[snip]

“We don’t really know much about them at all…” Glen replied, “…due to their long period of separation, but as my Yeoman pointed out at the meeting earlier, these groups tend to shroud themselves in secrecy, to believe in conspiracy theories, follow non-standard religions and religious practices, and they are slow to adopt new technology and ideas, all of which make a belief in superstations more likely. It is something you can investigate further in the records, or else get Lt. Cara Meow, our resident Xenoanthropologist and Sociologist, on to it. Of course, the interview of Michael Duck may tell us a lot more, or the local military or government library systems, if we can manage to hack into them.”

“By the way, have you managed to hack into the government and military local systems yet?” Glen asked Lance.

Lance looked over at the boss, “Righto Captain I’ll get Lt Meow onto that”. The curiosity of what was going on on the planet was bugging him. “I think I’ll also look into the local Comms and systems a little more…” He said as he started the probe on hacking into the planetary and military systems. “Bonus if it’s giant plants.” He muttered to himself.

=/\= Commander Royal. Please interview the man we rescued in Conference Room-B, Deck 3. I believe Doctor Hunter is waiting for you with Cara Meow. Glen out! =/\=

“This orbit? Does it hide us from Unity’s planetary sensors?” Glen asked. “Enable threat detection and automatic alert logic monitoring, and enable periodic scans, please.”

NE Boline spoke from an auxiliary station. “..Their scanning technology is almost 75-80 years old captain, unless they specifically looking for us and what signals would still output with minimal output like this, even then their chance to pick us up on scans is minimal. Only real risk is if someone has a surface telescope and is visually looking skyward and comes across us.” she said.

“Thank you NE Boline,” replied the Captain.

As Lance started delving into the governmental and planetary systems, the work became much more careful. He had to keep balancing not trigging various security and privacy measures. But again since said operating systems were using the earliest versions of LCARS 1.0 from the 2230s at best in places even with the hand done patches and updates he was over the next hour or so able to delve into a few accessible databases and records.

Looking into records over the past 7-8 months he found one entry in the government’s weather database that showed back then there had been a report of a meteor shower, with what seemed to show ‘several small atmospheric entry points along the southern end of the planet. These matched the large impact craters they had detected. However, no records related any tidal or disaster events. He also found signs that the entry listing had been edited about 2 or so weeks after its original creation indicating likely the actual original report had been altered and the original fully deleted and wiped.

Further around this time period after the shower was a record indicating a colony wide quarantine of information and transit would be implemented. The reason given seemed to be due in part to the earlier meteor shower which supposedly had released a contagious sickness in that area of impact. However, cross referring this to any habitable areas of impact and none were present, further no other records showed any intakes for any kind of sicknesses near the coastal areas for hospitals. On the surface looking at things Lance could suspect some other reason to implement a colony wide quarantine of any traffic or comms in or out was covered up with this excuse and in all this time seems the colonists didn’t care to question it, didn’t care if it was a cover up, were in on the cover up in the majority, or something of the sort. Given there was no signs of protest, and everyone seemed happy, well cared for, content, and fed etc it was likely they were not questioning any other motive for the cover up or didn’t know there was a cover up.

Finally with the access he had now it wouldn’t be too hard to implant a few fake IDs if an away team wanted to beam down in an remote area and go in on foot under cover. It seems all the security and ID check systems across the planet were all eventually connected and verified by the central colony master computer which he now had access too. While he couldn’t do more obvious things like shutting down stuff, or accessing bigger secure information. Implanting fake ID’s that would pass any checks to make it seems like they were just normal colonists and had a home out in the woods like a hermit group or such would be doable. The fact such was already present from what he could review by those who lived more ‘off the grid’ partly would make a good cover.

In short it seemed if they were to get more answers they would have to go planet side in some form, perhaps in either least one or two groups. One option would be for a group to go down in a shuttle modified to handle the water depths at one or both impact sites, and/or another then go down via transporter in local garb with faked IDs as one of those remote hermit groups coming into one of the towns for supplies and news etc.

When Lance passed this research to the Captain, the Captain realised it would be useful if the Layanna and Cara had this while questioning Michael Duck. “Could you send this new information down to the interview room please,” Glen asked.

With not much to do in sickbay Cross arrived on the bridge just in time to listen to the incoming information, the supposedly had released a contagious sickness raised some red flags for the CMO but at this point nothing was certain and she kept quiet.

