Boots on the Ground (part 2)

Posted on Fri May 10, 2019 @ 8:55pm by Ensign Calaban Bel-Asher & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Lieutenant JG Brianthe Oaxaca

1,063 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception

[CONTINUED]

[OLD]

"And my readings of the outer rings have said all of the above. Fascinating," Alanna said. "I thought we might be looking at multi-generational dwellings, but the times are far too disparate. Since tricorders are of little use, I suggest we go back to old-fashioned methods. Anyone else bring measuring tape?"

[NEW]

Brianthe shook her head. "I'm mostly here to look at the plants. They're as odd as the time signatures."

R'gelis shook his head. "We did not, but we can make one out of a stick." He walked around until he found a straight stick. Then used his forearm to determine the length and cut the stick to a meter in length.

Calaban came striding over. "SO guys. I've walked one edge to the other. I reckon I've gone about three hundred meters, but about twenty thousand years." He held up his tricorder. "Better than Warp ten. Anybody else getting weird jinky stuff in the middle bits?"

"All of us," Alanna said. "But I think you win the prize for the greatest time gap. What I'd like to find out is why there's such a temporal anomaly and if it's systemic to the planet." She looked at the others. "How do you propose finding out?"

Calaban shrugged. "Randomly sample other areas the same space across the planet? That should at least say if its local to this area, or it happens elsewhere. That said, I've not had any complaints about stuff going haywire at the lab colony."

The two Romulans whispered to each other for a minute. "We'd like to go around again and take another measurement," R'gelis said.

Alanna nodded. "I think that's a good idea. While you do that, we'll go around the outside and see if there are any other temporal anomalies."

She nodded to Calaban. "Try going to the center of the circles and see what you find, then meet us back at the edge."

Calaban gave a mock salute, and stomped off into the middle of the ruins. He set his tricorder running and then put it in his pocket. He wasn't expecting it to return immediately useful data. Analysing the anomalous readings themselves might be insightful, but that would come later. Instead he used his eyes. He wasn't sure what he was looking for. He was an astrophysicist, not an archaeologist. He found himself drawn to those middle rings. They gave him the creeps, And he didn't like believing in creeps, they weren't scientific.

The grass was bumpy and he prodded it with a foot. A few clods of earth moved, revealing a smooth stone brick. HE poked that with a finger, and it too came away, In the dpressian underneath it was a loop of brown something, pitted and uneven, about and inch and a half long. He touched it. Metal. Brown dust crumbled off it. rust. He took out his tricorder and waved the scanner at it. The molecular analyser returned iron, almost pure, hardly any carbon. the voltametrics said 25,000 years old. Was that even possible?

He waved to Alanna, to show her his find.

"What did you find?" she asked, coming over to Calaban.

He held out his palm, to show the metal link. "Not just building. Metal working. What else should i be looking for?"

"Anything. Everything." Alanna shook her head. "I don't know. At this point, I have no idea what we'll find here."

"There's a plant over here I've never seen before," Brianthe called. "It's budding."

Alanna went over to her to have a look. The plant had long, thing leaves that were almost fern-like. The buds were an irridescent purple and yellow. "It's beautiful."

"I know, right? It's the only one." Brianthe carefully pulled out a stasis kit and put a clipping inside to preserve it until she got back to the station. She added a soil sample as well. "I want to see if I can recreate it in the lab."

"I hope so. But we need to make sure it's not poisonous or toxic to the other plants in some way," Alanna cautioned.

"I know. I'll start it in isolation until I'm sure. But it's here, so it should be okay."

"Hopefully."

Tannis joined them. "The readings are different each time we circle the perimeter. There is a continual temporal flux. I'm surprised anything grows here."

Calaban stretched his back, looking around. "Or it all grew here, and the temporal flux is part of the emergence phenomena. But we'd need to track it over time to tell that. Our time. Not this place time. Which doesn't work."

"I don't think it grew here, but I agree we need to monitor this site and make it off-limits. I'd like a ring of sensors and vids so we can get continual data."

"Yes, boss." Calaban looked over to the runabout. "I can get started on that. Anything else?"

Alanna shook her head. "Not at the moment. I want to take one more look around, then we can move on to another site." She looked at the two Romulans."Unless you'd like to stay longer?"

Both shook their heads. "I would like to see more efore determining if this site is of greater interest right now."

"True. Okay. One more look, then we'll see if there are any other sites like this one."

"Anything in particular we're looking for?" Calaban asked. "OR are we just collecting readings?" Which would be very useful. True randomness was incredibly rare. He was hoping to find some patterns in the noise when he got back to the station.

"At this point, we're looking for patterns, for signs of previous settlements, for signs of humanoid habitation, or anything that catches out interest," Alanna said, grinning. "Which means, we're basically flying by the seat of our pants."

Tannis raised an eyebrow. "An odd expression. Especially as we are currently walking."

"It's an old Earth phrase," Alanna said. "It means that we're looking at random for whatever we may find."

Tannis shook her head. "Humans are an odd species."

"Indeed," Alanna grinned.

"Alright then." Calaban dusted down his palms. "All aboard, round two of our magical mystery tour."

(To be continued...)


Lieutenant JG Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
Deep Space Five

Lieutenant JG Calaban Bel-Asher
Assistant Chief Science Officer
DS5

Ensign Brianthe Oaxaca
Botanist
Deep Space Five

R'gelis Stadi
Romulan Scientist

Tannis Tarkelion
Romulan Scientist

 

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