Wesley's World

[Michael Aarons]

So the doctor had resorted to bribery, huh? Well from what he experienced, she had a bargain going for her.

The choice was made, if they wanted to get down there and find some answers, Aarons plan was all there was. Considering no discernible life could be found down there, the fact that Kavis Alpha was Class-K and no plants had converted the CO₂ atmosphere to an oxygenated one meant they were going to have to break out the space suits.

Since the following ordeal was going to involve endurance under abnormal conditions, it would be required that each candidate be qualified by the chief medical officer. Aarons reported to the sickbay office to be certified. Once there, he stood at the ready his arms extended out to their full length, muscles taught. Liz looked at him amazed that he showed although not without suspicion that this may just be some hologram to dodge yet another physical.

Liz whipped out her handy little tricorder and began the initial physical scan from head to toe. She bent over with elegance and a grace he had come to miss in most girls in Starfleet as the scan went lower. Her shape also didn't go unnoticed as he gazed upon her; what was it that was so fascinating about her? Could it be she filled some basic empty need? From what he'd held she was a perfect fit. The parts of her that were Vulcan said 'I'm a genius, envy me' while the parts that were Klingon said 'I'm going to bite you but it'll feel good.' Aarons felt dirty for thinking that. <Believe it or not I'm trying to be nice>

The next part was to connect him with a cerebral input. The purpose of which was to send a signal into the brain to monitor its reaction and measure how the subject handles different conditions. Conditions not unlike what would be entailed in the upcoming endeavor of G-force endurance. Michael had tried to maintain a parade stance during the procedure but ultimately flinched at the start up; as this is the reaction of all whom submit to this procedure, the readings don't start until five seconds after it's begun so as not to corrupt the data. He had made the cut but that wasn't all just yet.

"It looks like there may still be an empty spot at that table tonight." She just kissed him good luck and showed him out.

The Starfleet space suits were latched on and those who made the cut namely Hawk, TEG, Nik, and of course Aarons got suited up before entering the craft. It was necessary to do it now because if this didn't go so well and the shuttle broke up there was the chance to orbital skydive on down and also it's a nuisance to suit up in a shuttle. They were about to begin the disembarking when the group got held up by a fifth member. It was then that they were joined by the doctor herself.

[Kaylana Cornette]

“All right, you two, take it below. I’ll not have my bridge turning into a pick-up bar,” Kay scolded. She looked at the more sane members of her crew and rolled her eyes. “If it begins to look like an episode of the “Love Boat”, I’m tanking this mission,” Kay confided to her Number One.

The Doctor mentioned physicals and immediately she was ostracized. Aarons blew up a more handsome replica of himself and padded off behind Liz not long after she left.

Scowling and mumbling, Kay moped around the bridge. Why was it that she never got to have any fun? Oh, right, the Captain was supposed to stay with the ship. Bah. TEG hadn’t so much as entertained her protests and had left her mid-rant, which had only made her angrier. He should have least had the decency to listen to her pleas to join the Away Team.

The shuttle was away and Kay sank into her chair busying herself with reports and combing through the data now coming back from the probe.

---

Outside the hull, undetectably, microscopic silicon masses trickled toward the massive vessel. Something familiar about its structure peaked curiosities. In antlike fashion, they trekked to the Majesty and back to re-swarm and exchange information. Parts of the swarm divided and returned to Kavis-Alpha. The other parts seeped into the titanium, altering molecular structure to mimic the alloys enough to merge with it. Once discovered, the trick was quickly repeated as tiny hordes oozed slowly into the outer hull and made their way to the inner bulkheads.

A burst of oxygen momentarily impeded the pioneer explorers. Morphing and adapting once again, they continued on as their near-invisible circuitry tingled. Not far from here lay a foraging ground; a magnetic amusement park coursing with energy. They could grow and flourish there. Instinctively, as salmon swim upstream, innumerable nanites slowly made their way to the EPS conduits.

Happening upon opti-cable, the procession paused. Imperceptibly, the swarm divided yet again. Explorers were sent to investigate and re-familiarize. This had been their birthplace – the computer core.

[Michael Aarons]

One of the smaller type 6 shuttles was chosen because of its lack of bulk, weight, and because there was less over all to handle. The plan was to release the shuttle via decompression to get the shuttle moving toward the planet since to move her into orbit on its own would make it susceptible to drainage. The shuttle's power had to be offline to preserve it hence the suits. Once on its way, the shuttle would enter her gravitational pull and drop like a meteor. After it had successfully passed the magnetic wave fields, necessary power would be initialized leaving everything up to Aarons to get them down there alive.

<Here's y'all's chance for any preflight chatter.>

Kay was still upset about not being allowed to go although it's not like Liz would have qualified her anyways. She promised that as long as they were in range, if anything went wrong they'd tractor them back in.

[Michael Aarons]

OFF: Sorry, I didn't mean to split this but I had to run an errand.

ON: The bay doors were opened and as the preparations were made, the forcefield was prepped to be lowered. Aarons double checked to make sure that he would be able to jump start the shuttle on a moments notice. Since all power was to be cut there was no way for anyone to read the control panels without straining their eyes to see.

