Captain Santiago decided to walk to the lab where his doctor, Dr. Centress, was doing his own investigations on the aliens of Draloos V. Commander Ariele decided that she wanted to follow him down there, because she had slowly become unsure of her captain’s intentions. Unbeknownst to Captain Seth, Santiago had been doing studies of his own on the aliens. They had their own containment field thats held thousands of the interconnected aliens.
Santiago looked over to Dr. Centress, who had been hard at work documenting his findings for the past several hours. “How are you, Doctor? Have you learned anything about this species from your studies?”
“Captain, Commander,” Dr. Centress acknowledged. “I haven’t discovered much more than what Dr. Min has already discovered, I’m afraid.”
Santiago paused for a moment, as if somewhat hesitant to ask him something. “Doctor, forgive me, but I’m going to jump straight to the point: what do you know about their defense mechanisms?”
Dr. Centress furrowed his eyebrows slightly, taken aback from the question that was just posed to him. “Well, from what Dr. Min on the Dragonfly tells me, by themselves, they are soft and vulnerable. A shot from a normal hand-phaser at a high setting should kill them individually. As they become more interconnected, they appear to develop a greater resistance and better defense mechanisms. On the planet, especially, they are more protected. You remember the thick protective layer separating the hive of the organisms and the planet surface, right?”
“So our standard weapons wouldn’t work?”
“They could – I just assume that we would have to get past the protective barrier first. It would just take a while, and by the time we got through, they would likely be able to launch a counter-measure.”
“You mean kill us?”
“Put simply, yes. I need to know more about what protects them.”
“I was afraid that you were going to say that.” Santiago paced from one side of the room to the other, in deeper thought than Ariele had ever seen him. “We need to develop a way to neutralize them.”
“You mean a weapon?” Ariele demanded.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Can you do it, Doctor?”
“Possibly,” Dr. Centress told him. “But that would require that I experiment on them. They’re intelligent. They might not appreciate that. And I’m not entirely sure that I want to be on the receiving end of their wrath, should they decide to retaliate.”
“Take whatever safety precautions are necessary, Doctor. I’m giving you permission to learn everything you can about penetrating the barrier and developing a weapon that could neutralize their whole network,” Santiago said. “We need to gain a hand over them, should the aliens become hostile to us. We need a way to gain leverage.”
Commander Ariele couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Captain…this isn’t part of our assignment,” she reminded him again. “We should be back on Draloos IV making preparations for the evacuation in case we need to-”
“I know, but neither of you know Captain Seth like I do. He won’t do what’s necessary to save the people on Draloos IV,” Santiago said coarsely. “I don’t think he’s up to the task.”
