Unannounced Guests (Part I of III)

Posted on Sat Feb 23, 2019 @ 5:32pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Lieutenant Jason Haines & Civilian T'gan

1,735 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: The Portal Complex, Pangaea
Timeline: MD04 1015

[ON]

T'gan followed Calaban out the door of the temporal physics lab, pausing just long enough to grab her bag and her temporal scanner. If beings were coming through the portal, she wanted to know when they came from. She assumed there would be a shuttle waiting to take her and the others down to the planet.

Alanna heard the alert while she was working in her office. She pulled up the pertinent data and quickly scanned it before grabbing the cross pack she always kept ready for away missions and hurried to the shuttle bay. In the turbolift she contacted several people to make sure they would join here, including Blue, Haines, and T'gan.

She'd already made plans to show Lieutenant Haines the portal complex that day, but not quite like this.

Jason was getting settled in his office after his team meeting. He stretched his shoulder and winced a bit. Lieutenant Tessaro had given him a strong workout on the sparring mats. He was just about to dive into some reports when the comm system chimed. The Marine OIC reported in about portal activation. A few moments later Alanna contacted him with the same information.

Grabbing his tricorder and a small survival knife, he headed to the shuttle bay. The knife was a gift from his father who always insisted on always carrying at least a small knife. When he got to the bay, he secured the knife in his boot and then got into the shuttle.

"Is it always this busy here?" he asked.

---

"While we are technically an impartial third party, security's role really isn't to mediate business disputes between merchants."

Taking a stroll through the merchant center, Annora had been stopped by the owner of the The Watching Bull Boutique. They were concerned a nearby shop owner was cutting into their business by selling similar merchandise. She was explaining why security couldn't act as a mediator when her comm badge chirped.

“Security to Lieutenant Tessaro. We have a Miss Abeona wishing to speak to you. She says it's urgent.”

She was briefly confused before remembering the meaning of the message. It was a way to inform her about action regarding the portal without the general public overhearing. While they would likely find out eventually, no need to rush that information leaking.

“This is Tessaro. I'm on my way.”

Taking her leave, Annora headed straight to the shuttle bay. She arrived just behind the new Intel chief, who questioned the tempo.

"No, it's not. Sometimes it's even busier. You should have been here a month ago. In less than a week's time we locked down the station twice after two separate attacks. On top of that, we had a rogue captain take out several Starfleet and Cardassian vessels. There have been a couple of times we had to rush down to the planet like this, too," Alanna added, walking onto the shuttle and smiling a greeting at the others.

"Well, this should be interesting then," Jason answered, wondering if Temporal knew it was this busy here or if they were just going off hunches and simulations. Scowling slightly, he sat down at a support station.

"It usually is," Alanna replied. At least, it was interesting to her.

T'gan walked onto the shuttle and nodded to Alanna before glancing at the newcomer. It took her a moment to place him, then she nodded and took her seat.

Jason looked at T'gan and then said to her, "I don't believe we have met. I am Jason Haines, the new Chief Intelligence Officer."

T'gan inclined her head in greeting. "I am T'gan. I work in temporal physics."

"A pleasure to meet you, T'gan," Jason said. He would need to get to know her and her work.

Turning to the control panel, he pulled up some information on the planet. As he started to read, his fingers started to tap out a rhythm on the panel. He then started singing, barely audible to everyone. It was not too bad, but he would definitely not be able to make a living as a singer as his cousin did.

Way down in Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens...

He stopped mid-lyrics, realizing his internal tune was escaping out his mouth. Blushing a little, he said, "Sorry."

"It's okay," Alanna said quietly. "Chuck Berry was amazing."

"Perhaps," Jason replied, "but my singing is anything but amazing. My cousin, well, she could belt it out and is a thousand times better than I am. If she ever comes anywhere near the station, I'll see if her agent will let her do a show."

"Really? She performs professionally? That's quite an accomplishment." Alanna liked to sing, but never in public. She usually kept it to her lab or quarters.

"Yeah," Jason answered. "I can play guitar good, but she has all the singing talent in the family. She goes by the stage name of Angel Frost. Don't ask me why, she can't even explain it well."

"I'll have to look her up when I have the time," Alanna said. She thought the name Angel Frost was memorable for a singer.

After a few moments of quiet and people settling in, Jason looked around and asked, "Who are we waiting for?"

