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Chapter Text

The Star Beagle Adventures                                                
Episode 12: Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change
Scene 6: Some Kind of Fungus

Down at the edge, round by the corner…

12.6
Some Kind of Fungus

“Sound general quarters.”

As the interior lighting switched to battle blue, the red lights started flashing and the klaxon started to wail, Carter started giving orders. 

“Standby to engage anti-borg shield frequency rotation. On my mark and not before. Can you do something similar with the characteristics of the polarization of the ablative hull plating?”

“Already programmed in,” Ensign Sevork responded. 

“Getting a comparative read now,” Flight Engineer Abra Kahen reported from the “eyes” station. “This is interesting, carbon-based, not dissimilar to terrestrial DNA, some kind of fungus…” 

“Mushrooms?” Carter said with mingled surprise and disgust. “Why is it always mushrooms?”

“Contact in 15 seconds,” said John Sevork.

“Engage anti-borg protocols,” Carter ordered.

“Shields holding, but they are adapting,” Flight Specialist Davi reported. Both she and Flight Engineer Abra Kahen were small, dark-skinned women from southern India.

“Mushrooms that exist partly in subspace. We have some experience with something similar,” Carter mused. 

“Some of them are getting through the shielding…” Maya Davi sounded nervous.

“John,” Carter continued, “Those nasty little ferengi eyeball mushrooms last year… Or were they trill eyeballs? Didn’t they use deuterium as a kind of barrier breaker to transition from relative space to subspace and back?”

“We have clusters on the starboard nacelle… They’re adapting to the ablative plating…” Davi reported.

“They divide the deuterium into protium and then recombine it so they can ride the electron in and out of…” the young vulcan ensign started.

Carter waived him off. “Yeah, yeah… Point being, are these little mushroom bugs packing deuterium?”

“Confirmed,” Kahen replied from the “eyes” station.

“They’re into the starboard nacelle and we now have clusters on the port nacelle…”

Carter hit a control on her command chair. “General Krank to Transporter Room #1. Chief Mendez, you have 2 minutes to disable the reconstitution safeties and enable mining protocols. Get it done now, Eva. Zizara, Chief Hess, are you both in engineering?”

“We’re both here, Captain,” the bolian first officer responded over the comm system.

“Get to the nacelles and disable the contamination safeties. 3 minutes.”

“Aye, Captain,” Lt. Cmdr. Gross replied over the comm. The comm caught her saying “Roman…” before shutting off.

“Getting into the port nacelle. Reading significant damage in the starboard nacelle. Warp system offline,” said Specialist Davi.

“You’re planning to go to warp with those mushrooms inside the nacelles?” asked Ensign John Sevork, his Laredo accent noticeably thicker.

“Pay attention to everything and hold down the fly buzz of your own thoughts, Ensign,” Captain Carter said. "Focus..."

“Both nacelles are down,” Davi reported. “Significant damage to the starboard nacelle…”

“General Krank, I want you to lock on to all of the deuterium located between our shields and the outer hull plating and beam it into the starboard nacelle.”

“Captain?” Transporter Chief Eva Mendez asked over the comm system.

“You got those safeties off, Eva?”

“Aye sir…”

“Then stand down and surrender the console to Krank. That’s an order. You can protest it later,” Carter said.

“Locking on now,” came Krank’s voice over the comm system. 

“Energize, then as soon as the cycle is complete, do it again. Keep doing it until there is no deuterium between our shields and the hull plating.”

“Understood,” Krank replied.

“Captain?” 

Both Abra Kahen and Maya Davi turned to stare, wide-eyed, at their blue-haired captain only to have a vulcan snap sternly at them with a thick Texas accent: 

“Mind your stations Specialists!”

Carter ignored them and hit another switch. “Zizira, Roman, on my mark, blow out the nacelles.”

“Most of what we blow out will get caught between the shields and the hull…” came the voice of  Chief Flight Engineer Roman Hess over the comm.

“Out with the bad, in with the good,” Carter replied. “Wash, rinse, and repeat.”

“Ready,” Lt. Cmdr. Zizira Gross reported.

“Blow them,” said Carter. “Flight Specialist Davi, stand by to engage the Bussard collectors in standby mode.”

Davi’s voice sounded more shaky than before: “Standing by, Captain.”

“Do you want John to do it, Maya?” Carter asked.

“In for a penny, in for a pound, sir,” Davi responded. “It’s just another kind of photon torpedo…”

“That’s the spirit, Davi,” Carter said. 

“Sir, the, um… The mushrooms are breaking off,” Flight Engineer Kahen reported.

“Not as dumb as they look,” said Carter.

“They just learned it’s a dog-eat-dog galaxy out here,” John Sevork observed.

“Step down to yellow alert. Let’s get some more distance, then we’ll do a 180, drop the shields, overcharge the nacelles, give them a good hard blow, pirouette 180 again and engage the Bussard collectors,” Carter said. “After that, we’ll have to get close to whichever of those suns is the safest to approach. It’s going to take at least a week to rebuild our nacelles, so we’ll have plenty of time to thoroughly study this system and learn all about our fungal fiends.” She smiled. "Everybody gets to play scientist for a little while."

12.6