Away Team One: Homecoming.

Posted on Wed Nov 17th, 2021 @ 9:21pm by Commander Sthilg & Captain Gary Taylor & Lieutenant Colonel Azhul Naxea & Lieutenant Commander Rin & Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Staff Sergeant Liam "Swede" Reece [Reece]

Mission: Season 5: Episode 3: CAPETOWN
5859 words - 11.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Sthilg felt his stomach loosen as the two runabouts made their way up the mountains Miraj's showing her piloting skills to be some of the finest in the Federation.

He'd walked the path they were following countless times yet it felt so oddly alien to him now like seeing something out of a dream.

The river that followed the path slowed as it rose though it was far clearer than what the gorn remembered it being.

What was new was the long line of pink hardened slime that was seemed to have been moving down the mountainside. The gorn let out a groan as he looked over at the confused pilot's face.

" I must have left the protein sssequencer on." he said with a grin.

"How amusing, Doctor." Legate Vanessa noted.

" We're all young once." The old lizard replied as he noted what appeared to be several walking rocks were feeding on the pink slime. " The local land crabsss." The lizard explained as he pointed ahead. " There'sss a large field ahead we can use asss a landing site."

“Those are crabs!” Freya looked surprised. “They’re bigger than any crab I’ve ever seen, a lot more armoured too!”

"And me without a large pot and butter." Vanessa smiled at Sthilg.

" They do tassste dellesssiousss, but they have a nasssty habit of clinging over doorwaysss. " the gorn reminisced rubbing his head from the memory.

Naxea looked at Vanessa and smiled. "Well we do have replicators aboard the runabout for your pot and butter, Legate," she hefted her pulse rifle.

"Ah but Colonel. Nothing like a boiling pot of shrimp, crab, corn, and some cocktail sauce to really make a summer beach party. But I've had some interesting dishes during my tenor." Vanessa noted.

Naxea looked back at the crabs as they proceeded to the landing zone. "Well, I say if they're safe, we take some." She had tried crab meat while living on the Federation Colony New France and remembered that she had loved the meat.

Vanessa smiled. "Colonel I like you already. We'll need a bigger pot though and a ton of corn and shrimp."

" Well hold off on eating them until we check them for tracesss of the virusss." the gorn said as the runabouts began to put down. He felt nervous being this close to his home after so long.

Freya moved forward closer to Sthilg. “Are you alright Doctor? I can sense how nervous you are.”

" I haven't been back in nearly two hundred yearsss. It feelsss like finding a place you remember in a dream." the gorn replied giving her a look to show he was merely nervous.

Freya nodded. “I can understand that, it’s been a while since I’ve been home to Drax. Not as long as two hundred years though!” She grinned.

Miraj circled the initial landing slight once more, and then the alpine slope that Sthilg had suggested. "How mobile is that slime? I'm not sure parking anywhere for any period of time is safe if its going any speed faster than a slow limp."

" Not very, maybe a millimeter an hour. If you drop me off i can ssswitch it off." the doctor said pointing to a bulky concrete structure from which the slim had burst through a wall.

"My dear Doctor. You realize I am going to regale my friends during dinner parties of the Gorn Doctor who left a protein sequencer on and slimed an entire world." Vanessa smirked at Sthilg.

"Are you kidding the company who makesss them will be ussing it for an advertisssement." the gorn joked. " It ssshould have burned out long ago."

Miraj turned the shuttle about, pushing the nose into the wind. "We've got 30 KPH cross winds," she told the doctor, hand over the door release "I want to stay a good ten meters up. Sure you want to jump?"

The gorn nodded as he open the door and jumped down. He landed with a fud in the slime sending some of it flying into the sky. A laugh could be heard as he walked towards the building with a mighty squash with every footprint.

The building looked just like he'd left it only with the massive hole in the wall. The machine was still chugging along pushing out pink cubes and dropping them into a very overflowing bucket.

Simply walking over to the red button he pressed the button and the machine slowly fell quiet as the cubes stoped.

" All done." He said into his coms as he began walking back remembering the memories of queuing up outside to get a meal. It almost..........