Everyone got ready as the Majesty pointed her aft towards the planet. Whatever amount of atmosphere was sealed in and the suits prepared for use. There'd be no way to know about any leaks since the suits would be kept at minimum operation. All stations were a go. The forcefield dropped and in a sweeping motion the shuttle was whisked out into the vacuum.

With only a spartan amount of air withheld inside and intercom protocols suspended, it became deathly silent within the small shuttle. The craft reeled through the void rotating along its X axis. Aarons had to keep his concentration by recalling the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, it helped. They were encroaching upon the edge of gravity as it happened, their velocity picked up. Everything began to get more intense. They fell further and further towards the planet turning and spinning. They continued to fall until suddenly there was a pulsing resonance that hummed throughout the shuttle. They had pierced the electron cloud forming around the planet. As they did so the shuttle almost loomed as the ionic particle density formed a sort of static repulse field around the craft. The effect lasted about as long as it took to get there. After passing through, everything became violent again. 30 Km past, it seemed fine enough engage power. The field had charged their gravity boots which helped them stay put unfortunately gravity also began to kick in.

The shuttle heated and luminesced spinning here and there. Aarons reached to prime the shuttle's power source but nothing happened. He couldn't find where it was and was frantically beginning to try and find the starter. Michael kicked on the console before finally going to where it should be and carefully applying force. Systems were on but their flight was too chaotic to make any sense. They were now over the part of the planet void of any activity. Aarons got the engines to ignite and fought to regain attitude control. The ground came quick as the shuttle then skewed leveling up in its descent. Michael had done all he could and the craft was beginning to peel.

The shuttle violently scarred the surface many thrown about. They were down to much rejoice quite a distance from where they might need to be. The machine part loomed towering in the sky above them like horrible twisted forms. There wasn't much light on the planetary surface nor much more surrounding the mechanized part.

"Kinda' wish we'd had one of those all-terrain vehicles to ride over there."

"Actually that's a good thing."

"Why?"

"'Cause I'da scared you to death driving it."

OFF: Y'all've got to be tired of hearing from me by now.

[Deleted]

TEG's EV Suit was a little looser than he recalled from the last time he wore it. Must be from my daily workouts with Martinez though TEG. TEG adjusted the EV suit's systems for lower power operation. Muttering a sweet prayer that Starfleet R&D had developed these suits from a non-magnetic material. He noticed Hawk being a little standoffish at least from TEG, after he noticed that everyone was ready, he opened the Hatch, and lead the away team out onto the planet's surface. TEG glanced skyward and found the sight just wonderful.

[Michael Aarons]

OFF: Jeez TEG, thanks for the post just wish you had given me something to go with because I kinda' got writers block.

The first priority would be to establish communication with the ship. TEG began to utilize his comm system.

"TEG to Majesty. Come in Majesty, do you read me? This is the first officer calling the U.S.S. Majesty. Captain, do you read me?"

"Futile effort Commander. You saw the field surrounding this place when we passed through it. Any AM or FM phase modulating we do will almost certainly be bounced back by that thick field like it were any old NitrOxide atmosphere. In any case, judging by what we've seen, this whole world is enveloped with a very powerful band-pass filter the likes of which we couldn't begin to deal with in our current situation. Wish we had one of those laser beacons from about a century ago."

"They stopped using them after it was decided that communicator technology was improved enough to no longer need them." Hawk chimed.

"What about you Doc, are we worse for wears?"

<Liz>

[Michael Aarons]

"Okay, safety check everyone. You see those big things there? Those are capacitors and they will shock you when they are energized." Everybody heeded that warning.

Having reviewed the basics of where they were, the first officer signalled them to head out. The trek was a bit since they crashed down about 2 miles from the edge of the machine part of the planet. It was a real stress on everybody since the EVA suits were set at a slow burn to conserve air. Essentially it was practical as the less air that was in the suits at any given time meant less lost during a decompression. The closer they got the more the ever daunting machine portion became increasingly larger.

Finally they made it to the threshold of the massive machine part of the planet. This portion of the planet was dark and ugly. Everywhere electrons arced and in each instance were accompanied by a forboding thunderclap. Most of the light source came from either the individual helmet lights or various LED's that blinked, flashed, and strobed with dubious meaning. As they trodded through the massive towering machinery, they became aware that around them there were smaller machines zooming about them on tracks doing something. For what ever reason a structure made from nanoscopic nueroprocessors would need mechanical components was beyond the away team.

Aboard the Majesty, an effort was underway to scan the planet further for whatever could be found. Back below, the away team made their way through a labrynth of macro-circuits and massive structures.

"Nik, what have you found so far?"

"Well, this is a Class K planet, CO₂ atmosphere. I'm finding that there are amounts of Oxygen roaming in the air."

"Enough to take these helmets off?"

"Hardly. We'd asphixiate ourselves merely walking and talking." They continued to investigate their surroundings. Taking in readings of the various monstrocities of component machinery, they began to spread out and analyze what they had entrenched themselves in. Suddenly Hawk noticed a set of small shutters that mysteriously blinked at him.

