Alyana Ryat
Commodore
Registered: Sept 5, 2007 16:34:56 GMT
Posts: 347
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Post by Alyana Ryat on May 17, 2014 20:29:21 GMT
The Excalibur was on her way back to Starbase and Aly was looking forward to some shore leave, she had no doubt that her crew were also looking forward to the leave. She had just completed writing up the reports for Command when the comm came through from the Bridge.
Lieutenant Wilkins was officer of the watch and it was the one who therefore automatically got the short straw, which meant she had to contact the Captain.
=/\=Bridge to Commodore Ryat. We had received a distress call. It’s from a colony on Ophiuchus 4. Seems automated. Extreme range.=/\=
=/\=Get together what you can on the colony and the settlers. Divert course towards the colony. I’ll be up in five minutes.=/\=
Aly collected the information and then summoned her senior staff and briefed them on the current situation
“We are on our way to Ophiuchus 4, it was actually one of the first colonies settled by humans but they’ve been fiercely isolationist ever since. The message didn’t come through the standard routing channels or booster stations so there’s no way to know when the transmissions started. There’s also no surviving records of the colonists aims or even who they were. I wish I had more information to give you; but we can’t leave a distress call unanswered. Questions?” Aly paused for a long moment “and suggestions on ways to find out more about this lost colony?”
Tag: All
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on May 17, 2014 21:25:25 GMT
=^= You want me to resign from Intelligence ? .. You want information on our target and I assume you want as much as possible .. So .. Allow me to remain as Exec' and we'll see what comes up .... Otherwise you're only option in my view is to act on what you have .. Which is scant at best =^=
Once he had closed the Comm he changed out of his uniform and headed for the Gymnasium. He wasn't a 'keep fit' fanatic, but did like to make sure he could handle himself if the need arose. Two hours later he limped back to his quarter's and all but fell into the shower. He was allowing the hot water to relax his aching muscles when the Comm chirped to life:
=^= Commodore Ryat to Senior Staff .. Briefing in ten minutes .. Ryat out =^=
The fact that Alyana had been so brief in her announcement made Daniel react. He stepped out of the shower and donned a fresh uniform, five minutes later he was sat on the Bridge going through readiness reports from the Department Heads. Commodore Ryat entered:
"We are on our way to Ophiuchus Four, it was actually one of the first colonies settled by humans but they have been fiercely isolationist ever since. The message didn't come through the standard routing channels or booster stations so there’s no way to know when the transmissions started. There’s also no surviving records of the colonists aims or even who they were. I wish I had more information to give you, but we can’t leave a distress call unanswered ... Questions ?" Aly paused for a long moment, "... and suggestions on ways to find out more about this lost colony ?"
"The last information we had from the Ophiuchus Colony was almost seventy one years ago, so why the distress call." Daniel asked, "They went to a 'LOT' of trouble to loose themselves, so why ask for help now ?"
"You're guess, as the saying goes Dan, is as good as mine." Alyana said.
He walked to the massive panoramic 'window' and requested a schematic of the Ophiuchus System. It was, in every way, unremarkable, a 'G Class' Sun, nothing remotely close that could cause problems. Six planet's orbited the Sun, four had a life-sustaining atmosphere while the other's were essentially rocks. The settler's had chosen Oph-Four for it's moderate climate, Oph-three's more elliptical orbit caused sub-zero temperatures in the winter months that even the hardened Human's could not have withstood ... Frankly, if a System could be more outside the need for external influences, he couldn't think of one. So again, 'WHY' the distress call, and why wasn't it coming in live !
"Time to the Ophiuchus System ?" he asked without turning from the tactical display.
"Twenty eight point six three hours, present speed." the Navigator informed him.
"Increase speed to Warp Eight." he ordered ..........
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on May 20, 2014 23:07:31 GMT
The Galileo shot into the atmosphere, sonic booms of its arrival resounding over San Franciscan airspace. Twin vortices generated by the moisture of air passing off the craft's nacelles usually utilised for warp flight - an article of fantasy far removed from subatmospheric flights over pearl oceans and rugged green coastlands - trailed across the sky puffing into the distance over the near Pacific. The pilot guided the craft towards the spaceport nearest the Ashbury Heights area south of the Presidio. The iconic Golden Gate Bridge lowered beneath the high-risers from Karka's perspective in the co-pilot's seat, as the shuttle came to a halt on hover thrusters and lowered itself with a hiss into the dock.
He thanked the pilot and wandered the green streets, walking the boulevards lined with gold. Civilians, mostly human, he noted - despite this new exotic age - passed by, perusing the shops or sitting in the awnings of cafes and other establishments. The sharp relief of this part of San Francisco were no bother to Psonoir's physical endurance, but it wasn't the physical he had in mind.
His apartment was empty. Grey blank walls. A meek, near-unresponsive door; no furniture, no appliances, no greeting message. He went to the food preparation area, finding it bare, only a disused real cooker remained, standing like a lonely sentinel from a bygone era of hollow nostalgia. No replicator; not bothered to be installed in this slightly rundown district at the heart of Starfleet. He nodded in satisfaction, collecting his jacket he'd dropped on the dust-coated half-rusting hanger. All had gone to plan then; his family no longer existed. He couldn't help feel an emptiness in some partition of his mind though: something in him that expected a presence, something locked, bizarrely, within a certain margin of spacetime, that he'd expected or hoped would be there.
He descended the steps, out his front door to street level. He sighed as he gazed about at the sunburnt eroded buildings casting ever longer shadows as the sun set over Earth's largest oceanic body. Lirwa's suggestion that he erase his family on his return here had been a wise one.
* * *
Chronology allowed for Karka's disappearance from the Excalibur to not be missed. He'd gone to sleep one evening, awoke in a world removed from humanoid or Federation comprehension, and arose in the morning in his dim spartan quarters on the Excalibur again. He called Ensign Unwin, partly relieved, partly amused at his own stupidity for thinking that his assistant might've vanished.
A new assignment was beginning. The Commodore had just held a staff briefing, detailing their mission to the Ophiuchus system. Karka knew nothing of the world (Lirwa was the expert regarding early human colonisation of space, but Karka doubted even he would know of this place).
"Perhaps the automated signal was set up by the colonists long ago," he put in at the staff briefing, responding to Ryat's question about how they might discover more about why the distress call was sent. "Maybe there are no colonists, anymore. They designed the signal to be sent at some point in the future when they felt ready to integrate themselves with the Federation, when some plan of theirs had been completed."
He turned sharply to another staff member who replied to him immediately, "That's wild conjecture, Lieutenant. We've received a distress call. You're suggesting we should just leave them alone?"
"Of course not," Karka said, fingers spread before him on the table leaning forward, "Even if they no longer exist," he watched the officer bristle, "There's the opportunity to discover what became of them. Or if their existence continues, to find out what technology they've developed; what threats might lie out there that prompted their distress call."
He sat further forward. If he was actually human his brow would've furrowed in concentration, "The fact the signal's automated... We have no idea when it originally started?" he asked Ryat who nodded. "Then the signal could have begun at any point during the colony's 79 year history. What if they called for assistance immediately upon their arrival there?"
<Tag All>
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Jun 8, 2014 20:30:41 GMT
Daniel had ensured all departments had run numerous, countless,some might say, drills on various scenario's so they would be ready for anything, or at least, anything they could actually 'think' of that was ... He entered the Bridge during the Delta Watch, it was zero five thirty two according to the chronometer above the window.
"Nothing to report Sir." the Duty Officer informed him, rising out of the Command chair and stepping aside to allow Schirra to sit, "We are on course. Estimated time of arrival is currently five hours forty three minutes. We still haven't had any contact with the colony on Ophiuchus Four."
"Thank you Lieutenant. You are relieved." Dan said, watching the stars stream past the window, "Lieutenant, did we manage to get any more information on the colony from Star Fleet Command ?"
"Nothing came through during my shift Commander." the young man answered. Dan nodded, allowing the Lieutenant to move to one of the vacant Duty Stations while he looked at the numerous reports from departments throughout the ship. He was still reading them when the Helmsman informed him they were entering the Ophiuchus System. Dan tapped the Comm button on the arm of the chair and spoke:
=^= Captain to the Bridge =^=
"Tactical view of the System please." he said, then stood and approached screen / window ....
It was a 'G' type Sun, six planet's with two able to sustain life. Planet's four and five orbited in tandem, less than a million kilometers separating them, with four slightly ahead of five. Information said it made for some 'interesting' weather patterns and tidal effects. Similar to the effects of Earth's moon on her Mother planet, but much more severe. High and low tides took a full week to cycle, rather than the twice-daily of Earth's seas. Long-range scans came up with nothing, which was worrying, because even if the colony had been abandoned, something of their presence would have remained regardless of how long ago they left. They couldn't even detect the very thing that had drawn the Excalibur to the System in the first place, the origin of the message !
"Check long range scans ... Are there any vessels in the vicinity ?" he asked.