Alanna looked around. "Not sure. Do we have a pilot or are we flying ourselves?" She pulled up the list of those who had been contacted for this trip.

"Lieutenant," Jason said to Annora. "I am a decent pilot if you want me to get us underway."

She wasn't entirely sure who was taking lead, but as the ranking officer present Annora realized she was the de facto leader until they reached the planet's surface.

"Go for it. Any stragglers will have to take another shuttle. We have plenty of them. The coordinates for the landing site should be in the computer."

"Excellent!" Jason exclaimed. "I love it when the crash zone is pre-programmed. I mean, landing zone."

With that he performed the pre-flight checks, requested permission to depart, and got them underway. When they got closer to planet he checked the weather patterns and then said, "Impressive."

"They are." Alanna used an encrypted program to manually enter the code they would need to get through the security around the portal complex. "It's a necessary precaution."

The descent and landing were a bit rough. The planet's peculiar weather and air patterns were difficult for him to read the first time.

"Sorry for the rough landing, everyone," Jason said. "The reports weren't kidding when they said the atmosphere was volatile."

"We're in one piece, so it's all good," Alanna said. She grabbed her bag, made sure her belt knife was in place, and headed for the exit. She waited for everyone to assemble and then led the way to the site's command center. "What do you have?" she asked the officer in charge.

Second Lieutenant Sh'Zera was talking with a knot of Marines. Alanna recognised Sergeant Zhao, who'd accompanied her in the last time they'd had strange readings out of the cavern complex. He nodded in her direction. The Andorian lieutenant stood at parade rest in front of Alanna. "Life signs." She directed Alanna toward a small area with seats in front of a large LCARS screen, "Emphasis on plural."

T'gan went over to one of the consoles and began looking for signs of temporal distortion.

Jason secured the shuttle before leaving. He followed, observing the new area. He listened carefully for what the OIC had to say.

Sh'zera moved to the front of the briefing area. "Fifteen minutes ago the motion sensors in this cavern here," she indicated the cavern, some five hundred meters back from the main entrance. "Six in total. We've scanned for life signs and came back with three Andorians, two Humans, and a Betazoid. What's more interesting is they appear to be trapped there. They tried moving to what we believe is another cavern -- we had to rely on life sign scans, as there's no motion sensor in that cave, meaning we've never been in it. And when they try to move on from that one, they end back in the original."

Jason used his tricorder to query the base's computer via the runabout. There had been no reports of missing vessels or away teams.

"Has there been any detected attempts at communication from the group?" Jason asked.

"There's a very good chance they came in through a portal and not from the planet," Alanna said to Jason. "Not if they just appeared in that cavern."

She turned to Sh'zera. "Can we get an internal transporter lock on them? I don't want them accidentally triggering one of our own defenses." She looked around and the group. "I think we have enough security here. We could transport them to the conference room next door." She paused for a moment. "Or we could go meet them in the chamber."

"Lieutenant Wells, I am detecting a significant level of chroniton particles in the chamber," T'gan said.

Great, Jason thought, glancing at his own tricorder. He hoped he wouldn't have to reveal his real reasons for being on the station.

T'gan's report was what Alanna expected. "Thank you." As he was new to the facility, she turned to Jason to see if he had any other suggestions. "What's your opinion on the situation?"

"The chroniton particles will make transporting dangerous," Jason said. "And even though we can detect them moving through the chambers, given the evidence of the particles, we can't be certain if they are in a complete solid state. I say we go in and check things out the old fashioned way."

Alanna nodded. She'd been debating on whether it was best to bring them out and not risk getting stuck themselves or going in after them. "Good point. T'gan?"

"I concur," the Vulcan added.

Alanna turned to Sh'zera. "Looks like we're going to be the welcoming committee."

To Be continued

Second Lieutenant Sh'zera
Sergeant Jian Zhao
Marines
NPCs by Soran

Lieutenant JG Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer

T'gan
Temporal Physicists
NPCd by Alanna Wells

Lieutenant Annora Tessaro
Chief Securit Officer

Lieutenant JG Jason Haines
Chief Intelligence Officer

Shavias Ch’zath
Resistance Cell Leader
(NPC by Ryan)

Isilde Sh'vet
Resistance Fighter
(NPC by Soran)

Thomas
Resistance Fighter
(NPC by Haines)

 

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