Into The Heart Of Darkness

Posted on Fri Feb 23rd, 2018 @ 8:53pm by Captain Remas McDonald & Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra

2,546 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: S1:2: Rubicon
Location: Zheng He, on route to hull breach
Timeline: MD 14, 15.00PM

The Arrow class runabout Zheng He departed the USS Traveller’s shuttlebay without fanfare. The sleek dagger like craft kept low to the surface of the alien vessel, a hollow reflection of itself shimmering in the ice armour beneath it. On board the craft a combined team of engineers, operations techs, scientists and ExSec officers carried out further preparations. All wore EVA suits, save for the ExSec officers whose suits resembled armour.

Large sensor arrays designed for planetary mapping surveys had been brought into the crafts cargo hold, ready to be floated out on anti gravs when the Zheng He landed. Other mapping devices and accoutrements were loaded alongside it. The ExSec squad had come loaded for bear, though no squad served weapons this time. Streamline phaser rifles were tested, and their powerpacks switched out.

“We come in peace, shoot to kill…” Remas muttered under his breath as he slowly turned his helmet around in his hands, looking back from the command deck of the Runabout at the preparing team. He turned back, walking past the flight engineer stations of and leaned over the back of the pilots seat. “How are we doing Mr Beck?”

“We’re about five minutes out from the hull breach. Got a lock on the probe that's got caught in there, acting as a poor man's beacon. Just like calling the ball back in the day,” the pilot said. He was dressed in his normal uniform, given the fact he was not going to be leaving the ship when they landed. Remas nodded and patted the back of the chair, and looked back at those gathered in the command deck.

“I suspect when we get to the hull breach, we might run into the same problem the probe did. Lieutenant Reynolds: up for cutting us a hole through whatever might be baring our path?” Remas asked, before mutely clicking his fingers and gesturing to Shadi. “Reminds me, the probe that got stuck, is it still in working order? It would be nice to use it as a relay back to Traveller. First off ship mission for us, I’d hate for us not to get any good holograms of what we see.”

"Transssmissions remain strong," Shadi said, "though the probe is not saying much other than it's still there."

“Mr Lutko, how are we doing on the science front of things?” Remas asked the young Bajoran, stepping up behind his seat. He smiled broadly. “Don’t look so nervous. Compared to my first away mission as a boot Ensign, massive alien wreck floating in the null space between galactic stellar masses barely qualifies as eventful.”

Onir gave a nervous little chuckle as he read the scans. "Now that we're closer, sir, I'm seeing what the lab got before it exploded. The ship's hull is made up of a single layer of molecules, but the density is... whoa, density is practically off the charts." He glanced toward the front of the ship, then up at the Captain over his shoulder. "I-I'm not sure how they did it, but they made their hull a single layer of molecules about 50 times denser than our ship's hull plating." Turning back to his screen, he read some more of the data. Inside, his heart was pounding. It was exciting but terrifying at the same time. "The radiation levels are climbing as we get closer to the ship, but they are reading at 4 sieverts, which is well below the fatal level."

“Everyone! Check your suits one more time! When we get inside there is no atmosphere, and given the size of that vessel repressurising will not be an option. Find a leak, if any, now whilst we have the means to not make a bloody spectacle of ourselves. After all, the medic’s are here in a research capacity, and I’d hate to see their work derailed by a pesky bout of explosive decompression.” Remas said wryly.

"Please," Rena seconded, a slight frown on her face. "We don't need to play scavenger hunt for exploded body parts." She turned to Lutko, "keep an eye out for any areas with radiation above 40 sieverts. While the suits will keep us safe, anything higher than that could start eating away at the suit and put someone into a coma within minutes."

Swallowing the knot in his throat, Lutko nodded and looked back at his console.

“Y’all hear a ding in your suit, that means you’re done,” Beck joked from the cockpit.

“Miss Zatra, how will this radiation affect our tricorders and portable sensors? Would it be possible to tie them into the Zheng He’s more powerful array and for a adhoc network?” Remas asked the Suarian.