Something caught on his foot nearly causing the big lizard to trip. Looking down his eyes widened as he picked up the red cloth buddle that had been buried in the slim.

" How odd almost looksss like....." He began before he saw what was in the cloth. Without saying a word to his crewmates the gorn took off running through the village his radio putting out a " No no no no no no no no." on the open channel.

Rin eyeballed the distance. It would be a good fall, but between the cushioning of the slime - the depth of which she got a gauge on when Sthilg hit it - and reinforced bone structure, she was confident it wouldn't be a problem.

"I've got him."

She unfastened herself, and jumped out, hitting the slime and rolling, which left her suit covered in the stuff.

"Rin to Sssthilg, I'm on your 6. What's wrong?" she broadcast over comms as she started running to catch up.

All that came over the comms was more " no no no no no." As the lizard ran through the slim until he was clear and running on the gravel of which his own feet had first walked. As he sped through the village every hope that the lizard could muster was being poured into his pray even though deep in his heart he knew the truth.

As he past the last of the buildings he slowed as his white eyes fell on the site before him.

It had always seemed so peaceful the graveyard of the village. The central stone built to capture the light of the newly dawning sun. Even after he'd had to bury most of the villagers and their federation guests he'd found it peaceful.

The gorn burial shroud he'd been holding fell to the ground the human arm bone within falling to the ground.

Every grave now lay empty bones of gorn, Human, Vulcan, and Andorian scattered across the ground and on the piles of earth that dotted the site. Every single one had been dug up and it's content dumped as if it was nothing.

And all the gorn could do was cry.

"Rin to shuttle. No immediate danger and I'm with Sssthilg. But someone or something has definitely been here."

Rin put a hand on Sthilg's shoulder in what she hoped was comforting. After several long moments, she asked professionally, "What would anyone gain by disturbing graves?"

Painful memories had flooded the old lizard's brain. Memories if the choking, vomiting, and the smell as he struggled to keep these people alive. " We had nothing. We never hurt anyone. All we did was are job." He said his voice cracking over the coms.

Naxea came running up behind the two with her pulse rifle in the ready position. She looked around at the dug up graves along with the scattered bones. "Are you ok, Sthilg?" her eyes scanned the horizon and then to the ground, looking for clues.

The gorn was quiet before his voice crackled into life." No Naxea I'm not. If we find the people who did thisss you'll need to arressst them because I'll probably kill them on sight." he spat his voice full of anger and venom. He wanted to make these animals pay for what they did.

Some movement to the side pulled everyone's attention. A rather large of the crabs had wandered across the village though what drew everyone's attention was the worn boot stuck on it's claw.

Legate Vanessa drew her phaser and moved to Sthilg. She then fired off a shot near the crab to scare if off. "Doctor, I do believe it is not people per say, but the local crustaceans that have disturbed these graves. It might be in all of our best interests to move somewhere else before something wonders how we taste. Major, tell your people to keep their wits about them."

" No, they never dug up or attacked anyone sssince we created the colony. " The gorn said as he stood up. " And what ssspeciesss would go ssscavaging when there's a food sssource sssliding down the mountainssside. " Let'sss check Xralath houssse." he said gesturing to one of the buildings."

"I'm not certain, Doctor. But one thing I've learned as a diplomat; not everything is as it appears to be." Vanessa noted. "Regardless, we are in danger right now, and that crab had a boot on its claw."

" You haven't grown up around them Legate. I rode on their backsss from before I could walk." The gorn said as he pushed the door open slowly. As he had been fearing the thing had been ransacked. Every piece of furniture in the small building had been overturned and broken. Bending down the ship's MD picked up a picture of the family that had lived her heartless cut out of the frame it had been held in and dumped on the floor.

" Goulsss." Was the only word he said as he placed the faded picture on the mantelpiece. " Can sssomeone ssstun the crab i want to......" He said as his eyes stared out of the window. A faint shimmer caught his eye from the town square. " Sssomething's in the town sssquare maybe sssome sssort of cloak," he said as he headed in that direction.

