Where Once There Was
Posted on Sun Dec 30th, 2018 @ 9:42am by The Narrator & Lieutenant Commander Meilin Jiang & Lieutenant Francesca Ricci
Mission:
S1E2: A Temple To New Gods
Location: Shuttle Bay, USS Resolute
Timeline: MD3 10.15AM
The Security Team assigned to the landing party assembled in the shuttle bay loaded for bear. But given they were a Security Team and not Starfleet Marine Corp, the bear they were loaded for came with padded stuffing. Phaser carbines, hand weapons, and light laminate body armour strapped over the protective environment suit they all got to wear.
"First away mission in an unknown bit of space, and we got to do it wearing safety orange suits that do nothing for the figure," Lt Kitcher said and pulled the hood of his suit up and over his head. "At least it has something to keep the acid rain off."
Meilin strode into the shuttle bay and immediately noted the distance between the security team and her survey team. Both seemed competent in their handling of protective gear, though their choice of equipment could not have been more distinct and opposite. As a former Security officer as well as a long-life scientist, Meilin could appreciate the beauty and form of both sets of professionals.
If only they could work together without squabbling over priorities.
"Thank you all for being prompt and prepared," she said to everyone. "There have been a few last minute additions." She indicated the two women who had entered the shuttle behind behind her. "Lieutenant Commander Storm will be leading this expedition." Not that Meilin would brook any interference in the survey, it was still more relief than anything to let someone else sit in the hot seat. "And the Carpathian representative, Bahat Riya, whose extensive experience in disaster relief will help with damage assessment of the local infrastructure."
Her suit sealed other than her helmet, Bahat gave the security officers a warm smile. People with phasers were always good to befriend. "Thank you all for keeping us safe," she said, making eye contact with each of them. She carried a hard-formed pack over her shoulder.
"Let's keep the back slapping to a minimum until we're back on the ship with all our digits intact," Kitcher said and made a hand gesture to one of his men. The security officer opened a crate and pulled a phaser pistol from its foam padding. "Type 5 hand phaser, a bit more up to date than the cannons the SFMC was using back in your day. Pulse/beam settings are on the side, along with a power gradient from sunburn/to closed casket. Biometric lockout in the trigger will keep it from getting snagged by a bad guy and turned on you. Ideally, I'd prefer to only arm my team, but given we're going into hell's backyard I'd like us all prepared."
Kitcher looked over to Meilin, a pained expression on his face.
"I..I don't suppose you'll want one Ma'am?"
As a former Chief of Security, Meilin was no stranger to phasers. But, as a consummate pacifist and conscientious objector, she preferred not to handle them. "I'll leave that to your team," she answered.
Dania stepped past Meilin and grabbed one of the Type 5 phasers and deftly inspected the weapon. She took out the power source, gave it a brief look over before putting it back in, then she checked the firing mechanism, giving it the old superstitious blow of air before reassembling the weapon again.
"Mister Kitcher," Storm then said, "let's not pretend. You're the expert here and we will defer to your expertise and your lead. I will merely direct should direction be needed. Alright?"
"Couldn't agree more Ma'am," Kitcher said with a curt nod. "This is just an overly protective sightseeing tour courtesy of Starfleet Tours. Bringing you to the destination of your worst fever dreams and back again."
Bahat's warm smile had turned rather frosty upon hearing an overgrown child refer to a time only fifteen years ago as 'back in her day.' She checked over the hand phaser she'd been given and headed to the shuttle without another word.
"Oh this'll be a fun trip, I can tell." Kitcher grinned. "Okay people, grab your gear and get on the bus. Make sure you have your rebreather's to hand, air quality is compromised on the surface. You breathe it your lungs will probably dissolve before you realise you made a mistake."
With that, the security team bundled up their gear, which included a portable inflatable emergency shelter. Little more than an airtight camping tent with a limited life support rig. It was the sort of thing that, for a day, would keep them all hale and hearty. But if they were in it for more than a few days, they'd need to start breathing in shifts to make the life support cycle fit.
"Follow the Gunny's ways, she's already strapped in and got her gear stowed," Kitcher said with a respectful nod to Riya as he walked past her to the shuttle's cockpit. "Morning Flight Officer Ricci, we have a flight plan? What's the weather like for our ingress?"
"Weather is overcast, but calm," Francie answered. "As for the flight plan, what do you think I've been doing in here? Polishing my nails?" She grinned to show she was joking.
"Well they do look pretty this morning," Kitcher said with a smile right back at her,.
Dania shook her head amusedly and lumbered inward. Oh how she hated atmospheric flights. Granted, this time it wasn't in a modified torpedo casing. This time it was the proper way. Still, she loved solid ground and/or plating beneath her feet most of all, even with taking her anti-space sickness shots regularly.
She was soon sitting next to Bahat, strapped in and ready for the gruelling ride down. The surface concerned her greatly, as did their poor protective state, but there was little to be done about either. Hopefully, some answers will be yielded when they get there.
Kitcher looked back over his shoulder at the assembled landing party and signalled to the shuttle's crew chief. The back hatch slowly raised up and clanked solidly into place.
