| Finding a Trail |
| Summary: | Circe brings the Chief some news about his deckies. A trail is sought after and lost. |
| Date: | 23 Mar 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Contagious Party |
| Players: |
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| Portside Hangar |
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| The single largest rooms on the Cerberus are the hangar decks. Each flight pod consists of two stacked landing bays with adjoined decks and hangars, which along with computer-assisted landings results in a faster Viper recovery rate. Mirror images of each other, these two huge areas are located on the flight pods. The inboard sides of the deck, closest to the ship's main hull, are lined with parking and maintenance bays for Vipers and Raptors based aboard the battlestar. The outboard side of the deck contains the launch tubes used by the Vipers for standard deployment. Huge blast doors seal the deck into four sections, each one containing an elevator that leads up to the flight deck directly overhead. The fore-most section contains an elevator system that leads towards Aerospace Fabrication. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #390 |
Any day on the Deck is a busy day, even if the Fleet is now back to Condition Three. Damon prowls about the Deck in his coveralls, checking in with various teams and sections to see how everything's going. Once he's satisfied that everything's running as smoothly as possible, he latches on to a Raptor in need of maintenance and gets down to work starting off with some routine checks.
Entering the hangar bay, clipboard under her arm, Circe pauses near one of the deckies. A soft question and she is directed with a pointing finger and nod of head towards the Raptor that Damon is working on. "Thanks." She says faintly as she redirects herself his way. Booted footfalls draw her closer and when she comes to stand beside the Raptor, she lifts her voice, "Chief, may I have a word with you?" She asks, finger tapping on the clipboard at her side.
"Yeah, yeah - hold on a sec, just checking these readouts," Damon answers distractedly, squinting at a console and comparing it against the clipboard resting beside it. He jots something down before turning around to face Circe with a look of surprise. "Oh. Hey. Sorry, I thought you were - what's up?" He tucks his pen into one of his pockets and hooks a thumb onto his toolbelt. "Don't tell me you've got bad news for me."
"No worries, Chief." Circe chimes. But it may be obvious by the look on her face that the news is in fact not good. "I hate to lie.." She says and sighs, pulling the clipboard so she can look at it. "I am sure you have been wondering about Crewman Laramy and PO Timon?" She asks him, her hazel eyes lifting to meet his gaze for a moment. She draws a finger down along the paper to smooth it and clamp it down. It seems she is readying for something.
"So don't," is Damon's answer with a wry smile, glancing over to her clipboard curiously. "I know your job ain't easy when you come down here to deliver bad news, didn't mean to give you flak about it. Just tell me what's up with Clamps and Petra, I know they've been checking into Sickbay more than they've been showing up to work lately." Despite his reassuring words, his posture tenses up a little bit, reacting to her seemingly nervous fidgeting.
"As you wish.." She says with a lift of her brow but there is no smile on Circe's face. "Last night, there was a party thrown to celebrate the return to condition three. Crewman Laramy was there and I found her sweating profusely, pale, and with swollen lymph nodes. Soon after checking her over and attempting to get her to sick bay, she went into a fit of convulsions. She has been confined to sickbay and her status is not improving, I am afraid to say. PO Timon is being held as well with similar symptoms." She goes on to say, looking down to her sheet and translating into layman's terms. "Timon is not as bad off, but is being kept for further study. The only thing is, none of those around Laramy were showing symptoms. They have been released."
"Frak," Damon curses under his breath, raking his fingers back through his hair. "Convulsions? That's - I mean, that's bad, right? Not like up-all-night-puking bad, something's-seriously-wrong bad?" He glances around to see if anyone else is close enough to hear - nope, clear - and takes a step forward to speak more quietly. "What is it, do you know? And is it contagious? I mean, we all share the shower and the racks are pretty tight, but Clamps, I mean… she likes to get around." A beat passes, then he flushes and adds, "Not, I mean, I'm not concerned for me because of that, I haven't - I didn't - not, not me."
Noting his concern about its spread, Circe nods. "She was..kissing several of the men last night, but it appears they have come up clean. I can't say for sure what it is yet, but tests are being run and she is begin given the attention she needs." Circe hesitates and draws a breath. "I need to know more about Laramy and Timon, personal lives, what they do, who they…meet up with. Anything could be helpful." She hesitates and then pulls the clipboard to her chest. "Chief, no men have come up with symptoms. I am beginning to think this may be a gender related illness." Its all conjecture on her part and her eyes lower, with a shake of her head before she looks back up. "This is just guessing, but until I see otherwise, I would ask that you have the women deckhands report to sickbay just for tests if you can. Say its for physicals. No need to throw up any alarms."
Damon rubs his hands on his coveralls and paces in a little circle, his jaw moving side to side in thought. "Isn't that… discrimination? No, never mind, that's not really the important thing." He sighs and paces some more, clearly unnerved by this news. "I, uh… Clamps is a survival equipment specialist, so she works on flightsuits, helmets, safety equipment, that kind of stuff. Petra's an aircraft handler, so she deals with the birds. Completely separate. Not much intersection in their personal lives, either. As far as I know, Petra can't stand Clamps. As for who they meet up with, that's not really something I ask about, y'know?"
"It may be not something you ask about, Chief, but it may be something you need to start noting now. It's not personal, its health and safety now." Circe tells him, pinning his gaze with hers. She was determined to stop this. "Physicals for all your deckhands then, if you are worried about discrimination. But right now, my fear is for the females and its only cropping up in your crew. Something they did or touched..or even ate is similar. We need to find that pattern so that we can figure out where this originating from." She says, tucking the clipboard back under her arm. "Just request physicals, simple as that. Say that medical is asking for them now that things have quieted down."