"Nothing Sir." the Navigator said, "We're on our own out here." she said as Commodore Ryat entered the Bridge:
< tag : Alyana / All >
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Ephrem Santos
Diplomatic Corps
Registered: Jul 21, 2005 16:39:54 GMT
Posts: 206
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Post by Ephrem Santos on Jun 12, 2014 15:41:13 GMT
Ophiuchus IV was at the extremes of Federation space. After the briefing, Ephrem made sure to understand and know everything the Federation had on the colony. Like the Commodore had explained, it hadn’t been much. The only thing he was certain, approximately 250 Federation citizens decided to make Ophiuchus IV there home and no one had heard from them ever since. Ephrem would contact those he believed would know more about this colony, but he had a nagging feeling that at best it would be minimal.
“Captain we should be arriving in the Ophiuchus system in a few minutes,” Mark said as he walked into Ephrem’s office. “Thanks Davis, once we get there make sure to take a few days off,” Ephrem said as he cleaned up his desk,” hopefully the distress call will be easily resolved and we’ll be back on our way shortly.”
“I would fight you on this, but I know that I would lose,” Mark said as he left the DCS officer alone with his thoughts.
“I’m surprised he went without a fight,” Ephrem said as he made his way towards the bridge. Ephrem arrived on the bridge a few minutes earlier than expected, but it was better this way. Ephrem quietly took his seat and listened to the bridge crew work. When the report came in that the Excalibur was alone in this region of space, Ephrem thought nothing of it. There was nothing spectacular about this part of space and Starfleet had surveyed this area seventy years ago.
“The nearest Starfleet vessel is a week away,” Ephrem reported suddenly feeling very alone.
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on Jun 18, 2014 6:57:48 GMT
Karka tried to leave the fast receding thoughts of the future alone, immerse himself once more in the intricacies of this timeframe, the coordinates in which he had landed himself in this imaginary urban conurbation. Its highways ran intravenously through the grounded network that gave him the potential to connect to any one set of spacetime coords, as long as he was within range of a nodal marker and his passage there didn't rouse suspicion.
He was at the main console in engineering, able to spend time with his staff again. They looked at him as if they'd seen him yesterday, and to all intents and purposes, they had. Their respective worldlines meant that Karka's subjective 200 hundred year interval he'd spent in the 29th century hadn't happened. It would be a paradox, if one didn't allow for the possibility of alternate histories and realities; Karka smiled at such a simplistic viewpoint - he wouldn't want to stay here for so long that he'd lose his sense of perspective. But then again, what he'd learnt in the Archive could never be unlearnt, except in death or terminal memory deletion. The latter was of course more desirable - to be a whole new creature with no recall of his previous journeys through spacetime was hardly a punishment.
"Ensign Unwin." He didn't need to look up from his console to recognise who it was that eclipsed the light from the engine complex, "Haven't you been promoted yet?"
Unwin chuckled, "Not yet, sir. Unless you put in the recommendation for me last night."
Hmmm... Psonoir frowned. So no obvious perturbations in his re-arrival in the past. His trip back through time to his quarters he'd left that very evening and a lifetime ago had caused no immediate causal damage. If he noticed nothing different in his local vicinity at these earliest stages, then it usually meant that nothing at all - in the entire universe - had changed. Causality's mechanism was deceptively simple - its main dependence was upon space, not time.
He had lost Ensign Hearan from his department - fortunately not because of any causal defect. The enigmatic Irishman, who carried a quirky charisma and quiet confidence - which contradicted first impressions of him being something of a geek - had put in his application to be transferred to security weeks ago. The Asadan assignment had been Hearan's last as a member of the Excalibur's engineering staff. The man had also earnt himself promotion, rising to command a tactical unit under the CTSO.
The engine complex's iridescence faded to a dull pulsing red, the ship coming out of its hyperaccelerated state back into the normal universe. Karka looked around the engine room, listening to the drive's chorus of notes quivering gently as they descended through tonal octaves, an uneven harmony dropping away to atonality.
"Psonoir to bridge, everything nominal here, sirs." There was a surreal quietness around them; Karka envisaged the Excalibur drifting through space, on a parabolic trajectory into the heart of the Ophiuchus system with its six worlds. Nothing perturbed the vacuum, the distress signal long since faded. Could they possibly deduce how long it'd been absent? Degradation of signal, amount of redshift etc?
<Tag Bridge>
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Alyana Ryat
Commodore
Registered: Sept 5, 2007 16:34:56 GMT
Posts: 347
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Post by Alyana Ryat on Jun 21, 2014 22:27:27 GMT
"The last information we had from the Ophiuchus Colony was almost seventy one years ago, so why the distress call." Daniel asked, "They went to a 'LOT' of trouble to loose themselves, so why ask for help now ?""You're guess, as the saying goes Dan, is as good as mine." Alyana said. She smiled “and that, is of course why we have to investigate.” "Maybe there are no colonists, anymore. They designed the signal to be sent at some point in the future when they felt ready to integrate themselves with the Federation, when some plan of theirs had been completed." Karka said. He turned sharply to another staff member who replied to him immediately, "That's wild conjecture, Lieutenant. We've received a distress call. You're suggesting we should just leave them alone?""Of course not," Karka said, fingers spread before him on the table leaning forward, "Even if they no longer exist," he watched the officer bristle, "There's the opportunity to discover what became of them. Or if their existence continues, to find out what technology they've developed; what threats might lie out there that prompted their distress call."
He sat further forward. "The fact the signal's automated... We have no idea when it originally started?" he asked Ryat who nodded. "Then the signal could have begun at any point during the colony's 79 year history. What if they called for assistance immediately upon their arrival there?"“Then we will be able to solve the mystery of the colony and switch off the signal so it doesn’t confuse any further passers by." Aly said" ************************************************************
On approach to the Ophiuchus System =^= Captain to the Bridge =^=Aly was in her office when the call came through, she acknowledged the signal and then headed for the bridge. "Nothing Sir." the Navigator said, "We're on our own out here." The Navigator said as Commodore Ryat entered the Bridge. Aly glanced at the display on the viewscreen. She noted that some how the signal had been cut off. Did that mean that the people on the colony were alive and out of danger, or did it mean that a power cell had finally given out. “Take us in to the system, standard orbit of the fourth planet. Full scans. Let’s find out what’s going on down there.” Aly settled in to her chair and watched as information began to roll in. “No signal, sir. But I have found the colony. Power levels are very low and fluctuating” Aly got to her feet and walked to look at the scanner over Ensign Perez's shoulder.
“Lifesigns?” “Not clear, sir.” The science office was clearly unhappy with this observation and carried on. “I am receiving intermittent signals. It doesn’t appear to be atmospheric interference. I’m working on isolating the cause.”“Any reason we shouldn’t go down there?” Aly asked. “Not that I can see, Sir.”Aly smiled. “Well let’s go solve this mystery. Dan you’re with me for the landing party, you too Jennifer. We’ll need someone from engineering who can deal with 80 year old tech, medical, science.” Tag: Dan “Ephrem, I can’t promise there is anyone down there to be diplomatic with but I think it would be useful to have you along.” Tag: Ephrem “Right then, Transporter room 1 ten minutes.” Tag: Landing Party.
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Jun 22, 2014 23:12:53 GMT
" ..... Dan you’re with me for the landing party, you too Jennifer. We’ll need someone from engineering who can deal with 80 year old tech, medical, science."
"Karka." Dan said as they left the Bridge ... Within minutes the group were on the transporter pad. They had no idea what they faced once on the surface, but this was what Star Fleet was about ... Commodore Ryat was the last to appear. She stepped onto the pad and nodded to the technician through the plexi-glass. Dan felt the tell-tale grip of the transporter beam, then the Excalibur vanished from sight .....
~~~~~
They had intentionally picked a place out of sight to transport onto the surface. Should anyone actually 'be' around despite the intensive scans, they would not be startled by the Federation Officer's sudden and unexpected appearance.
As the transport cycle finished, everyone looked around making sure their appearance wasn't detected. Dan took a few steps forward, accompanied by one of the Security Team. If he had to make a comparison, he would have thought the place was decidedly twentieth century in construction. He couldn't see any of the pods that would have contained supplies and basic building materials. Everything seemed as new as the day it was erected, and that, was a concern he needed to keep in mind !
Scanning the area, Karka confirmed there were no life-signs present besides their own. Alyana looked at the others then asked where the signal was originating from. Eight hundred fifty two meters, on a heading of one four six, the Engineer confirmed ... They walked forward cautiously and entered what they had decided was the 'Main Street' ... Suddenly Daniel stopped, listening intently before moving across the wide road between the buildings. He inched towards a doorway then stepped inside, the others following closely. The sound was music, coming from what seemed to be an old-fashioned radio. The decor was from what he could only describe as late fifties or sixties Earth, which contradicted the design of buildings by over two hundred years. The shop front was a panel of glass, with a door on the right, there were three seats, fixed to the floor and facing large mirrors, with bench seats along the back wall. Dan realized what he was looking at !