Rin followed him toward the square but kept her distance. She seemed to be checking in windows and behind corners. What she was actually doing, however, was seeing if she could catch something in her peripheral. If someone or something was cloaked, it wouldn't likely move if she was looking in their direction. However, if it thought she was distracted by other things, it might attempt to slip by.

Stopping at looking from where he had seen the movement the gorn waited until a strong gust of wind blew. Part of the landscape seemed to shift as something blew. " A Holo cloak. A cheap creaturesss cloaking device primarily usssed by....." The gorn said as he grabbed the material and pulled.

The cloak crackled and faiedl as beneath it was revealed a very unique kind of shuttlecraft.

" Fergngi. " Sthilg hissed as he looked at the machine. It had clearly been sitting her for a while and the inside of it's cabin appeared to be covered in a thin layer of mold obscuring the view of inside.

Rin walked over to the entrance and tried the opening mechanism, but the vehicle was, unsurprisingly, locked. She pulled a device from her belt and attached it to the keypad in an attempt to trigger the locking mechanism and open the door.

Vanessa covered Rin as she attempted to open the shuttle. She nodded to Rin to continue.

Sthilg took up a position to cover Rin though part of him was screaming to rip the doors open with his bare hands.

Rin triggered the door latch and stepped to the side as the hatch swung open, although she wasn't terribly worried about anything leaping out at them. This ship had been here a long time. No footprints around it. Some sort of growth on the windows. Her bet was that if anything sentient had been living inside, it was long dead.

As the door slid open a small mountain of seemingly everything fell from the small craft. Jewelry, cutlers, children's toys, furniture, clothes, and everything else one would find fell onto the gravel square. A few words in gornish that didn't translate came from Sthilg's coms as he panned his torch inside.

There what could have once been called remains of the crew lay at the controls. Two set's of badly decomposed ferengi merchant marines lay slumped over the coms with a third laying behind on the ship's sole bunk. Judging by the disrupter on the floor one had taken a special way out. " Ssstay back everyone i need to get a tissssssue sssample. " The gorn said as he carefully stepped over the plundered remains of his village bending very low as he did so.

Vanessa studied the situation from the doorway. "Let me have a crack at the ship's flight recorder when you're done. I happen to know a few things about cracking Ferengi encryption."

The gorn nodded as he worked his magic. It was hard separating the Ferengi from the carpet fibers, but within five minutes he had some interesting data. " Well, these two had the virusss or a heavily mutated versssion. The one who ssshot himssself had a dead-end mutation in hisss sssystem. It had lossst it'sss ability to break down the cell'sss. If he'd waited he'd have been fine." the gorn explained.

“So he took his life for no reason?” Freya looked at the Gorn curiously. “I guess he thought otherwise. Ferengi have been known to do some underhanded things but why rob the dead?”

" Reminded me to tell you of how I meet my wife one of thessse daysss" the doctor said camly. " Vanessssssa can you take a look in their computer sssee if you can find out why they were up here other than desssecrating my peoplesss gravesss."

"Now then... What have we here." Vanessa entered the shuttle and began to work on the computer. "Let's see. Can someone get power back online? Ugh... Distasteful... Grave robbing of Gorn dead. I will ensure all who are connected to this outrage faces justice." Vanessa noted.

Rin disappeared into the engine room. The controls were in a poor state, but after a couple minutes she convinced the engine to give up emergency power.

Vanessa worked quickly. "Ferengi Encryption. From a race obsessed with avarice and wealth, but the thing about the Ferengi is. 'A deal, is a deal, is a deal, but only between Ferengi.'" The computer was unlocked and Vanessa looked through several files. "The Shuttle has been here for forty years. Hmmm.... Balakin... Simply a name, the rest of these files are corrupted." Vanessa looked at the Ferengi remains. "So you died ignoble deaths. Probably with all your wealth here. But you over there. I don't think the Blessed Exchequer will give you much of a deal on a body for suicide." Vanessa noted. "'Can't make a deal if you're dead. Tis the Vault of Eternal Destitution for you."