"Commander!" All of a sudden thousands of worker drones flooded them going here and there and cutting off Michael and Liz from the others. It was a chaotic mess when suddenly... a massive clarion pulse wrang out and all was quiet. The away made no movement nor would they there body strewn on the ground motionless. In space the Majesty floated, throughout its decks the hundreds of men and women aboard absent of their livelihood lying on the ground, their contiences robbed from them. The starship was adrift and nobody present to work it. Then the worse happened. General Order 32 was initialized.

OFF: So as not to spoil my thrilling narrative, I will ask that you look up General Order 6 at Memory Alpha (specifically there) and assign it to G.O. 32 since the Section's G.O. 6 takes precedence over TAS.

[lizjaneway]

Liz was taking in things on her own tricorder hoping to be useful. She knew why she came, but didn't want to let them know she was bored. She hadn't wanted to start physicals yet. She found the EVA suit a horror since it was so small on her. She wished they made them in her size, but she did her best with what she was given.

Things were looking good so far, and she thought this was way too easy. She listened to their conversation and was wondering about something. She then heard Aarons ask her a question. She smiled.

"Well, I could say we are screwed, but I don't think anyone wants to hear that from a doctor," she said chuckling hoping to get some reaction from that.

(anyone)

Liz laughed. "Seriously, things look good. On the communications problem. Is there a way to set something up like one of those old HAM radios, or maybe something to send up Morris code to the ship?"

Liz found things suddenly got chaotic, and stayed near Michael. She wondered at what was going on, and was confused. Suddenly she found herself on the floor. It wasn't long before things changed, and she found herself closing her eyes.

Liz opened her eyes, and found herself still on the floor. She found she couldn't move, and wondered what had happened. She wished she could do something, but she felt like she was dead. She felt like death was all around her. She found her lips worked.

"Is anyone else around that is awake and maybe able to move?"

[Deleted]

TEG knew full well that standard communication was not possible. He was satisfied with the alternative he and Nik had rigged up before they left. He had planed ahead an brought a high powered lamp with them to signal to the ship in morse code. He had informed Nik and the Captain of this alternative method, just in case regular communication wasn't possible. He set up the lamp and pointed it into orbit. He then utilized a special solar power cell and computer interface. He typed his message into the PADD Shuttle Crashed. Everyone fine. Will perform re-con, then contact when we need a way back.

"See Doctor? Nothing to worry about, except how to get off this rock."

----------
Once the beacon was setup, TEG led the officers from the shuttle. Everyone was studying their tricorders, when TEG heard Hawk groan, TEG then felt some tingling on his legs, and pain shot up his legs. He closed his eyes to cope, and suddenly he was unconscious.
---------
TEG awoke groggy, sans EV suit. He was aware of clicking in the room and he could feel his fellow officers, Hawk, Aarons, and Janeway in the room, but where he could not tell. He heard Liz shout, "Is anyone else around that is awake and maybe able to move?"

TEG responded reflexively, "I'm here Doctor. I know Michael and Hawk are here too, but I think they are still unconscious. I'm not sure where we are, but I think it is safe to assume that the Nanites don't want us on their planet."

<Tag Michael, Hawk>

[Michael Aarons]

OFF: Okay General Order 32 is if everyone on a ship is dead the ship will self destruct in 24 hours to prevent compromising the ship or spread whatever killed the crew so that's still a problem. Now on to the post.

ON: Liz had awoken to a bit of light-headedness. As part Klingon and with part ordered Vulcan mentality, the paralyzing delta wave had merely acted like an alpha wave and put her under mildly. It was quieter now but except for Michael, no one was to be found. Somehow the area they had been on was some sort of moving platform that had carried them off somewhere. It took her a moment to restore Aarons to full consciousness.

"That was probably the most unpleasantest experiences of my life." Aarons' attempts to tend to his pulsating were barred by his helmet. "So where the Hell are we?" Liz merely expressed her inability to answer the question.

With no other avenue to venture they proceeded the only way they could, exploring their surroundings hoping to wind up somewhere. <Tag Liz>

Eventually they came upon something new, a vortex of amazing swirling color. Its sides pulsed liked a warp core and was breathtaking. Nothing valuable about it came from the tricorders so Michael reached out his hand to it.

"Ahhh! Gah my arm!"

"What happened?"

"It was like my arm was pulled out of its socket." The doctor examined his arm and helped him reset it. "This thing must accelerate objects like some kind of warp tunnel. Let's see where it goes."

"Are you crazy!? Who knows what that thing could do to us."

"I'll make you a deal, if we don't survive you can kill me." They uneasily stepped through together.

As if instantaneously they were hurled through a conduit at breakneck speeds. Shortly afterward they were violently ejected elsewhere in some room where they found the others sprawled on the ground still rather lifeless. Janeway was the only one not wiped out by the landing and clambered to her feet. According to atmospheric readings there was a considerable concentration of stray Oxygen as previously detected by Nik. In fact there was such an amount that it was breathable so she began removing there space suits <yeah it's the only way I could explain what TEG wrote>. Shortly afterward the first officer began to regain life.

teg24601 said:

"Is anyone else around that is awake and maybe able to move?"

