conclusion….”thousands…” she said, barely audibly. It had it’s flaws, phaser sweeps being one, but the dominion tactic of replacing key personnel with shapeshifters was brilliant and effective - it made sense someone would seek to emulate the strategy. Concluding her scan she, walked to the doctors position and showed him the screen. “Would you agree with the conclusion that most of the pods here haven’t been used? There’s no organic waste residue, suggesting there was nothing in them to produce waste of any kind…” she handed the tricorder to him “…no fecal matter, skin cells, hair follicles…nothing wasteful of any kind in at least half of these pods…”. It wasn’t much comfort even if she were right; clearly there was an intention to make use of the huge capacity of the facility, and the reason someone had not yet done so was unclear.

"I would agree that at the moment it seems that most of the pods are not in use. My only worry is that they were used and cleaned in preparation of another set of clones as it were. From the information that i have it is not just Starfleet Officers that they were after. There is DNA in the system from Andorians, Vulcans, and a number of other Federation aligned species..." Michael's voice trailed off and for a fleeting moment a look of both wonder and fear came across the usually stoic doctor's face. "...It seems that there are some traces of Klingon bio matter as well. I am wondering if the only way to know the full scope of this is to power the lab up fully and see what is what as they say. But no matter which way we look at it we have a huge problem here."

P’rel offered a single conceding nod, Doctor Ki was right of course, though she thought it more likely they had yet to be used at all. Returning to her own scans, she directed the scanning beam through the walls and into the adjacent laboratories. “At the very least….” She added to the Doctors assessment. “On a broad bio scan I’m also detecting Cardassian, Romulan, Breen, Tzenketni, Metis….even something which looks vaguely Tholian…” she furrowed her brow…. “Captain, Starfleet medical implant chips…in one of the adjacent laboratories…..less than fifty metres…” she shone her wrist beacon to the door and reaffirmed the grip on her phaser, looking to Kane for direction.

Medical implants, Kane noted, were hard to come by. Especially if you were, say, on an abandoned Cardassian wartime outpost. The plot thickened; and evidence was mounting that this was beyond just a Cardassian operation.

"We stay together," he urged, motioning for them to join him.

The corridors were barely lit, but enough to see that they were devoid of life - in any form. The trio moved slowly, cautiously, until they reached an open doorway to another of the labs.

"The equipment in here looks like it's still working," Kane noted. "But no movement, and no indications that anyone was permanently posted here."

Michael had to constantly ignore the urges to solve the how or why this was going on. He kept telling himself that first they had to solve the what of what went on. For the time being he was at a loss as to what anything in this new lab could be. However, he did agree with the Captain medical implants were insanely hard to come by. Now he wondered not only what they were used for but how they got here.

Sensing that he needed to take the first step, Kane moved inside.

This lab was the same as the others, with one key exception: the vat-like tubes lining the opposite wall were not only powered, but they appeared to still be occupied with forms in various states of growth. Although not usually prone to feelings of revulsion, Kane could feel the dread rising up inside. It was like something from an old horror movie.

"Someone's still growing things..." he muttered, motioning for the other two to follow him inside. "This must be where the medical implants are being put to use. Can you get any other data from them?"

Ki jogged over to the tubes and scanned them with a tricorder. He also took a look at the readouts on the consoles. When he got over there he could not see what the things inside looked like, not without restoring full power and powering up the light sources. "Whatever else these things are, they are humanoid and... Alive! They are in some sort of stasis tank, and in various states of development. Their life signs are reading similar to a fetus in development, however, their exterior systems epidermis and things of that nature show adult. That leads me to believe that these specimens are in various levels of development. If this were any other situation I would find this fascinating."

Scanning over the tubes, P’rel adjusted the tricorder to scan the IDs directly. She could feel the blood pressure in her neck increasing, as her veins thumped with the tension of the nightmare they were seemingly walking in to. The tricorder let off a brief high pitched alarm, indicating a reading error. She scanned the tube directly in front of her, and the error read again. Her brow furrowed, she directed the scan to the Captain, and again the read error occurred. Testing an assumption, she returned the scanning beam to the tube and once again the error was displayed on the screen. The tricorder was programmed to know that Starfleet medical IDs were unique, and it shouldn’t be detecting two of the same ID. “Captain…..” the words barely escaped her lips audibly. “This is your ID….”. She stepped right to the tube, wiping some of the condensation from the transparent material. Without a power source and lighting, it was difficult to see anything in the tube. Shining her beacon through the area she had just wiped, the beam of light found something she was unprepared to see. Even for a V’Tosh Vulcan, extreme emotional displays were almost unheard of; she nonetheless gasped and jumped backwards at the sight of what was in the tube containing Kane’s duplicate ID. “Captain….” her words again barely more than a shocked whisper, her eyes locked on the tube now returned to complete darkness in the absence of her beacon.

