Unannounced Guests (Part II of III)

Posted on Sat Feb 23, 2019 @ 6:43pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Civilian Jason Haines & Civilian T'gan

1,965 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: The Portal Complex, Pangaea
Timeline: MD04 1045

Previously on Unannounced Guests

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."

"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." 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.

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.Looks like we're going to be the welcoming committee."


And now the Continuation...

As they waited for the Marine lieutenant to decide if they needed an escort, Jason continued to examine the readings from his tricorder.

"There are numerous events experienced by Starfleet personnel regarding chroniton particles over the past thirty years, many phase shifts, slightly older Romulan cloaking devices emit them, the Borg have used them to stabilize their transwarp conduits, and the Voyager also encountered a race that had weaponized them, allowing their torpedoes to pass through shields due to being in a state of flux, and the crew of DS9 when under the command of Captain Sisko had a number of experiences of crew being teleported both through space and time, so we could run into a variety of situations in there," Jason said.

"We could," Alanna said. "The portals lead to different worlds and different times. If the commander read you in on what's been going on here, you'd know about the Cardassian incident. I think it's more likely that whoever came through the portal came from another time. What I don't know is when and if they're hostile or friendly."

Even without the Cardassian incident, Annora wasn't surprised Starfleet was being cautious about the whole incident. Accidental or on purpose, there were major implications to messing with the timeline.

"How close can we get without getting caught up ourselves?"

"It is hard to tell," Jason replied. "It all depends on what caused the event and the strength of the event. Detecting chronitons is usually easy. Measuring their characteristics, not as much. I recommend a slow but steady approach."

"It also depends on the portal," Alanna added. She pointed to the map on the wall. "That shows what we've mapped so far, and if it's a fixed or random point of entry."

Sh'zera used a laser pointer to indicate the cave in question. “I'm hoping the threshold will pass us straight there. It does occasionally respond to intent. Otherwise there's a stable point of entry from this cave, but we've only hit that at random. I'm more concerned at the fact whoever is in there appears trapped. We previously had the two exits marked as random."

"In that case, I agree with the slow and steady approach. See how close we can get and assess the situation from there."

At this point there wasn't much to do from a security standpoint, so Annora was more than happy to let others make the final decision.

"Yes, that concerns me, too," Alanna said, looking at the map. "I don't want anyone injured." She turned to the others. "Okay. I'll take a small team in. T'gan, Lieutenant Haines, I'd like you with me. And we'll take a couple of Marines. The rest of you, stay here in case we need backup."

She turned to Annora. "If something goes wrong, I'd like you to lead the rescue team. If this is an attempt to break into the facility, you and the Marines will be the first line of defense."

"Aye, Lieutenant. If comms are mostly unaffected I suggest keeping an open comm-link. Otherwise we should set a time limit for your return. If you are more a few minutes overdue, we'll send in the cavalry."

"Good idea," Alanna replied. "I'd suggest fifteen minutes. We may simply run into a communications black hole."

"Fifteen minutes, aye, ma'am. In the meantime I'll look for a magical ball of twine to help us navigate the labyrinth."

Jason downloaded a map into his tricorder of what had been explored so far. If he got separated from Alanna and T'gan, he could easily get lost. Checking to make sure his holdout phaser was secure, he said to Alanna and T'gan, "I am ready when you are."

Alanna nodded to Jason, then to the Marines, and headed off.

Jason followed, standing near Alanna and letting the Marines to take the point. They knew the area better and were better equipped to fight. He checked his tricorder as frequently as he could without tripping and losing his orientation.

Although Alanna hadn't traversed many of the caverns in the portal facility, she'd studied the maps and knew a fair amount. At least academically. She headed for the threshold, concentrating on getting to the trapped intruders. She kept close enough to Jason and T'gan so that they wouldn't get separated if she ended up in the wrong place.

Inside the entrance, where the large overhang protected a large cave with a generally even floor, Sergeant Zhao handed out signal boosters. "For the newbies, that red line marks the Threshold." He pointed to the red line spray painted in front of the cave’s only internal exit, a cleft in the rock just wide enough for a typical humanoid. "There are more marked in caves we've successfully mapped. "We cross them close together and we'll stay as a group. There's no guarantees stragglers will end up in the same place as the point. Everyone fix the desire to reach that cave in your mind, then step forward briskly."

