Taking a walk

Posted on Thu Apr 6, 2017 @ 10:13pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Samantha Raylen & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant Cassandra Kennings & Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Lieutenant Arashi Tanaka Mr. & Senior Chief Petty Officer Samantha Summers

3,738 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Silence

Overhead, the deep azure blue of the moon's sky was marred only by the hazy view of the rings which encircled its host world. The gas world itself was not visible at the moment, only its rings which glimmered in the sky overhead could be seen. Other than the rings, the sky was crystal clear without even a wisp of a cloud to offer a break from the stifling heat and humidity. Dense forests covered the surface, the sound of unseen insects, birds, and other life filled the air with chirps, humming, and loud shrill cries.

The signal which had been picked up three days earlier by the Victory's sensors had been traced to this Mars-sized moon orbiting a massive ringed gas planet which was 3rd in orbital position around its star. Orbital surveys of the moon soon revealed it was covered in massive stone cities blanketed by the dense plant growth of the vibrant forests which covered the surface. Massive stone Cities abandoned thousands of years ago to be reclaimed by the dense plant life.

The signal's origin was determined to be located somewhere deep inside a massive complex in the heart of a dense temperate rainforest region. Entering the complex, the crew of the Victory hoped to determine who left this massive and ornate stone city so long ago, as well as the origins of the transmission which doesn't seem to fit with the ancient complex from which it is being sent into space.

Unfortunately, the presence of magnesite in the bedrock of the surrounding area meant that away teams could not beam directly to the coordinates of the signal's source. To add insult to injury, the dense jungle like forest forced the shuttle to land 12.3 kilometers from their destination, and the away team was forced to hike into the stone ruins where the signal was originating from.

The heat was one thing, the humidity made it that much more draining. And for the Captain.

Yet another explosive sneeze rang out amidst the sounds of nature, followed immediately by the Captain's unmistakably annoyed "This rotten rock can stuff it..what the hell possessed me to..." her grumble was interrupted by another sneeze, instigated by the sweet, powerful smell of the brilliant purple and blue flowers which grew on vines hanging from the trees. Seeing the Doctor looking at her, Kennit said "What?" Followed by a third sneeze. Noticing how Alec was watching her, she said again "What?"

Trying hard not to grin at her and not altogether successful, Alec shook his head even as he brought a hand up to his brow to wipe away the perspiration collected there. "Nothing, nothing at all Captain," he replied not wishing to draw Rhea's ire. "Sure is hot, though." stating the obvious. "Like breathing water."

Nicole was working her hypospray to death, compensating for the environment with rest of the team and finally fell back and pressed it against Commander Hunter's neck, then followed around to the Captain, but had to attempt three times before the Captain stopped sneezing long enough to press the hypospray on her skin.

Alec gave the CMO a grudging nod and mumbled, "thanks." It was the best he could manage right now.

Nicole nodded at him. "The rest of the team should be all right," Nicole said. "And of course, Penny's having a fine time of it. I'd suggest we all take a rest at some point, though or we're going to be too tired to do much once we reach wherever the hell it is that we're going."

With blessed relief from the burning itch in her sinus making her sneeze, the Captain said, "Thank God for you, Doctor. I owe you a drink when we get back to this ship..."

"Four, by my count," Nicole said, starting to huff herself as they fought their way through.

Ahead of them, the rest of the away team made their way toward their goal, still roughly three kilometers away.

Walking alongside Cmdr Torres, Lieutenant Raylen said, "Damn..I don't think I've ever heard someone sneeze so much on an away mission..."

Miguel looked up from his tricorder "Only when I was on Bajor," he told Sam.

"On Bajor?, Sam echoed. "That's one place I haven't been, not technically. I've been there in a ship in orbit but never visited the planet surface."

"It's still rebuilding from everything that was done to it while occupied by the Cardassians. But it's a beautiful place. Some of the ancient cities have been around since before humans sailed the oceans." he said with a smile as he remembered his four years there. "Of course now they're also building new cities, but they resemble just about anything you'd see in the rest of the Federation now that it's a member world.

"You haven't heard my fiance when he's near a Catian," Cassandra said, walking a pace behind. She hadn't particularly enjoyed the thought of traipsing through a hot-house jungle, but she knew that a mysterious signal inside seemingly ancient ruins would be a find that Richard would want to hear about, and she had to admit to a certain degree of curiosity.

That and she had some people to keep an eye on.

