Bio filter Part 2

Posted on Sat Dec 4th, 2021 @ 9:00am by Nollel Livaam (*) & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Ships Doctor Hiram Maitland M.D.
Edited on on Sat Dec 4th, 2021 @ 9:01am

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD -09
2557 words - 5.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Gregnol had gone off to talk to Jeassaho and had made sure that if any communication packets from any type of Starfleet origin came in they were to send them to him and not open. It had taken six hours but the Captain came into sickbay looking victorious in his hunt.

“Two data packages, one from your Council connection and one from my own. How is Nollel?” He asked quickly not wanting to bring his connection to be raised. Ehestri was a big secret that only he and Jeassaho knew about now as the crew changed and moved from the team that had been onboard in Dauncina.

"Regrettably her condition is unimproved," Hiram murmured from his position at a nearby terminal, and he rose to collect the isolinear rods presented by Gregnol. "And I've detected evidence of focal impaired-awareness seizures. The good news is that we've isolated the area of her brain that this is affecting, and our program is active and scanning." His vivid eyes snapped over to Michael.

“Focal impaired awareness seizures? What does that mean in layman terms?” Gregnol asked glancing to where Nollel seemed to be asleep.

Realizing that he'd lapsed into medical jargon, Hiram sheepishly cleared his throat. "It means that seizure activity is affecting a specific part of her brain, which causes her to briefly lose conscious awareness while seeming to remain awake. It's also impacting her memory and cognition."

"She suddenly forgets specific things, like where she is, or who we are." Burnie frowned down at his console. It hadn't been her fault at all, but being asked who he was - seeing no recognition in her eyes, even briefly - had cut him to the quick.

Gregnol squeezed the engineers shoulder as he passed seeing it sag slightly. “Positive thought she has not tried to re blow the ship up forgetting how far she had come.” Gregnol offered up to Burnie hoping it would help.

Burnie sighed inwardly, but gave the Captain a half-smile. "At least we'd have something to talk about if she did."

Gregnol smiled sadly. “You will have lots of things to talk about once this is all over Michael. My friend has never let me down before and I am sure Maitlands hasn’t either.” Gregnol was sure of it all.

The first thing they taught you in medical school was never promise a patient's family a good outcome. Hiram didn't deviate from this, but he did make it clear: "I will do my utmost to ensure that she returns to stability."

He didn't say anything, but Burnie's jaw tightened at that. He had been hoping for a lot more than 'return to stability'.

Gregnol winced at the words. He was being reprimanded for promising to much in a tone that was very similar to his wife when she was displeased with him. "So... what do you need from me now?" he asked.

"These data packets are invaluable," Hiram told Gregnol with a small smile. "Right now, we just need time-time for the program to do its job isolating the compound, and time for the synaptizine to repair the affected areas of Ms. Livaam's neuroanatomy. I'll keep you both apprised," he does promise that.

"So we still have idea where it is coming from or why it is just happening to her?" Gregnol wondered feeling a little deflated at that thought.

"If we don't get some idea soon, I'm considering ways to vent the whole ship and start over..." Burnie muttered darkly, then looked up - a light bulb practically appearing over his head. "What if we put Nollel in an EV suit? Give her pure air from that and see if it improves her condition?"

"It's a decent stop-gap measure," Hiram nods. "However, this ship isn't equipped with a proper BSL rating to facilitate a continuous sterile field. Meaning, it will only be effective for so long before our oxygen reserves become equally contaminated."

"Then I'll check the oxygen reserves, but we can go with tanks if that's the case," Burnie replied, now in pure engineer-problem-solving-mode. "Pure oxygen is easy to generate - we've known how to do that for centuries - and the EV tank mix is heliox so there are only 3 components: oxygen, nitrogen and helium."

“It’s a good point but we need to find where it is coming from.” The Captain did not want to add that they needed to find it before it affected everyone.

"Agreed," Hiram murmurs with a nod. "We cannot guarantee this pathogen isn't present in our matter replication systems. However," he adds-not shooting down the idea, merely setting realistic expectations, "an EV suit has a high likelihood of offering some protection, and I can do my best to simulate correct biosafety protocols. I recommend we proceed with Mr. Burnstein's idea."