“Ah! Doctor Cross! Just the person!” Glen exclaimed. “Could you look through these reports about a sickness following the meteor strikes on the planet? It seems like it might not have happened, but was instead a cover for something else. However, if I’m going to send a team, or teams, down there, then I need to be sure they aren’t going to fall sick. What’s your opinion?”

McDuff began running mental preparations for the possibility sending a landing party and the potential security hazards that might bring up.

“Lt. McDuff,” said Captain Glen, “Something is afoot on that planet… I just don’t know what yet. It could be simply your common or garden, military coup d’état, or it could be any kind of other outlandish infections from those strange meteor showers, right up to and including, man-eating ambulatory plants, or brain eating parasites that have infiltrated their biology. It looks like the only way we are to get more answers is to go planet side in some form, but I want us prepared for anything before we set foot down there, so I need options.”

“The planetary News black-out could mean one of two things,” Glen continued. “Either those in charge are happy for the disease scenario to be maintained, because it covers for their coup or whatever else is going on down there, or else, the infection is much more widespread and more devastating that they want anyone to know.”

“Fake IDs , replicated uniforms and the Universal Translators will only take us so far,” Glen added. “The Merrimack has run more of these covert ops than you’ve had cooked dinners, and maintenance of the false identities is extremely difficult; the undercover agents will generally get found out at some point. Even with elaborate planning, you cannot know every risk in advance, but I need you to try to plan for them in any case.”

It was Cross turned to reply ‘’Captain if you do decide to send a lading party, forget the fake I.D’s and replicated uniforms ,if there is indeed a disease running amok I would want them to go down in protective gear ,we shall not make the same mistake with the last mission and if they are hostile then the security would take them down ‘’ the CMO knew how she might have sounded but her first priority was their crew ‘’Let’s hope the man who’s being questioned can offer more details and insight…that is if he knows considering he has spend months isolated from everyone .Just for the record once he was transported to sickbay he was given a full medical and has been cleared ‘’.

“That’s it exactly,” Glen said. “Michael Duck is healthy and well, so he didn’t contact any contagion, and will have no idea what it was, if it was, because he was isolated. If Lance is correct and it’s giant walking plants, or if it’s puppet-master neural parasites, well an environmental suit isn’t going to help us much. I guess we could try to find someone in power, beam them up and question them, but we’re likely to start a diplomatic quarrel, and in any case, with our recent luck we’d probably beam up the office cleaner!”

Cross shook her head and looked away for a moment to gather her thoughts ‘’It’s imperative that any landing party will wear the protective gear ,whatever is down there at least they would be protected from any parasite, bacteria or virus .If its something else then they’ll deal with it accordingly, the protective gear is not going to hamper them from dealing with something other then what I have mentioned, also I do not agree with you on beaming up someone from the planet on the ship’’ she took a deep breath before suggesting ‘’ How about asking the man to outline a map of some sort ,letting us know who reside ,dwell and inhabit in them ,the exact location and where its situated, especially if its being owned and belonging to a person with a high authority ?’‘.

“It’s worth asking him,” Glen replied, “but he’s a miner, and he’s been isolated for whatever length of time, so whether he knows where people live or not? …but he may have family on the planet, so worth asking him anyway… but if I don’t allow him to go down to the planet, then he isn’t going to be very inclined to help us much!” Glen was unsure, still turning it over in his head. A lot depended on what he said to the XO and Cara in his interview which was still ongoing.

‘’I’ll contact Hunter after all its not like he has been missing for years!’’ Cross exclaimed as she opened her transmitter to contact the male doctor.

’’ but if I don’t allow him to go down to the planet! ‘’

The CMO was baffled ‘’What do you mean Captain ? What’s the rational for not allowing him to go back home ?’’ Cross questioned rather perplexed and mystified.

“We don’t know this man’s political allegiances!” John Glen explained his thinking to Miriam. “He is very happy that we rescued him right now, obviously! Once he is back on the planet with his family and friends around him, then he might fall back into a common hatred of all things Starfleet and the Federation. I was considering mounting a covert operation here, which is why environmental suits wouldn’t work either; using fake IDs, disguised in local clothes, UT set to local dialects. If we let him go back home first, then how do we know he won’t give us up to the authorities before we even leave the shuttlecraft? …but I also take on board you concern about a contagion transmitted from person to person too. It even could be an infection that alters brain function, mood and attitude. It’s not an easy decision for me to make - it’s the usual dilemma of crew safety versus mission success. If the Universe itself was at stake again, then it would be an easy choice, but a planet of colonists in danger who hate our guts with every fibre of their being… well, let’s say that they don’t make it easy for me!”

