Visiting Pangaea (Part I of III)
Posted on Tue Apr 28, 2020 @ 4:04am by Ensign Calaban Bel-Asher & Second Lieutenant Sh'Zera & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Captain Lazanos Torena & Lieutenant JG Natalie Cross & Master Sergeant Miranda Schultz & Civilian T'gan
1,497 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Various
Timeline: MD04 1000
ON
Alanna kept her shuttle in the lower docking bay. Technically it was her shuttle, given to her by a man who tried to sneak down to Pangaea. The alien tech fascinated her, so she used it whenever she could. Today, it would take the group down to Pangaea and the portal complex.
Natalie stepped inside the lower docking bay. She had set aside several hours for the tour of Pangaea. It was something she had been meaning to do but just hadn't had time to do it until now. So, she was looking forward to it. As she stepped inside, she looked around and noticed the shuttle. Was she in the wrong place...? She wondered, seeing how the shuttle wasn't your run of the mill Starfleet shuttle.
"Hi," Alanna said. "Glad you made it."
"Hello." Natalie replied looking over in direction of Alanna. "Me too." She added before looking back to the shuttle. "Are we going down in that?"
"We are. It's mine. I take it down a lot."
Natalie had a number of other questions but before she could ask the door had opened again and Captain Torena had stepped inside. She nodded in his direction then looked back towards the shuttle. The engineer part of her was excited to get into the shuttle and look around.
Alanna opened the door and led them inside. "Have a seat."
Calaban Bel-Asher, coffee cup in hand, stepped aboard. "Weather's good enough we could probably beam down. But you can only really see all the earth works from the air."
"Yes. I'd like to do a flyover before landing," Alanna said. "Better that way."
T'gan walked onto the shuttle and bowed to the others. She knew Calaban and Alanna, but had yet to meet the others. "Hello. I am T'gan."
“I’m Laz,” the Marine said by way of greeting to anybody he didn’t know. He was carrying a PADD with all his data on Pangaea, as a reference. The whole thing was still a bit hard to wrap his head around. “This is a hell of a ride.” He knocked on the hull. “Where can I get one?”
"Hello." Natalie said with a nod in direction of T'gan. "Natalie Cross, Chief Intelligence Officer." She said before looking back to the shuttle.
T'gan bowed to the two arrivals.
"Generally be really dodgy, and prepared to risk being shot down by the Airgroup." Calaban said from the co-pilots seat. "we asked no questions, and were told no lies." He grinned at Alanna.
She grinned back at Calaban, then addressed the Marine. "The former head of security and I caught someone trying to sneak down to Pangaea. The pilot gave me the shuttle as a gift. Said he was leaving anyway and couldn't or wouldn't take it with him. I've been going over the computer programs and cleaning out illegal files." She didn't add that she'd stored them in a buffered database where they couldn't interact with anything so they could be studied later.
"Have a seat and we'll give you the grand tour," she said, sending a request for clearance to leave the station.
Hearing Alanna mentioned illegal files peaked Natalie's interest. She hoped that Alanna wasn't just deleting the files but instead preserving them in some shape or form. She made a note to ask about it later, maybe when there weren't as many people around as there were now. Natalie stepped inside the shuttle, grabbing a seat closer to the front.
Laz dropped down in a seat near Natalie, where he could get a good look as they did a flyover. “I wish everybody I arrested gave me presents,” he said. “I like the way you guys do business.” The shuttle doors closed and locked and Laz felt the slightly different feeling of the shuttle’s artificial gravity kick on.
Alanna took a low orbit over the planet so they could get a good look, keeping away from the restricted areas. When they'd seen enough, she landed on the pad near the portal complex. "We walk in from here."
It wasn't far from the pad to the checkpoint through the forcefield perimeter. Small lights at the base of each short pylon glowed green indicating all was operating as it should. Through it they could see the temporary structures that housed the on-duty marines, their gear and supplies, and the control center for the Portal and its tiny base.
Beyond that, was the outcrop of rock at the top of the hill, with the overhand that provided small shelter from the elements to the darkened cave underneath.
At the checkpoint, two Marines stood guard, one was human, another ktarian, who watched them approach cautiously. When Alanna arrived they saluted. "Ma'am," said the Ktarian.
"Hello," Alanna said, saluting back. "Have you met Captain Torena?"
"Ma'am, yes, ma'am," Sergeant Schultz replied, saluting the captain.
Laz returned her salute. “Good to see you again, Sergeant,” he said. “Everything five by five down here?”
"Roger that. Everything is five by five." She then added. "Glad you came to see the facility, sir."
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said. “Especially since I got a ride in the good Lieutenant’s fancy shuttle, there.” Laz looked at the cave, at the forcefield perimeter, making note of the layout and the security arrangement set up so far.
Natalie followed closely behind the group observing her surroundings. This trip was already different from the previous one she went on with Alanna. The shuttle had her interested peaked, and now the Marine security, the forcefield perimeter. She wondered what they would find inside the cave.
"Shall we go in?" Alanna said, leading the way.
T'gan followed behind her.
Laz nodded at Schultz again and followed the science officer into the cave. Lighting was set up along the cavern walls, and he could spot sensors at the mouth of the cave. He knew those sensors were connected to alarms in the Starfleet encampment nearby. “I don’t wanna be the paranoid guy, but I don’t suppose we’ve considered shaped charges to seal the entrance, in case of emergency?”
Natalie noticed the same but said nothing. She followed the group inside the cave. Keeping her eyes on the path, her surrounding and the friends that have joined the science officer in the exploration of the cave.
"To keep people in or out?" Alanna asked. "I'm not sure I want anyone having the run of the complex."
“I was thinking to keep people out,” Laz said. “With transporter jammers, we can keep people from beaming in, but physical infiltration in an emergency still presents problems. The harder we make it, the longer it takes to get in, the better for us to mount a counter. But, now that you mention it, do we have force field emitters inside the cave system to seal areas off in case of a breach?”
"No." Calaban stopped in front of a small cleft, wide enough to allow a typical humanoid to pass through, a thick red line spray painted in front of it. "And you're going to find out why in a minute." He took a bag from Shultz and started to hand out small hand held devices. "Signal boosters, for inside the cave. Just in case we get lost and need a beam out. The particle activity in the cave can obscure standard comm badges." Securing his own to his pocket, he then took out his tricorder and showed Torena & Cross a small map of the immediate cave system. "See, here we are. Remember that. I promise the next trick uses no smoke and mirrors"
Alanna stayed back so the others could go first. Calaban could show them this part. If nothing else, he would make it entertaining.
"Everyone follow me." He stepped into the rock cleft and the narrow passage beyond, leading them through.
They emerged a few seconds later into a roughly pentagonal cave, with an uneven floor that looked like it had been made from dollops of molten stones that had spread and cooled, like biscuits in an oven. The walls were smooth, streaked with somethly dully metallic and grey.
They had entered at the base of the Pentagon and gaps in the walls of the point opposite lead further into the dark. In the centre of the room was a stone arch, made from two carvings of trees, branches reaching for each other but not touching. Standing in front of the arch was anither carving, a dark granite guardian, a humanoid some two meters tall, dressed in old fashioned armour and carrying a spear and shield.
Calaban glanced around. "Ooh. this is a new one. Okay. How far did we walk? Any guesses?"
To be Continued…
Ensign Calaban Bel-Asher
Assistant Chief Science Officer
DS5
Marine Captain Lazanos Torena
21st MEU
DS5
Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
DS5
Lieutenant JG Natalie Cross
Chief Intelligence Officer
Ds5
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