Naxea shook her head. Even Ferengi wouldn't do this unless they were after something specific. "Sthilg, was there anything particularly rare or valuable within the village? Perhaps these Ferengi were after something specific. It would explain the ransacked houses and graves."

"I agree, Colonel." Vanessa noted. "Rule 23; There's nothing more important than your health... except your money. There was something of great interest here. This plunder here isn't worth desecrating graves and angering a great many people. They were after something else."

Gary came up to the two women. "Thoughts ladies? On what we're looking and dealing with?"

As the others talked, Rin meticulously and matter-of-factly searched the ship, starting at one end and working her way down. Checking every cabinet, opening panels, feeling for false walls, reaching under the mattress, searching the bodies, examining the pilfered treasures, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. Because she agreed with the others: the Ferengi weren't here for trinkets.

Naxea shrugged. "No idea, Commander. Anything rare or that seems out of place for this colony. A noise nearby startled Naxea as one of the crab creatures crawled over nearby debris. She recalled Sthilg wanted a tissue sample. She casually raised her rifle, thumbing the setting to heavy stun and fired. The creature stumbled before turning to Naxea who fired three more shots, bringing the creature down. "Tough bastard. Got your crab, Sthilg," she called back, keeping her eyes out on the surrounding area.

The gorn was quiet as he thought through memories of his past. " We had treasuresss, but nothing animals like that would value. Community, love, and friendssship. We certainly didn't have a Balakin. Why they think we would..... " He began before seeing the blank faces. " Rin can you hand me that flight jacket? " the gorn asked poting to one onto of the pile of pilfered belongings.

It wasn't quite reverent, but Rin's motion did show care as she handed the jacket to the doctor. The jacket meant nothing to her, but it did to Sthilg.

Catching the jacket the Gorn turned it around showing the unit patch on the rear. A mech seemingly in the form of a very very large gorn was holding up a flaming sword with the words. For glory, home and family." A Balakin is an achient gorn war mech. There's only sssix left in exissstence and the hegemony considersss them religioussss artifactsss. Why they'd think we'd have one here is beyond my mind to guess." the lizard explained as he tapped the picture on the jacket.

Last to arrive from parking the shuttle, Miraj edged around a crab the size of a foot stool. "Bad info about lost treasure gets everywhere." She'd heard her dad ranting about treasure hunters often enough when they were trying to salvage a wreck. "Specially with Ferengi. They get everywhere and aren't exactly tidy about it."

" Your right there Miraj. " The gorn replied as he looked around the shuttle and to the pile of his people's belongings. " It will take me day'sss to sssort thisss out. " He said standing up from the floor he;d been sitting on. " Come on everyone we have a mountain to climb. I'll ssseal thisss up and inform the ssship on what we've found."

"Give me a moment." Rin pulled the computer's data core and stuffed it into a pack. "I'll see what we can piece together from the corrupted data on board the Elysium. I'm curious why the Ferengi didn't leave. I doubt these three were altruistically sacrificing themselves."

Rin looked to the doctor. "Do you know how long the distress beacon has been operational? Could the Ferengi have had no working beacon and, thus, turned on the one in the Capetown? And turned on the protein processor if they were out of supplies?"

" Around two weeksss ago. " The gorn replied. " Thessse three were dead long before then."

She pulled out a bag, dropped the discarded pistol into it, and packed it away as well. "I'll do DNA analysis. Maybe someone else was in the ship."

The gorn nodded his approval " With a good idea." He said as he stepped out of the ship and walked over to Naxea. " A fine ssspecimen you have here colonel. "He said looking at the crab as he bent down to collect a tissue sample.

"I just may come back for it for dinner," she teased with a grin. Then an idea crossed her mind, looking back down at Sthilg. "If these...Balakins are valuable to your people, then perhaps these Ferengi were hired by an outside source to retrieve one?"

" Maybe, but why would they come here of all palcesss. We were a poor ssshipbreacking palnet. I know my dad ussse to joke if i behaved badly he'd ssset hisss one on me, but he wasss jussst a captain in our ground forcesss. Balakinsss are used to guard the high king and the council." The gorn explained as his ssscan finished. " Luckily creaturesss they still haven't gotten the virusss." He said looking over at the scans.