He nodded to one of his men, who walked across the red line and into the crevice. It was just broad enough for him to walk without turning sideways.

As usual, there was no physical sensation of moving anywhere but straight ahead for a few paces and they emerged into a cave of good size, at least some thirty feet across and twenty wide. The portal in the centre was marked by two stone obelisks, and the guardian statue stood at attention, staring straight ahead. There were two clefts in the walls that had tiny threads of pyrite running through the stone. The one they had come out of was marked with a green line. The other, straight opposite, was marked in yellow.

Alanna turned on her tricorder and smiled at the guardian statue, hoping to get more for the universal translator and the linguists. "Hello there. How are you today?" she asked cheerfully.

"I stand ready et Behydig," it replied, sound coming from it despite no evidence of any sort of speaker or voice box.

At least Alanna was getting more understandable words with each conversation.

One of the Marines took up a flanking position, ready to respond if the statue tried anything.

Jason looked around after arriving into the cave. The sensation was very peculiar. He stepped to Sergeant Zhao. "Is the green the way back, or is it the yellow?" he asked the Marine as he watched the statue and obelisks.

"Neither," Zhao replied. "Green is means this passageway should go straight to the next cave geographically. Yellow is for passages that respond to intention. But given our visitors are currently in a non-contiguous cave and are stuck going back and forth, we'll be repainting these again."

As they spoke there was the sound of shuffling coming from beyond the yellow line, and then two dirty, bleeding, angry looking Andorian's pushed their way into the cave, quickly followed by two Humans and another Andorian leading a badly scarred woman with one eye so dark the pupil was indeterminate from the iris, the Betazoid.

"Hello," Alanna greeted, careful to not show any signs of hostility. As she was half Betazoid, she mentally reached out to the other telepath to let her know they were there to help.

The Andorians and others startled, instinctively scattering out for clear lines of fire as they brought up old, battered-looking disruptor rifles, aiming them at the strangers. The Andorian in the center seemed a touch older than the others. He had a patch over one eye and a wicked scar that seemed to go over that eye. One of his antennae looked half missing, but seemed to have begun to grow back, so he wasn’t experiencing any balance issues by the way his rifle was leveled squarely on T’gan.

Jason let Alanna take the lead as the greeting committee. He stood there but scanned with his tricorder real quick. They were definitely not in a state of flux. They looked like they had been through hell and back. He wondered where they had come from.

T'gan stayed behind the Wells and Haines and watched the new arrivals.

“They followed us!” one of the Humans yelled.

“But there’s only one Vulcan with them,” the center Andorian sneered. “She’s mine!”

The Universal Translator was having trouble with their speech. It was close to Standard, but seemed...different, though it eventually got the intention through, especially as the disruptor beams lanced out at the away team.

“You won’t take us alive, you pointy-eared bitch!”

Zhao instantly turned his Type 3 phaser rifle on the newcomers. In return they all drew their own weapons, out of date designs, long past their prime. For a moment there was a flurry of beams that hit the guardian, blowing the head off the spear. Another caught the top of one of the pylons that marked where the portal would be.

Jason shifted so he was in front of T'gan as the Andorian had his sights on her. The Andorian's hatred for T'gan gave him an idea that he hope he was right about.

"By the four guardians," he said commandingly in the Andorian language, boldly stepping forward. If he didn't, the Andorian leader would just ignore him, even if he were speaking his language. "Put your weapons down. It is 2392. The war between Andor and Vulcan ended nearly two hundred and forty years ago!"

Although the war in this universe had been over for sometime, looking at the equipment of their guests and the mix of races in the group, he had to wonder if Captain Archer wasn't able to broker peace between the Andorians and Vulcans in the time or place the group came from. Hopefully his statement and forwardness would at least get these people to pause so they could talk. If he were wrong, however, he would probably end up with a hole in his chest.

Alanna stepped forward. "Everyone, put down your weapons," she said, including Zhao. "We come in peace." She turned to the Betazoid. "You know I speak the truth. We came to help you."

The Andorian, who had been holding the Betazoid’s hand, put himself between Alanna and his charge. "She can't know anything because those rat bastards burnt it out of her," he spat.

To Be continued

 

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