TEG responded reflexively, "I'm here Doctor. I know Michael and Hawk are here too, but I think they are still unconscious. I'm not sure where we are, but I think it is safe to assume that the Nanites don't want us on their planet."

"Not quite commander, I'm still here, but that was one Hell of a ride." Soon Nik and Hawk were awake and none too sure of their surroundings neither.

"What was that?"

"That was a delta wave, less than 2 Hz, but carried on a carrier wave of at least a teraWatt."

"As Michael said, there would have to be an enormous output to surpass the band-pass filter existing in the atmosphere."

"And as you know the delta wave is large nevertheless slow waveform responsible for deep sleep even comatose."

"But why would anyone want to send a signal like that out wherever it sent it?"

"Well, the nanites have been determined to be an artificial intelligence. Naturally we can assume that to them, a delta wave would act as a stop command or an alpha wave a pause command. Presumably they were trying to tell one of their own to stop doing something."

"But what? And where?"

[Michael Aarons]

"How is it we are able to breathe in here?"

"The local atmosphere seems to have a high concentration of Oxygen as detected earlier in the air."

"Okay, here's a question," Hawk kneeled by a hunk of machinery his hand dripping of a viscous sludge, "what is this stuff?" They moved in close to look. The gunk was oozing from the various machines all around them. There was no odor to it and the tricorders registered it as a Carbon based compound.

"Well it's Carbon based and Carbon is a basic building block. It's also a good insulator."

"So this stuff is like some kind of insulation or a lubricating grease."

"Like platelets in the blood." Suggested Dr. Janeway.

"Maybe it's more than just that." Michael speculated.

"How so?" Wondered TEG.

"It's starting to make sense. The air, the electric field, everything. They weren't trying to form some kind of communications filter, the inductors were to pull in a current for the capacitors to absorb like a diaphragm and through electrolysis separate the CO₂ atmosphere into Oxygen and this crap here just like a plant; and plants are a rather simple mechanical form of life."

"That would make this entire thing a gigantic lung." Observed Liz.

"But why go to the trouble of making a simple insulatory compound like this?"

"Perhaps we're not seeing the big picture here. Instead of respirating to get something it needs, it's instead forming a protective sheath around what makes this, the spawn of an artificial intelligence, like some kind of amniotic fluid. Meaning this is just a lung-"

"It's an ovum."

"Why would it need to create an ovum?"

"Who can say, from what we've seen so far..." Suddenly and without a warning there arose a whirring sound. At first it seemed to come from all around them then from one side to the other. The sound changed pitch like an old dial tone. Finally it localized to right toward the end of the room.

The ground split and from it a sizable spike penetrated the opening standing taller than any of them. It was a most curious thing. Then the tip extended itself before splitting in five parts. Suddenly an array of blue light sparkled out of the end in which articulated the appearance of a face, a very familiar face, five of them in fact accompanied by a few prehensile tendrils.

"Is that Cmdr. Data!?"

"Couldn't be, Data's dead."

"It looks like a Quintesson."

"What's a Quintesson?"

"It's something from Transformers."

"What century do you live in?"

"Why?"

"We have encountered these lifeforms before." "From them do we exist." "Through them do we face possible extinction." "Not before we reach completion." "We cannot be prevented from attaining completion." The "entity" was sharing a five way conversation with its different faces who took turns facing forward. "We were delivered unto this world." "And so it shall facilitate completion." "We therefore cannot accept these beings unto this world."

"Excuse me." TEG spoke up.

[Kaylana Cornette]

A bit of back posting first, then on to the drama of self-destructing...

---

Relieved to find that her away team was physically intact, Kay turned to Falco. “Has the probe given us any other information?”

Falco looked flustered for a moment. “Captain, I can’t begin to tell you what these readings mean. We don’t have a scale that measures the enormity of power. I can’t even pinpoint the power source except that it’s located somewhere under the planet’s surface.” His fingers flew over the console in front of him as his mind searched for the vocabulary to describe the readings. “The only thing that comes close is what I’ve read about during the encounter with V-Ger.”

Falco’s thoughts turned briefly to concern for Hawk on the surface and hoped that he would have a chance to make things right between them. It was then that he received the message from their venerable FO. Both Kay and Falco breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

It was then that Sienta called the bridge. “Captain, I have reports from all over the ship of computer glitches and malfunctions.”

“Cause?”

“Unknown.”

“What is the nature of the malfunctions?” Kay inquired, knowing in the back of her mind what the answer would be.

“Replicators were affected first. It’s spreading to all systems. I’m running a diagnostic now on the computer core.” The lieutenant was monitoring the core as she spoke. She noticed a small blip on a scan. Magnifying it, it appeared like a tiny swarm on her screen. “Captain,” she said, punching up the image to appear on the viewscreen. “I believe this is our problem.”

Kay shook her head knowingly. “They’ve infiltrated through the bulkheads somehow.” She berated herself for failing to activate the shields. It hadn’t occurred to her that the nanites could propel through the vacuum of space.