"It's a barber shop. But out of place, even for the colony." he said, looking at the faded pictures of haircuts and grooming styles which adorned the walls.
"What's that music ?" Ephram asked.
"It's called ... Don't sit under the Apple Tree ... By the Andrews Sisters." one of the Security Officer's answered, suddenly, as were the rest of the Away Team, wary of their situation ..........
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Jun 28, 2014 1:22:07 GMT
Leaving the Barbers Shop, Daniel stepped into the middle of what they considered the main street through the township. The other's followed, each eyeing their surroundings with trepidation. Something was definitely wrong and it was their job to find out what that was ....
They began to move down the street, looking into shop doorways or windows as they passed them. Suddenly Santos called the group over:
"You need to see this." he said, pointing into the room through the opaque glass .. It was a bar, or more precisely, a tavern. Everyone looked, or tried to look into the smoke-filled room, but Ephram was looking at the walkway in front of the bar and not the bar itself, "So what, may I ask, is that ?" he said, pointing at the pile of muck on the road in front of the tavern. Daniel looked at the substance and almost laughed at the absurdity of what he was looking at.
"Well, that, Captain Santos, is what is commonly known as dung, or more accurately, horse manure."
"From a horse ?" the diplomat asked.
"Sirs, you need to come over here." the Security Officer shouted, then waited while the other's joined him, "OK, so who is 'Duran Duran' ... and what the hell is a 'Bring n Buy' ?" it was then the heard the voice !
Everyone ran towards the end of the main street, half expecting to bump into a group of people enjoying the joke they had played on the Federation, but what they saw as they rounded the corner was anything but a joke ... There, in the middle of the street was a pile of rags, or so they thought, because as they approached the bundle thinking it to be a dead animal of some sort, it became instantly clear that it was, or had been, a small child. Daniel knelt beside the remains and gently lifted pieces of degraded garment trying to find something, but he was out of luck ... The child had been dead for many years but the almost sterile air had preserved the body almost intact.
"Where the hell 'IS' everybody !" crewman Ian Prescott shouted, thinking of his own young Daughter back on Earth, "How could these people leave her in the street like this, what kind of madness have we walked into here." he said, reaching down and lifting the child off the dusty road. He took her into the closest building and tenderly lay her on a large settee before turning to the others, who had followed him in silence.
"This place has been deserted for a long time going off the condition of the girl." Dan said, unconvincingly.
"So .... None of you noticed then I take it." the young Security Officer said, gently covering the girl's body without looking up at the others, "The horse manure ......"
Everyone stood in silence, waiting for the man to continue.
"It was WARM !" ..........
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on Jul 7, 2014 22:16:46 GMT
They advanced cautiously down the deserted street, bewildered at the surrounding landscape. The air was completely still. Detritus and rubble lined the sides of the streets, light-reflecting objects like shards of glass littering the edges of the pavement areas. The litter as it was unmoved, not disturbed at all by the still, almost antiseptic air.
Karka listened to the tinkling and fading of the unfamiliar music as he walked down the street with the others. He kept his wits about him, having been feeling distracted by this odd environment. It was as if he'd initiated an accidental time-jump for himself, and deposited himself in a time of Earth's history he'd heard of only in Lirwa's long and tiresome stories underneath the indigo light pierced by stars on his homeworld.
He manoeuvred his bulky tricorder about his person, studying the readout: No lifesigns, at least not within the scanning range of this primitive device. It even failed to detect the decomposing body of the small child lying in the centre of the adjoining street ahead. Karka stood back while Schirra turned the corpse over, lifting its tattered garments. The silence amongst the others was palpable.
They entered a nearby structure, the wooden door ajar - somewhat withered but otherwise intact. Schirra placed the dead girl on the couch. The group stood around the dim room, statuesque and stunned as individually they tried to deduce what was happening.
"What killed her?" Karka asked quietly.
Prescott, the security officer and field medic among them who'd proven his resourcefulness on the last mission, stepped forward with his medical device. "Strangulation," he said heavily after a moment, "No, wait..." he adjusted controls on the device, it making whirring squeaking sounds, "Her cells are inert, all of them. Not merely deprived of oxygen, which would only affect certain cells in the body. Normally there should still be some cellular activity, even if the body and mind themselves can no longer function."
"That pile of excrement," Karka said, pointing outside, drawing the attention of some of the group. "Can we infer that something of equine nature has passed through this settlement recently."
If the situation hadn't been so sombre this could've been humourous. "Through this settlement indeed," one officer said to Karka. "Conclusion we could draw is that the horse killed the girl. But why is her body so badly decomposed if the horse, or horses have been in the area only recently?"
"I think we're losing track here..." Ryat cut in, distributing new orders. Karka took it upon himself to explore the adjacent thoroughfares. If he had to guess, this was a period from the mid to late 19th century, although he might be well out. He only had Lirwa to go on for this particular era of human history. The music that filtered through from deserted diners and lounges at streetside sounded increasingly strange to his ears. His eyes glazed over.
Moving as if brainwashed he approached the entrance to one of the ragged but strangely serene establishments. He walked in; a cafe with several rectangular tables and surrounding wooden chairs, with a bar of sorts at the rear. A music projection device lay on the bar counter. The tonality of the music was strange; dissonant, unexpected notes, blaring instruments that sounded as if they'd been created by air piped through complex metallic devices. He put an ear to one of the speakers, detecting beneath the dissonant blur a strange whispering. Static - audial imperfections - but within that, he was certain, he could hear vestiges of some voice, an electric whispering, lost eerily in the wash of static. The words were indecipherable.
A sudden noise sounding much like an equine came from outside. He dived towards the door, ducking behind the diner's front glass panel to keep out of sight as the dark object of the horse or horses was almost upon his section of the street. He espied the rest of the landing party coming out of other buildings down the street in front of him. The dark shape was approaching from the right, coming the same direction the landing party had originally come. An entangled lengthy blur rose above the object and a crack like that of a whip struck the equine animals at the front of the fast-moving, rickety construction.
It was a chariot, or carriage of some sort. A figure unseen robed in a dark cloak rode at its front just behind the rumps of the horses. It issued a sharp cry like scratched sandpaper, a screeching vocalisation that seemed to make the animals gallop on even harder, riding through their deposited excrement and rounding the street corner in a haze of dust towards the rest of the away team.
Karka raised his phaser, hesitantly prodding the glass of the front window to make a small aperture at the intersection of the glass and sill. Pointing the phaser through it, he took aim at the rear of the black carriage as it thundered towards the away team. He waited, not sure if the carriage intended to assault the other officers.
<Tag Ryat, Schirra, Santos>
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Alyana Ryat
Commodore
Registered: Sept 5, 2007 16:34:56 GMT
Posts: 347
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Post by Alyana Ryat on Jul 9, 2014 22:06:33 GMT
Aly looked around the colony searching for some sign of life. It was unnerving and that was without the dead girl in the road. There was a lot wrong here. The technology would have been dated by the standards of the time when the colony was established, and although retrograde colonies were hardly unheard of and Earth history had never been Aly's best subject she was fairly sure that there was a blend of eras on display. Something her tricorder confirmed.
Suddenly there was the sound of thundering hooves, Aly turned to look and barely had time to fling herself out of the way as a horse-drawn vehicle rounded the corner so fast it rocked to one side and then came barrelling towards them.
She picked herself up and looked around the cart and horses had gone. The trail of dust they had kicked up remained
"What was that? Where is the distress call coming from?" Aly directed her orders to different parts of the landing party while making sure she knew where everyone was.
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Jul 13, 2014 15:55:41 GMT
"What 'was' that ... Where is the distress call coming from ?" Aly directed her orders to different parts of the landing party while making sure she knew where everyone was before turning to Daniel, "Has anything like this come up before Commander ?" she asked, obviously meaning in regards to anything 'Intelligence' related.
"No, or at least, not that I'm aware of Commodore." Daniel said, looking around, "But it's a given that something is decidedly wrong here ... A town straight from Earth's Old West, electric street lighting, sixties music coming from a juke-box no less. It's as is someone was trying to combine aspects of Earth's past but couldn't quite work out what went where ?"
"Thus the irregularities ?" Alyana asked.
"Yes, though to be honest, I can't see where the Roman Chariot fits in, it's just 'too' far out of the time-frame of everything else to make it stand out. We can rule out one thing now, and that's the fact we are not the only ones running, pardon the pun, around down here. I'd suggest we get the Excalibur to run another, more thorough scan of the surface, and just below it. That Roman didn't just 'appear' at the end of the street, and he certainly didn't vanish at the other end !"
< tag : Alyana >
He flicked open his Communicator:
=^= Schirra to Away Team .. Everyone back to the Main Street .. Make sure no-one is left alone =^=
"You think we could come under attack ?" Ryat asked, eyeing the street once more.