"Doubtful," Shadi said with a shrug. "The sensor array on board would double as a repeater to strengthen our signal like the probe, but once we're through past the breach and within the hull, we're on our own. I suggest sssyncing our tricorders together instead. Won't increase range, but it should help filter out the ambient radiation."

“We’re coming up on the hull breach, slowing to thrusters. If you y’all want to do some sightseeing, come up front and take a gander at the Grand Canyon of starships,” Beck said, the view out of the canopy of the runabout suddenly illuminated as the ships search lights kicked on.

An illuminated a body caught on a spar of metal at the mouth of the hull breach.

“SWEET BABY JEBUS!” Beck sputtered, jamming the controls and pushing the runabout back on a small burst of thrust. This didn’t do much to lessen the shock value of the image, but it helped paint the scene. Humanoid was about all that could be seen, the form blacked and withered by centuries of exposure to the winds of space.

"That's no baby," Shadi hissed.

"Looks like a party to me." Vic said with a chuckle as he double checked his phaser and gestured for his teams to do the same.

"Remind me to put you through the sensitivity training holo seminar when we get back to the Traveller," Remas muttered. "Dr Kal, I think this falls into your bushel more than mine. Little large for a biological specimen bag, but I think a quarantine casket is in the cargo bay if you want us to beam it over?"

Vic huffed but said nothing

Rena's mouth twisted into a bit of a cringe when she saw the figure. What was it and the number of autopsies lately? "I would like to take a look," she said, not completely sure of herself in her words.

Now looking through the viewport at the jagged canyon of broken metal and material, other things came into view. Jagged sheets of frozen vapour, and skeletal trees like things that could have been pipes and conduits. Or none of these things.

"What could do this sort of damage to something this size?" Remas mulled aloud, craning his neck a little.

Shadi flexed her talons inside her EV suit against her sudden feeling of impotence. "Nothing I'd ever want to sssee."

“Problem with going off the map, you have to run over the words ‘Here there be dragons’,” Remas remarked, before smiling at Shadi. “No offence.”

Shadi's head bobbled on her neck with pride. "The Ragolar clan descended from divine dragons."

"That's good to know," Remas said with a chuckle.

Loren had checked over his suit half a dozen times, so he wasn't so concerned. What did bother him, to the point of having a pounding migraine was all the raw emotions emanating off of everyone around him. He kept as quiet as possible, not wanting to make things worse for himself.

"You sweat too much," Shadi said to Loren. "I can sssmell it through your EV suit. Hopefully nothing in there can do the sssame."

"Well enough of the road side attraction, Mr Beck...take us in. Nice and slow," Remas instructed, before looking at Reynolds. "Man the weapons console. The Zheng He might be small but she packs a punch. I don't want us getting caught in tunnel if there are obstructions."

"Aye sir." Vic said as he jumped into the seat behind and to the left of Beck. His senses heightened by the sight of the biological popsicle that greeted them.

With a cough of her reaction thrusters the Zheng He pivoted and nosed down, rotating to point straight down int othe wide open gash. The the spot lights painted jagged metal walls and situations of broken alien machinery. All of it was rimed in thick muddy ice, with clouds of frozen jagged vapour.

“We’re gonna scrap some paint work in here...” Beck said softly, before edging the runabout into the breach. Quickly the stars and the violet clouds of lightning vanished behind them, enclosing the ship and its crew. Ahead of them the hull breach tightened and twisted, providing Beck ample opportunity to show off his piloting skills.

They passed the probe, which had collided with a cloud of frozen vapour that resembled a crystal tree. The many jagged limbs had caught on sensor vanes and antennae. Its strobing hazard light illuminated the breaches length for a span...and then the Zheng He was free and floating into empty space.

“Well, will you look at that...” Remas breathed. “A world wrapped around on itself.”

The spotlights of the runabout pushed back the darkness a little, revealing in shades of darkness the hollowed interior of the wreck. A massive conical space, whose surface was dotted with buildings and open spaces with enough room for hundreds of thousands of people. All dark, all twisted and wrecked as though some god had scraped a hand across this particular canvas in disgust.

