Scanning......scanning.....
Oh.
The good news is, it's not sabotage. The bad news is...it's everywhere. The Phi-radiation emitters are completely integrated with every atom of Antimony. One too many strange quarks in the subatomic makeup, and everything's a mess.
Lt. Commander Bruce reads your scans as you continue.
Well, shet. Lemme see what ah can find.
By the time you're out and decontaminated, she's found an old old article. Is that newsprint archived digitally? Dang.
On Earth-Prime, in their year 1995, one of the first Terran photographic telescopes caught images of the blast from a massive nova. With some quick calculations, even their scientists were able to determine that the blast itself was several thousand years old, several dozen light years across. The "pillars" as the humans called them, were long gone, but the impact remained.
The image was one of the prime examples of the space organization's progress, but as it because more just, a background on a computer, it was largely forgotten. Several centuries ago, the Relik discovered what should have been a neutron star in the center of the original nova, but it was made entirely of strange matter. Luckily in the vacuum of space, very little was around to be affected and then absorbed.
But the planet Grel is in a reasonable shockwave distance for a nova that size.
No wonder they're a minin' planet, Bruce muses.
Anythin' too close would'a been vaporized. Anything too small'd've been consumed entirely. You realize what this means? Grel could'a been a multi-core planet, stripped by tha nova, an' changed ta have all these emitters!
While Yen'kos speaks, Captain Hamilton gets a cup of a bluish fluid from a replicator in the wall. She's a little clumsy, clearly holding her exposed hand tightly shut.
I trust that all issues aside, you are not a prime mover in them, Yen'kos. Thank you for your feedback. Perhaps, she calls to the techs in the room
if Terran and adjacent biology cannot be directly benefitted by redjuice, the antidote could be boosted, in a way? Or the antimony could be neutralized directly.
Altok Leya passes this information on a data pad to central command on Earth-Beryllium as the medics in the room start feverishly researching the captain's suggestions.
Yen'kos, there must be a reason you were sent to live on the moon instead of among your people. Would you please expand on that?
The Grel'lix nods soberly and concedes.
My team was sent to search for more redjuice stores, far closer to the core than any of our kind have traveled before. While there, we found creatures not unlike your security officer. As we traveled, we realized that their number, and a few remaining features, closely matched a mining team that had been lost in an elevator collapse. This was how we learned the phi-radiation emitters are not atmospheric, but geological.
Captain Hamilton leans forward, her demeanor far closer to when the ship disembarked - though still uneasy.
Your people know the mines expertly well. Why did your leaders not listen?
Yen'kos blinks, twitching a little with the repressed memory.
I was the only one who survived, Sir. My findings were written off as PTSD, then heresy. Our people worship the core, the soil. To think it is the source of our trouble is unthinkable for most Grel'lix.
Hamilton acknowledges the report with solemnity.
Lieutenants, process Yen'kos as a materials expert seeking sanctuary on a Treaty ship. It'll be messy, but I think it's our best bet right now. She sighs and sets her drink back in the replicator to re-adjust it to something else.
Most of you were assigned to be a diplomatic envoy for negotiations. Now it seems we have a larger problem on our hands. Will you help with this, too?