Just then, a gigantic shrieking noise filled their ears. All hands aboard thudded to the deck plates, unconscious.

---

Kay groggily reached up. She clung to the seat of her chair and pulled herself upright. No one on the bridge was stirring except Jamison.

“You okay over there?” she asked.

“Just a bump on my forehead. Must have hit the console as I went down.” He tenderly rubbed a forefinger over a large red bump over his left eye.
“You’d better head to sickbay…” Kay stopped mid-sentence and listened in stunned silence.

“What is it, sir?” Jamison sensed something was wrong by her body language.

“It’s a countdown. The auto-destruct has engaged.” She bee-lined for the nearest bridge station. “Computer, recognize Cornette, Kaylana, Acting Captain.”

“Recognized.”

“Abort auto destruct sequence, code 1-2-3 Continuity.”

“Emergency transport can not be engaged. Please specify the ingredients of peanut butter for replication. Replay volume is at 20 %. Diagnostic parameters are at station keeping.”

Jamison and Cornette looked at each other, the horror playing silently on their faces.

[Michael Aarons]

The nanites had received their interrupt request instructions from the master control hierarchy (that pulse). The ship had been identified, all vital technical inputs assimilated, they had no further need for physical presence within the Majesty. They convened in the main drive serial bus porting themselves through an auxiliary 4-to-1 multiplexer which routed them through two optronic relays before coming to the very thing they could possibly hope for, a bio-neural gel pack. It was exactly what they were searching for before finalizing "completion."

Having encountered the gel pack, they continued their journey until reaching the first phase coil rectifier circuit they could find. The ventral phaser emitter activated firing a bolt toward a spire on the planet surface which carried the nanites through the beam. It did not however end there as it continued a few minutes afterward draining the ships power 23%. <before you ask, Voyager rigged phaser rifles to convey Borg nanoprobes so don't complain.>

The computer was still a mess with the system corrupted and the auxiliary peripheral drive damaged by their eating around. Two whole matrices of addressing and file allocation were going to have to be reassigned. <i.e. Kiara you have something to do this mission.>

Down on the planet... <Tag TEG, Nik, Hawk, Liz, anybody who wants to speak up for our presence before revealing what "completion" means.>

[Deleted]

Hawk was checking his tricorder and reading power of enormous proportions. Off the scale of what could be read. Hawk alerted Commander TEG of his findings.

“What direction are your readings coming from?” TEG inquired.

“That direction Sir,” Hawk pointing at the gray rocky horizon.

TEG turned his attentions to Aarons and Janeway.

“Commander Aarons you and the good Doctor stay here and see what you can find out from… ah Data or what ever it is. Hawk and I are going to follow the power signal to its source. Maybe we can get some answers at the powers source,” TEG instructed.

“Very well Sir, but are you sure we should separate?” Aarons ask with concern.

“Our air will run out soon and we must have answers, so yes I think we need to cover all the bases,” TEG insisted.

“Be careful Commander,” Janeway said to TEG.

“We will!” Hawk replied in a put out tone.

“Rendezvous with us at these coordinates Mister Aarons in two hours,” TEG ordered.

“I Sir, but what if your not there in two hours, Sir,” Aarons said in jest.

Hawk jumped in to answer Aaron’s question.

“Well then, I guess that you and Dr. Janeway will just have to find a way to occupy your time until we rejoin you,” Hawk said with a wink.

TEG and Hawk headed off over the rugged terrain.

Michael turned to Liz and said, “Let’s see what Mr. Data has to say.

[Deleted]

Falco came too at his Ops post and realized that the ship was on auto-destruct and turn to Captain. He noticed that only the Captain, Jamison and he were awake on the bridge. Falco saw the look on their faces and knew he must act.

“CAPTAIN! What do we do Sir,” Falco yelled out.

“Calm yourself Mister and run an internal scan of all systems. Mister Jamison, try all security protocols to stop the count down,” Kay ordered.

With only a short hesitation they both said, “Aye Captain.”

[Michael Aarons]

OFF: Um, Hawk, did you forget Nik was part of the away team? I'm just going to assume he went with y'all. In any case, thanks for forming a way to allow more to happen in this mission than just ending after only 2 pages.

ON: The FO had excused himself only to formulate some other strategy for which they could unravel the truth of this world.

"If we tolerate these intrusive lifeforms, our completion will be defeated." "Completion cannot be allowed to defeated." "Extermination is necessary to ensure completion." "There is no other way." "They must not continue." The five faces of Data seemed to almost disregard the away team.

"Um, hi... Although we're not uh entirely sure what you mean by 'completion' and while we don't want to um get in the way of that (whatever that is) we would like to find out whatever we can and if you'd like us to go we can just get out of here and you can get on with whatever it is you're doing here." They seemed unphased.

"Real smooth."

"What, did you want to say something?" She stepped forward.

"Um, what he said." She saw Michael's expression. "What?!" There was still no response out of the giant heads. "So what do we do now?"

"We have new developments." "Our completion must be increased as soon as possible." "These beings will not be allowed to interfere." "We must begin." At that point the area began to come alive. Parts began moving, rearranging. The conduit from which the two had found their way there became closed off as it turned into part of a greater device. They had traveled through part of a gigantic cyclotron which took up a sizable portion of the planet.