"That Centurion was just a warning I think. Maybe whoever sent him on his little joy-ride through the town was trying, politely, to tell us to mind our own business. Which alas, was the worst thing they could have done, right ..." he said, a wry grin forming as the Commanding Officer nodded in agreement, "So, in my humble opinion, it would be ignorant of us not to try to introduce ourselves to our so far elusive residents. Besides, who better than they to explain the distress signal." They were still discussing this as the rest of the Away Team began to return and join them. Suddenly, Daniel heard what he could only describe as a 'thud' and watched one of the Security Team stand stock-still, a look of dismay on his face as he fell, face first to the floor.
The origin of the 'thudding' sound became startlingly obvious, everyone fell completely silent as they looked at the long thin feathers attached to the wooden shaft protruding from the middle of the man's back ! ..........
< tag : All >
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on Jul 14, 2014 19:27:59 GMT
Karka watched the wagon speed down the street, clouds of dust billowing behind it coating the sidewalks. His eyes darted to where the landing party had taken shelter, pleased to see they'd avoided collision with the wagon and thus certain injury.
He rose from his vantage point by the window that he'd forced a small aperture in and explored the room. A transistor radio played out a harsh harmony, the melody played in tandem by various instruments - which he was able to distinguish by means of his ultra-sensitive hearing. The room was covered in dust - old Earth, a mismatch, conglomeration of various periods of history, if his memory of talks with Lirwa served him well. Karka shook the room's curtains free of heavy layered dust, revealing black swarms of moths that'd coated the crudely made fabric. He sneezed - a surprisingly human reaction, although he technically was one - then made his way out to the street.
=^= Schirra to Away Team .. Everyone back to the Main Street .. Make sure no-one is left alone =^=
Aware of having to maintain cover in light of the recent appearance of the trundling wagon, he chose to dive down side streets, cutting through alleys that led back to the road and then through abandoned homesteads' front gardens - faded grass, sandy grey in the light covered these swards - to the rendezvous on main street.
Karka had witnessed the whole event. The man - circa 1850 AD Earth calendar? - and his horse-drawn carriage; its possible attempted attack on his crewmates; and its fleet-footed race to the foothills of the raised topography in the distance.
The rest of the team were standing behind a gate entrance to an abode typical of the 1960s era, maintaining cover presumably, although he still thought they were rather exposed. As he approached the security officer facing Ryat and Schirra collapsed with two darts in his back.
Karka ran up to the group, scampering into better cover that he judged from where he thought the shots had come from. His quasi-ESP allowed him to rapidly calculate trajectories, triangulate positions of enemies mere moments after attacks had occurred. He gestured to Schirra, pointing towards a building of which only the top storey was visible the rest obscured by the low hedge they'd crouched behind.
"I don't think a hedge is going to stop the arrows, Lieutenant," Prescott said, rushing to situate himself between the two staff members, "Despite how antiquated the technology."
"Was archery a preferred method of warfare in the 20th century?" Karka asked.
"Err, no. Perhaps in sports." Prescott said hushedly, studying his tricorder as he knelt on one knee. "Up there, eh? Reading two lifesigns, I think... but not certain. They're phasing, in a manner, in and out of ordinary spacetime."
"This presents no problem," another security officer approached, similarly crouched, "We brought a cache of stun grenades. The bowmen won't know what hit them."
"Out of spacetime?" Karka queried. He conjectured: residents phasing in and out, emerging in and from different periods of history, manifesting themselves here? "Perhaps that might explain the varying time periods on display here. Such as the Victorian horse drawn carriage we witnessed a moment ago." That particular vehicle and the period from which it originated he remembered quite clearly from his discussions with Lirwa.
"Horse drawn carriage? Victorian?" Schirra looked at him, as if Karka had gone slightly mad, "That was a chariot, Lieutenant; Ancient Rome. There was a Roman soldier, red crest, gold armour, riding it."
"Not what I saw, sir," Karka said simply. As he acclimatised himself to this new input more arrows lanced down from the building opposite. He looked at the others, "Shall we finish this skirmish?"
He crawled back towards the house, still out of line of sight of the attackers, and let Schirra and security take over. Opening his tricorder, he was able to confirm what Prescott had said, and something more, "Those stun grenades will probably not work, sirs..."
<Tag Schirra, Ryat, All>
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Jul 18, 2014 23:30:13 GMT
Daniel looked back as Karka as he inched away from the line of fire slow enough not to present himself as a target ... How could he had seen something so different to what he himself had seen. It was something they may need to keep in mind.
"Those stun grenades probably won't work Sir's !"
"DAMN !" one of the security Officer's shouted, frustration getting the better of him as he stood and raised his hands, "What the HELL nex ..." Alas, it was his last gesture, as two of the arrow's slammed into his chest, killing him instantly. Dan, Karka, and Alyana all spun on their heels and dived for cover. The arrows had somehow come from behind them !
"We are being picked off one by one for some reason." Daniel said, trying to keep an eye on both firing points simultaneously, he was about to continue when something caught his eye ... It was a sphere, approximately twenty centimetres in diameter, and was stationary approximately two meters from the ground in the middle of the alley they were in. It was almost transparent, reflecting the surrounding area as any spherical object should do. He could see no marking's on the casing, nor could he see any sensor equipment, but that didn't mean it didn't have any ! ... He motioned as slowly as possible for everyone to remain still, then, with the sphere to his left and above him, he used his right hand to draw an arrow in the dust. The other's looked down and almost imperceptibly nodded, before turning slowly to look.
"We are being watched. So someone is on this damn planet after all." the remaining Security Officer commented.
"Not necessarily Lieutenant. Anyone who can put together this level of optical and sensory information wouldn't need to be close to the location. in fact, they may well not be on the planet at all." Dan said, sympathising with the Officer's confusion.
"We could capture it." the Lieutenant continued, looking around for something to throw over their overseer.
"No." Daniel said, looking at Alyana, who nodded, "Whoever sent that distress call may still be here, somewhere. Whatever 'that' is, could be part of the problem they encountered. The last thing we need to do is annoy the local's .... Keep your eyes open, if there's one of those things it's possible there are more. Our main priority at this point is getting to those people firing at us and stop them."
"OK. Let's work on making sure those peo ......" Alyana began, but stopped speaking as she looked at something across the main road from them.
"Commodore ?" Karka asked, puzzled.
"Did you ... Did you see that ?" she asked, confusion flowing over her face.
"What ?" the Security Lieutenant asked, eyeing the street beyond their position.
"It was, a ... A little girl, six years old, she was wearing a white dress, chiffon, a garland in her hair, pig-tails in her hair. She was ....."
"Commodore ?" Daniel said, turning the Commanding Officer to face him, "What are you talking about, we saw no little girl, and how could you describe her so accurately ?" Alyana looked at her Acting Executive Officer, then at the other's, who all seemed interested to know what she was talking about:
"I went to a wedding, my Mother's friend. Aunt Genna I think I used to call her. I was six years old and was to be the 'flower girl' ... I was to walk in front of the Bride and her Father, spreading petals on the floor. I had a white, chiffon dress, a replica of the Wedding gown the bride was wearing, apart from the headband of course ....... That was 'me' over there, I know it, no replication, no memory trick ... Me !"
The other's looked at their Commanding Officer, then at the sphere, still silently observing their every move ..........
< tag : Alyana / All >
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on Jul 26, 2014 16:29:00 GMT
Karka looked up from his tricorder, ensuring he was still out of sight of the attackers in the building opposite and switching his thought from his scans (which told him the stun grenades would be useless against these beings, if beings they were, seeming to phase in and out of spacetime) to the spherical device.
The sphere hadn't been present before, he was sure of that, but in this ever-shifting landscape of varying time periods fusing and jostling through the apparent present, the sudden appearance of an out of place object shouldn't surprise him. It hovered completely immobile, as if it was positioned on an invisible platform, and seemed to be only there because of what it reflected.
He took his mind off it, returning to his tricorder scans. The priority for the moment was to take out their attackers; if they could be subdued non-lethally they might learn something, in either case they'd be freed up to move out into the street and perhaps study that device.
He crept up to the hedge-enclosed fencing again. He got the attention of the plucky Lieutenant Prescott, the remaining security officer, and signalled off to the left across the road.
"There's a way around there that could allow us to reach the other side of the street undetected," he said, "From there we can climb that flight of steps, approach them from behind and catch them at unawares." Prescott wasn't overly impressed. "If we're under attack from two directions, better to eliminate one of the targets than to remain here and steadily lose our numbers. The position across the road will also offer a superior vantage point for locating the other -"
"Ok, you've made your point, Karka. Let's move." The two red-shirted officers crept along the side of the hedge, making sure their departure went unnoticed to the enemy so the bowmen would continue to concentrate their shooting on the CO & XO's position. Psonoir was left uneasy leaving the two command officers by themselves but this action should ensure their ultimate safety.
They crossed the street where the line of rubble from a collapsed 20th century building conveniently concealed them from enemy bows. Slightly amazed they'd made it across unscathed, Karka led the way up the steps onto the building's first floor. He halted there, gazing straight ahead at where the shots had been coming from, not concerned that he should be taking cover or even firing, as he waited for Prescott to join him.
