JDL | LtCmdr Reiber & Lt Zola | "Out Came The Sun"

Posted on Sun Mar 22nd, 2015 @ 9:17am by Lieutenant Commander

2,388 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: A Spot To Kill
Location: Engineering

Leaving his lab after being unable to find a pattern in the computer for what he required, Ethan decided to head down to Engineering to see if one of the officers there could assist him. Arriving, he looked around for any officers present and was stunned to see a Ferengi in a Starfleet uniform, and a female one at that. Going up to her, he cleared his throat. "Excuse me. I was wondering if I could get some assistance, if you have time?"

Zola looked up from the computer console she was running diagnostics at, craning her neck to meet this man's eyes. Along the way, her gaze passed over the rank pips at his collar. She didn't recognize the face, nor was she familiar with any Lieutenant Commanders in medical and science blue that she felt she should recognize. Zola grinned wide, flashing sharp little teeth, and reached over to suspend the diagnostics she'd been running — she'd mostly been running it to find the variance she'd heard in the phase couplings down on deck 28, even though everything seemed to be within expected tolerance.

"What can I do for you, Commander?" She rolled up onto the balls of her feet, still failing to even reach the man's shoulder. She absentmindedly scratched at the edge of the little flap of fabric that wrapped around the back of her head.

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Ethan Reiber, the new Biologist in Science here," he said by way of introduction. "I'm working on a project at the moment, but noticed the computer doesn't have a pattern for a piece of equipment that I require to continue my work. It's called an electrospinner which is used to create nano-scale fibers from both silk dissected from organisms and regenerated silk fibroin. Do you have anything which could produce the same results?"

"I'm not familiar with such a thing... but if you have some specifications, I might be able to build you one?" Zola pursed her lips as she considered. "What sort of organisms are you getting the silk from?"

"Spiders," Ethan told her. "May I use your terminal to pull up schematics of one?"

"Spiders..." Zola repeated as she took a half step to the side and waved her hand in invitation. "Are they edible? The spiders..."

Going to the terminal, Ethan had to stop and blink for a moment at her question. "I suppose some species might find them edible, but I'm using them to produce silk in order to make a better type of uniform that's able to resist projectile and energy impacts." Pulling up the schematics for an old Earth electrospinning unit, he stepped aside to show her. "This is one of the few that I was able to find in the database. Do you think it would be a problem to create a modern version of one?"

"Spider silk can make armor?" Zola stepped closer to the terminal, and started looking over the schematics. "This should be pretty easy. I can improve the collection options with forcefields with presets calibrated to function similar to the various types of collectors they offered, though the tube system should take some trial and error, but we can replicate their original until the kinks can be worked out, if that's one of the methods you want to use right away." She bent over to reach into the tool bag that sat tucked under the console, pulling out a PADD. "I'd like to prototype in the holodeck before I start fabricating and making replicator patterns for parts... do you have time to poke at it with me?"

"Yes," he said. "The silk of the Darwin Bark spider is ten times stronger than a material they used to call Kevlar on twenty-first century Earth which was impact resistant. I think I have time for go to the holodeck with you, Lieutenant. I'm interested in seeing how your ideas turn out, and I'm certain that they won't be in vain."

"I'm sure your research can be put to other uses too, beyond uniforms," Zola insisted as she loaded the schematics on the PADD, and started to compile a list of supplies and reference materials to cross reference. She waved her hand to indicate the scientist should lead the way out of the Engineering. "Fabric barriers that could stop a bullet or energy burst would be useful for deploying emergency teams into war zone, right? Like, if there was something preventing shields from being used... Also the resilience of making a blend of your spider silk with solar fabric could make for good shelter in rougher survival situations." Zola started thinking aloud as they walked.

"I plan on bonding a material known as graphene to the spider silk once I find an effective way of producing it en masse," Ethan said as he headed out of Engineering and towards a turbolift. "Once I manage that, I'm certain that other aspects of it can be explored as well. You've certainly came up with a few good ones that I hadn't considered as applicable, and rest assured, you will be credited for such applications if and when they become feasible and I write a paper on them."

"Graphene's pretty awesome stuff, I know we use it in a number of things... solar cells and some of the batteries they feed into come to mind," Zola returned as they reached the turbolift. After Rieber joined her in the lift, and the doors slid shut behind them, she directed it to deck six. "I'm not worried about credit, but if when you get to the point where people can develop the ideas, I'd like to be involved. I've had a few people request more durable versions of my Little Big Sound Probes, and if the solar fabric with the spider silk comes to fruition, it would be useful for that."

"I certainly wouldn't be adverse to other applications," Ethan said. "What surprised me is that the research for it was put aside at some point and no one ever thought to pick it back up. I discovered in my research on Darwin Bark spiders, but there's other arachnids that are very useful for their silk as well. The Darwin Bark spider just produces the strongest silk. If we can do this, we may open an entire new area for applications."

"Do you know why the research was set aside?" The trip to deck six was short, and Zola lead the way down the corridor. "What other spiders are there you can make fabric from?"

"From what I researched, they began to experiment with various types of mechanized body armor at the time and practical applications for spider silk was put towards consumer clothing, but was exorbitantly expensive," Ethan told her as he followed her down the corridor. "Each spider and each type of silk has a set of mechanical properties optimised for their biological function. Most silks, in particular dragline silk, have exceptional mechanical properties. They exhibit a unique combination of high tensile strength and extensibility. This enables a silk fiber to absorb a lot of energy before breaking.