Penny was in the lead, the dense jungle not slowing her much, and her lack of care for the weather not slowing her down. She was acting as the scout, keeping an eye on what was ahead in case they needed to retreat. She'd been jazzed when the Captain told her to prep a shuttle, and she may have gone overboard with all the gear she'd loaded, but for now she had her engineering tricorder (that she'd shown off proudly to Lt. Commander Torres), her silver wand, and her phaser and she was itching to reach the ruins as quickly as they could, although she wasn't sure if it was just curiosity about a mysterious signal, or the eagerness to stretch her legs a bit.

Yarin brought up the rear, he held three tricorders one for flora, one for fauna, and the third was pointed up gaining data about atmospheric and weather conditions. He was preoccupied thinking sentimental thoughts in order to keep his skin a chalky white to combat the heat.

Tu'Shan came up behind Penny, carefully moving from solid surface to solid surface moving through the brush. Years worth of infiltration training were keeping him on edge in this sweltering pressure cooker of a jungle. Every few seconds he would glace at the motion tracker strapped to the side of his phaser rifle. He had debated bringing this with the Commander, and had pointed out on the countless cases where ships out on their own beamed down to investigate a signal or some other interesting planetary anomaly they would have been all that much safer with a trained operative with a rifle. He was trying his utmost not to show his irritation about being sent down with away party. And to add insult to this stinking soup of a world, I have to go digging in ruined cites in the jungle. When, oh when, was that ever a smart idea?

Trying to prevent another sneeze, the Captain pushed forward through a copse of dense brush and tough vine. Once she had cleared the path enough to move though, she moved further down the indicated course to their destination. Ahead, a cluster of massive trees blocked the way however, when she stepped around the heavy bark covered trunks the ancient city was visible before them. A city of stone carved into the side of a mountain. Gazing at the ancient structure, she glanced at the others In The away party and said simply, "Wow."

Alec made his way to the front trying to keep Rhea in sight and from any potential harm. He saw her stop, stare straight ahead and then turn back to the team and simply utter "Wow." Coming alongside her, he saw what she had already been privy to see, a city of stone of immense size carved into the side of a mountain. "I'll say this Rhea, you have a definite gift for understatement. Wow is right."

"Only a few more kilometers to go!" Penny said. "At least we can move faster now."

Varl scanned the cityscape with the motion and thermal scanner finding nothing amiss. "Impressive, I think this place would be perfect for ambushes."

"Kindly try sounding less hopeful when you say something so foreboding," Cassandra said, staring up at the city.

Aware of the musings of the away team, the Captain said only "Look at the way the builders used the natural strata of the rock to guide how the structure was carved...combined with the natural rough surfaces left intact, it blends the buildings with the natural formations of the cliff..."

Alec stared in awe at the gigantic stone city, literally carved into the side of a mountain. He was silent for several seconds before finally commenting, "Quite an impressive feat of architectural engineering.By following the natural rock formations they also minimize any weak spots in the city. As I said quite impressive."

Miguel was no architect and he was no archaeologist. He much perfered modern engineering to this. However even he had to admit that there was an awe inspiring sight to this structure. It reminded him of the ancient cities on Bajor that he had witnessed being rebuilt. He never understood why the Bajorans wanted to rebuild those cities using ancient techniques when they could have made them better with modern ones.

Looking over at Alec, Rhea said "Impressive no doubt. But it looks like it's been abandoned for millennia. So why is there a subspace signal coming from somewhere inside that structure?"

"I'm reminded of the old saying, don't judge a book by it's cover. Yes, the structure looks to have been abandoned forever but perhaps another race found this city, had troubles of their own and had means to advance technology hence a subspace transmitter." Alec replied philosophically.

"'Troubles of their own' doesn't bode well for us," Nicole said. "So, sally forth, and all that. Onward." She took a deep, humid breath, coughed and began marching forward towards the base of the city's cliff, hoping that once they were inside, the air would dry a bit.

Tu'Shan looked at the captain, "Permission to scout further ahead Captain? I want to see if I can find a place high enough so sweep the area with a thermal scanner." From his point of view, old ruined cites did not suddenly acquire sub-space transmitting equipment out of the clear blue sky.

She nodded, "Granted. Watch out for native wildlife..and any indications that the descendants of the builders of that city out there are still around.."

Alec looked at Nicole as she replied to his observation. She seemed to be like the rest of the away team, suffering in the hear and humidity. Shaking his head he commented. "Really Doctor. Do Try to work on your pep talk."