The lieutenant arrived, staring ahead as Karka was doing so, "Psonoir, what do you see there?" he murmured, phaser lowering to his side.
Karka was acutely aware that perception in this place appeared to be truly subjective, depending entirely upon who it was that perceived the sense data. "I see two heavy weapons operators from Earth's history manning an artillery device, firing what I believe are called cannonballs towards Ryat and Schirra's position."
Prescott shifted uncomfortably. "Good. Me too." He aimed his phaser, whispering although he didn't need to such was the racket generated by the firing of the cannon, "Shouldn't the Commodore's position have been completely obliterated by now, and all of us dead?"
Karka shrugged, "We can discover the reasons for this later. It's likely that the differences in perception of our enemy are caused based upon location." He raised his phaser and, nodding at his colleague, fired at the man loading the cannonballs into the back of the device. With the two incapacitated, Karka and Prescott approached and leant over the unconscious bodies. Both inert beings maintained their form; no flickering between various time periods. The cannon was perched there silently, seeming at once useless, but heavy and constant as if it had always existed in this form and would continue to occupy it forever.
"These variances could be down to that sphere," Karka said, turning one of the men over and studying his face.
"I'll wake one, try and get some answers. You comm the others," Prescott suggested, opening his field medkit and preparing a stimulant.
"Psonoir to Commodore Ryat, Commander Schirra, we've neutralised the attackers, sirs. No more cannonballs will be flying your way today. What about the enemy on the other side?"
<Tag Ryat, Schirra>
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Alyana Ryat
Commodore
Registered: Sept 5, 2007 16:34:56 GMT
Posts: 347
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Post by Alyana Ryat on Jul 31, 2014 21:54:54 GMT
And things got ever more complicated. It seemed that they weren’t all seeing the same things. Aly did wonder if they were actually seeing anything, was it possible that all of this was in their heads?
She glanced at the blood smear on the floor left by Ensign Hodgins. He was back on the ship now. She wasn’t sure whether he was alive or dead. It hadn’t looked good. She kept her head down.
"We are being picked off one by one for some reason." Daniel said,
Her Exec suddenly stopped talking. Aly glanced at him, he quickly sketched an arrow in the dust. She looked slowly in the indicated direction. There was a sphere hovering in mid-air. There was nothing to indicate what it was doing there but it felt that they were being watched.
"We are being watched. So someone is on this damn planet after all." the remaining Security Officer commented.
"Not necessarily Lieutenant. Anyone who can put together this level of optical and sensory information wouldn't need to be close to the location. in fact, they may well not be on the planet at all." Dan said,
"We could capture it." the Lieutenant continued, looking around for something to throw over their overseer.
"No." Daniel said, looking at Alyana, who nodded, "Whoever sent that distress call may still be here, somewhere. Whatever 'that' is, could be part of the problem they encountered. The last thing we need to do is annoy the local's .... Keep your eyes open, if there's one of those things it's possible there are more. Our main priority at this point is getting to those people firing at us and stop them."
"OK. Let's work on making sure those peo ......" Alyana began, but stopped speaking as she looked at something across the main road from them.
There was a figure skipping down the road a figure she hadn’t seen in years. A figure that had nothing to do with Earth history and everything to do with her history. She looked at the little girl and saw the silver chain catching the light as it hungaround the child’s neck.
"Commodore?" Karka asked, puzzled.
Aly snapped out of her stare at her officer’s words. Her eyes left the girl for a moment she glanced back the child was gone. Some how she wasn’t surprised. "Did you” She swallowed, finding that she had a mouthful of dust. “Did you see that?" she asked, she was confused. She didn’t think that anyone else had been looking
"What?" the Security Lieutenant asked, eyeing the street beyond their position.
"It was, a ... A little girl, six years old, she was wearing a white dress, chiffon, a flower garland on her head, pig-tails in her hair. She was..." Aly’s words trailed off that day had been a long time ago, it had been a happy memory but not one that she had shared off planet. If they could get that memory out her head, what else could be got.
"Commodore ?" Daniel said, turning the Commanding Officer to face him, "What are you talking about, we saw no little girl, and how could you describe her so accurately?" Aly looked at her Exec, then at the other', who all seemed interested to know what she was talking about:
"I went to a wedding, my Mother's friend. Aunt Genna I used to call her. I was six years old and was to be the 'flower girl' ... I was to walk in front of the Bride and her Father, spreading petals on the floor. I had a white, chiffon dress, a replica of the Wedding gown the bride was wearing, apart from the headband of course.” She stopped letting everyone take in the implications of what she was saying. “That was 'me' over there, I know it. I don’t know how they got that image but they did.”
Unsurprisingly Aly found everyone staring at her. She glanced around them. She was familiar with telepaths of course, Ryat’s time on Vulcan and the Guardians back home had made sure of that, but that didn’t mean that she was happy to have her mind read. It certainly didn’t mean she was happy to have someone rummaging around in her memories.
“I guess the question becomes; how much of what we think we’re seeing is actually real?”
Tag: All
OOC: Karka, I'll catch up with your post as soon as I can
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Aug 3, 2014 21:00:57 GMT
"That was 'me' over there, I know it. I don’t know how they got that image but they did. I think the question becomes; how much of what we think we’re seeing is actually real ?" Alyana commented. Daniel turned back to the sphere ... As far as he could tell it hadn't moved a millimetre since they had first spotted it hovering in the middle of the alley. He checked left and right then stepped out from concealment. Thankfully, no-one took a shot at him, so he tentatively walked out into the open and approached the orb ... he half expected the thing to move away as he approached, but it stolidly remained two meters off the ground and he had the un-nerving feeling that it was 'watching' him as he was watching it. "Commander !" Alyana said, as a form of warning. He was less than a meter from it now and edging closer. It was remarkable in some ways. There were no seams as he could see, nothing to allow propulsion nor anything that looked like defensive systems, it was, in essence, it was a smooth mirror-finish sphere ... He looked around, and seeing what he wanted he picked up a nearby stick. Turning back to the sphere he raised the piece of wood. "Hold it Commander !" Ryat said, making sure Schirra heard her, "I'm not sure you poking that thing is advisable." "I just want to test something out Commodore." Dan said, waiting while his Commanding Officer thought it over, then nodded. He turned back to the orb and moved the tip of the stick close, still no reaction. He slowly moved closer until the shaft touched the sphere. Again, nothing ... He tapped the sphere a couple of times with the same annoying lack of reaction, then swung the stick through a wide arc, snapping it in two as it hit the immovable object. Daniel picked up a larger piece of wood and walked back to the sphere again, this time he didn't hesitate as he hit it as hard as he could ..... Nothing ..... Everyone stood in silence, eyeing the windows and doorway's half expecting some dire retribution from whoever controlled the immovable orb. He had seen a bench outside one of the shops earlier. Heading into the main street he went to get it then returned, using it to look on the top of the orb, hoping there was something out of sight, but he was disappointed. He turned to the other's still stood on the bench: "OK, I have to agree. We can't be sure anything we're seeing is actually real, which, in my opinion, means someone or something, maybe our friend here ..." he said, pointing to the sphere, "... is doing the controlling. I wonder what would happen if we simply threw a sheet over it." he stopped talking suddenly, listening intently, yes, there it was, a faint 'hum' from the orb, likely a bi-product of whatever was holding it in place, he turned back to the others again and shrugged. "We could move location." the Security Officer offered, "It that thing is stuck in place then it shouldn't be able to follow us, right ?" "Actually, that isn't a bad idea. We haven't moved since it turned up given we were being pretty much held in place." Daniel said. Turning back to look at the sphere once more, he suddenly lost his footing on the narrow bench and put an arm out to regain his balance when his finger's touched the sphere and ... Vanished ! .......... The room was sterile .... Silver grey walls, floor, and ceiling, and completely empty. He moved to the nearby wall and, reluctantly, reached out until his fingers touched a metallic surface. 'At least the wall is real' he thought wryly as he ran his hand across the almost frictionless surface. With little better to occupy his time, he began to walk the length of the wall keeping in contact at all times. He reached a corner and continued along this wall, counting his steps. After making four turns he decided he was back where he had started. From what he could estimate, the room was thirty meters square and complel ..... He stopped in his tracks. The room, initially empty, now held one object ..... It was hovering approximately two meters from the floor and he estimated it was in the exact center of the room. It was roughly twenty centimetres in diameter, and completely spherical ! ..........
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on Aug 6, 2014 21:06:55 GMT
OOC: It's ok, Commodore, you shouldn't have to answer the tag; I'll move forward a bit.
He glanced at Prescott, both of them staring out beyond the site of the previously beleagured members of the away team to the location where the other fire had come from. Shooting of arrows, firing of cannonballs, or whatever else that'd come from that location had ceased for the moment.
Psonoir watched from their vantage point as Schirra stepped into the open - after the CEO had communicated that the other attackers had levelled off their assault - if they'd even existed in the first place.