Gary listened as the others talked. Something didn't add up. A piece was missing. He went back to look at the remains and see if he could find something that might have been missed.

>>Tag Sthilg will be sending a message to the ship so anyone have anything to say before we start our hike up the mountain post it here.

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"Is the Ferengi ship even big enough to hold one of these Balakins?" Rin asked as they started walking up the mountain.

" That little thing?" The gorn said looking back. " No, you'd need a ssship with hanger ssspace as tall as the Elysssiumsss hanger baysss. You'd alssso need the pilotsss choosssen heir, have his passphrassse and the key cryssstal to ssstrat it just to move it. " The lizard said as he gave his climbing gear another check. " We need to take the right path then up the cliff face. When we reach Captain Bucanan remainsss it's another half an hour to the crasssh sssite. At leassst thisss time i don't have a vulcan ssstrapped to my back."

"If they were looking for the keys, that may be why they tossed the graves. Wouldn't matter if they weren't actually there, tomb raiders would loot the lot, just to be sure." Miraj looked back at the desecrated graveyard, and then up to the mountain path. She really had no desire to walk, especially not on a planet, with an uncontrolled atmosphere, despite the EVA suit, not when she could fly. "Are you sure I can't fly us up there?" she pleaded. "No walking, no crabs, only slightly bumpy."

" My dear when you sssee the mountainsss you'll be glad you're not flying. " the gorn said as he looked back at his friend. " I have sssome rocket boot in my pack in cassse you don't want to climb."

"I'm fairly confident the key crystal was not on the ship, unless it was very well hidden. But, as you say, they may have simply never found it, or it wasn't here in the first place. Or someone took it from them." Rin confirmed.

"Doc," Liam asked as he climbed with the group. He had renained with the shuttle while the rest of the team had followed Sthilg into the village. "Are you sure that either one of these Balakins isn't on the planet, or, information on how to find one isn't either?"

" No to any of my knowledge. " The gorn said calmly. " If the ferengi had a bigger ssship we may be able to sssee what they were really after, but priority ssshould be ssshutting down the sssignal."

"I'm going to have to have a talk with the Gorn Ambassador about dangerous weapon systems being out in the open." Vanessa mentioned. "War is guaranteed when there's weapons around to fight it. Need I cite how many Kalashnikov rifles the Warsaw Pact flooded earth with in the Cold War." Vanessa mentioned.

" Well, we can figure that out later." The gorn said as he lead the way. The path was a clearly worn path leading up and up into the mountains.

Naxea took up the rear of the column to cover their six. "If there is one certainty in this universe, it's that there will always be war."

Liam, up at the front of the group, nodded wordlessly to the Colonel's words. It was indeed a sad fact of life.

The gorn guided them along the path leading further up into the mountains. The planets crab's and folia became less and less and the remains of star ships began to replace them. The gorn pointed out a crashed ore ship that he and his clutchmates had played in pretending they were gorn starfighter pilots.

As they began to rise into the clouds the gorn pointed to the sheer cliff face approaching them. " Ah, the decimator. If were in luck the crane will ssstill be working."

The site was truly breathtaking. The white cliff face stood nearly verticle rising into the clouds with many ropes still dangling from it's white surface. A large flat area had been cleared in front of it with what looked like a small hut made from space junk. A crane with a platform that looked half made out of junk and salvaged materials rested on the flat surface looking like it hadn't been used for years. Sthilg made his way over to the platform that was easily big enough to carry one of the old shuttle pods. " Let'sss sssee if there'sss any life left in the girl."

Freya followed Sthilg, “This is...amazing. It must bring back so many memories, both good and bad.”

Liam looked over the equipment and machinery. "We using that to get the rest of the way?"

" It is Freya. It really is. I feel and broke my arm on that rope when i was ssseven." The gorn said pointing over before looking over at Liam. " Another half an hour once we reach the top of here. Let'sss jussst hope thisss girl isss ssstill working." He said looking at the cranes genrator.

