Several days later, Dr. Min was growing increasingly restless, at least for a man with a Vulcan demeanor.  He had just completed his analysis and was ready to discuss what he had learned with Captain Seth.  He paced from one end of sickbay to the other, reviewing in his mind what he was going to tell the captain.  What he had discovered from his studies of the specimens of Draloos V was both fascinating and frightening.  He had no idea what to make of it. One thing was for sure, after the mission was over, Min was going to write several papers in high-end scientific journals, papers that would likely propel him to stardom among the scientific community.   But he brushed that thought aside.  He was still worried about Seth’s reaction once Min had explained everything to him.

The sickbay doors hissed open, and Captain Seth marched in.  He saw the doctor in the laboratory.  “What have you got for me, Doctor?  Good news, I hope.”

Dr. Min took a deep breath.  “Well, I have a mixture of both.  I think you’re going to want to see most of this for yourself.”  He led the captain to his laboratory where he kept most of the species.  Seth looked very uncomfortable being in the center of so many Draloos V species, given their reputation.  “Not to worry, captain, the organisms are in specialized containment fields that look and feel like clear plastic, but the organisms are completely isolated.  I use them because I can change their size and shape, and manipulate the inside of the containment without ever exposing it to us or this environment.”

“Fair enough.”

“There’s a lot for me to tell you, captain.  What do you want to know first?”

“Well, telling me how the crewmen were killed would be a good place to start.”

“Of course.  This way, captain,” Dr. Min started.  “I’ve determined that the life form responsible for these men’s deaths was this species of tree.”  Dr. Min directed him to a small, young sample species that was contained.

“A tree?!”

“It is apparently a highly aggressive carnivorous species.  Allow me to demonstrate to you what it is capable of doing.”  Dr. Min transported a small gerbil from another container, also from Draloos V, into the container with the tree.  But Dr. Min also isolated the small gerbil away from the tree in another small round containment field such that the tree could not physically touch the gerbil.  Immediately, the green leaves of the tree, maybe only about twelve total, began flapping, and then released themselves from the branches and launched themselves at the gerbil.

“They look like small butterflies.  What are they doing?”

“Watch closely.”

The butterflies paced around the spherical encasement that surrounded the gerbil, without any direct path for them to get to its prey.  But the gerbil was nevertheless reacting in pain, and fumes started emanating from its body.  It was horrifying to watch.  It may have only been a few minutes, but to see the gerbil reacting to such torture felt much longer than that.  The body of the gerbil was reduced to a small red smudge on the bottom of the container.  The wings of the butterflies looked plump with blood.  They retreated back to the tree and soon the blood-filled veins of the “leaves” faded away as the blood was absorbed by the tree.

“As you can see, captain,” he started, “They have transporter technology.”

“What?  How do you mean?” Seth demanded.

“I mean exactly what it sounds like.  They can transport.”

“You’re telling me that a non-humanoid species has transporter capabilities?”  Indeed, it was never heard of in the Federation.  Most aliens with transport technology have been humanoids.  They either invented it or eventually traded for the technology.  Furthermore, it was usually most useful when species wanted to travel across great distances, like in space travel.  It was unheard of that a non-humanoid species isolated from other systems would develop the ability to transport. 

“When I examined the biohazard-suit,” Dr. Min began, “there was no trauma on the material of any kind.  And yet, whatever attacked him, was able to “eat” this officer.  This material was designed to protect against corrosive or digestive agents.  I could only conclude that the organisms that attacked him were able to transport digestive enzymes through the suit.  As the body liquefied, they were able to transport it back into their bodies, as demonstrated here.”

“That’s…incredible….”  Maybe horrific was a better word.  Although he tried not to sound enthusiastic, there were few words to describe the phenomenon he just witnessed.  But as he was thinking it, something occurred to him that caused him to take a step back.   “Wait…so doesn’t that mean they can transport out of the containment field and attack us?”

“Theoretically, they can, but so far they haven’t.”

“That’s not exactly a satisfactory answer, Doctor.”

“I’m not exactly sure if they won’t or if they can’t.  I just know that so far they haven’t.  It may have to do with the fact that I always keep their bellies full, and they don’t see a need to find food.”

“I don’t think you need me to tell you that you need to find a way to prevent them from running loose on my ship.  I don’t want what happened to the crew of the Ion happen around here.”

“Yes, sir,” Min answered.  “To see it like this, captain, means that the species has transporter capabilities on a genetic level.”

