Visiting Pangaea (Part II of III)
Posted on Tue Apr 28, 2020 @ 10:45pm by Ensign Calaban Bel-Asher & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Captain Lazanos Torena & Lieutenant JG Natalie Cross & Master Sergeant Miranda Schultz & Civilian T'gan
1,944 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Pangaea Portal Complex
Timeline: MD04 1030
Previously in Visiting Pangaea
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 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, 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.
Calaban glanced around. "Ooh. this is a new one. Okay. How far did we walk? Any guesses?"
And now the continuation
Alanna took readings to add this to the map.
Laz was struck momentarily dumb by the archway and the strange stone figure standing before him. He didn’t often get to see things like this in his field, and it was strange and alien in the best way. This sort of thing was one of the reasons he joined Starfleet. “Uh...sorry. A few meters, at best,” he replied. “But I’m guessing there’s a twist coming.”
"Give that man a cookie," Cal grinned, and held up his tricorder. "We are... Eight hundred meters north and thirty meters down from our starting point."
"This is the magic of the portals," Alanna added.
“Well...” Laz looked back down the way they’d come. It didn’t seem any different. He looked back at the tricorder data, and seemed clear. Then he looked at the statue in the center of the clearing. Words didn’t come, so he said the only thing that came to mind. “Shit.”
T'gan almost smiled at the Marine. "Indeed."
"Do the ingress and egress points shift or are they fixed?" Natalie asked looked in direction of Alanna and Calaban.
"The simple and complex answer is, yes," Alanna said. "Some are fixed and some fluctuate. A few don't seem to do anything at all."
"Back there, we did not even realize that we had entered a portal or exited one. Travel through it seemed to be instantaneous; are there portals that take a longer time to traverse?" Natalie inquired.
"Not sure." Cal shrugged. "But that's why we have marines. They get all the fun stuff, like repetitive trips through tunnels over and over and over until we have a representative sample." He gave Schultz a grin. "The only thing more fun would be making undergraduates do it instead."
The staff sergeant grinned at being called an undergraduate. She had more time in service than he did. "He's just jealous that we get to have all the fun."
“They usually are, Sergeant,” Laz said. This was a security nightmare, but he doubted he needed to say that. It was also an interesting nightmare. “So I take it we’re in the process of mapping all this out, figuring where one tunnel...arrives in another? How much have we managed to figure out?”
"Scans show 242 caves on average, and we've been to one hundred sixty three," he corrected himself, "One hundred sixty four. And we're sure of..." He waved his hands in a helpless gesture. "...some of them?"
"That's because some of them don't go to the same place each time, so we can't be sure of them. We can only be sure of hte ones we've checked that continue to go to the same place," Alanna explained. "So, while 164 have been explored, we don't know how many of those will be new if we go back. And every so often, one...moves."
"Pardon my non-scientific speak, but is there no way to setup some sort of alerting mechanism that would let you know when a tunnel might have shifted? Maybe, it won't tell you the new location but it can at least tell you that tunnel entrance or exit point have moved?" Natalie inquired.
"The tunnels don't shift. Usually. It's the portals themselves. Or, rather, where the portals go. The pylons and sentinels remain the same. It's only when you walk through that you realize you're somewhere else. If it's a portal across a corridor, you may not know until you try to find your way out. And so far, we haven't found a way to transmit through the portals. We know it can be done as it happened once, but it wasn't by us."
Laz looked at Alanna. “Who was it?”
Natalie looked at Alanna curious about the answer herself.
"A group of freedom fighters from an alternate universe. We don't know how it happened, but their message came through an experimental Romulan computer core. They were followed by the Vulcans who hunted them." Alanna paused. "You should have reports on it. It was about nine months ago."
Natalie sighed. "I"ll make sure to add it to my read list."
"The portal was destroyed getting us back, so we're not likely to see anyone from that universe again." At least Alanna hoped not. One Sovok in her lifetime was enough.
"I hope you are correct." Natalie added. She looked around the cavern some more.
"Well, they blew up their exit, so we're reasonably sure." Calaban said. "That story is over. Plenty of new ones to explore."
On cue, everyone's communicator beeped. =^= "Sh'Zera to Spelunking Detail. All hands to base, we have contact on our northern perimeter."=^=
“That sounds like some excitement,” Laz said. “Let’s go see what that’s about, huh?”
Schultz nodded. "Aye, sir."
Alanna raised an eyebrow. "Absolutely." She turned and led the way. She was curious to find out what was going on this time.
