Away Team 3

Posted on Wed Sep 20th, 2023 @ 9:34am by Lieutenant Commander Rin & Lieutenant Kurt "Berlin" Vogel & Lieutenant JG Damien Blackford & Lieutenant Nicholas Reece [Reece] & Senior Chief Petty Officer Emily Charles {Kelea-Salik} & Avalon [ADMIN NPC]

Mission: Season 6: Episode 3: Far From Home
Location: Archeron II
Timeline: MD3 - 13h00
3532 words - 7.1 OF Standard Post Measure

IC

The Archeron II had been prepped and waiting for the away team selected to look for general supplies.

Entering the shuttlebay, Nicholas could tell right away that he was the first from the team to arrive. Moving into the shuttle, he took a seat and reread the mission plan on his PADD while he waited for the others to arrive.

Rin arrived next. She didn't sit down, but instead stood with hands clasped behind her back, waiting for the others to arrive.

She turned to look toward Nicholas. "How are you today?" she asked, trying awkwardly to small talk. She didn't like it. It had no purpose. There's only a couple acceptable conversational responses to such a question, so why go through the motions? But people seemed to appreciate the gesture. It was a traditional ritual shared by a great many species, and traditions were a thing that kept people united.

Nicholas gave his department chief a slight smile. "I'm doing okay, Ma'am, thank you for asking." His expression changed slightly as he asked honestly, "How are you doing, Lieutenant to Lieutenant?" While he recognized and accepted that Rin was his superior officer, as they were the same rank, he hoped they could be friends.

"I'm fine, Lieutenant. Glad to be useful again," Rin replied with her usual clipped professional tone as she studied the data on her PaDD as she awaited the others' arrival.

Having received his orders, Damien was the next to arrive at the shuttlebay. Spotted the shuttle that would be their transport, he made his way over and ducked inside.

Standing at the entrance, he saw the other two, and snapped off a quick salute. “Lieutenants.” He said, nodding at both of them.

Nicholas looked over at Damien and nodded politely. "Mister Blackford. Glad to have you with us. Are you ready to go exploring through a derelict alien space station?"

Damien relaxed slightly, looking over at the Lieutenant, offering him a smile, nodding politely in return. “Thank you, Sir. Glad to be of assistance.” He said. “Oh yes Sir. Can’t wait.” Eyes flicking around the shuttle, he thought to himself. ‘An abandoned, alien station. What could possibly go wrong.’

Nicholas noticed the look. Grinning softly, he asked, "Is this your first major away team mission?"

Damien couldn’t help but grin, running a hand nervously through his hair. “That obvious, is it sir?”

Nicholas grinned slightly as he replied. "You'll be fine. Just remember your training, keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel."

Damien let out a soft chuckle, nodding at the advice. “Aye sir.” He then glanced down at his equipment, double checking it, making sure everything was in working order.

Emily was last to arrive having been slightly delayed dropping off her adopted daughter. “Apologies for my late arrival, I was delayed.” She offered a smile.

With everyone present, Rin positioned herself in the shuttle so she could address all four of her teammates.

"We've been tasked with locating materials for repairs aboard an abandoned space station amid a ship graveyard. No life signs have been detected, but I want everyone armed just in case. There's no life support and no gravity, so we're going in suits. The station's immense: 250 levels, although we can only access about 150 of them. That's still way too much ground to cover."

She turned her PaDD around for everyone to see the station diagram and indicated a spot with her finger. "We'll enter this shuttle bay. Vogel, you'll be flying. It's the closest bay to what is probably main engineering, which is where we are most likely to find critical parts. We'll expand outward from there. Your PADDs indicate other likely locations for inspection, but it will depend on what we initially find. Your PADDS also indicate the materials we're looking for. Any questions?"

Nicholas spoke up first. "Two questions. First, for the search itself, will we be staying as a group or branching out on our own? And second, what is our R.O.E. in case we run into natives?"

"We'll be starting as a group until we can get to Engineering and get a feel for the place," Rin clarified. "As for the second question, remember that we have not encountered any intelligent life in this galaxy, although this ship graveyard is testament to a great many species probably existing or having existed. Intelligent life might look very familiar to us, or it might be extremely alien, so let's not make assumptions. *Any* encounter with intelligent life here is a first contact event. And, as always, Starfleet attempts to preserve all life when able to."