Nodding to Prescott to track Schirra's advance towards the chrome globe - to provide cover fire in case anything untoward happened - Karka descended the steps to join the rest of the depleted away team that'd taken cover behind the hedge - which now only consisted of Commodore Ryat. Four of them remained in total; not good odds, should unseen assailants suddenly spring upon them.
They watched as, almost comically, Schirra attempted to provoke a reaction in the sphere utilising successively larger pieces of wood. As the XO lost his balance on the bench he'd appropriated, Karka froze in his posture behind the hedge - that he and the Captain still kept cover behind in case things went wrong (Prescott had the position covered from his position on the first storey of the building opposite in any case).
Something was screaming at Psonoir from beyond the haze of the near future. He was experiencing a form of foresight; his mind, grounded in this set of spacetime coords, this reality, also floated at its conceptual outer edges into times immediately past and future.
Gazing up at a sunburnt highway, along its battered length; the district he occupied underneath it was his current spacetime position, here in this surreal facsimile; interlinking expressways layering a web over the city that was all of space at this present moment, connecting his specially configured conscious to distant primordial epochs and uncertain futures.
What entities passing along these expressways, in forward motion through time, could know what lay ahead? They were like old Earth automobiles: unknown possibilities, divergent from what was expected could occur - some of them possibly disastrous. Some of those entities were his fellow Hybrudeans, travelling into future and past; legitimate administrative officials from the archives, or vigilantes, striking their own path through space and time, fixing and/or meddling wherever they went. Karka didn't like to consider himself one of them, although he certainly was.
He knew what was going to happen. Something would cease to be. Would cease to be part of this universe. Or rather, he quickly realised, would no longer occupy this falsehood, this illegitimate version of mid 20th century Terra with its intermittently conflicting time periods dependent upon perception and position.
Before he could shout warning, although he knew it was too late anyway, Schirra vanished as his fingertips made contact with the sphere.
Taking a minute to collect his thoughts from the shock, Psonoir turned to Ryat. "We need to bring in back up, sir," he said, "There are three of us now; us and Lieutenant Prescott."
<Tag Alyana>
Having gained tentative permission to head out into the open towards the sphere, Karka began scans. The device had been impervious to scans before, but perhaps this recent event had changed something. To his surprise his tricorder actually registered within the device the tailend of what he assumed was a descending energy spike, "It's not impervious. Whatever mechanism caused Schirra to be taken from us required a certain amount of energy. His disappearance, we can ascertain, was no illusion."
He kept his distance - three metres. But then the device started to move. Directly towards him, increasing in speed and remaining near silent. Making fast retreat, unusual levels of panic stirring within him, Karka made back towards the hedge, but then found he had to keep running. The sphere was whistling through the air behind him. Dust kicked up in his wake coating the surface of the device and he had to run faster, inhumanly faster.
Prescott from his vantage point surveyed Karka's retreat with awe, until he gathered his wits. "Prescott to Commodore Ryat, permission to open fire at the sphere. It's moving quickly and I'm no sharpshooter, but I can give it try."
<Tag Alyana>
Beating across the dusty street, something pinged in Karka's mind. Foresight... The visions hazily deposited in his primary partition led him to deduce that the device might not be chasing 'him' after all. Bracing for the impact, he dived into the dust of the asphalt, the sphere zipping over his head and in a straight line down the main street, until its glinting globe reflecting the light of the star faded and passed from sight.
A shadow fell over him from behind. No foresight came to his rescue this time, but he needed none. Rising from the floor and twisting on his heel, he saw the black carriage. Behind the snorting horses, was the carriage's pilot, his whip twisting in his right hand. Uneasily Karka withdrew his communicator, "Commodore, Lieutenant... Are you seeing this?"
<Tag All>
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Aug 10, 2014 14:34:54 GMT
Looking at the sphere, ominously hovering in the center of the room, Daniel pondered the idea that he was somehow being watched:
"Can you hear me ?" he asked, beginning to walk toward the orb, "Hello ...." hardly surprised when he received no reply.
He was less than a meter from the sphere now, his reflection in the seamless material looking back at him.
"Well, I'm damn sure not going to touch the thing. I could end up on the Hull of the Excalibur, or in some burning pit ...... That's it Dan, talk to yourself why don't you. I'm sure it is going down well with the owners of this trinket."
He walked around the orb, trying to work out if it was possible to move it, or at least make his presence felt. He wondered what the reaction of the rest of them was to his sudden unexpected disappearance. No doubt they were all eyeing the sphere on the surface, trying to figure out where he was ... 'What makes you think you are underground ?' he pondered ... Well, at this point he couldn't worry about the others, he needed to get out of this room, and quick. But after thirty minutes of glaring he was no further forward, and he was beginning to feel the first pangs of hunger given they hadn't eaten since before beaming down.
He almost jumped out of his skin when there came a single 'ping' from nowhere ... He looked around, half expecting to see his host stood in a doorway. What he wasn't expecting was a crystal plinth, containing a glass of yellow liquid, and a plate holding several cubes of varying colour. He approached the fare, looking left and right as if someone was going to jump out at him while distracted, but nothing untoward happened, and the food and drink remained innocently available.
It suddenly occurred to him that he had been thinking about food when the plinth appeared. So to test his theory he concentrated on a Type One Phaser, eyeing the room in wait. Naturally he was disappointed.
Well, can't have everything." he said, shrugging, returning his attention to the fare before him. He picked up the glass and tentatively sniffed at the liquid, surprised it had the smell of fresh melon. Taking a sip he waited to see if he was going to fall down dead from some exotic poison, but no. He emptied the glass gratefully then picked up one of the cubes. Turning the spongy substance in his hand he decided no time like the present and popped it into his mouth.
"Garden peas ... Go figure." he said, amused when the other cubes made up the contents of a traditional 'Sunday roast dinner' type meal, "Thank you." he said to the orb after finishing the meal, again receiving no reply to his comment, vaguely wondering if the sphere's owners were going to keep him here indefinitely, and if so, would they supply sleeping and bathroom facilities ..........
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on Aug 14, 2014 19:59:19 GMT
Under the shadow of the black carriage and its restless equines and caped driver, Karka began to shuffle to the side of the dust-coated street. His recent sprinting exploits had been made to seem as if they'd never happened, his footprints lying under layers of seemingly undisturbed dust like the quiet sand of a remote grey beach. The driver of the carriage tracked his movement, holding tight to the reins of his creatures who snorted, shook their heads, eager to push on towards some unknown objective.
"See what, Lieutenant Psonoir?" Prescott reported back. "The sphere stopped suddenly behind you when you dived to the ground. I have a clear shot on it, sir. It doesn't look like its going to move... Shall I take it?"
Now at the side of the street, Karka blinked at this news, eyes still transfixed on the rider of the carriage - he noticed the stare was still being returned. He'd kept his communicator open, "You see one of the chrome spheres?"
"One of them, sir? The only one, as far as we've seen. Shall I shoot, sir?"
"Prescott... I witnessed it shoot over my head and down the main street, turning left at the end of the block, moving rather fast I must add. The one you're seeing must be different." Karka didn't discount the possibility - just as he hadn't before - that they were all seeing different things dependent upon position and, perhaps, what the occupants of this place wanted them to see. It was possible his witnessing of the sphere as being the black carriage was an illusion just like the others, which, led him to the disconcerting conclusion that all of the antagonistic elements they'd encountered in this environment thus far were these chrome spheres.
With this apparently immobile if watchful sphere/carriage in the middle of the street, Karka ran back towards the intersection where the Commodore was situated. He didn't want to abandon his CO again. Security officer Prescott kept watch from the first storey of the building opposite.
Sure that he was clear of the carriage driver's gaze, Karka greeted Ryat. "Commodore. I believe we should evaluate. We've found these spheres; this strange recreation of old Earth; perceptual differences... What about the original distress signal? Where are the original colonists?"
Karka, actually, had several theories to present, "It's possible they're already extinct. These spheres - probes perhaps - are representations of an alien intelligence that has inhabited the planet since. This facsimile of 20th century Earth was designed to make us more comfortable in our arrival here.
"Alternatively, the colonists live still. They've progressed, evolved, and have been able to create this environment - unless, this was their original settlement and the original colonists had a fondness for archaic architecture and aesthetics - and these chrome spheres are probes of their own manufacture.
"Finally, and this is highly speculative, sir," Karka paused, knowing his bounds as an engineer and that the knowledge he was displaying was not commonly indicative of a 'human' with an engineering background, "These spheres themselves are the colonists, or at least, their interiors are. Perhaps... they've combined their consciousnesses - "
The cascading sound of a rockfall distracted Karka. He turned to his left, seeing the rocks that he and Prescott had used as cover to reach the building of the bowmen opposite had fallen into the street. Karka nodded at his CO, promising himself this would be the last time he would leave her presence before any reinforcements were called, and commed to Prescott to cover him.