Cross stopped to think gathering her thoughts ‘’ Correct me if I’m wrong ,he was on a planet that we know these people denounce and want nothing to do with the Federation? And our mission is to find out what has happened and not to demand, dictate or express our views that its best for them to stay with us ? So why are you so concerned about the safety of the landing party when all we want is to see if they need assistance of some sort like fixing their comm system? ‘’.

“Because, long before we can ever convince them that we come in peace and only want to reconnect their comms wiring, they could form into angry mobs with torches and pitchforks, and come at us shouting ‘Kill the Feds’ and ‘Off with their Heads!’ or ‘Beat a Retreat, Starfleet is Obsolete!’ or something like that. And that was all really! I thought it might make more sense to first gauge their mood towards us and whether they might be negotiated with before we tried telling them what they should do to solve whatever problems they were in.”

She fixed her eyes on the screen ‘’ My concern is that if there is indeed a disease of some sort our crew might be exposed and infected and yet you are against any sort of protection..why? Are the people being held against their will? We would need to figure that out, Captain I cannot understand or comprehend why you want the landing party to hide the fact that we have been send by the federation. As for the man we have onboard, yes you are right about not knowing who he is ,that did not occur to me ‘’. Cross readily admitted.

“You have made that point,” Glen replied, “and it is something that also concerns me too!”

Looking down at the planet the CMO could not help but think how many unknowns they where facing ,what if something else is now on Unity that was not there before?.

“You mean an alien presence, or are you still thinking about contagious viruses and other infections,” Glen asked. “I’m way ahead of you there! I already mentioned neural parasitic Puppet masters to add to Lt. Malone’s Triffids, but 20th Century Earth fiction books were awash with other suggestions. I think that rather than more wild propositions, we should probably narrow down our list of the most likely causes, starting with a contagious virus.”

NE Cullens at another auxiliary station looked up from the science scanner, “..Uh sirs? If I may interject? The man we rescued was on that mining outpost during the event in question with those lights or impacts. If there was a contagion he would not be effected. A simple biological scan of his that we now have on file I presume from sickbay, could be performed on those planet side for any anomalies or sicknesses with a non-infected pattern on file filtering out anything not within that range would give us a good answer on whether the news of a sickness and isolation is just a cover up for something else, or an actual issue. The scan will take about an hour or so, which should give us plenty of time to prepare one way or another how we wish to proceed or prepare a covert team.” The Ensign suggested.

“Excellent,” Glen replied. “These are the ideas I’m looking for Doctor. Begin that scan immediately and cross reference with the scan file for Mr. Duck. Let me know the results as soon as possible.”

Lance looked up from his station, he had been reading everything he could find in the hacked files, it was oddly distracting but infinitely interesting. “Have to agree with the Ensign about our Mr Duck, he wasn’t planet side, and we have one of these possible situations, one there is a plague caused by some microbe that was either thrown up from the body of water or came down with the comets, which would be interesting as it would have to have been frozen and able to survive the heat and forces and still be viable to propagate in a vaporized form once it was in the atmosphere…” Lance felt his concentration derailing itself as he went off on what would be interesting for him boring for non xenobiology nerds.

He shook his head collecting his thoughts”.... Two, there is something fishy going on with the planets leaders and politics, you know some big dodgy cover up, but if that’s the case it tells us already that the people here totally believe and trust their government officials, which may be the most radical and insane thing I’ve ever heard, and worthy of study by psychologists or sociologists or whatever those easy sciences are…” He paused before he found another tangent, “Or three it’s giant plants.” He wondered if there was time for a science labs sweepstake on the outcome of this.

Lance did have one more pressing matter for the captain, “Before you can go anywhere Sir, I can fake some passable ID’s but I’m going to need to know who I’m doing it for.”

“Which depends on how many teams and where they are going to. I haven’t even made up my mind to send them, but it seems the only way to get a result. However, I’m still hoping that we will learn something from questioning Mr. Duck,” Glen said.

• Dave, CO