Liam looked over at the large machine, then down at the void of air above them. Cinching his eyes tight, he cursed himself for his stupidity. 'Why couldn't this ship crash into the valley floor, or even, underwater! I can handle both of those! But noooo, had to crash up here in the damn mountains!' He shook his head, to try and dispell the growing level of discomfort that he was feeling. "Great, Doc. Then let's get this show moving."

Sthilg had opned the pannel to the genrator. It had been designed to be idiot-proof, but even he hoped someone with some more technical expertise would give it a once over.

Sensing some apprehension in the Gorn's slow movements, Liam asked, "Forgive me if I'm offbase here, Doc, but, do you need a hand there?"

" I'd appreciate it ssseargent. Tech isn't my ssspecality and i'd hate for it to break half way up the cliff." Sthilg smiled a reply.

"Yes, Sir," Liam replied with a grin. "I think we'd all hate that." He then looked into the machine and, after afew moments, asked aloud as he kept looking at the machine innards. "Sir? Are you sure that no one has been up here in the last two hundred years?

" Pretty sssure. I don't think the fernegi would have hiked up here. Why do you asssk?" the doctor asked rasing one of his eyelids.

"Well, Sir, while I'm trained more at destroying machinery, I can see that this crane hasn't been here for that long. Fifty, maybe sixty years at most."

" That can't be right. It's been up here sssince before i was born. " Sthilg replied as he scratched the top of his suit.

Liam stepped back and shrugged, "Well, Sir, the outside may look that old, the inside doesn't. It looks like it just needs a little oil and will work like new."

" That...." The gorn began as he rubbed the top of his suit forgetting he had one. " That doesn't make.... something is wrong here." He said trying to think of something that could explain this.

“Is it possible that someone, or something could have been here?” Freya looked towards Sthilg from where she was standing. “An empty planet void of people would make a curious place for anyone not knowing the history.”

"So we have a crane that doesn't seem to have aged, a protein processor which seems to have miraculously continued working for 200 years, and a distress beacon that has switched on after 200 years of silence. Anyone else starting to think we've wandered into a temporal anomaly?" Rin mused, pulling out her tricorder.

" Maybe you right my dear." The doctor said as the crane generator burst into life and started to climb into the clouds. " There ssshould be sssomething that could help confirm thisss up ahead."

"What would that be?" Naxea asked as she stepped closer to the crane, looking it over.

The gorn was rather quiet as he listened to the crane climb upwards remembering the last time he was here. " Captain Damien Bucanan." he quietly replied. " he ssshould ssstill be where we had to leave him." as he said that the gorn fished around in his pocket and pulled out a flag of the united federation of planets flag and a small bronze plate.

The idea of a Starfleet Captain and crew being left behind to rot on a planet didn't sit well with Naxea as she kept her eyes on the crane. She looked over at Sthilg holding the flag and bronze plate. "What are those for?"

" To give him a proper burial." The gorn said softly. One of his figures rose as he pointed to one of the crane corners. It wasss there where he collapsed. All i could do wasss keep him warm and drag him to one of the alchovesss. He told me and Peleia to get to the Capetown and fix thisss messs. By the time i returned for him he was gone." He said softly his voice breaking up.

"Fix this mess? What was needing to be fixed? What happened to the Capetown in the first place?" Rin asked.

" No one truly knowsss." Sthilg responded. " All what we know from the black box isss there wasss a masssive energy ssspike which blew one of the naccelsss off, but the ssship ssstayed at warp." The gorn said remembering the black box data he had been sent. It wasn't much.

As the crane jolted as it reached the top the gorn paused at the sight before him and the team.

The path leading up the mountain could only be described as a daytime nightmare. Wrecked ship's lay in heaps many looking like they'd crashed on top of each other again and again. Seams of crystals had erupted from the ground and out across the mountainside. All that under a purple sky with crackling purple lightning. Only said lightning was coming from the ground.

" Well thisss isssn't normal.” Sthilg said calmly as if he was back in sickbay.

‘I’d second that” Freya gazed around, “purple sky, and purple lightning that’s coming from the ground??” She looked around the away team members. “What in the hell is going on here?”

