Doors are locked for a reason Part 3 of 3

Posted on Mon Jan 27th, 2025 @ 3:47am by Lieutenant Commander S'hib & Lieutenant Commander Alicia Kelea-Salik & Lieutenant Commander Rin & Lieutenant Anna Esquivias & Lieutenant Thor Magnus & Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath & Captain Samuel Woolheater & Lieutenant N'vok Holv & Lieutenant Victor Barclay de Tolly & Avalon [ADMIN NPC]

Mission: Season 6: Episode 5: A church beyond heaven
Location: Alien Vessel Beta
Timeline: MD:5 - Happening along side part 2
1627 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

BRIDGE TEAM

Rin took the lead, while Victor brought up the rear. She wanted her attention fully forward, not split between a tricorder and potential danger. The flickering red lighting made it almost dizzying to keep her attention focused on what might be ahead.

They passed rows of doorways, each of them sealed. Tricorders did not indicate anything living behind them. They could search those later if need be. First priority was the bridge and its computer systems. But the bridge was a level above them, so they were going to need to find access. Eventually she found a doorway different from the many they had walked past, and a quick scan indicated a vertical shaft beyond it.

"This is our way up to the bridge, unless we can find any sort of access tunnel," Rin explained. "We need a way in."

"As speed and efficiency are indicated," said N'vok running another scan. "I suggest we use phasers to cut through."

Anna drew hers and set it to what should be a sufficient level. Then she started firing, carefully, only cutting what needed to be cut.

"Doors are shut, bulkheads sealed and what looks like force fields up all over the place..." Victor said as he watched the door being cut into.

"Why would a ship need to do that, intruders maybe? but the whole ship?" He added as he assisted in sliding the doors apart, revealing the large and empty shaft.

"Yeah definitely looks like some kind of turbolift shaft," He continued, changing the topic as he shined his rifle light up above them. "I can see magnetic rails and inertial dampening clamps, but it looks clear above... I'll go first." Victor continued, shouldering his rifle with its sling and then leaning around to the maintenance ladder inside.

N'vok set his tricorder to alert him, and the team, if anything started moving in the lift shaft. He then slung it and followed Victor.

Anna followed. Her phaser hand twitched a little. She was nervous.

The climb was short, something Victor was thankful about as he wrapped his left arm under the ladder, securing himself as he leaned back and began work cutting at the next door with a phaser. "You know, this wasn't how I expected my day to go... breaking onto an alien bridge and all that."

N'vok followed. "Another exciting day in the Fleet," he said.

Victor pushed the door apart slightly, pulling himself up to look between the crack. "It looks clear." He added before pushing it further apart, gripping the edge of the door to shunt it fully open.

Climbing up inside he quickly unslung his rifle and scanned the room, confirming it was empty before turning and helping everyone else inside.

N'vok climbed in and snapped out his tricorder for a complete scan.

From the shaft, it was only a quick walk to the bridge, where Rin and Victor forced open another door after scans indicated nothing of consequence behind it.

The room was sleek and minimal. Taking a cautious look around, Rin found all the consoles to be functional. No computer lockdown had occurred. It was like the crew had just vanished while going about their normal routine, oblivious that anything untoward was happening.

"Computer indicates a full quarantine mode had been initiated," she reported to the group as she studied one console displaying a flashing warning. "Yet none of our scans have picked up any biologicals. So maybe someone was suspicious of events after all? Let's see if we can pull up some logs, hope someone noticed something. Also, computer records of abnormalities, in case the computers noticed something its crew did not."

N'vok nodded. "They often do." He plugged his datapad into the system, the adaptive connector adjusting to fit. He ran through a variety of queries before getting the system to open for perusal, the universal translator working away. N'vok's eyebrow raised as he reviewed the data. "This system has undergone a massive amount of corruption, I will see if I can determine its source."

“If I’m reading this correctly,” Victor said as he wandered around the bridge, stopping to examine what looked like a layout of the ship and its vital systems.

“It looks like a majority of the power was diverted to engineering, I wonder why they would need to do that? Forcefields perhaps?”