"Overcast and calm eh?" Kitcher smiled. "Let's get going."
"Will you look at that?"
The shuttle's entry into the atmosphere had been as smooth and trouble-free as it could have wanted, a testament to the pilot's mastery of her craft. But now below the caramel coloured clouds of the planet, they could see some of the destruction wrought beneath them. With a flick of his gloved fingers, Kitcher sent the sensor feed's to the consoles in the back for their passengers.
They were flying over a wide horseshoe valley, the FM source set at the far end of it on the side of its rising mountainous side. Below was a ribbon of compacted concrete forming something analogous to a highway from Earth's pre-anti grav age. Six lanes wide, every square foot of the highway was crammed with vehicles. Small family sized movers, larger container transporters. All were empty, the toxic rain from the skies have stripped away any paint or identifying marks.
"One of the nuke strikes was a 1000KM's east of here. They must have been running from the fallout," Kitcher mused. "Poor bastards."
While the Lieutenant mused the demise of untold multitudes, Meilin was assessing everything from the make and model of their vehicles to the layout of their urban development and infrastructure.
"Looks like an Information Age civilization at the minimum. Perhaps Space Age, though almost certainly pre-Warp given the nature of their infrastructure," Meilin said aloud to her team.
"But why devastate the planet so thoroughly?" asked Ensign Kyril-Ma, an Aurelian orthinoid and promising young biochemist. He looked around with unfettered shock and awe at the skeletal remains of an entire civilization.
"That's one of the questions we're here to answer," Meilin said. "Come, let's collect some samples."
~They dared to say no?~ Dania mused quietly, on her face a stony expression. ~Or they were an example for others of what happens when you defy the Abborax..~
"You heard the scientist, let's go find her something to poke with a stick," Kitcher said with a grin. The shuttle flew on, low enough now that the stumps of trees could be seen, but no trunks or remains. And then the sensor's locked onto the source of the FM signal, a low repeating tone rising up and down the scale.
A pyramid was built into the peak of the valley.
Glossy with acid rain wash, and black as coal, it stood out from the earthen countryside and was at the end of the sea of vehicles that were parked in haphazard lines and knots all over the place. The shuttle made a sweep around the structure. It resembled a step pyramid or ziggurat but lacked the grand staircase leading up its sides. Instead, the black stone work's only two breaks were the tall metal latticework of an antenna mast rising from its apex and a fortified open entrance at the base of its northern side.
"Oh that's not creepy at all," Kitcher said as the shuttle began to settle into a landing spot between the empty vehicles and the open entrance. With a final crunch and whine, the shuttle settled into the mud and sod. "Okay field trip ground rules. Rule 1: whilst your curiosity is there to be sated if one of my security people asks you to step aside or return to the shuttle you will do so. Rule 2: if we run into hostile life forms First Contact protocol falls into effect and we return to the shuttle and abort to the Resolute. And 3: everyone comes back from the field trip, no exceptions. I've lead landing parties on four First Contact sorties and mapped a dozen D and K class worlds. Kitcher is wise, Kitcher knows all. Now check your gear, get the masks on, and let's get some mud on our boots to prove we've been here."
“So basic ‘unkown situtation’ Protocol,” replied Francie as she shut down the shuttle after landing. “Got it.”
Storm checked her gear quietly, "I'm ready."
Rather than reply, Meilin took a moment of silence to close her eyes and gather her center. She slipped her gear on without a word, though she nodded to Kitcher that she was ready.
"Don't worry," Bahat said with a smirk visible through her helmet. "I don't plan on being your first civilian casualty."
The door seal hissed as the air equalised with the outside, and then the shuttle hatch opened. The rebreathers did a lot to clean the air that suddenly filled the cabin, making it workable for human and non-human lungs alike. But the smell of the air, the burnt plastic scent and the hint of rusting iron that came in with it were overpowering. Almost at once wrist computers on all of the E-suits lit up with air contamination warnings.
"Risa this ain't..." Kitcher said. "Anyone want to do the 'small step' bit off the hatch? First boot and all?"
“Let it be known,” said Francie, taking the first step onto alien soil, “that this ‘Small Step for Man’ was taken by a woman. Try to keep up, boys.”
Dania rolled her eyes at Francie's words though said nothing, instead opened her tricorder and began scanning as she stepped out after the pilot.
By Meilin's count, women outnumbered the men on this expedition, but she allowed the feisty pilot her vanity. Taking point with the scientists, she began her search with scans for life signs. More likely she would find humanoid remains, which would be just as helpful to her expertise.
"Detecting less radiation in the interior," Kyril-Ma the biochemist Aurelian reported. "The tower appears to have been shielded from the worst of the environmental contamination. Perhaps the interior will contain breathable atmosphere."
Meilin switched over from her scans for life to the radiation bandwidth. Her tricorder confirmed Kyril-Ma's readings if not his speculations. "Noted, Ensign. I still detect no signs of life, though. Nor any remains..."
She trailed off as she considered the implications. If it the tower were shielded and inhabited...
"Everyone, be prepared for potential contact with survivors. Call it a hunch."
