Star Trek: Erin

Part 31: What Thirty Mosquitos were Doing

     While this may not seem important after the brutal murder of Junior Lieutenant Erin Cobos—plant clone or not—it certainty was.

     The scientist Lata had made a few correct deductions about the pale vines, but she went wrong with the vines maintaining all of a fabricated organism's memories by duplicating neurons and such. In reality, the updating part of that job belonged to the mosquitos. It was a nice little symbiotic relationship that suited both parties well.

     These particular mosquitos were living in the satellite dish. Their kind had originated from the same place as the pale vines—a meteorite that had landed a month ago just outside the facility, and before that on a rather interesting yet largely ignored planet called Angel's Respite—and were living their simple existence as members of the fourth generation since their arrival.

     And so when thirty or so mosquitos sensed the death of one of its symbiotic partners, they hurried to the corpse to gather information. Maybe further deaths could be prevented.

     It wasn't hard to reach brain tissue, seeing as it was decorating the crate behind the corpse. There were two other organisms nearby, one that was screaming rather loudly, and one making a request in an even voice. Seven of the thirty mosquitos split off to check in with these other two organisms, but neither were from their plant buddy, so they returned to the corpse to do their job.

     Encoded memories were delivered to the pale plants, which analyzed and gave a copy of the fatal data and its lead-up to each of the organisms it was drawing energy from.

     And deep in the heart of the facility, Junior Lieutenant Erin Cobos gasped awake.