Nicholas nodded silently as he listened.

Damien nodded, his mind briefly flashing back to First Contact protocol classes at the Academy.

Emily nodded as she sat listening to every detail. She had her medical kit, and a small surgical kit with her just incase of any injuries.

Vogel raised his hand. "So what DO we know about the station? Material construction? Deck layouts? Any intel we have going in might be useful. Also, do you want someone to stay with the shuttle in case we have to make a quick getaway?"

Vogel tried very hard to imply he meant someone ELSE should stay with the shuttle, less they think he was trying to get out of stumbling around a dark starbase.

"The outer hull is roughly similar in composition as the Elysium," Rin explained. "Your PaDDs have the layout as best as we could scan. Large sections have collapsed. The target areas are all locations which we expect to be structurally sound. As far as someone staying with the shuttle, smart thought, but in this case I'd rather we not leave anyone on their own."

Damien pulled his own PaDD out, bringing up the schematics of the space station, looking over the various sections they were be investigating. “Do we know when signs of life were last reported on the station?”

"No idea," Rin reported. "We have no connection to their computer systems, which are offline. Remember, the mission here is finding resources. If getting the computers operational assists in that task, then by all means do it, but we have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of needs on Elysium."

Damien nodded. “What sort of resources are we after? If there anything the Commodore wants us to prioritise finding?”

"That is spelled out on your PaDD, Lieutenant," Rin clarified.

The Shuttle left the docking bay smoothly, and heading for its destination.

When the Shuttle departed, Damien instinctively gripped the edge of his seat, before letting go quickly chopping no one saw the movement. The last thing he wanted was anyone thinking he wasn’t supposed to be here. Closing his eyes, he took a couple of deep, calming breaths.

Rin dropped herself into the co-pilot seat to take in the view. The station was immense, floating within a larger debris field of twisted bulkheads, broken engines, ships broken in half, and everything in-between, all revolving around a planet sporting its own ship graveyard. And all of it silent. No life signs, no power signatures, nothing at all to suggest this wasn't an entirely dead system.

Nicholas watched the massive junkyard grow in size as they approached in the shuttle. As his eyes took in the numerous hulks and debris, he wondered where the natives were. This operation was clearly an enormous one, he doubted there was no one around to at least guard the materiel.

Kurt Vogel tapped the flight controls briskly, bringing the shuttle parallel to the station. The German keyed a few buttons, looking for a shuttlebay equivalent. He pointed to a part of the hill that looked no different than any other. Turning to Rin, he stated “sensors claim an open area there. My guess is either cargo hold or shuttle bay. What say you Leftenant?”

Rin nodded. "If you can make it, let's do it."

As the shuttle moved closer, Nicholas double-checked his gear, an old habit he had learned during his career. One could never be too prepared.

Vogel raised his voice from the cockpit. “Strap in if you haven’t already. If I’m wrong about the landing in any way, I’d rather you all be pissed off but uninjured.”

The craft glided silent through the ebony prairie of space. It’s flight made no sound, no medium there to record it’s wake. She steered to an open area, with a large, yellow-tinted pattern in the floor. Along the west wall were boxes, some cubed, some rectangular. The shuttle touched down, again, its movements silent as a tomb. Only an updraft of dust noted the crafts arrival.

Inside, Kurt powered down the engines and activated the magnetic landing strips to ensure the shuttle wouldn’t float away. “Landing confirmed. Struts have touchdown. Magnetic on. We are down.” Kurt said aloud for the team.

The hatch hissed open letting the away team see the area. Their scanners were silent, as they were still in a vacuum.

Nicholas, being closest to the hatch, took point out of the shuttle. Though his tricorder showed no signs of any life, at least any that their science recognized, he still felt as if they were being watched. "Activating mag boots." He pressed the controls on his suit and the magnets in his boots held his feet to the deck plating as he slowly exited the shuttle. "Looks clear, everyone."

Rin glided out of the shuttle, enjoying a few moments of zero-g before activating her mag-boots. She enjoyed zero-g, but she acknowledged mag-boots were more practical. The lights on her helmet illuminated a space not too unlike a Federation station. It seemed a reasonable set-up for people roughly humanoid and roughly the same size as the people now surveying it.