"Check the activities log," said N'vok distractedly. "Perhaps they logged the reason why. Sorting the main system is proving troublesome. The corruption is extensive and I have yet to pinpoint a source."

Victor took a moment to set his rifle down before examining a console at the back of the bridge, had this been a Starfleet vessel it would have served as tactical but nothing so far looked to indicate this ship had any weapons.

"Wait, that can't be right..." Victor said as he squinted. "Ma'am, it looks like there was a transmission from this ship to the Elysium several hours ago, but like everything else, there is severe corruption."

"We are just learning these systems," Anna said, leaning over a console and frowning. "Ma'am, I'd like to at least try and see if we can partially recover some of this information. Not saying it'll be easy and it might not be possible but..." She shrugged. She didn't want to let it go too easily.

"Victor, can you tell what kind of transmission?" Rin asked. "Audio, visual, data stream, whatever. And can you narrow down when the transmission occurred? We can cross reference with Elysium logs, see if it recorded receiving such a thing."

Victor rubbed his beard as he typed more requests into the console, pausing to read the data coming up on its screen. "It appears it was audio and visual only, Commander, the transmission looks too short to be anything data-related... I think they also tried to contact other ships before us but it doesn't appear that any of them responded."

"Check the outgoing buffers," said N'vok absently from his work, "they may still be there as there were not later transmissions to overwrite them."

Victor nodded, still trying to navigate the alien systems as he slowly typed and pressed buttons. "That would be the same for us then, as we haven't hailed anyone since we've been here... could try merging the data in the buffers."

He continued working, sending requests to the Elysium’s main computer for the required data.

“Ma’am… I’m going to attempt to playback the data now, on what I think is their viewscreen.” Victor said, gesturing towards the front of the bridge.

The holomatrix flickered to life, turning the wall transparent as the stars and the church became visible.

But then it shimmered, showing the face of one of the crew hunched over the console he was using. The feed frequently blurred, shuddering and repeating frames as it played.

“To whom receives this, I am Prefect Ash’valli of the IPM Vashraul… my crew is dead, but their minds have been secured within our databanks.”

The audio distorted nearly as often as the visual feed, but his words could still be made out as he shifted nervously, looking up and around as loud thumping could be heard in the background.

“What I’m about to do will most likely get this body killed. And I fear that even when I am uploaded into a new clone, you will forget everything I'm about to say when I do…”

A loud low rumble echoes through the recording, a deep primal chattering like that of prehistoric earth predators.

“There is a bioweapon on this ship, it came from the church and is not something we created… though I also don’t believe the A’janie are aware it exists or to blame.”

The man sighed, rubbing his face with all four of his chitinous hands.

“It’s nearly impossible to track, scan or even remember you’ve seen it; Damn thing can kill someone in front of you and you wouldn't even know it.”

“It uses some kind of temporal displacement thats as much as we can figure out. The thing only exists in the present, it has no past nor future and so you cannot form any memories of it existing once you stop being actively part of its present.”

Another loud rumble grabs his attention, his inky black eyes staring vacantly at something before blinking back to the console screen.

“I’ve already died to it once, many of the crew did until we ran out of material to grow new clones… this may be why I can remember, but even then it's vague…”

The recording stutters, seemingly jumping ahead for a few seconds.

“Unfortunately we can't undock the ship because the A’janie aren't responding, the only thing I can do is trap it in Engineering with me until another one of our ships arrives in two days... they will have the equipment needed to properly contain it.”

Suddenly he looked up, clearly startled by what he was seeing.

“No! Not yet! Computer! activate emergency quarantine protoco-“

The recording ends abruptly, jittering on the last frame.

"Fascinating," said N'vok, his fingers dancing over his datapad. "Permission to rebroadcast this message, Lieutenant Commander."

Rin nodded. "Do it."

Her com badge chimed just then. "We have a situation on the Wandering Child that has become a priority, meet me onboard as soon as possible, S'hib out."

She acknowledged the order. "Alright, we're done here. If there's more to pull here we can do it later. Everyone back to the station."

N'vok nodded. "Transmission sent, wide band to all local ships and the station." He followed, calling up the Zeus Protocols as they went.

-- End of part 3 --