The captain stopped to consider the implications.  ”An alien species with the natural ability to transport…” 

“The organisms on this planet, captain, also use DNA as the carrier of genetic information,” he said, using the three-dimensional image again to demonstrate. “But they play with a much greater variety of amino acids than the twenty that we use on Earth.”

Seth shrugged.  He may have aced all of his biochemistry exams back in the Academy, but that was a subject he had put to bed a long time ago.  But from his recollection of his studies, he knew that the implications were significant.

“What that does is allow them to play with a lot more amino acid combination in its proteins.  Since they use so many, some of which use elements I’ve never seen incorporated in biological tissue, they can have properties in their proteins not normally found on Earth.”

“Including the ability to transport?”

It was Dr. Min’s turn to shrug.  “Possibly, although I would never have guessed it.  Take this one as another example.”  Dr. Min gestured the captain to look at another container, which looked completely empty.  Dr. Min took a pair of tongs and put in a large cricket into the container.  It hopped around for a while, trying to feel its environment, and suddenly just stopped in mid-air.  Right in the middle of the container.  It just sat there, wiggling around every now and then.  The captain looked perplexed.  What the hell was it doing?

Suddenly, the cricket was squeezed and its juices squirted out of its body.  “It’s a spider which allows most of the electromagnetic spectrum to run through its body, including its web.  Except for ultraviolet, or UV.”  He sprayed a chemical on the spider and web, then took a UV lamp and turned it on the spider.  It glowed bright green and the captain could in fact see the spider eating the cricket. 

“A spider with cloaking ability?” the captain asked.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.  Although, I don’t like to use the word cloak.  It operates in no way like a Klingon Bird-of-Prey.”

Using amino acids beyond the typical twenty natural ones as building blocks for their proteins was not unheard of.  The term ‘natural’ only implied that they were from Earth, but many species use a completely different set of building blocks to construct their proteins, if they use proteins at all.  Even on Earth, as chemistry got more advanced it was quite possible to create new amino acids, and actually build a genetic code that instructs the cell to incorporate them into their proteins.  This allowed for them to have unique properties that even surprised the scientists that created them. 

“Could this transportation ability have evolved?” asked Seth.

“I doubt it, but if it could, the advantages to an individual species would be enormous.  Any prey that could transport itself away could easily escape its predators, and vice versa.  In other words, predators with this ability could easily catch their prey.  I have never seen it on any other planet, captain.  In fact, that brings me to my next point.  This ability, captain, has never been documented or observed in any studies on Draloos V.  This Class 3 biohazard-suit was recommended by Starfleet when exploring this planet.  It was considered safe on this planet before last week.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, this is a new phenomenon.  Something learned, adapted, evolved, I don’t know.  But the rate at which lifeforms are evolving and adapting on this planet is much faster than normal Darwinian evolution would predict.”

“You’re saying this transportation ability just…popped up?” 

“Quite correct, sir.  I cannot fathom the possibility that this event, or any of the events that we have observed up until now, have been coincidental.  There must be an intelligent life at work.”

“So which organism is it?  This tree?  That’s ridiculous.”

“No, I believe that there is a ‘master’ organism that is orchestrating everything.”  Captain Seth didn’t like the sound of that.  “Whatever this life form is, I believe that it can literally synthesize much of what it wants and release it to the environment.  Create a genome, tweak a genome, cut and paste whole genes…I can’t think of how else a tree of such sophistication can spring up so quickly, and with the specific intent of killing individuals protected by a biohazard suit.  It is limited only by the physics, and the time it takes to create them.  They must have a sophisticated level of control, some sort of advanced neural system, something that connects the intelligence to the biology, such that they can manipulate it,” Dr. Min explained.  “I admit, it is not a very likely explanation, I’m just giving you the facts and a possible explanation.”

The captain’s face grew more concerned.  It was becoming clear that this “master” species had no regard for human life.  Seth was right, these men weren’t just killed by some accident, they were hunted.  And if the species were intelligent, that could have more far-reaching implications than just a few casualties from harvesting operations.  They could be a direct threat to the population of Draloos IV.  “I have to admit, I wouldn’t expect to hear that kind of far-reaching explanation from you.  But we don’t have a lot of time to run a test on every theory that’s out there.  If we give your theory the benefit of the doubt, then we have a real problem.”

“One thing is for certain, captain,” Dr. Min began to warn.

“What is that?”

“When it comes to biological warfare, we are no match.”

“Do you have any leads to what this species is, Doctor?”

“Follow me.”

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