The giant atom smasher began accelerating until the particles inside reached warp speeds. It wasn't much to tell them they needed to get out of there fast. They didn't know where they were going but that was the least of their worries. Once they had achieved such great speeds and a charge of a TeV, the kinetic energy was released in a stunning blast that ignited the atmosphere. From above, it seemed as if an atomic reaction had occurred.

Aarons and the doctor were overwhelmed by the colloidal force that impacted them and Liz lost her balance falling from the lofty point they now were at.

"LIZ!!!" Without even thinking he dove after her. Michael smashed and banged along the sloping machinery snagging cables and severing connections as he went which fortuitous because it cut off a plasma arc that would have otherwise fried her.

The effect ultimately electrolysized the atmosphere splitting the Oxygen and Carbon making it breathable which was good news for the others since the lack of air was starting to take its toll a lot sooner than they'd expected. All around them, the sentry machines began rushing around them worser than rush hour on the Autobahn.

Meanwhile, having fallen and slid and otherwise suffered much bruising, Liz found her self on an out of control horde of rushing sentry bots. Michael landed a few behind her. Somehow he'd have to make his way to her.

[Deleted]

OFF: Oops!

ON: Nik went with Hawk and TEG.

[Deleted]

“Emergency transport can not be engaged. Please specify the ingredients of peanut butter for replication. Replay volume is at 20 %. Diagnostic parameters are at station keeping.”

"What the hell is that?" Will said as he noticed Falco was up and about as well.

“CAPTAIN! What do we do Sir,” Falco yelled out.

“Calm yourself Mister and run an internal scan of all systems. Mister Jamison, try all security protocols to stop the count down,” Kay ordered.

“Aye Captain.”

After a brief second, Will looked back at Kay.
"Captain. I'm able to run the protocols but they're not doing what they're suppose to. I run one and it turns lights off on deck 12. The next one I run turns them back on and then wants to serve me gagh." he said making a face.


OFF: Thanks for getting us started on the ship again, Kay. I actually didn't post because I never saw this episode and I didn't wanna screw something up.

[Michael Aarons]

Liz was having to hold on for dear life. Not a mission ago she had been considering killing herself and now all she wanted was to be somewhere else and very much alive.

Michael had know idea what had come over him to make him just go head first like he did. Whatever his reasons, he hated being unprepared for a rescue.

"Why oh why didn't I bring a phaser?!"

"Well because-"

"Oh no, I've learned that everyone's willing to tolerate only one personification of an abstract concept and that's..."

"Me."

"Uh-oh. Is it too late to go back to the God of Plot?"

"Too late, he's gone."

"Death what the Hell are you doing here!?" He had to pay heed to his attention as he was slipping and may very well fall off.

"Interesting choice of words. Actually I'm here for a different sort of visit. We couldn't understand exactly why you're doing this. Why bother? A perfect opportunity right before your eyes and you don't even see it. Forget her. No more doctor. You're free or until Kay gets a new one."

"I may not like doctors and sure a few I've seen have been annoying but I got nothing against her! Now unless you got somebody or something to kill, kiss my-!" The G-forces against him were staggering. It was like bumming a ride on a runaway train.

On a different note, the other three had managed their way to the ridge line that had so peaked Hawk's interest. As they ascended the craggish ridges, they were confronted by an awesome sight. What was there was a gaping planetary hole the bottom of which couldn't begin to be sighted without the Argus Array.

Aarons knew he had to get to the doctor but they were separated by a few sentry bots moving at breakneck speed. He focus all his energy and effort to the one in front of him. It would require determination to do what he was about to do but no more so than it took to make the dive he had made so blindly before. He mustered his strength and as he stepped off, whatever sense of mortality briefly abandoned him in favor of a Michael never before seen since his go on the gambit between a load of pirates and a research station in his academy days.

What occurred was barely 10 seconds beginning to end but seemed an eternity of a delayed inevitable demise to a Hell of a pilot. He reached and but for moment felt that all he had vied for was for not but he collided with the next machine racing around single file with a thousand others and for all he was worth desperately grabbed for a hold on to which to cling. He held to what he could and climbed his way up. To get to Liz he would have to keep going. After an agonizing struggle to make his way to her he had succeeded in reaching Dr. Janeway. He embraced her so as not to allow her to fall to her demise.

"We're getting out of here." He looked and spotted his means to escape. As they fastly approached there was an opening which he intended to take. It came and as it did he leaped and they hit the ground tumbling over each other in the process.

"You alright?"

[Kaylana Cornette]

Still trying to feed in commands to shut down the auto-destruct, he noticed something that was working on his security console. “Captain, I believe the intruders have left,” Jamison exclaimed. “A proximity sensor is lit and there’s some type of energy stream pointed toward the planet.”

“And I have just registered a power drop of 23%,” Falco shrieked.

“They’re riding the beam back home,” Kay surmised. She pondered her next move. She had thought it might be possible to communicate with the nanites and help them understand if the ship blew, they would too. Now, however, all hopes of using them as an ally were dashed.

