Descent

Posted on Fri Feb 22nd, 2019 @ 6:14am by Lieutenant Danica Kovitz & Commodore Phoenix Lalor-Richardson & Commander Arrianna Salannis an Vantar

Mission: Season 2: Episode 3: Determination is not always a good thing
Location: Qortic VI
Timeline: Current
458 words - 0.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Arrianna tapped her combadge and opened a signal to the Elysium. "an Vantar to Elysium."

"Elysium here" Lalor's voice came through

"Captain, We've determined that the planet's geological instability may be related to dangerous levels of deep core excavation. The crust is buckling under the stress of a subterranean mining network collapsing in on itself. We need some more equipment down here, especially transport enhancers. We're going to attempt to get some more detailed scans of some of these tunnels."

"Acknowledged. I will send some Engineers down if you need?" Lalor replied.

"Okay Danica. We're going to need to link the buffers to each other on the enhancers, and form a transporter network down in the caverns. Each buffer will serve as a node in the network, and we'll set them up at intervals in these passages. If one goes down. We'll still be able to synch our combadges with the others. Thoughts?"

Dani ran a hand through her hair. "I'm afraid that's the best we've got right now. The backups should work. We'll just need to avoid beaming out in more than one go. I don't think the buffers will hold up under repeated use. I do think I've rigged them well enough that you won't beam back missing a finger though."

Arri spoke. "This reminds me of my first assignment after the academy." Arri noted as she adjusted some of the transport enhancers.

"Oh yeah?" Danica said, as she worked with her. "Where'd they have you stationed?"

"I was doing research on a collapsing star before it went supernova. That mission was... Tense." Arrianna examined the tunnel walls. "Danica, Crysanthe. These tunnels were excavated with ionized plasma. It's a Klingon method." Arrianna noted. "They inject plasma far under ground, and create a pressure cavity under the surface. Raw materials are molecularized and pushed up to the surface. Same as Praxis.."

"Given how well Praxis ended up, I think we'd better encourage them to stop this..." Danica said, sweeping her tricorder around. "That sort of mining method could easily have caused the seismic activity we've observed. But given how strong the quakes have been, I'm a little worried how far along they are with this method."

"Not only that. Now the mantle is ionized which is throwing off the magnetic field of the planet. They could get away with this sort of mining on Praxis, since it was a moon. But this is a planet. I theorize a pole shift. And it will happen soon." Arrianna mentioned. "Lets collect all the data we can and get back to the surface."

Danica looked over at the woman. "If you're right, then their problems are about to get a lot worse." She suddenly didn't want to be underground anymore.