Putting Down Roots (Part IV of IV)
Posted on Fri Nov 23, 2018 @ 6:31am by Captain Maritza Soran & Civilian 'Key Holder' Dorian Gabriel & Civilian 'Arrival' Geral Lasuma & Commander Caleb Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & First Lieutenant Gordon Blue & Ensign Jessica Mayhew & Qinee & Civilian Melvyn Raddon & Civilian Dorian Torel
2,611 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Doors of Perception
Location: Spiral Castle Camp
Timeline: MD01 1945
Previously on Putting Down Roots
Qinee’s assistant lugged over a giant set of shears to the ambassador. Qinee wrestled with the oversized implement toward the giant blue red ribbon. Her assistant held the body of the shears while Qinee worked them open.
“I hereby announce the opening of the Pangea Scientific Research Settlement. As the Vulcans say, may it live long and prosper!” With that, she cut the ribbon.
And the lights went out.
And now the conclusion
The entire camp was plunged into sudden inky darkness. Pangaea had no moon, and there was no illumination beyond pinpoints of stars, almost invisible in the sudden blindness.
Soran froze in place. When after a few seconds the lights did not come back on, she sighed. Nothing was going to go smooth. "Anybody have a torch?"
A couple lights flicked on from the small security team assigned to the party. “Here, sir,” Ensign Mayhew said as she and Petty Officer Nottingham made their way through the crowd toward the commander, their wrist lights bobbing and weaving.
“Ah’ll check the generator,” Caleb called. “Someone with a light find me!”
“Everyone remain calm!” Qinee called from the stage. “Starfleet probably forgot to pay the power company!”
There was a nervous twitter of laughter.
Gul Meran was not one of the individuals laughing. He quickly placed a hand on Ambassador Turvan's shoulder and continued to scan the immediate area. He was cursing his agreement to abide by Starfleet's no weapon policy concerning embassies and their staff members. There was no telling who, or even what, was still on this planet.
As if it was planned, the lights cut out at the same time as the ceremonial ribbon was cut. Standing on the left edge of the crowd, Annora made no immediate moves. She scanned the area looking for any signs of someone moving among the crowd. If they planned for the outage, they might have a small light source on them. Thankfully the security contingent carried wrist beacons and soon made an appearance.
With Mayhew and Nottingham moving towards the commander, Annora decided she was secure enough. Seeing Tihr approach the crowd, she waved towards the rifle toting Andorian.
"Go with Commander Ryan to check the generator. Getting power restored is our top priority."
The petty officer handed Annora his hand phaser before moving off. "Aye, ma'am. Let's hope it's just a blown fuse."
Alanna's first thought was for the portal site. She pulled out her padd and checked to make sure the power outage hadn't affected the secure site. Fortunately, it did not.
The Chief Science Officer then went to make sure the science facility was secure. "Wells to Blue. Can I borrow some of your people to check the research facility?"
As others moved away and the crowd around Annora thinned a movement in the corner of her eye by the replimat caught her attention.
Keeping an eye on the crowd, Annora noticed a faint movement over towards the replimat. Phaser in hand, she cautiously made her way in that direction. She didn't want to spook whoever might be lurking about, plus the lack of illumination precluded any quick movements.
As she approached, there was more movement, a shadow, barely distinguishable from the rest of the darkness, darting away from the replimat and down into the Ferengi area towards the prospecting office.
Adjusting her trajectory, Annora moved to intercept the figure. When she felt she was close enough, the security chief issued a challenge. "Starfleet Security, Stop!"
Annora got only a glimpse of something humanoid, but the details seemed...blurred. And it didn't stop, dashing behind the prospecting office and out of sight.
She made note of the encounter, but at the moment her priority was taking care of the civilians. Once that was taken care of, she would see about leading a team to investigate the offices.
Dorian had moved to Lasuma the second the lights had gone out. "We need to get you to your shuttle. With all the leadership here this could be a--"
Geral stopped him. "I will help those that want to leave. We need information. Go offer assistance to the Marines. There is a chance some of their commanders may know of you. See what you can find out."
Main Generator cabin
The generator cabin was not quite in darkness. The ends of the main cable still glowed with heat as the plasma conduits cooled. The main cables had been ripped apart, and where plasma had pooled out of the cables before the emergency shut off, it had burnt through the floor.
Caleb frowned as he stared at the damaged plasma cables. Mayhew and Nottingham came up and the petty officer handed Caleb his light. Caleb frowned.