He traversed the sidewalk towards the rockfall. Cautiously, he edged his way round the edge of the fall, finding... to his considerable shock and relief, Commander Schirra, standing there, leaning against the sand-coloured boulders. Apparently he had precipitated the rockfall.
Seeing him, Schirra began running towards a nearby diner, his feet kicking up the dust of this silent place. Scraps of discarded newspaper drifted down the street and along the front porches of the establishments. Sun beat relentlessly on the slanted roofs.
Karka dived in after his XO, seeing the man, with his back to the CEO, adjusting several switches behind the counter where presumably food and drink was dispensed. A drink poured itself from a black chrome-lined machine. A dreadful sound that Psonoir believed approximated 20th century Earth music poured from a device that Schirra had just activated.
Schirra turned, expression one of stone. He opened his mouth, kept opening, until he began screaming. Yellow light filling the cavity filtered out in a sick pall and drifted to the ceiling providing a blanket over the room like smog. Parts of the Commander's body started sparking. He twitched, a little at first, then endlessly like a mannequin being electrified via hidden electrodes. His right leg detached itself, its sparking severed end a mass of defiled metallic fragments and broken circuitry. The Schirra-bot toppled forward through the bar, the last fizzlings from its limb joints fading as it smashed through the wood, thudded to the floor and rolled over on to its front.
Karka looked at the faulty mechanism, his green eyes increasing their acuity to closer examine this strange model, "Was this an alien creation? Their way of communicating?" he murmured.
<Tag All>
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Alyana Ryat
Commodore
Registered: Sept 5, 2007 16:34:56 GMT
Posts: 347
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Post by Alyana Ryat on Aug 14, 2014 21:50:41 GMT
One moment Command Schirra was standing next to her reaching out towards the mysterious sphere, and then he wasn’t. She had seen a lot of different transporter effects and that had none of them. She was quite grateful that the shock of her friend and FO’s disappearance meant that she did not shout out an exclamation.
She found herself staring at the spot where Dan had been.
Psonoir turned to Ryat. "We need to bring in back up, sir," he said, "There are three of us now; us and Lieutenant Prescott."
“We need to find out where Commander Schirra is.” She flipped open her communicator. =/\=Excalibur, this is Commodore Ryat. I need a full search and security team at this location. And start a complete planetary scan for Commander Schirra’s biosigns. Start at my current location and work outward. The Commander is currently missing.=/\=
=/\=Yes Sir.=/\=
Aly knew that it would take a while for the new team members to assemble and report for duty. She just had to organise things down here until then, and make sure she didn’t lose any more crewmembers…
She looked at Lieutenant Psonoir. She could tell that the engineer was looking forward to trying to figure out what was going on. “Lieutenant, you can investigate the sphere, but don’t get anywhere near touch range. She half expected him to say that his tricorder couldn’t penetrate the sphere.
He began scans. "It's not impervious. Whatever mechanism caused Schirra to be taken from us required a certain amount of energy. His disappearance, we can ascertain, was no illusion."
Suddenly the sphere started to move. It was heading towards the Lieutenant Psonoir She was amazed at how fast he could run
Prescott from his vantage point surveyed Karka's retreat with awe, until he gathered his wits. "Prescott to Commodore Ryat, permission to open fire at the sphere. It's moving quickly and I'm no sharpshooter, but I can give it try."
“Negative Lieutenant. That sphere is currently our only link to Commander Schirra. Hold your fire unless it gets too close to you or Lieutenant Psonior.”
"Commodore, Lieutenant” Lieutenant Psonior said. “Are you seeing this?"
Aly stared at the black carriage and then glanced over at Lieutenant Prescott. “If you are seeing a black two-horse carriage with a headless driver, then I see it too.” Prescott nodded in agreement.
Tag: All
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Aug 14, 2014 23:31:25 GMT
Dan walked around the room several times, hoping to elicit some form of reaction from the immobile sphere, but he was out of luck ... He had been talking to the orb, or to himself he was beginning to think, for approximately thirty minutes when he decided to change tack. He sat down on the floor and crossed his leg's. He wasn't much into meditation techniques or yoga, but he was trained in numerous martial arts. he placed his arms out to rest on his knees and looked at the sphere .....
He had no clue if this tactic was going to work, and frankly he had no idea at this point what to do it if didn't. But he didn't have long to wait as he suddenly felt cool air on the back of his neck, turning, he could see that a door had opened behind him. Slowly he got to his feet eyeing the sphere as if expecting it to react but it remained stolidly immobile. He cautiously walked toward the door, looking at the white walled corridor beyond. he was obviously being led somewhere, but why not simply 'speak' to him, ask him to go wherever they wanted him, some sign of intelligence, other than the sphere's and the obviously advanced materials used in the construction of this facility, wouldn't have gone amiss he decided as he stepped into the corridor itself, the door gliding silently shut behind him.
He was mentally counting the steps, trying to get an image of the facility as he moved. Several times he looked behind himself, feeling or sensing that there was someone behind him, but each time the corridor was empty. He reached a second door which opened at his approach. He found himself in another room almost identical to the previous one, but with subtle differences ... There were six white reclined seats, set into the floor in a circle in the middle of the room. He approached the seats and picked one at random. It was then he noticed the ceiling ... Instead of a flat surface, this seemed to be domed, with numerous pin-points of green blue and red lights, each moving minutely as he watched. A plinth rose from the floor beside him, this containing a plate with several of the cubed food supplements. Watching the moving lights he absently reached out and tried the first, surprised to find it tasted like chicken, or rather, a chicken sandwich with lettuce and mayonnaise.
They, whoever 'they' were, were obviously reading his thought patterns, picking out foods and drinks he would be comfortable with, so they obviously needed him to remain healthy ... Further study of the lights brought a sudden realization. The green pin-points were likely to be the Excalibur Officer's !
So if he was correct, and it was only a guess going off how many had beamed to the surface, and how many green lights, all but one of them in motion, showed the crew, who or what were the blue and red indicators showing ... He quickly surmised that the orb that had sent him to the white room hadn't come with him. There was no sphere close by and none of the pin-points showed close to the static green light which he assumed denoted himself:
"Now we're getting somewhere." he said, helping himself to another 'sandwich' before rising. He moved around the room, hoping something would show. He tried several more times to ask basic questions regarding his location, or the welfare of his colleagues, but each query was met with the same silence, he kept glancing at the ceiling as if expecting the light show to be gone, but it remained illuminated. Retaking his seat he wondered idly about scale ... For example, if this device could show all life-forms on the planet, it must be impossible to fathom, so he figured the display was configured to show the boundaries of the town they had beamed into originally. Green for crew, blue for the sphere's, apparently only two at this point in time if he had been transported between locations by using transmit / receive orbs. The little girl wasn't showing, nor were the other manifestations that had appeared, so he figured they were programmed into the system somehow.
"So ..... What in 'HELL' were the six red pin-points !" he asked himself ..........
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on Aug 26, 2014 23:19:05 GMT
"Nice of you to come." Karka smiled wryly at the new arrivals - a quintet of armed security guards, three of them equipped with phaser rifles. Lieutenant Hearan, Psonoir's former subordinate in engineering, was amongst them.
"We prepared ourselves as quick as possible, Lieutenant. You know how meticulous the quartermaster is," the leading officer replied. The guards began spreading out, preparing to disperse and scan the area for signs of Commander Schirra.
Karka shook his head, "No, I don't." His mild sarcasm showed itself now and again. He hoped it didn't put the crew off, that it wasn't viewed in the wrong way. Considering his habits of hopping centuries, inadvertantly creating copies of himself in alternate universes, miscalculating time jumps ending up in primordial solar systems with no oxygen to breathe; sociological concerns in this era should pale into extreme insignificance, seem extremely petty. But if he wanted to better integrate himself in this timeline and earn real respect from these people he needed to keep antagonism at a minimum.
He'd made his way back to Commodore Ryat - who had now been joined by the security chief - from his bizarre encounter with the Schirra 'android' in the diner.
"Commodore, I've just had the most extraordinary encounter with our first officer. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it was not he." Ryat regarded him quizzically. Karka looked at the spot where the sphere that'd taken Schirra away from them had stood. "It was a robotic representation of the Commander. It malfunctioned when, I believe, it tried to communicate with me.
"I think," he continued, not allowing Ryat to get a word in yet, "Whoever's controlling the spheres, or if it's the spheres themselves, they also controlled that robot." He turned back to Ryat to elaborate, "It turned on a transistor radio - popular in 20th century Earth - started pouring me coffee, opened its mouth to speak, broke, and fell through the bar. It's as if the colonists, or aliens, are attempting to communicate with us in a manner and in a setting that they think we'll understand."
The security chief, already impatient, cut in, "I've posted my men at the intersections to the blocks immediately around this location. From there they'll spread out in the standard search pattern. Crewman Bronson has joined Lieutenant Prescott on the first storey of the building opposite here, where they have a clear view of the surrounding area."