Vogel hated being in these contained suits. All he could hear was his own breathing and the blood rushing in his ears. There were no other sounds; space was a vacuum, through which sound could not travel. He could hear the voices of his squadmates, but that was only because they came through his comm system in the helmet that completely sustained him and allowed him to not desperately gasp for air in the choking void. He decided his best course of action would be to find anything resembling life support as quickly as possible.

Kurt, having served for most of his career within the Starfleet Reserves, put far more faith and trust in the Non-Commissioned Officers than he felt the average Starfleet officer did. He couldnt get a definitive reading on his tricorder, but he supposed that was because he was just a dumb fighter jock.

"You get anything resembling a life support system nearby Senior?" the German asked of SCPO Charles.

Emily looked at her readouts, she hated these suits as much as anyone else they made her feel enclosed. “Readings are a little fuzzy to say the least, but I’m thinking we need to find the engineering section, if it’s still in one piece. My worry is that with all this damage any life support won’t be able to function properly.”

Kurt frowned. “Even partial life support would be better than nothing. If we can just get ARTGRAV (Artificial Gravity) on, that’s less power drain on the suits, we could roam around longer.”

Emily nodded. “Once we get there I’ll see what I can do. I’m not an engineer but I can try and get the environmental systems up and running, even if it’s just in medical.”

After checking all his equipment, Damien glided out the shuttle after the rest of the team, pushing off of the shuttle slightly, before activating the suits mag boots, and attaching himself to the ship's floor, pulling out his Phaser as he did.

Rin took the lead, the sound of her boots against the floor ringing softly inside her suit. She wasn't overly concerned about hostiles. The tricorder in her hand continued to be silent, and, considering the size of the ship graveyard, the station had probably sat here dead for a long while.

And then, a ping.

It flared for just a moment on her scanner before vanishing again, far too quickly for analyzation. She continued on, eyes now focused on the device.

Again, a ping.

She paused, punching buttons.

And again.

"Anyone else picking up a sporadic energy source?" She asked. "Not in engineering. Maybe two decks down? My tricorder hasn't been able to detect it long enough to analyze the type."

She clipped the scanner to her belt and pulled her PaDD from her pouch, studying the schematics of the station to find the most direct route downward.

She paused momentarily to consider the options before her. The mission was materials. She herself had emphasized they shouldn't get distracted. Was this a distraction?

No, she assured herself. The station should be dead. It was not. This was a matter of security for the team, as well as a possibility for first contact. If intelligent life was aboard, their first impression of Elysium was not going to be of its crew robbing their station.

She continued to lead the way deeper into the station. until she came to a door that seemed, according to scans, to have a vertical shaft behind it, perhaps part of their equivalent of a turbolift. It took some time for the team to muscle the door open, bringing up with it unpleasant memories of recently crawling through the dying Elysium.

Switching off her mag boots, Rin drifted two levels down the shaft, checking her tricorder again to assure herself this was where the signal was coming from. Then she re-engaged the mag boots, found herself a perch to brace against, pried the doors at this level open, and slipped through the gap.

Everything here appeared just as dead as it had been two levels up. The signal was still deeper into the station, maybe five hundred feet.

"All clear," she radioed up to the rest of the team, indicating they should join her.

Nicholas was the first in after Rin. "What do you think the signal is, Ma'am?" He didn't want to jump the gun and label the signal as a lifesign.

"Not sure. It keeps going in and out," Rin replied, checking her tricorder for the 20th time as she started moving again.

“Hey Rin,” Kurt called “Not to sound like a guy in a horror holonovel, but should we split up to cover more ground?

"I've still got its position. No need to split up until we find this thing," Rin replied.

“Roger.” The German replied, inwardly glad to be amongst his crewmates. “Is the uh…thing…moving or stationary? I don’t see it on my scanner.”

“If it’s a lifeform you’re worried about I’m not sensing anything...yet” Emily looked at Kurt. “But then I’m not as practiced at using my own senses as my brother.” She tapped her readouts. “There’s definitely something.”

Rin nodded acknowledgement toward Emily as approached the bulkhead at the end of the corridor. "It's behind here," she said with confidence.

She ran additional scans. "No sign of harmful radiation, and I don't detect any properties in the metal that would be shielding us. No markings that might indicate something dangerous lay beyond the doorway. Let's get this thing open."