Kane moved almost instinctively in front of P'rel, the light beacon playing out over his shoulder as he stared into...a mirror. The revulsion he had been feeling before surged with horror, anger and confusion as he saw the pale shape of his own head, eyes closed, floating in the tube. It was impossible to know from a visual inspection just how far along it was. There was no trace of hair on the face or rest of the body, but he had no idea if that was something that was stimulated later in growth.

"What...?" he murmured, mouth dry. "Doctor. This...how far grown is...it?"

Michael was in awe of everything that he had been seeing. The question of why a place like this existed still plagued at his mind. But, that would have to wait. At the moment he stood in front of one of the tubes and contemplated. Ki was used to having a team that he could bounce ideas off of, and without that structure he seemed to be at a loss. The sound of the Captain calling him over brought him out of his thoughts.

Ki jogged over and began to scan, as he swallowed the revulsion that built within him. "This clone is almost complete. I would say anywhere between three more days and a week of development left. It is you... In every respect. The concept of a perfect clone has always been something that has been debated, but never seen, that is until now. I wonder how whoever was in charge of this would replace you?"

"We've seen it before; other officers on other ships that were cloned and inserted. Probably the same way the Founders infiltrated the Alpha Quadrant in the past," Kane said gravely, still not taking his eyes off the vat.

Leaving the Captain to his shock with the Doctor for a moment, P'rel reattenuated the tricorder to eliminate the read error, and directed the scanning beam to each pod as she slowly walked past them. Her grim prediction realised, she confirmed the ID tags for Commander Zora, Commander Shan, Lieutenant Keating, Doctor Ki.....and her own. Now stood some five tubes away from Kane and Ki, she moved the scanning beam over the rows of other pods; various names and ranks from Starfleet appeared on the tricorder screen, many of whom she recognised from the Athena, but not all. There were about two dozen Captains, Commanders and Admirals here as well...this was an invasion..... "Captain!" she called. "This chamber appears to be all Starfleet....". She adjusted the tricorder again for a Wideband scan and moved the scanning beam around 270 degrees to her fore as Kane walked over to her, penetrating the walls in the rest of the facility ahead. "The other life signs....they appear to be concentrated in groups...." she moved the beam through the arc again, reading off the clusters as she did so. "Romulan...Kingon...Cardassian....T'zenkethi....Breen....Tholian."

Michael heard his name and now that was a surprise. He felt violated, because at some point someone must have gotten hold of his DNA. "As much as I have sworn to first do no harm. I think the only way that I can do that here is to destroy this blasted place."

Recalling an incident from the 60's, P'rel looked to Kane to gain his attention. "Sir. In 2365 the Starship Enterprise encountered the descendants of the SS Mariposa, who had taken genetic material from the crew and produced clones. Officers from the Enterprise destroyed those clones, and Starfleet supported the action. I believe the precedent has sufficient material similarity here sir..." she holstered her tricorder to free a hand, which she used to adjust the setting on her phaser to a level sufficient to vaporise and of the containers she fired at.

Ki's eyes widened as much as he wanted them destroyed he had the overwhelming need to know why. "WAIT! We should download all data from the systems. Learn as much as we can and then destroy the damned things."

Kane's shoulders felt heavy with tension. He nodded at the doctor. "If you can find something that will help us locate any more of these cloned officers, then I want whatever we can scrounge," he said. He didn't stop P'rel. She was doing what he wanted to. "Once you have what you need I want to burn this infernal place to hell."