Karka nodded, rising from his haunches - they'd still been keeping low to ward off any arrows/cannonballs that might happen to come their way. "The hunt is on," he said banally, nodding at his two fellow staff members and moving to the location where the sphere had first appeared.
He walked up to the very spot, stood still for a moment, then began circling it. After six seemingly pointless revolutions, he came to a halt, facing the Commodore's position, and mechanically opened up his tricorder to start taking scans. "No energy spike remains... Except, for a small residual charge in the airborne dust particles. The charge is roughly spherical - covering the presumed approximate surface area of the sphere in the time before it started its pursuit of me," he commed it to all surface teams. "Analysing now what sort of particles could've caused the charge."
"Lieutenant Hearan here, I've found another sphere. It's exactly as you've described." one of the security officers reported, in his typically quiet but droll manner. "Stand-by." Hearan seemed to hold his breath, "There's a person on the other side of the sphere.... I don't understand, it's as if he appeared out of nothingness. Hmmm... It's Schirra alright. But he's not moving right." Karka waited patiently, his suspicions gaining momentum. "He's fallen over," Hearan reported. "It's one of the robots. I believe he'd seen me and was heading towards me."
"Is it moving now?" the security chief demanded over the comm channel.
"No, sir. Seems out of action just as Lieutenant Psonoir reported from his first encounter with one of these things. Attempting to approach the sphere itself."
"Hearan, no. Bad idea," Karka began to scramble from his position towards where he knew Hearan's approximate position to be. He winced as he got no response from the man; no detectable static from the communicator, breathing or otherwise. He must've touched the sphere, vanished in the pale dust of this bleached recreation of Earth suburbia to... who knew where?
"Well. If it gets us closer to whoever's living in this place..." Psonoir said, picking up his tricorder and making speed for the location of the new sphere.
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Karka Psonoir
Commander
Registered: Apr 9, 2013 19:55:13 GMT
Posts: 422
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Post by Karka Psonoir on Aug 27, 2014 17:45:48 GMT
Psonoir arrived at the new sphere's location only to see it dissolve before his very eyes. It had become a mass of distinguishable pixels as he rounded the bend in the street, coming into sight of it. The pixels had steadily blotted out, creating fragmented holes making the street behind visible until the whole object had disappeared. It was as if he'd not been meant to see it.
Immediately he began scans for remnants of Hearan's presence, finding the same residual spherical energy charge and a humanoid-shaped statically charged dust cloud being swept slowly away by the wind. Karka flipped open his communicator, dry, mournful wind whipping at his hair, "Psonoir to Ryat. We've lost another one. Lieutenant Hearan."
The security chief commed, "Perhaps we'll get a gaggle of Hearan bots appearing everywhere now..."
Karka considered this; if it was true that Schirra, and Hearan, remained alive after their contact with the spheres, then whoever controlled the spheres were exactly replicating Excalibur officers in robotic form.
Psonoir surveyed the street - walking from one side to the other, ducking under awnings, investigating bars and front rooms of deserted residential habitats. Everything was as it was before. He sighed, looking to the sky. A pale azure, slightly lighter than that of Earth, colouring in all the air. The 'companion' planet Ophiuchus 5 was currently visible on the nightside. So far they'd gathered little information about that other world, the distress call having originated here on Ophiuchus 4. If it was visible now, it would appear much smaller than the Earth's moon does from a point on Earth, but still quite resolvable as a spherical body. Being nowhere near an ocean, the Excal crew hadn't born witness to the strange tidal effects induced by Ophi 5.
"Excalibur, this is Lieutenant Psonoir. Could you patch me through to my assistant Unwin in engineering?"
He waited for the comm to be patched through, taking a seat at an abandoned table. Empty bottles of alcoholic beverage cluttered it. Karka had the strong impression they'd never been full. Faded parchment, newspapers he soon deduced, timestamped with the Earth terrestial date of 18 April 1952. This place screamed of falsehood, deception. "Unwin here. What can I do for you, Chief?"
"Scan outside this town. Search for anything that might indicate a non-human presence. Specifically: mechanical," Karka said, playing with one of the empty bottles. It said 'Jamesons' on a label on the side of it. "Twentieth century branding," he muttered, amused.
"Searching, sir. I should make you aware however that a request has already been made to scan for the spheres. They're impervious to the ship's sensors, just as they are to your tricorders."
"Who made that request?" Karka asked, picking at the label on the bottle.
"Lieutenant Hearan, sir." Karka bolted up from the chair, the Jamesons bottle falling with a clink into the other bottles "Sir? Lieutenant Psonoir?"
"Stand-by, Unwin." He was about to comm Ryat again when his tricorder started screaming loudly. He opened up the front panel, trying to deduce the reason for its sudden distress. He snapped it shut, stowed it in his equipment belt and set off at a fast pace down the street, following the same course he'd followed to find the sphere. His course took him right to the edge of town; only now did he halt to catch his breath. After experiencing lightheadedness for a short time and sitting on a porch to restore his energy - the last house in town - his eyes came to focus on the source of the tricorder's readings.
It was a small manhole cover, rectangular, rusted beyond imagining. With moderate effort, he lifted the cover and sent it clunking to the asphalt at the aperture's side. He peered over the edge.
As expected all was darkness, and a cast iron runged ladder descending into unknowable depths. He scanned the hole with his tricorder, finding that, indeed, a labyrinth of tunnels lay beneath. "Psonoir to Ryat and all away team... I've uncovered a system of underground passages at the edge of town. Reading... no lifesigns. Nothing immediately indicative of a threat. Permission to proceed?"
<Tag Ryat, All>
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Daniel Schirra
Captain
Registered: Apr 8, 2013 21:02:47 GMT
Posts: 468
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Post by Daniel Schirra on Aug 29, 2014 23:50:14 GMT
He had spent only five minutes sitting 'patiently' until his restlessness got the better of him ... Standing, he approached the far wall and tapped on it, half expecting someone to say "Who's there ?" ...
"Hell Danny boy, you need to stop this talking to yourself, you'll be in restraints the second Ryat get's you back on the Excalibur." he said out loud.
He turned at the intuition he'd had before, signifying that a door had opened into the room, and sure enough there it was. This time he didn't hesitate, or check what he could before stepping through, he figured if whoever his host was wanted to kill him, he'd had plenty of opportunities to do so. Stepping into the white corridor, he looked left then right, as if one direction was preferable to the other, then set off left ... He realized that the illumination was dimming behind him, some power-save mode maybe, or was it to ensure he didn't reverse direction suddenly.
"There you go again." he said, quietly admonishing himself as he continued on.
Five minutes found him stood at the end of the corridor. He was almost shocked to see a small antechamber before him, circular, and with another of the domed ceilings. Stepping into the room he could see what he had first thought was another doorway was in fact three, all illuminated, and all the same white on white. He realized that disorientation was setting in, if it hadn't already. Turning to look back into the room there was no sign of the corridor he had entered from, so he had a choice to make ... Left, Right, or Center ... He chose the center corridor, only because it was closest to being directly opposite the original.
Within seconds he thought he could hear something. Stopping, he listened intently and yes, it was there, a low, deep bass tone coming from up ahead. Glancing back, for no reason, he began to move in the direction of the sound. He came up to a large room circled with several doors, all sealed, but when he placed a hand on the first it opened silently. Stepping inside he was surprised at what he could see !
At first he thought it was machinery of some kind, but as he approached he could see that each of the tall large blocks seemed more like solid, upright structures than machinery. Indeed, when he reached the first he had the distinct impression that it looked like an obelisk ... Moving closer, he could see hieroglyphics, similar to those used by Earth's ancient Egyptians. Stepping back he tried to estimate how many of the pillars were in this room, guessing it was in the hundreds if not thousands. Checking three, then four, then a fifth, he could tell that the 'glyphs were slightly different on each.
"Egyptian Aliens. Whatever next." he said wryly as he returned to the first obelisk.
From what he could tell from his visual inspection, the things looked solid. 'Hardly scientific Dan' he thought as he walked around the base, maybe nine meters square, then looked up, estimating each of the pillars was maybe six to seven meters in height, cold to the touch, feeling almost like marble. He settled himself cross-legged in front of the hieroglyphics and studied them for a moment but nothing sprang to mind, and he didn't suddenly acquire the ability to decipher the writing, so again he was back to square one ... Then he remembered the low humming ... Looking around the massive room he tried to see where the sound was actually emanating from, but it seemed as if it was all around him. He looked at the obelisk in front of him yet again and then edged forward until it was only centimeters from his face. He placed a hand on the cold surface trying to detect any vibration, then placed his ear against the structure. It was coming from the obelisk itself. Quickly checking several others he realized they were the source of the thrumming, but again, the information got him nowhere fast.
Suddenly he spun his head round ! .... He was absolutely certain he had heard something other than the background noise from the pillars. He listened every iota of his concentration for the sound, but it didn't repeat and he turned back to studying the obelisk.
But for a split second, he could have sworn he had heard someone shout his name ..........
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