T'gan had been quiet, preferring to listen and observe, but now, she found her curiosity piqued and fell in line with the others.
There was a brief call, a standby for beam out, and then they were arriving outside the control center of the site in the familiar whirr and sparkle of the transporter. All around them, marines were scrambling out of various tents and quarters, heading towards the source of the alarm.
Laz saw his people fall out, moving quickly with rifles at hand. It was good, a fast response, and he put his hand on his own phaser on his hip, just in case. These Marines knew what they were about, and he’d stay with the party he came down to make sure they stayed safe.
Natalie followed along with the group. She hadn't been expecting this type of excitement but that was okay. Now she was curious to find out what was happening.
They followed the running to the northern perimeter, where it swept around the back of the outcrop that led into the caves. here marines were formed up in squads, phaser rifles raised to shoulders, watching carefully.
Lieutenant Sh'zera was at the front, close to the force field, examining something on the ground. Zhou saw Alanna and her colleagues approaching and waved them through. Coming to the andorian's side, the source of the alert was clear to see.
Three long gouges, about five centimeters apart and maybe the same deep were scratched in the ground, only a little bit back from the forcefield, as if whatever made them had attacked the field, and slipped off.
Laz knelt down and looked at the gouged in the ground. They were some serious furrows dug into the hard earth. Whatever had done this was strong, he thought. Laz looked up at the surrounding horizon. “I’m not seeing anything,” he said. Whatever had appeared had also disappeared just as fast. “Are these claw marks?”
Alanna looked at the marks. "Yes. I've seen them before. "She turned to Natalia. "This is the creature I told you about. Like those in the pit."
Natalie nodded examining the claw marks. "I see..."
She turned to the Marine. "A few months ago, something attacked a power plant on Pangaea. We found a pit full of bodies spanning about 20,000 years. They were all this creature. We also found tiles depicting this cretaure. We think when they showed up, one of the living creatures came along. "
Laz remembered reading about that in his reports, and opened the file on his scans, looking for the reports on the carcasses. He’d need to know about these creatures, anything he could learn. “I’m gonna say first order of business for the Marines is to find this creature. Trap it if we can, maybe move it further from the colony. I’ll get on it first thing.”
A hundred meters to their left, the Forcefield sparked suddenly, flaring. In the after image for just a moment was a blank gap, a humanoid shape, but when it cleared, there was nothing there.
"Fascinating," Alanna said, scanning the space with her tricorder to see if she could get any readings as she moved in to get a better look.
Laz looked at the nearest Marines. “Eyes on, multiple bogies.” The Marines would set up around the perimeter and keep their eyes peeled for anything strange. He walked towards the spot where somebody or something had pushed into the forcefield. His phaser was in his hand as he got ahead of Alanna, taking point to scan for danger while she worked with her tricorder. “Did something try to get in or out?”
Before anyone could answer, the forcefield sparked again, another hundred meters to their left. A single strike.
"Trying to get in, I think." Calaban had his tricorder open then sighed. "Mine's fritzing. I'm just getting random readings again."
Alanna backed her tricorder data to her PADD before scanning. "Yeah. Temporal fluctuations." She turned to Calaban. "Get what you can. We'll compare it to the readings from the first encounter." She dropped to her knees to check soil samples, but she doubted she'd find much. "We'll need to get more cameras out here in case it tries to come back."
Natalie retrieved her tricorder from her waist and opened it. By no means was she a scientist but if she could help pickup anything and share with the science team it made it worth a try. She motioned the tricorder around trying to track the mass.
"Definitely intelligent," Alanna said, standing. "It's trying different places. I wish we could find a way to communicate with it." She had so many questions...
Natalie looked away from the tricorder and at Alanna. "Maybe, we should try just saying hello." She said half jokingly. It was aggressive, or at least from what she could see so far but there were a number of reasons it could act this way. It could simply be it's nature or it could be trying to protect something. After all Starfleet and Marines were the invaders here. There were questions, but none that could be answered without closer look.
The force field flashed bright blue with an impact. It was another hundred meters again from the previous one, and twice as strong, the force field scattering blue sparks all the way back to their position, and making the sharp electric buzz sound loud enough to hurt.
To be Continued…
Marine Captain Lazanos Torena
21st MEU
DS5
Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
Deep Space 5
Lieutenant JG Natalie Cross
Chief Intelligence Officer
Deep Space 5
Ensign Calaban Bel-Asher
Assisant CSO
DS5
(NPC by Soran)
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