Lt. JG Natasha Cole - Understanding the Appeal
Natasha Schell
( Archaeological Survey Site – Serein Basin, Rylor )
That was the part Natasha recognized. Not the archaeology exactly, but the moment when disconnected details stopped being details and started behaving like evidence. She went a little still, her attention sharpening as her mind shifted from appreciation to analysis—not dramatically, just efficiently. It was familiar territory because details mattered.
Cole: ::processing what info they had:: If the latch and seam belong to the same system, then we’re probably not looking at random domestic debris. We’re looking at a controlled space people used repeatedly. The hearth makes it feel less ceremonial and more practical, like something people actually worked around. Possibly domestic in nature.
Jovenan: That makes sense to me. In addition, the latch requires someone to open it from the inside. Either there was another entrance, or there was continuously someone inside. The hearth could be there to facilitate the liveable conditions.
Tal: I think that’s right. The next useful evidence probably won’t be dramatic. ::glancing between them:: We’d want to look for continuation of the seam, post settings, compacted flooring, maybe discoloration where repeated traffic or storage changed the soil chemistry. ::mock-conspiratorially:: Which is archaeologist for ‘you are both now officially authorized to get very excited about dirt.’
Cole: You make a surprisingly compelling case for dirt.
Jovenan laughed a little.
Jovenan: So this is what it requires to turn someone into geosciences. Hidden treasures!
Tal: Response
Cole: I’m not saying I’ve been converted. I’m just saying I understand the appeal a lot better than I did this morning.
Jovenan: That counts as a victory for me. I almost feel like we should celebrate that… after we have taken soil samples for analysation.
Tal: Response
For the first time in longer than she wanted to think about, Natasha realized she wasn’t bracing for anything. She was just… here.
Cole: I could get used to this.
Jovenan: May I ask, what got you into archaeology? Did you also go volunteering somewhere and find your passion there?
Natasha leaned back slightly on one heel, letting the question settle. She found herself wanting the answer with a curiosity that had very little to do with the site itself.
Tal: Response
Jovenan: I get that. For me, it was the desire to see new worlds. Didn’t expect so many of them to try and kill us, but I’m still not regretting anything!
Cole: I think the trick is finding the parts that still make it worth coming back. The rest is just surviving long enough to notice them.
For a second, the easy warmth of the afternoon brushed against the memory of how quickly any world could turn. She let the feeling pass and kept her focus on the square.
Tal: Response
Jovenan ran loose dust through her fingers.
Jovenan: There seems to be a lot of charcoal in the soil. Maybe they burned something in here, or something got burned?
Cole: Burn pattern matters. Accident, routine use, or damage all leave different signatures.
The detective in her stirred again: pattern, spread, cause, sequence. Different evidence. Same instinct.
Ta/Jovenan: Response
Cole: I can see how this gets its hooks into people.
Ta/Jovenan: Response
Natasha brushed a little dust from her gloves and looked over the squares again the latch, the seam, the hearth, the suggestion of a place becoming legible one patient clue at a time.
Cole: I’m beginning to understand why people come back. ::glancing at Nyra:: For the dirt, obviously.
Ta/Jovenan: Response
Natasha shifted back toward her square and resumed brushing along the exposed seam, following its line a little farther than before. The soil here gave way more cleanly now, as though the ground itself had decided it was tired of pretending this was all coincidence.
Her brush caught on a second edge.
Natasha stilled.
Cole: Lieutenant.
Ta/Jovenan: Response
She brushed again, slower this time, clearing just enough to reveal that the seam did not end where they had thought. It turned sharply, tracing the edge of what looked less like scattered fitted stone and more like the outline of something deliberately sealed.
A panel… or a hatch.
Natasha leaned back slightly, pulse picking up in excitement.
Cole: Either this site just got a lot more interesting… or I’m about to be told to stop touching things again.
As Nyra moved closer, Natasha shifted without thinking to give her room. Together, the three of them looked down at the newly uncovered angles in the stone—latch, seam, hearth, and now the possibility that all of it belonged to something below rather than simply beside them.
The air rising from the exposed gap was cooler.
Older.
Natasha’s eyes narrowed.
Cole: I don’t believe this is just a boundary line.
Ta/Jovenan: Response
She glanced between Jovenan and Nyra, reluctant and intrigued in equal measure.
Cole: I’m going to say the responsible thing, which I resent on principle, but this feels like the part where we let the professionals take over.
Natasha rose slowly to her feet, brushing the dust from her gloves, though her attention kept drifting back to the shape below.
oO Well. That seemed like the sort of thing that was going to stay in her head all evening. Oo
Cole: For the record, if that turns out to be an underground chamber, please be careful. I’d hate to miss the rest of my education.
Ta/Jovenan: Response
((OOC: I feel like this is a good spot to end))
Tags/End Scene for Natasha Cole
----- ◌● -----Lt. JG Natasha Cole
Security Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205NC4