"At least I gave one," Nicole said, then muttered under her breath, "kuv etek shetau pash-tor-an dungau yokul-du wuh'rak."

Listening without comment, the Captain just smiled to herself at the banter going on, briefly disrupted by another sneeze she continued picking her way toward the stone city which lay before them. Shadow and light played tricks with the eyes, making it appear at times as if something or someone moved across stone balconies and walkways. However, tricorder scans indicated no signs of life larger than the size of a fat house-cat from Earth.

Pausing to look at the layout of the city before them, Kennit said "I think there's a gate there. It looks as if it's blocked by vegitative growth, but if you look at the stones in the outer wall you can see the difference at the top of the wall itself. That's going to be where we get inside."

Overhead, a whir of wings drew attention to the sky as a flock of what looked like four winged bats flew overhead. The forward wings were large, wide structures while a second set of smaller, triangular shaped wings provided additional speed and flexibility in flight. Long tails with spiny feather-like structures provided steering abilities as the animals streamed past overhead.

"Captain!" Yarin called from the back. "Permission to try and capture one of those Chiroptera for further study."

Nicole, Cassandra and Penny instantly frowned at him. "You don't need to cruelly capture one to study it," Nicole said, her voice a bit more heated than she'd intended, her temper already short.

Surprised by the Doctor's tone of voice, the Captain paused to consider..decided not to tweak the Doctor's ire into her direction and said "Denied. We didn't bring proper equipment for such an endeavor and I don't want to risk injuring an innocent creature.."

"Fair enough Captain," Yarin said slightly disappointed.

Cassandra stepped back, reaching into her shoulder bag and pulling out her gold compact. She looked at it for a long moment, looked around, then back at it again, then sighed and put it back in her bag and followed behind. She pulled her multi-colored locks back and used a stray hair to tie up a ponytail. "Do we know how far up we have to climb?" she said.

"If my tricorder is correct we'll be able to access the city through an entrance gate in the perimeter wall. From there.. I'd have to guess it would depend on where the signal track leads us." the Captain answered.

"I have some experience climbing rock faces Captain, shall I take point?" Yarin asked.

"If we run into a rock face..I'all keep that in mind.." the Captain replied.

Tu'Shan had moved forwards a great deal in the time since the Captain had approved the forward recon. He had clambered up hill and into the stone city. Much of the buildings were dusty, with no disturbance marking the dust. Tu'Shan kept his rifle ready, working the thermal scope side to side across chamber and open space he encountered. He reckoned he could obtain a much wide view of the city if he went up one more level. Using very small gravity plates he clambered up the crenelated wall of what looked to been a temple in ages past. He lay prone with his rifle just protruding from the edge of the structure. He then scanned what he considered to be a large meeting area with thermal scanning, then again with x-ray scanner and finally with motion. This last setting found something, not very large, maybe half a meter in height and slowly rotating. Very slow Varl reached towards his combadge and tapped it. "Lieutenant Tu'Shan to Captain Kennit, I believe I have located why there is a subspace signal coming from in this ruin. I have located what I understand to be a wind and moisture trap linked to an extremely old generator system. I can see power lines coming down the rear of one the more distant structures."

"Kennit here." She replied. "That is interesting. What are your coordinates?"

"About nine hundred meters from your current position, I've transmitted my position to your tri-corder, I've been watching the area closely, unless its a machine doing this there is nothing alive in this city except us and the local fauna." Varl settled back into a comfortable position and continued to scan the buildings with all filters. Nothing, not even a suggestion of anything being concealed. " Strange, if I were baiting a trap I'd stay close enough to jump when it sprung..." Thought Varl.

"We'll come to you. I want a closer look.. Hold your position and we'll be there shortly."

Looking at the coordinates in her tricorder, the Captain nodded in their new direction as she said "Lets move out.."

Varl had moved after Captain had confirmed she was moving, as he was doing so he thought " Well, now lets see what way the dice fall... " He hurried, taking the most safe and direct route to the wind trap, alert at all times for any thing that would give away an ambush. Nothing, not so much as a suspicious bush someone could crouch behind.

After a relatively short trek through the trees, they entered the small area where Tu'Shan waited next to a slowly rotating device. It looked old..but was clearly technologically advanced. Approaching, Her eyes on the discovery.. the Captain breathed out a slow, "Wow..."

"Wow indeed". Muttered Varl under his breath. He had spent the few minutes before the Captain and party had arrived thoroughly searching the area for traps and had found none.