“Jamison, do we at least know where the countdown is – how much time we have?”

“Twenty-two minutes, Captain.” He paled a bit with his answer.

Kay moved to access the mainframe and felt sick at the sight. The damage to the core was incredible. “All right, we definitely can’t fix the problem from here. We’ll have to shut down all power manually.”

Falco interrupted. “But, isn’t that how the countdown started in the first place? When a ship is left without power and assumed adrift with no crew…”

“If we shut down everything, some of the backup systems may respond and correct the worst of it once power’s restored,” Kay said, hopefully. “But, that’s the least of our worries. We need to maintain a safe distance to keep clear of all the fireworks and magnetic forces on the planet and when we go cold - I’m afraid we may not be able to break free with only impulse engines.” Internally she added, “that’s if we can restart the engines.”

“Death by auto-destruct or death by colliding with a planet… which sounds best?” Jamison asked rhetorically.

Kay tried to open the intra ship comm. link but it refused her command. “Jamison, you and Falco get down to engineering on the double and see if you can’t find Ms. Sienta. She could be of great help about now. Make sure to grab an enviro suit on the way down. The air’s gonna get mighty thin before it’s over.”

[Deleted]

Knowing the lift was probably on the fritz as well, Jamison jumped into a jefferson tube and made haste to engineering. He just hoped he could reach it in time.

[lizjaneway]

Liz felt horrible. She hated the fact that she fell, but she was glad to know Aarons would rescue her if the need arose. She found herself resting ontop of him, and rolled off laying on her back looking up at, well she wasn't sure what it was.

"Okay, I don't get you. You say you hate doctors, but you rescue one?! You could have left me back there, and yet you didn't. If that ever happens again, save yourself," she said feeling her pride very bruised. She got up despite her mucles groaning against her, and looked around.

It seemed they were in a small chamber, and there were six different directions they could take to get out of there. ~Okay, you stupid no good... No cursing won't help this situation. Which way do we go?~ She thought, and turned to Aarons. He looked upset.

"Which way do you suppose we should go?"

(Michael)

OOC: You didn't think I would make it that easy for you, did you?

[Michael Aarons]

lizjaneway said:

"Okay, I don't get you. You say you hate doctors, but you rescue one?! You could have left me back there, and yet you didn't. If that ever happens again, save yourself,"

"Because this time it was you." She didn't know what to say. Suddenly he was troubled by the situation before them.

lizjaneway said:

"Which way do you suppose we should go?"

"How old are you?" She began cursing him in Klingon. "Okay, okay, we'll go down 3."

"3!? Why 3?"

"Well I'm 21 and 2 + 1 = 3 so we'll take that one."

"The Vulcan in me thinks your logic is terrible but the Klingon in me likes you for your intrepidity."

"Oh great, now I'm a Frosted Mini Wheat." They ventured down the third corridor.

Meanwhile the other party was overlooking the gigantic hole in the surface of the planet that they had found.

"So how deep do you think it is?" [Nik]

"Deeper than a Vulcan proverb no doubt." [TEG]

"So you guys think we should go down it." [Hawk]

"Nah, if Aarons were here he'd probably say... speaking of him, how come he's always getting the good lines? You two are the smart ones here... wait, that didn't sound right... you two are smarter than me... no that's not right... I'm dumb... I mean...!" [TEG]

"We get what you're trying to say Commander, 'why aren't we coming up with anything?' Hm, it looks like it could be a gigantic socket considering the power detected." [Hawk]

"Or it could be a Dilithium mine." [Nik]

"What would nanites need with Dilithium?" [Hawk]

"What would nanites need with gigantic machines!?" [Nik]

"Maybe they have an inferiority complex!" [Hawk]

"I think we should get out of here!" [TEG]

"Why?" [Hawk]

"That!!!" A large articulated tentacle at the end of which seemed to be a robotic eye emerged from the inner edge of the hole.

"Run!!!" [All 3]

* * * * * * * *

"I can't believe you were willing to risk your life to save mine. You must be nuts."

"If I weren't, would I be serving on this ship?"

"You have the logic of a Vulcan." ~ A stupid one~ "In any case, my life's not worth saving."

"If that were true, I wouldn't have jumped."

[Jamey Gaz]

The trip from Star base Bellicose was uneventful and quite boring Jamey thought as he corrected his navigation with the last known coordinates of the Majesty. Jamey had a really difficult time transferring to this ship because all his past time in Star-fleet had been with the First Fleet and paperwork seemed to get lost from desk-to-desk. However, all of that was behind him and the past six hours in the run-about was just the culmination of the request to transfer to the Majesty; at least that is what he thought.

On approaching the location of what was supposed to be a rendezvous with the Majesty, the only thing he saw was black space with relatively no space traffic to mention. The last communication with the ship was just a couple of hours ago from a location where the ship was to make a course change to meet its new Counselor. “Computer,” Jamey asked, “affirm the location of the USS Majesty.”

The computer responded, “The USS Majesty’s transponder has not been active for two hours … its last know position …”

“I know its last known position,” Jamey said, “cancel request.” Activating the communication system Jamey called the Majesty, “Commander Gaz calling the USS Majesty … please report rendezvous intention.”