Looking between the two, a solution occurred to P'rel. Without asking, she took the Doctor's medkit from him and walked over to the pod which was reading as her biochip. Taking a brief moment to visually detail the transparent material, she was satisfied it was nothing so robust as transparent aluminium and drew both arms back around her left side, gripping the medkit tight, and with all the force in her Vulcan body she swung the kit at the pod. A satisfying smash rebounded through the chamber, followed by the pop of fluid gushing through the roughly medkit sized hole. As it drained, she set the kit down to remove the laser scalpel and moved to the other side of the hole so she could make better use of her right hand. A heavy thump on the inside of the pod confirmed that the thing growing inside had slumped against the container wall, and she reached inside; finding a cold and slimy naked forearm the Vulcan tugged hard until it was protruding from the hole. There was no reaction from the creature, and nothing to suggest it would feel any pain. The limp arm she held was familiar to her, but equally alien; it was pale and lifeless despite a slight pulse, a green tinge was evident through the slimy skin. Feeling for roughly the right place along the forearm, P'rel set to work with the laser scalpel, carving through the arm to remove a small piece of grey-green flesh containing a tiny device emitting a single soft red pulse. At least in possession of one of the duplicate biochip IDs, they could possibly work out an origin. She let the arm go, as green blood slowly oozed from the would and the creature inside slid slowly down the tube, it's naked body squeaking against the pod until a soft thud and splash told her it had sunk into the remaining fluid. She foisted the fleshy ID into the doctor's hand and turned around, levelling the phaser back at the pod. "To each their own" she simply said, before firing a two second burst. There was a brief discharge of sparks from the pod, before it seemed to roll backwards into a red hot mist and disappeared.

If Michael did not know any better he would have suspected what he just witnessed to be the largest display of emotion ever put forth by a Vulcan. He took the chip and placed it in his kit. "That may be helpful, but not what I meant as these chips can be made in any replicator and the relevant DNA placed inside. What I am talking about is the data in these computers. We need to get as much of the information out of them as possible before destroying them. Hell it may be worth taking one of these clones back to the Athena for examination." He spoke as he approached one of the computers and began to toggle through its menus. He whistled... "There are files in here for plans for almost every species present. It seems that it is a lot deeper than your standard infiltration and take over."

"I am not taking one of these...things...to the ship," Kane said firmly. "Download what you can. We destroy the rest and be done with it." He was actually a little jealous of P'rel and her actions; in some ways he would have liked to do the same thing. But he wasn't entirely sure he wanted that mental image on his mind any longer. "Five minutes. Then I want us to return to the ship."

Michael's excitement at the finds was dashed by the Captain's words. As much as he wanted to investigate to its fullest, to dissect one of these clones and see what made them tick, orders were indeed orders. He hooked his tricorder to one of the computer consoles. "I am commencing the download of all the medical files, as well as the tactical related files for further study. Should be done in two minutes..." Ki rubbed his forehead and decided to make one last plea. "Sir, we can take one in stasis, it would never be allowed to awaken. Just being able to study one of these things for the long term would help with the why, and it would help with a method to discover how to detect a clone. I mean with all of these clones one has to assume that a few are already in place. We need to devise a method to detect them."

"Cloning is outlawed in the Federation, Doctor," Kane replied. "Dare I remind you that clones made in this facility destroyed at least one Federation starship and murdered hundreds of our fellow officers? While I agree having the methods to detect them is important, I won't risk the safety and security of Athena purely on those grounds." He wanted it to be the final word on the matter. Although he understood Ki's point, and having that data more readily available could be of great benefit, Kane's personal preference was to destroy what was here rather than taking any more risks.

Michael had a lot more thoughts on the matter and more to use to argue in favor of keeping one of the clones. However, he sensed that the discussion was over as far as Captain Kane was concerned. So he kept all the arguments he had ready to himself. "It seems that the downloads are complete and we have all we are going to get." It was only now that Michael had caught on that there was a clone of himself here. He thought for a moment to go look at it, to see what could be seen. However, he thought the better of it. For the Doctor it was a shame that this would all be destroyed. At least he had the data. "I think we are good here."

"Lieutenant." Kane addressed P'rel, who had fallen ominously silent, drawing her out of whatever trance she was in. "Let's go. I've had enough of this place."

"Athena should ready some Tri-Cobalt ordinance" P'rel replied, having spent a moment working out torpedo yields to vaporise a structure this size. "We would have to be sure that everything was completely destroyed." She nodded to the Captain, walking past the jagged remains of piping and power conduits which jutted from the floor at the base of her clone's now destroyed pod. Taking point, she lead the other two out of the chamber and into what appeared to be a main service corridor. Several doors presented themselves, all of them large cargo doors aside from a solitary personnel egress. "Captain?" she enquired, looking to see where they should move to next.