The away team pried the door open, releasing stale air and dust mots into the area as well as a strange coloured light. Almost like lights found at the northern poles of planets. It waved and shimmered, and .. invited.

Rin warily took one step in, then another. The lights were....beautiful, honestly. Not just pretty. Not just a pleasing aesthetic. Something intrinsically attractive, something raw and powerful and...familiar, like...a tiny portion of the universe made manifest inside this otherwise unremarkable room.

She reached out her hand, and a trail of dusty light swirled around her fingers.

"Hello?" she asked through her suit's outside speaker. "Is something here?"

There was no response, not verbally anyway.

Nicholas was off to Rin's left as they entered the chamber. The lights were indeed very enticing, hypnotic even. When he looked at them, the emotional center of his brain registered the phenomenon as being on par with how he felt when he looked at Cassia. "So beautiful..." he murmured as he moved closer to the lights, apparently drawn to them.

The light waves soothingly washed over the away team. Generating a calming effect, and instilling a desire to see more.

Emily was finding the lights enticing, she smiled as she walked slightly ahead. “It’s so lovely.”

Vogel had to agree with the noncom. The lights swirled and danced, indeed almost beckoning the crew further. Kurt swore he heard…well…felt a voice. it’s not your fault. Let go of the guilt. it seemed to say. It took a great deal of willpower, but the German managed to look away back to his scanner. He saw the other crew staring at the light, some inching their way forward.

The German put his hand on Senior Chief Charles’ shoulder.

“Senior?” He asked.

Emily felt the hand, but the draw of the lights was so strong it felt like it was calling to her.

The lights emulations seemed to speak. ~take me with you, let me stay with you.. everything's great if I am with you~

Damien slowly followed the rest of the team in, phaser in had. As he entered, his hand slowly dropped to his side as he took in the view of the lights. "I've never seen anything like this." He whispered softly, a smile slowly creeping across his face as he walked to stand just behind Rin.

Hearing the lights speaking to him, Nicholas moved closer, extending his right hand out to touch them. "Everything will be great....." he said in a trance.

Deeper into the room, a device was generating the lights that were entrancing the away team.

Emily was slowly moving forward. The lights were so beautiful, and they spoke to her in a way that made her feel safe. ~It’s alright, forget all that troubles you, all will be wonderful.~

Rin approached the machine. She had set aside her tricorder by now, as there clearly was no danger, and she was sure that whatever this was could not be so coldly understood with numbers and charts. No, to understand it would take time and experience with it.

The machine had no obvious power source. It was about 3 feet to a side. It would take at least two people to move it. And there was the sense that it wanted to be moved.

There was, she remembered, another reason for being on this otherwise lifeless station. Elysium needed resources. They couldn't return to Elysium without their resource survey.

"Lt. Reece, help me get this back to the shuttle. Everyone else, continue the survey of the station. The sooner we finish the mission, the sooner we can return with this."

Rin’s voice snapped Emily out of her trance. “What?...oh of course” she looked at her readouts, she wanted to say something against taking the device but she couldn’t find the right words as it’s influence kept a hold over her.

Rin knelt down and examined how it was fastened to the floor. A few moments later she had removed the bolts, letting it float free in zero-G. She almost could have maneuvered it back to the ship by herself, but it was ungainly, and she couldn't risk damaging it. That would be unthinkable.

She felt slightly bad for the others having to leave its presence for a bit, but the mission was first priority, after all. She and Reece would make sure nothing happened to their precious cargo while the others finished the survey. She might even send Reece to assist them once the device was safety stowed in the shuttle. But, obviously, it couldn't be left unguarded. Not something of this magnitude.

Nicholas nodded eagerly as he moved to help Rin secure the device. When he touched it, he felt a wave of euphoria wash over him, causing him to close his eyes and sigh with contentment. Nothing else mattered than the device. He would protect it with his life, without a second's thought.

Heading away from the device as she carried on with the survey Emily found herself longing to get back within its field of light, her head was filled with how it made her feel, and the more she tried to think about anything else the more she struggled to concentrate on it.

Damien nodded. struggling to tear his attention away from the device, finally doing so, with great effort, turning away, and heading in the opposite direction, tricorder out, continuing with his survey, but unable to stop himself from sneaking occasional glances over at the device.

Many hours later the team returned to the USS Elysium and the device came with them. It was placed reverently in one of the science labs.