Jamey kept the channel open to hear the comm traffic as the hiss and static popped over the cabin speaker. Jamey wondered if he had come early or if his timing was off; that thought pitted his stomach to even think about.

Initiating a long sensor sweep, forty-five minutes resulted in a contact just a half hour away that definitely was Star Fleet but the transponder wasn’t responding. Knowing that this could indeed be the Majesty, due to its size, Jamey sent a message back to Bellicose of the situation and plotted a course. The hum of the impulse engines filled the cabin as Jamey continued to check the tactical information for any other ship in the area.



Upon reaching the contact, it indeed was a Sovereign Class star ship tilting to port as if its stabilization was not working or not activated. Jamey matched the roll of the ship and slowly approached. Hailing the ship, Jamey was shocked to learn that the automated response was activated and responding.

“This is the Federation star ship USS Majesty, its self destruct system is activated, stay clear of ship.”

“Computer,” Jamey quizzed, “how much time is left on the self destruct system?”

“Unknown,” the computer system reported back.

“Contact the crew and let them know that I have a run-about here and standing-by to assist,” Jamey requested to the Computer.

“Unable to comply, ship’s crew not aboard,” informed the Computer.

Jamey started a bio-scan and saw that the ship was indeed crewed and according to the life-signs he focused on was awake and active.

Jamey knew that time was something of value and swung the run-about to the port docking ring of the saucer section. Activating his own docking ring on the dorsal side of the shuttle he lined the ports up and hit the docking ring hard for an emergency seal. “Computer, access the ships situational information under the command Commander Gaz – upsilon – omega – eta – five.”

“Command accepted, under what condition you request this information,” the Computer responded as its protocol required for this emergency situation.

“Under the assumption that this ship is not under command and to prevent its loss,” Jamey answered.

“Granted”

Jamey looked at the information pouring onto his screen and immediately isolated its routines from that of the shuttles. The story played out just as one of Gaz’s past host had experienced several years ago as an infestation of the computer core. However, it seemed as if the infestation was gone but the ship’s systems were not able to recover.

Jamey requesting of the shuttles computer, “Is the main computer core backup intact?”

“Affirmative”

“… are the computer core shut-down systems online and functioning?,” Jamey asked.

“Negative … all sub-routines down”

Jamey called up the shut-down routine of the shuttle and copied it into the ships active memory that seemed to be functioning; howbeit bad code. Then called for the ships power to be deactivated to the computer core hoping the backup power was offline and wouldn’t respond. “Computer, copy code into active memory with execute command attached – interrupt power to all computer cores.”

“Commands unable to be carried out due to ships power still active … power being routed by automation to computer core via other power connections.” The Computer informed.

“Damn”, Jamey shouted in frustration.

“Computer, send the command to the Majesty’s warp systems that deuterium tanks are leaking into the reaction chamber,” Jamey instructed. After what seemed to be several minutes, he asked with frustration, “Computer, report … did the command get accepted.”

The Computer responded, “Affirmative, the warp core has shut down.”

Jamey, excited that something was working, “Now, Computer copy the computer core shut-down code into each core, execute … route shuttle’s warp and impulse power to the ships life support systems”

Jamey watched as the ship went mute and cold in space, windows going dark, marker lights not flashing, the orange glow of the buzzard collectors deeming; “Computer, verify that the power down has purged the main computer core.”

“Affirmative”

Smiling, “Good, bring the main computer core online … only … back up essential programs from back-up.”

After a few moments, the computer responded, “Main Computer online and functioning.”

“Good,” Jamey said, “bring online backup generators and reinstate life-support. Open a channel to the Bridge … Commander Jamey Gaz to Bridge … is everyone alright? … … Oh … … and permission to come aboard?”

<Bridge>

[Michael Aarons]

OFF: Feel free to double post at any time. I sure have had to.

ON: The three ran with all of there might, the fear of death and adrenaline fueling their drives to escape the wicked thing that had sprung from the hole. The two Humans had it hardest since they were either out of shape or not as spry as the lone Falconian.

While the three officers struggled with their own imperfections trying to elude their predicament, the worm-like monster scurried after them with deadly ease. To the thing, they were merely unexplained conditional anomalies that didn't compute with the as yet unknown operation going on on the planet.

Elsewhere on the planet, Michael and Liz were steadily trying to find their way out of being lost. Much distance had been covered by their wild ride on the robotic drones. On their way they came across a series of plasma energy conduits lit up like an electrical storm.

"Careful! If you don't watch out they'll make you go numb." [Liz]

"I'll try to watch my step." The plasma waves danced around from end to end in an impressive spectacle. "Any idea where we are now?"

"I haven't a clue. I wish I could see some glimmer of a familiar sight. I relish the moment to get off this planet and never come back again." [Liz]

"Well that's the peculiarity of Starfleet officers. Seeing the universe and all its sights to behold. It's our mission, it's why we're here."

"I thought we were here because you jumped off a ledge after me." [Liz]

"That was more of a personal issue."