"No, I mean… who cares about discrimination if you think that it's a gender-specific thing, right? Better to save lives than to cover my ass." Damon stops pacing and tries to think, but ends up shaking his head in frustration. "There are a thousand things that they could've done or touched that were the same. I mean, they work different jobs and they're apart in ranks, but we share a lot of stuff down here. Tools, equipment… clipboards, supplies…" He shrugs with a grimace. "I'll think about it. See if I can figure something out. In the meantime, I'll have the women report to Sickbay for physicals."
Giving a nod of her head, the corpsman hesitates a moment, "Either way, keep an eye on all of them. Anything funny at all, let me know. Or send them down." She says, watching him carefully. "Anything they have done differently in the past few weeks?" She's just asking one last question, covering a base. "Either of them that is." She says finally.
Damon chuckles and makes a helpless gesture with his hands. "We've all been doing things differently in the past few weeks - ever since these Swarm attacks started," he says. "Petra stopped going to the pick-up Pyramid games. Well, so did I, because they weren't happening anymore. We were working long hours with little to no downtime. Putting out fires, pulling pilots out of birds, I mean, I don't have to tell you, you were there." He sighs and sits down on the side of the Raptor, tapping on his knee with a finger. "I know I moved Petra over to working on the Cylon technology stuff recently. That was within the last few weeks. I'm pretty sure I saw Clamps helping out with that stuff a couple times. That's about the only time I can think of them doing something together down here recently."
That gives her pause and Circe parts her lips. "You did what?" She asks him softly. She takes a step closer. "I would like to get Doctor Adair up here and start running tests on the technology. Also, I need the lists of others that you had working on that as well." She is lifting her clipboard and pulling a pen free to start jotting down some information. "Anyone else you can think of? This may shed some light on what is going on."
"I pulled Petra over to the Cylon tech project after Captain Trask pulled in those Raiders from the Swarm engagements," Damon says, frowning as he thinks. "But that couldn't've been it. Bannik's been working on the Cylon tech stuff since months ago, as have others - including me, Captain Trask, and Dr. Adair." A light goes off somewhere in that knuckledragger brain of his. "But we're all males. So if you're right and it is a gender-specific thing…"
"Exactly." Circe says, "Okay, which one of the women was first set to the technology?" She asks, wanting dates now as she tries to place their advancement along the lines of symptoms. "Keep all personnel aways from the equipment till I can talk to Dr Adair.." Thats when she slows and touches the medallions at her throat. "I have been working in the lab too..but just started." She says very softly. "I will have my blood drawn and looked over as soon as I get back to see if we can't make certain." IF she ahd something, it would mean the gender specific might actually have something to it. But she may not have been directly exposed.
"Wait, no," Damon interjects, holding up a hand. He's got his head cocked and his eyes down at his feet while he thinks some more. The wheels are turning slowly since he's been working all day. "That doesn't make sense, 'cause I had Radcliffe working on that project before. Female. She hasn't missed a single day of work." In exasperation, he pounds his leg with his fist, trying to figure out some missing piece of the puzzle. "But yeah, I'll make the Cylon stuff off-limits for the time being."
That puts a kink in things and Circe furrows her brows. Having a pattern was better than being blind and their trail just became blind once more. "How long ago?" She asks him, tilting her head. "How long ago was she working on it..and has anything been opened, perhaps disturbed. Perhaps a specific piece." She stops then. "I know this is a lot to really go over right now, but I hate being in the dark. I thought we had something and now I need something. Is there anyway we can go take a look. Maybe something was triggered."
Damon beats on his leg some more as he tries to think back to when Radcliffe was first assigned to the project. "It was… uh… No…vember? Late November or early December. Somewhere in that timeframe. So a while back, and she was working on it until she got to the point where it was handed over to Dr. Adair for studying. A month or two ago. As for specific pieces, I mean, that could be anything. That project team's been dissecting and disassembling tons of stuff to examine and reverse-engineer that technology. You're better off asking Bannik - Specialist Bannik - about that stuff, he's the project lead. I just poke in from time to time so I'm not completely clueless."
The name is written down and Circe lifts her gaze back to Damon. "Chief, I thank you for your time. For now, all I can ask you to do is what we have discussed. I will present what I have to the doctors and maybe something can be cross verified. I will seek out Specialist Bannik as soon as I can." She nods her head. "Please let him know I am looking for him and interested in seeing what they have been doing this past month with the technology." She says. "I will bring Dr Adair with me as well, to see if he can't help this along." She has her notes, has her thoughts and conjectures, but that is all. That solid line she had been holding is gone again. "Thank you, Chief." She says.
"Cylon stuff off-limits, women up to Sickbay for physicals, and Bannik to see you sometime soon," Damon confirms, listing off the main points they discussed. "Aye aye. And if I think of anything, I'll send word your way immediately, yeah? I'm sorry I wasn't very helpful, I mean, I thought it seemed like there was an answer at first, but…" He gives her an apologetic smile and stands up. "Thank you."
"Chief, you have been more than helpful, you have given me some sort of direction to head in." Circe says to him. "We will find the answer. I will keep you posted on what we find. They are your crew, afterall." She says, seeming to understand the 'family' quality different sections can take upon the ship. "We will figure this out. Cautious is the best way to go for now." She inclines her head to him. "Keep me posted." with that, she lifts a hand, its an odd way to go. Not good news at all and a sense of needing to rush falls over her. Time was against them in many ways. She is moving, picking up the pace a little towards the stairs.