“Shut down the generator before we start a fire,” Caleb instructed. He tapped open a comm line to Soran and Tessaro. “This looks like sabotage. The plasma conduits are completely ripped apart. We’re gonna need an engineer in here ta replace them. Ah’ve shut down the generator until that can happen.”
Jessica, meanwhile, was already shining her light around, looking for tracks or other clues as to who -- or what -- could have done this.
The cabin door was back in its runners, but around the frame were several large gouges at chest height. The generator cabin had been set up on a prepped pitch. There was no dirt to leave tracks in.
“Sir,” Jessica said, perhaps a bit nervously, as she brought Caleb’s attention to the gauges in the door to the generator cabin.
“What in tarnation…?” Caleb muttered, studying it. “You bring a forensic tricorder?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Jessica said. “We weren’t prepped for an away mission. Just standard event security.”
“Right. Call down a forensic team,” Caleb said. “Let’s get some scanners on this, figure out just what did this.”
Federation Science Lab One
Approaching the door to the main science lab in the Federation section, the casting torch beams showed it half open, shoved back in its runners with force, three gouges, roughly five centimetres apart, 1.5 meters from the ground.
"Wells to Soran. I found something."
"On my way," came the reply, and a minute later the Trill woman was at her side, torch in hand. "What have you got?" Then she saw the door. "Oh. Has anyone gone in yet?"
"Not since I got here," Alanna said. "I wasn't going to go in alone. Should we call the Marines?"
Maritza saw the claw marks in a stray torch beam. "I think it might be wise. Mr Blue?"
"Blue here."
"Send some of your people to the science lab. There may be some sort of wild animal inside."
Three Marines showed up a minute later. "How can we be of help?"
Soran pointed to the scratched door. "Can you clear the lab? There may be something inside."
"Yes, ma'am." The three went in, each checking out one part of the entryway.
"If it's an animal, it's one of the two-legged variety," Alanna said. "I'm going in as soon as it's clear."
"How can you tell?" Soran asked, genuinely curious. The planet was supposed to be devoid of sentient life, and she had never heard of any living creature that was fully bipedal that wasn't sentient.
"Look at the way they broke in, this looks more like a blunt object than an animal trying to break in," Alanna said. "An animal would have no reason to go inside unless they smelled food and were starving. And these scratches are far too even to be an animal. Whoever did this intended to get inside this building."
Maritza couldn't fault the logic. She just hoped her chief scientist was wrong, because that meant there was a saboteur.
"Clear!" came a shout from inside the lab, and a marine appeared at the door. "Ma'am," He said to Alanna, you might want to see this."
"Let's see what was so important someone had to break in."
With the power out, all the building's defenses were off, as were the alarms. Still, Alanna was careful in case the power came back on while they were inside. One of the Marines came with her, holding a light so they could both see.
The science lab had been trashed. Power conduits had been ripped out of equipment, analysers had been smashed, padd snapped, work panels knocked out, and the sensor packs had been crushed into tiny pieces.
"Good grief." Maritza stared at the destruction. "Why do this?"
Alanna looked around, shocked. "I have no idea." Her first concern was for the data in the computer. She went as quickly as she could to the room where the main computer for the center was housed. It, too, had been badly damaged. "I need to find out what they wanted to destroy so badly that they'd do this."
She'd encouraged the facility to have a backup of all their files, so she began to search in the hope that they'd listened to her.
The main level was a wreck, but the lower levels were unharmed. Apparently whoever did this didn't want to take time to go through everything, which was hopefully good for her.
Alanna found what she was looking for on the bottom floor. With a sigh of relief she contacted the science department on DS5 and began a data upload.
"I don't know if that will be of any help, but I'll go through it tomorrow and see if there's anything to indicate why someone would want to do this." Unless it was simply random destruction to stop the colony. That was always a possibility.
Alanna went back up to the main floor, the Marine following.
"All right. Let's secure the site for now. We'll come back in the daylight. Hopefully by then you might have a clue what they were trying to achieve.
"And if not, we can do a more thorough look around," Alanna added.
"Aye, sirs. We'll set up a guard on the facility," the Marine said.
Gabriel touched the side of his ear as he listened more carefully. He nodded and then softly responded back before turning to Melvyn. Gabriel still had friends within the Security Department and now was one of those moments that he was glad to still have them.
"One of the security officers is telling me that it looks like someone or something broke through the generator and science lab," Gabriel said to his employer in a low tone.
Melvyn's jaw tightened. It was obvious that one of the alien camps had decided to make a move against the Federation by attacking the opening ceremony. It was particularly poignant because most dignitaries were unarmed and were not accompanied by a full security compliment.