Bahat had busied herself with looking over a few of the vehicles near their landing site. There weren't any emergency supplies in any of them, not that she recognized. "Either these people weren't prepared for what happened, or someone came through after the fact and did some scavenging," she speculated on the open comm line.
“Then why did they park up like they were going Winter Crest shopping? I’ve seen Starfleet Shuttle Yards’s with half a air wing of fighter’s lined up in a less orderly fashion.” One of the security officer’s said, walking to the side of the shuttle and looking back at the field of parked vehicles. Closer up the environmental damage to them was more clear, and still less so as well. Paint held on in places, but every window and light had been smashed in without exception.
“Good question, let’s go find out. Samson, Delilah, up front with me,” Kitcher said and stepped towards the entrance to the pyramid. “Let’s not play this one like an adventure holo. Check for traps and trip wires, dead falls and missing wet floor signs.”
The trio of Security officer’s walked into the temple, the lights mounted on the shoulders of their E-suits and slung under the snub noses of their phaser carbines illuminating a darkened interior. The walls were the same black as exterior, but inside it had added definition: little arcs and swirls, odd rises and segmented veins.
“Hey, look at this,” Samson the tall Samoan Sec Officer walked to the wall, and leaned down to pick up a crumpled white wrapper. One one side was nothing, but on the other were the words: EMRG PATCH. He reached into his own suit’s arm pocket, and pulled out a similar item there, though this was a more rigid rectangle of bright green material. “Someone was here before us, got a suit breach. Small one too, if they had time to patch it.”
“Or someone patched it for them,” Kitcher looked back at the others. “You picking up any life signs? Thermal, heart beat?”
"Negative," Meilin said, concluding her scans. "Anyone around is in a shielded environment. I'm not detecting any power signatures in the surrounding urban infrastructure, and that narrows down the possibilities to a singular course." She nodded toward the tower.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" asked Samson. "Let's blow the door open."
"We need to find a way inside which won't potentially breach any sealed containment measures that any potential survivors would have constructed," Meilin chided. Turning to the others, she said, "Structural scans are being blocked by the ambient radiation and the strong FM broadcast signal. Construction technology of this era would likely make use of air filters rather than life-support reclamation, so we should conduct a visual search for an exterior air exchange."
“Here’s an idea, how about we all split up into small groups to make the search faster?” Deliah said with obvious sarcasm.
“Nice to see that fancy planetary college education paid off for ya,” Kitcher groused. “We’ll make a circuit of the temple, see what we find-“
“Or we follows the footprints,” Samson said and gestured with his carbine to the ground in front of the group. Ahead of them a line of boot tread’s lead towards and through the large right angled doorway. The boot prints were both similar to their own, and featured a Starfleet delta in the print still visible in some of them. “Looks like we’re not the first Fleeters to get here. Must be some of the Support and Engineering Module crew.”
Samson followed the bootprints to where a knot of them lead off to the side of the arch way. He shone his carbine’s flash light over the stone work.
“Looks like someone wiped away some of the grime here, might be a control panel ?” He pondered. “Anyone here know engineering? Or archeology?”
Bahat stepped forward, raising her hand to get the security officer's attention. "Let me take a look." She knelt on the dusty ground and leaned in close to examine the panel. There was a pair of small wires hanging loose from a crack near the edge of the panel. They didn't look anything like the construction of the rest of the pyramid. She frowned, then had a hunch. Drawing her phaser, she flipped open a small panel to reveal the weapon's power cell. The wires would be an exact match to the charging port. She stepped aside to reveal the discovery to the rest of the team. "If I were going to guess, if we plugged in a phaser, we could draw power from the battery and activate... whatever this is. The last team in here must have done it."
Meilin stepped forward to analyze the footprints. "Those look older than the main cluster," she said. "See how they're elongated with irregular outlines as compared to the rest?" She looked up at the door. "What we have is a situation where a lone individual activated the entrance some hours, perhaps a day, before a group followed. And all quite recent."
Taking a wild shot, she tapped her combadge.
"Lieutenant Commander Meilin Jiang to all Starfleet personnel. Please respond."
Everybody else's combadge chirped, but she held up her hand for everyone to wait. A burst of static came back.
"All Starfleet personnel inside the structure, if you can hear me, please activate the entrance."
More static.
Silence.
"It seems somebody got the message," Meilin said. "But to what effect?"
The doorway trembled slightly, then parted just enough for single file passage. Quickly weighing her options, Meilin slid through with ease.
Dania quickly adjusted her phaser setting and kept it in her hand as she followed after Meilin. She did not like the look of what they had discovered so far. Were the ones inside hiding from the environment, someone that was still outside? Were they sealed inside for a different reason? Like keeping whatever was inside from trying to get out?
Dania switched channels quickly, so only the Lieutenant could hear her, "Kitcher, keep your fingers on your triggers. I do not like the look of this at all. Look for signs of fighting inside and watch the state of those we meet...if we meet anyone."
"Copy that," Kitcher mumbled and gestured his two other Sec officers inside. "Into the temple we go."