"Many species of spider have different glands to produce silk with different properties for different purposes. They can produce major-ampullate silk Used for the web's outer rim and spokes and the lifeline. Can be as strong per unit weight as steel, but much tougher. Capture-spiral silk is used for the capturing lines of the web. Sticky, extremely stretchy and tough. The capture spiral is sticky due to droplets of aggregate that is placed on the spiral. The elasticity of flagelliform allows for enough time for the aggregate to adhere to the aerial prey flying into the web. Tubuliform silk is used for protective egg sacs. Stiffest silk. Aciniform silk is used to wrap and secure freshly captured prey. Two to three times as tough as the other silks, including dragline, minor-ampullate silk is used for temporary scaffolding during web construction and piriform silk serves as the attachment disk to dragline silk. Piriform is used in attaching spider silks together to construct a stable web," He finished. "A bit long winded, but spiders are incredibly complex. I hope I haven't bored you."

"They're like little eight legged engineers," Zola marveled as they reached the fabrication lab, where she was going to take advantage of the prototyping holodeck. "So many different types of silk thread... did any of the old research try to make use of the other types?"

"Yes," Ethan nodded. "However, I'm primarily interested in the Darwin Bark spider due to the strength and durability of its webbing. No other native spider of Earth even compares to it."

"I wonder if there are other species of spider from other planets that might?" Zola mused as she loaded the specifications from her PADD into the prototyping holoprogram. "Have you operated one of these before? Can you tell if the specifications in the computer are accurate before I start making adjustments?"

"A holoprogram or an electrospinner?" Ethan asked her. "If you're referring to the electrospinner, no I haven't. There wasn't much information about them other than the information and schematics that I gave you. I'm afraid it's going to be trial and error."

"Of course the electrospinner, I would be surprised if you hadn't used a holodeck before," Zola insisted, eying him sidelong. The prototyping holodeck that sat in the corner of the lab, open to the rest of the lab, materialized a machine that looked like the thing in the specifications. "Do we need to bring a spider here to test it?"

"No. Right now, we just need an actual prototype to put to use. Of course, we could create a Darwin Bark spider hologram to use for the program," he said. "It's a matter of figuring out exactly how to use it, though."

"Oh, you don't know how to use it?" Zola looked at her PADD, quickly flipping through the information she had. "I don't supposed you noticed if they have directions, do you?" She continued to flip through the information, looking for a Read Me file.

Ethan shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. That information was lost. It's going to be a process just like everything else in the realm of science. Once we get an actual working model of one, then I can begin to exam it and conduct experiments with it. The basic idea of an electrospinner is to use an electrical charge to draw very fine, typically on the micro or nano scale, fibers from a liquid. When a sufficiently high voltage is applied to a liquid droplet, the body of the liquid becomes charged, and electrostatic repulsion counteracts the surface tension and the droplet is stretched; at a critical point a stream of liquid erupts from the surface. However, that is pulling the warp nacelle ahead of the ship as I don't have any available spider silk proteins to use at the moment."

Zola considered as Reiber spoke, her eyes skimming the specifications, then glancing at the holographic representation of the machine. She skittered forward, and started poking at the controls of the machine, making small noises to herself as she did. "Computer, step stool," she directed in a distracted manner, finding that standing on tip toe still didn't give her a good view of where she was reaching. "We can replace these gloves with a force field also, form fitted to the users, should also allow better manipulation of the samples," she pointed out as she kicked at the step stool when it materialized, hopping up on it when it settled in front of the machine. "We'll have to upgrade the monitoring system, the technology was absolutely worthless at the age this machine was designed," she dismissed with a head shake, sliding her tiny arms into the gloves that allowed her access inside the machine.

"Once we get a grasp of how everything works, then we'll be able to make modifications using current technology," Ethan said as he stepped up to her. "The collection area for the silk proteins can be isolated with a sterifield to keep it pure, it looks like. I wonder how they managed to achieve warp drive at times when I look into their past history."

"Hew-Mons are kinda amazing, it is a wonder they didn't blow themselves up before reaching the stars," Zola agreed, then pursed her lips. "I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at here, perhaps you should do this part and let me know if anything seems anything other than like stone knives and bear skins." She pulled her arms out of the gloves, and stepped off her step stool. "Assuming these specifications are accurate, it shouldn't be too hard to modernize though."

Stepping up to the electrospinner, Ethan put his arms in the gloves and tried to recall what little information he had on the old techniques. "According to what I was able to find, an electrical charge went into the silk protein container and it was injected through a needle into a collection area. Of course, that information may not be entirely accurate."

"Of course, of course." Zola moved the step stool where she could look over the taller scientist's shoulder. "It sounds like this shouldn't been too hard to verify the information you found, then modernize it. We'll probably want to bring in some real silk protein to try it once we've finalized the prototype, but I suspect we'll have some trial and error to go through before we reach that point."

For the next hour, Ethan provided information on different types spider silk and extrapolated, theorized, and made suggestions on the process as they experimented on it. Finally, he stood back. "Well, until we can give this a real test, this is about as far as well can go. Thank you, Lieutenant Zola. The next step is to build the actual device."

"I should be able to get that started tomorrow morning, then I'll let you know when it's ready to try?" She grinned wide at him. "This has been fun, thank you."

"No to mention enlightening," Ethan told her. "I'll look forward to hearing from you then." With that, he gave her a nod and headed out of the holosuite.

Lieutenant Commander Ethan Reiber
Biologist
USS Vindicator

Lieutenant Zola
Engineer
USS Vindicator

 

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