Dorian looked then stood at the ready as Geral's personal shuttle arrived. He would see his boss off the surface before anything else.
Main Generator
Jessica jumped a bit as another light came bouncing through the darkness and an Andorian security officer came up.
“Don’t sneak up like that, Tihr!” Jessica said, pressing her hand to her chest.
“Sorry, sir,” the petty officer said. “Lt. Tessaro sent me.”
“Good,” Caleb said, keenly aware of how too few security officers they had stationed on the planet, and it would take half an hour or more for more to come in via shuttle, including the forensics team. “Petty Officer, Ah want ya ta stay on the generator,” he said. “Don’t let anyone enter. It’s an active crime scene,” he warned. “We’ve got forensics comin’ down, but it’ll take ‘em an hour ta get here.”
“Yes, sir,” the Andorian said.
“An’ keep alert. We don’t know that whatever did this ain’t still lurkin’ out there in the dark.”
Caleb tapped his comm. “Ryan ta Tessaro,” he spoke. “Start gatherin’ the civilians together. Move ‘em all inta the buildin’s in the south central square. Consolidate as much as possible ta make it easier ta keep ‘em safe with the security we’ve got on hand. Start gettin’ shuttles down here ta ferry ‘em back ta the station. Ah think whatever’s done this is somethin’ big an’ strong. Ah’ve got a forensics team en route, but call for another two security teams, fully equipped. Coordinate with Blue an’ his Marines as well for some backup.”
"Aye, sir. We'll get on it."
Moving to the platform, Annora addressed the crowd.
"I need everyone to follow Petty Officer Quinn to the south square."
As the crowd slowly moved to comply, Annora contacted the station.
"Tessaro to Chief Peterson. The generator has been sabotaged. We need two security teams planetside ASAP. Use the shuttles to ferry the civilians back to the station."
Qinee’s own contingent of security, two guards armed only with stun batons, quickly hurried her and her young assistant toward the south square of the colony.
Eve had made her way back to Commodore Pierce and Jera. “Where’s Ash?” she asked.
“Likely with a pretty woman,” Jera said.
Eve rolled her eyes. “That’s a given.” She tapped her comm. “Three to Danrisa. What’s your twenty?”
“I’m fine,” came Ash’s voice over the comm. “Can’t see a damn thing. Don’t wait for me. Get Pierce out of here. I’ll contact you.”
Ash slipped up behind River, his arms around her. “It’s me,” he said, so as not to startle her. “Are you okay?”
"Ni... Ash." River replied. "I'm fine. I've been looking for the first aid stations so as to get hold of a med kit to help if there are casualties but so far there seem only to be sprained ankles and bumped shins. That's lucky though." she told him, not moving away from his arms at all, more than happy to have the warmth and reassurance of his nearness. "This all has a bad feeling to it. Someone did this with an agenda in mind. It won't be pretty I suspect." she added softly, for his ears alone as they moved towards the South as instructed.
Maritza heard Tessaro's call to evacuate and, vexing as it was, she wasn't going to gainsay her Chief of Security on a matter of security. She gritted her teeth and began to shepherd the various scientists and hangers on towards the landing pad. Shuttles wouldn't take long to get down, only a few minute straight through atmosphere. As opening night went though, it did not bode well.
She kept her face neutral to not evoke panic. She had already lost two ships, she was not going to lose this colony to boot. When daylight came she was going to have security and Marines search it from top to bottom, and who or whatever had sabotaged it was going to feel the full weight of her fury.
[OFF]
Commander Maritza Soran
Commanding Officer
Lieutenant Annora Tessaro
Chief Security Officer
Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer
Commodore Artemis Pierce
Commanding Officer
USS Nemesis
NPC Caleb Ryan
Lieutenant Commander Ash Danrisa
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Nemesis
NPC Caleb Ryan
Lieutenant Commander Eve Three
Chief Tactical Officer
USS Nemesis
NPC Caleb Ryan
Myru Jera
Intelligence Consultant
USS Nemesis
NPC Caleb Ryan
Qinee
Ferengi Ambassador
NPC Caleb Ryan
Ensign Jessica Mayhew
Security Officer
NPC Caleb Ryan
Petty Officer Third Travis Nottingham
Security Officer
NPC Caleb Ryan
Lt Cmdr River Nelson
Acting CMO, DS5
Lieutenant JG Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
First Lieutenant Gordon Blue
Marine Commander
DS5
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