"Do it. Do not need my permission." Gregnol prompted as he looked at the data analyzing data. If only they could figure out what was causing it, where it had been picked up on the ship.

Burnie had started to say he thought they were looking for contaminants, not viruses, but decided not to waste time arguing. "I'll get a suit. And run the air mix through high heat to kill any virus that might be in it. At least if being in the EV suit improves her condition we'll know it's an environmental issue."

“If it is environment how can we narrow it down to where it is coming from?” Gregnol demanded trying to get a straight answer. He wanted to fix the issue.

Hiram gestured to the computer overlay they were both programming. "As we narrow down our search field, identifying the compound will assist us in locating its quantities aboard the ship. We could be looking for a viral, fungal, or bacterial pathogen, or it could be an inorganic particle causing a systematic response. We simply won't know until our code finishes compiling."

"Rough estimate?" Gregnol wondered seeing Burnie go off to get what he needed. "I know you do not like offering promises but just an idea."

"Based on the current rate of completion, I'd say we're looking at about 2 hours, maybe 2 and a half hours," Hiram offered his best guess, making certain his expression came across as reassuring and not eerily staring through Gregnol like Children of the Corn.

Gregnol shook his head. “Is there anything I can do to speed that up?” He wondered wishing that he could help more.

"It's limited by the computer system, so you'll have to liaise with Mr. Burnstein," Hiram replies quietly. "I'm going through all of the data manually as well, so I may hit on something sooner." It didn't seem like Hiram was a mental slouch-maybe that was a possibility.

“I will as soon as he gets back.” Gregnol said quickly. He was sure that the man would give over whatever he could to get this fixed as soon as possible.

Hiram had several overlays available to him and he attached the isolinear rod Gregnol had given him from his contacts at the PDC, his eyes metronomically tracking the streams of decrypted algorithms and chemical equations. With Gregnol there to help speed things along, Hiram settled down to focus on the task.

After about thirty minutes, he spoke. "There is something-I've seen this before," he said, quiet-almost under his breath.

"When we were first compiling this. This same cellular pattern-but it's an isomer. It's an optical isomer, look at this," he enhanced it and enlarged it on the screen for Gregnol to see. "Ordinarily this compound would be harmless, but it looks like our bio-filters are inverting it in such a way that it's become an enantiomer-it's not superimposible, that would make it-" his gaze flickered. Back and forth, back and forth, almost robotically.

"Let me isolate this and run a comparison on Ardanan bio-signs. This might be something, Captain. If it's not a superimposible chemical chain, it's little wonder our bio-filters didn't know what to do with it." He held out his hands in front of him. "Your hands are a perfect example. When I press my palms together, they fit. They're mirror images. But when I superimpose them-" he places one hand in front of the other.

They didn't fit. Something had gotten mangled.

Gregnol watched intrigued as the explanation was given as Burnie came in. It was starting to make so much sense. “We might have something Michael.” He said quickly seeing the Ev suit in his arms.

"What?" Burnie asked, brightening instantly at the prospect of anything that could lead to a cure. Dropping the EV suit on a bed, he hurried over to the doctor's terminal. After staring for a few moments, he blew out a breath. "Damn. Non-superimposable stereoisomerism," he muttered. "I'm not a biochemist, but I can recognize that much, and if that's the source of the problem I can reprogram the filters to catch that."

Hiram's fingers flew over the terminal. "I'm isolating the component and identifying it now, and I'm running a comparison simulation on Ardanan physiology to ensure this is the culprit. It'll be a few moments." Sure enough, the program dinged in about ten minutes, flashing a brilliant red alarm bar over the screen. "As far as I can tell, this is responsible. I'm printing out the full chemical equation here," he added, attaching a PADD to the larger computer as it spat out the variables.

“Does it need changing? Do we have another one?” Gregnol wondered regretting for a moment how much he relied on Jeassaho for engineering stuff.

"No, it's the air scrubbers," Burnie explained already tapping new code into a PaDD for transfer. "They aren't catching this because they aren't looking for it - yet! I'm heading down to engineering to implement this," he said, picking up the PaDD and turning to hurry off. "Someone get the EV suit on Nollel to get a head start on giving her pure air."