Miguel got there not to long after the Captain. He began to scan it with his own tricorder. "Looks like some sort of power generator... an old one at that." he said as he continued to scan it.

Still slowly walking around the device, looking over its construction with a sharp attention to detail the Captain said, "There's a massive heavily shielded cable running down through a pipe into the ground. Can you get a reading on what's beneath us?"

Varl stated flatly, "I've been having a look around before you got here Captain, this place does not strike me as a sort of city for living in. I found burial bowls and what I found to be dusted bone fragments. Whomever built this city most likely built it for the dead." He looked slightly more grim then usual before adding "And unless the builders believed in funerary pyres, most likely the place below us... is a massive mausoleum."

Cassandra's head turned from a sketch she was doing of a small sculpture. "I would agree, Captain. I've found several reliefs that look to depict afterlife-related ceremonies, and several sculptures showing a similar figure in a prominent position over others in repose. We may be treading on very sacred ground." She sat down carefully on a small ledge. "If whatever people lived here wished this place to remain important and functioning, they may have protected it.

Arashi had been silently following and watching. He watched as Miguel scanned and told the captain of his results. Arashi had a foreboding feeling but he trampled it down. "This seems all dark and scary..." Arashi said to himself. He had his hand on his phaser and realized it, then pulled his hands away.

Alec had come up behind Rhea and watched as Miguel scanned the alien device. Looking at Rhea, he spoke, "You need another word. You're wearing wow out. Though I agree Wow!"

Nicole sighed with relief as she finally found a place to sit down next to Cassandra. "For those of us not so mechanically inclined," she said, "would someone care to clue us in to what the 'wow' is, specifically?"

The Captain looked at the Doctor, then atthr XO, and last at Miguel for a moment, then made a simple smack motion with one hand directed at all three of them before speaking, "Its a good bet that this is powering whatever is transmitting the signal we picked up." Turning, she said "Miguel. Are you able to get any information on the area beneath us? Size, access points...."

"It seems to be going deep down underground. Looking at what looks like artificially made structures... could be buildings." Torres replied as he had already started following the scans looking for away to get to what he was seeing on the scans.

Walking to where he stood, Kennit pulled his tricorder down to where she could see (a side effect of his height), and asked "See any way to get down there?"

"Yes... there seems to be an opening here." he said pointing at the location on the tricorder to her.

"Really?" Kennit retorted in a slightly aggrieved tone. "The only option is way over there?"

"Captain," Cassandra said, "I would advise caution. We're about to venture into what could be a sacred place, not to mention a booby-trapped one. Clearly advanced technology is involved. We shouldn't disturb this place any more than absolutely necessary."

With a nod, the Captain answered, "And yet we have a signal being transmitted, capable of reaching quite a distance from this moon which is likely to be a distress message though the Victory's computer has not been able to decipher the transmission. We are therefore required to investigate."

Cassandra tilted her head, curious. "How do you know it's a distress signal?"

Silently the Captain turned and locked eyes with the Counselor. Neither spoke for a long moment and then, slowly and in a different tone of voice, the Captain answered with clear, crisply pronounced words, "I believe I stated the answer already. How do you know it is not?"

Alec looked on as Rhea and the Counselor bandied words about the signal. Moving closer to the Captain he interjected, "What are your orders Captain? You want to keep the team together or send a few to check out the opening and make sure it's safe?"

Torres also waited to hear what their next step would be.

"Mr Tu'Shan," Kennit said. "Move ahead of us to the entrance noted by Mr. Torres. Check for hazards ahead of our path a d report back. We will take scans of this device, what there is we can access here at the surface then join you. Pick someone to go with you.."

Varl nodded, the audible whine of his rifle cycling to a higher setting as he moved forwards, a calculating look setting across his features. "Certainly Captain, now I get to see how far down the rabbit hole goes..." He had moved a few steps before considering who to bring with him. He turned back to the group "Does anyone want to volunteer to come with? "

Penny jumped up and raised her hand like a schoolgirl, bouncing on her toes. "I'll go!"

Varl sighed, but inwardly "Alright Naroot, lets get this done." With that, he turned and began to move very quickly but with the minimum amount of noise toward the opeing Torrens had indicated. As he moved, Naroot at his heels he could not help but thing " Well done Varl, now you have this one to look after, better get her back in once piece, something tells me the Captain does not take crew injury very well.."


TBC...

 

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