Naxea looked at the readings scrolling across her holo HUD in her helmet. Some of the readings were way above normal and some she couldn't comprehend as she wasn't a scientist but she knew one thing. "Everyone keep back. The energy readings here are off the scale. Anyone seen this before?"

Gary looked at the scene before them. It was as if they had walked into a waking nightmare. He slide over to Naxea, "Any radiation coming from all this?" He asked as that would be icing on the cake and another obstacle for the team to over come.

"Nothing our suits can't handle, Sir," Naxea replied, turning her head to look at the XO.

" I think I'd had mentioned thisss if I had ssseen it before." Sthilg replied as his white eyes gazed on the nightmare before him. With a rumbling a pile of rubble along the mountain began moving backward as it rose back into place. His helmet turned towards the small alcove he had left captain Damian. He half expect the old man to be sitting on a rock waving but saw nothing.

Reaching for his helmet he activated his coms only for a burst of sharp static that hit his ears so loud it made the lizard roar out in pain before he managed to switch it off.

Liam reacted ro hearing Sthilg roar in pain, bringing his rifle up, scanning for any threat to the group. "Doc! You okay?!"

The gorn panted as his ear stopped ringing. " I'm okay. Don't use the radio'sss. Whateversss messsing with the commsss isss even worssse. "

"Damn, I don't like this, Sthilg. We should head back to base camp until we can get an idea of what we're dealing with," Naxea suggested.

The gorn nodded his head still throbbing. " A good idea." He said as he began to operate the controls. With a groaning sound the crane lowered around an inch before freezing. A few words in gornish emerged as Sthilg bent down and opened the panel. The inner workings had aged all mother knows how many years as they were all rusted together.

A crash of the purple lighting sounded like a weapon of the gods. The energy flew up before seemingly striking something in the sky and spreading out across the plane. " Looksss like it'sss sssome kind of bubble." Sthilg guessed as his eyes followed the purple lighting.

Seeing the once pristine gears now rusted confused Naxea as she looked on at the lightening. "What the hell? Please tell me something other than what I am thinking caused those gears to rust."

“A time anomaly, it has to be!” Freya looked around them. “Is it a danger to us? What about the ship?” She suddenly started worrying about Kaden, what if the ship and those onboard were in danger?

The gorn paused as he rose and thought it through. "Not at the moment. I'm guessing thisss came into exissstence when the interference ssstarted." Thinking the gorn went to change hisss arm to it's ssscanning mode only to freeze as the realisation hit him. "By the all mother. My arm'sss back." He said with a mix of shock and delight.

“Really?” Freya moved around to take a look. “That’s amazing!” She looked around wishing she had the expertise to be able to explain what was going on.

"Did you lose it during the incident with the Capetown?" Rin asked clinically.

" I lossst it during the domion war my dear." Sthilg said as he patted his suit. " How ssstrange my leg'sss ssstill artafical."

Miraj was staring up at the Capetown. "a temporal anomaly may well explain the sudden beacon. It might be caught between the moment of impact and the moment it was disconnected the first time." She looked around at the other officers. "We could go switch it off. Or we could go back home and nuke it from orbit. Torpedeos are way safer than time stuff."

" We don't know if that would work Miraj " Sthilg replied as he looked at the storm. " I think we have to ssshut it down."

Miraj sighed. "Then I'll take those rocket boots then."

"Sir," Liam spoke up. "As we aren't sure what is going on in there, perhaps you, as our CMO, should hang back? I'm the lowest ranked individual present here. I'll move forward, you just to tell me what to look for, Sir."

"Whatever thisss isss it'sss already effected me Liam." the gorn replied calmly. Pointing to a small mound around ten meters away the gorn replied. " Jussst head there and if you feel anything come ssstraight back.

Liam nodded in acknowledgement. Then, afyer readying his weapon, he moved out slowly, scanning the area ahead of him with both his suit's sensors and his eyes. When he finally made it to the mound, with no ill effects, he waved the group forward. As they started to move, he did as well, staying on point, looking for any danger.