"I'm on it," Hiram rose from the terminal and retrieved the suit, striding into the main sickbay area at a fast clip.

"I will help," Gregnol said following quickly. He really was going to get a crash course in engineering despite how much he knew that there were different departments and specialities for a reason. Not everyone could know everything.

"What is going on?" Nollel demanded as she saw Hiram and Gregnol coming towards her. Nollel flinched back barely awake.

"We've isolated the compound, Ms. Livaam," Hiram told her, the tone of his voice soothing. "We're going to get you outfitted in an EVA to mitigate the effects until we can program the environmental controls to filter it correctly."

The woman did not relax as she looked the pair over. "You... you are the captain of that ship. The one that I..." Nollel started having a lapse for a moment. Gregnol chuckled as his conversation earlier came back to him with Burnue.

"Yes, you did love. But we forgive and forget that. You are not very well at the moment. The ship is trying to help you. The doctor here is trying to help." Gregnol soothed in a voice that not many people had an opportunity to hear.

Hiram prepped a small dose of Ambizine and injected it into her neck, sending a wave of calm through her body as it slowly released the clutches of anxiety and panic from the forefront of her mind. It made his job much easier attaching the outer edges of the suit on either side of her body before snapping them together, leaving her head exposed. He set the helmet over it and tapped it on. "How are you feeling?" he asked, a hand on her shoulder, stabilizing.

The woman nodded as her head lolled to the side as the calm rushed over her and everything became a lot clearer. "Scared." She admitted taking in deep breaths as Gregnol stepped forward and gripped her hand tightly so she could feel it through the EV suit.

"It is okay to feel like that but we are here and we are trying... well they are helping you. I am here as moral support." Gregnol assured quickly.

"Mr. Burnstein is working on the systems as we speak," Hiram assured with a nod. "It should not be very long at all. Once we scrub this contaminant out, you should begin to return to your standard baseline. Things like this can be frightening, but you're doing a very good job handling it. All of you," he eyed up Gregnol as well.

Gregnol blushed under the doctors gaze and looked away. He was a floundering ship when it came to things likes like medicine. It was not his forte at all, he had been security and executive officer before the Orions had ripped his life apart. "I need to do something nice for Michael," Nollel said sleepily.

"Perhaps you can brainstorm some ideas with her," Hiram suggested to the captain-a way to keep them both busy, and focused on a task that might help take their minds off of things-offering a smile.

“I am really not sure she will want to do that with me of all people.” The Captain admitted with a small smile as he thought of what the woman would say when she came back to her senses. “Might be best for you.” The doctor did not know their past which was okay.

"I'll do my best," the doctor assured. "But for now I'll let her rest. She's been through an ordeal, she deserves it. And so do you," he added, pointed. He was adept at picking up the signs of stress, an occupational hazard. "I can prescribe you some Melenex, if you'd like. It's easy on the system."

Gregnol looked at the man strangely and stood up a little straighter like someone had electrocuted him. He considered for a split second saying yes before his macho side kicked in and he shook his head firmly. What would people think if the Captain accepted? "I am fine. Let us just concentrate on the person that needs help."

"I am," Hiram replied, even. "I'm making sure that you are looking after yourself, so that you can continue to perform your duties excellently." He scribbled something onto a PADD and held it out. "That means sleep," he tapped it into Gregnol's hand. "You can replicate it at the medical synthesizer over there. Totally confidential." He smiled, as reassuring as he could make it.

Gregnol look at the man narrowing his eyes and sighed. He did not take the PaDD but just stared at the woman unconscious for a long moment before returning his gaze to the man. “Can me if anything changes doctor. Good work tonight I will let Isaac know.” Gregnol said needing the subject of him taking anything as he started to walk away. It was not about him that night, it was about getting a crewmember back on track.

Hiram didn't press it. This wasn't Starfleet, he didn't have the authority to force anyone into medical treatment, but Gregnol knew that he wasn't about to drop it, either. He let Gregnol leave with a simple nod of his head, electric blues following him all the way to the door.