Vic ran some sensor tactical sensor scans to make sure there weren’t any surprises for them."Not detecting anything weapon like sir, but there is a ton of debris out there so we need to be careful. It's almost like this thing was a dyson sphere minus the sphere and self contained sun."

“Reminds me of a O’Niel habitat, or a terrarium. Massive theorised space habitats that used centripetal force to simulate gravity. We go looking for it we’ll find some sort of machinery in here for simulating a day/night cycle. Maybe some sort of small fusion filiament?” Remas said with the sort of dreamy wondering many a soul had heard when he was ready to talk at length about one of his prized collection of artefacts. “Imagine how many people could live in this thing? You could have a cities worth of people here and they’d never brush shoulders for space. Makes my fathers homesteader the Voids Home look like a shuttle pod.”

Remas gave himself a ten count to just...gawk. It wasn't every day you saw the work of a civilisation writ large like this. Stardock 1 was still the crown jewel of the Starfleet Corp Of Engineers. Who had this enshrined in the annals of history?

“Miss Zatra, any hints of power sources on your sensors? Ideally, I’m hoping the engines will have some sort of entrance on the interior surface?” Remas enquired.

"Cold as a witch's tail," Shadi reported from her tricorder readings. "Looks like we're doing this the old fashioned way. Let me hunt down a power junction and trace it back to the source."

"Good idea. While you're at it, if you can, see if you can't find a central nexus for any data lines you might find in your scan. We'll then split into two teams: one tackling the engineering side of this problem, and the other ferreting out the ship's secrets," Remas said. "Unless anyone has a better theory as to where to find a bridge or central control area than following where all the data goes to?"

"Aye, sir," Shadi said. She retrieved a burly power cell from the cargo area and strapped it to her back -- a cumbersome burden to those of human strength -- before slithering out the shuttle's airlock as best her EV suit allowed. The low gravity environment outside let her scamper along the interior hull with ease for a way to connect her power cell to the ark ship's systems. Nothing immediately jumped out at her, so she employed the Saurian method: kick the bulkhead until something gives. The wall panel came loose with a grinding crunch, which Shadi was able to pry away from the rest of the wall.

"Spoiled egg," Shadi said with a grunt through the comm channel. The falling panel gave a whine as she tore it free and let it fall to the floor far below with a resounding clang.

"Better make this quick." Shadi anchored herself against the hull and examined potential hard contact points that could serve as improvised power ports. "If this was a closed system, then exxxposure could begin corroding the contacts in the power grid and... whatever they use for data transssfer."

Satisfied that one of the contact points would serve her purposes, she connected the power cell to the exposed wall panelling. Emergency lights flickered on and off around the local section of the interior hull. In a nearby structure low to the "ground" of the ark, a door opened, then slammed shut. It twitched a bit, as if unsure of whether to remain closed.

"I think I see a way in," Shadi reported. "Orders?"

"Get back inside the Zheng He. We'll land and then disembark yourself, Chief Reynolds and Dr Kal along with an ExSec detail as Team Alpha. Investigate the engines, find out if there's a way to disable them permanently or at least shut off the dampening effect," Remas's voice twittered through the comm link. "Myself, Nurse Finanahad and a Ops and security detachment will use the Zheng He to scout the interior looking for a command centre as Team Beta. Ensign Zatra, you will have overall command of Team Alpha, but in the event of a security situation, Chief Reynolds will be taking the reigns. Do you understand?"

"Tasty. Returning to Zheng He."

"S-sir?" Lutko squeaked, before clearing his throat a little. He had been nothing short of surprised at the massive... thing, they just entered, and all of a sudden they were talking about planning stuff. "Where do you want me?"


“Well I assumed you’d be attempting to beat me out the airlock on the scouting mission,” Remas said, thumping the young scientist on the back of his EVA suit. “It’s not every day you get a lost city, a technological marvel, and a mystery all wrapped into one. If not for the dire situation we’re now in, I’d almost call it an auspicious first mission for the Traveller.”

He straightened up, listening to the hiss of the airlock as Shadi came back inside and Beck began to settle the runabout towards a clearing in the urban landscape below.

A small step, after a long leap.

“Maker of Ways, thank you for finding me this path” he whispered to himself.

 

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