LtCmdr Jovenan – Magic crystals and accidental discoveries, that’s what Starfleet is all about!
Jovenan
((Upper caverns, inside the cliffs, Callis I))
A door. In the middle of the crude, native rock stood a door. There was an attempt to camouflage it, but it’s straight, artificial edges were in stark juxtaposition with the lumpy natural rocks and the once cultured garden where the unmaintained crops had become a wild web of stems and branches; the handiwork of some ancient person didn’t blend in with the unchanged geology nor the chaotic biology all that well once you had spotted it. It was also very different from everything else they had seen left to the caverns by the supposed natives of the doomed planet, as there was an apparent technological difference between the cave carvings and a sturdy door.
Jovenan didn’t quite buy the suggestion that it was there just to act as a garden shed door. It was possible that the garden had been there before the flood, but the post-apocalyptic society of refugees might not have manufactured and installed or even kept at that place such a door for just basic tools after their cities were destroyed. Or maybe they did, who knew at this point. If she was wrong, they might have a chance to get themselves farming equipment, which would allow them to survive for as long as they needed to. Still, she believed there was something else in there. The only method of finding out was through experimentation and exploration, and that was what the team was good about.
Jovenan: Can we open it?
Bancroft shrugged, while K’Wara felt around the door, probably trying to find a handle or lock or some other type of opening mechanism. It didn’t appear to have anything like that, so it was either concealed or – worryingly, perhaps – only meant to be opened from the other side.
Bancroft: ::counting on his fingers:: Crash landing, hypothermia, starvation, murderous beasts – no problem. ::tilts head:: Would be a shame if a simple door turned out to be our undoing.
He got a little smile out of Jovenan. Sure, they didn’t exactly need to get the door opened, as they already had everything they needed for now in the cavern… but it felt wrong not to explore what was hidden just around the corner of their new paradise. It could be something that would improve their likelihood of survival or rescue – or it could do just the opposite. They needed to know of it in either case.
Bergmen stepped closer and raised a finger.
Bergmen: Mellon!
Melon? Jovenan wasn’t sure what the Lieutenant was trying to accomplish by uttering words at a door like some kind of wizard, but either way, the door didn’t budge.
Bergmen: ::sighs:: Yeah, so that old holo lied about how to open the door into the halls of stone… ::shruggs:: Lieutenant, ideas?
K’Wara: None. I figure the handle is hidden somewhere around here. There’s a hole at the bottom though, if you want to look through?
Bergmen had other ideas, apparently, as he demonstrated his physical prowess for them by grasping the door and moving it aside just enough for a small crack to appear between the door and its frame. Jovenan took the opportunity to investigate and peered through the slit. It wasn’t so wide as to let enough natural light into the room to reveal its secrets, but Jovenan could see that there was indeed a room in there. Not just a tunnel like the myriads of caves they had been to, but a room or a corridor, with even, smooth and artificial walls. Definitely not a garden shed, though, as she couldn’t see the end of it nor any tools or gear stored there.
It puzzled her. They could have left it be, just accept that some of the original dwellers’ infrastructure had remained intact, but that wasn’t how they worked. They were explorers and scientists, and they just couldn’t leave a mystery to go unsolved. That said, there was no reason to be stupid about it.
Jovenan: Oh wow. ::pause:: Let’s, um, pack some fruits and water with us before heading there. And we can probably make some torches now that we’ve got wood, right?
Bergmen: ::whispers silently for himself:: Wey xwedê.. Tu nikarî bi van zanyaran re bixebitî…
Bancroft nodded and stepped back, looking at the trees.
Bancroft: I’ll take care of the torches. ::to Bergmen and K’Wara:: Either of you get a good look at what was in there? I was too far back to see anything.
Jovenan nodded on the division of labour and left to gather food for them. She could sense that they were going to be spending quite some time down there, whatever was in there, and she didn’t want to take the risk that they weren’t going to be able to return. Or, to be optimistic for once, found an even better camping place but without any easily accessible food in the beginning.
Bergmen: No?
K’Wara: Aha!
While Bancroft was working on the torches and the others with the door, Jovenan had gathered enough fruits to fill every empty place in her backpack. She wondered if there was a better way to transport them. They were mostly water, so if the team had had an opportunity to dry them, they would have lost a lot of their weight and volume with a minimal loss in nutrients. However, there was no time for that, and in addition, water was something else they didn’t carry much with them. If they were unlucky and lost their water en route, they could replace a lot of it with the fruits.
Bancroft: Didn’t make sense to use our bandages for this. ::shrugging:: Ollie, think you can do that trick with the chemlights again to light us up?
Raising her gaze from the fruits, Jovenan saw Bancroft with four unlit torches and Bergmen seeking confirmation from her with his eyes, before he retrieved one of the few remaining chemlights from his backpack. Jovenan watched curiously as he then sprayed the lightchem of the chemlight onto a piece of cloth – she hadn’t seen him do this on the camp on the first day, and it seemed like a skill they might need again if their stay turned out even longer.
Bergmen: Drip some water on it, but carefully, and each other as you hold the torches away from your body. The reaction is sometimes very... active.
Unsure if she should dip the torch to the pond or seek cover, Jovenan watched him drive the torch to the ground and splash water unto it from a safe distance. His words of caution had not been in vain; the flash of fire was even more fervent than she had anticipated. She replicated his actions with her own torch, being only mildly startled when it caught fire. After igniting it, however, the fire burnt steadily.
K’Wara: I think I found the opening mechanism, but I think it needs some sort of tool for opening it. ::feels:: A circular rod of some sort? Have we found something like that?
Jovenan: Hmm? The tents had poles that fit that description, but they’re too far for us to retrieve now.
Bancroft: Perhaps we could fashion a pry-bar out of something here?
Bergmen: No, looks like I left a pry-bar in my second uniform. Sorry, Roy. A hatchet will have to suffice.
Jovenan picked up a branch that had fallen from the tree – one left behind by Bancroft after making the torches or just a stick on the ground, she couldn’t tell as she hadn’t watched – and handed it to K’Wara.
Jovenan: Would this work?
K’Wara: Oh, I’ll make it work. Thanks.
The Lieutenant had to chisel the tree branch some so that it fit for the intended purpose. When that was done, they attached it to whichever part of the mechanism they had discovered, and pulled. Jovenan’s eyes darted from side to side of the door when the sound came through: long abandoned and unmaintained cogs ground against each other, pulleys and other mechanical parts moved after no use for years, and the door moving with the dust erupting in the air.
Torches in hand, they entered the room. The light of the flames flickered as they bounced back from the dust, but behind the shadows and the floating sparkles, there were objects to be seen. And unlike the carvings created by the post-apocalyptic refugees of the mountain, these indicated high advancement: screens, machines, tools, all covered with dust and likely long since decayed beyond use or repair. The design indicated to Jovenan that the civilisation that had built them was above of what she had thought of them, although not yet beyond reaching warp technology – or maybe these equipment were old already by the refugees’ standards. Would they have found the machines non-operational, or were they useless to them for what they were meant for? And how long had there been between the creation of these machines, the flood, and the last of the refugees hiding in the waterfall cavern?
Bancroft: ::pointing:: What do you reckon that is? Jewelry, maybe?
Jovenan turned to see what Bancroft had discovered. There were crystals – why was it always crystals? – that reflected the torches’ light back to them. Considering the artificial nature of the room, it was obvious that they hadn’t ended up there by coincidence.
Bergmen: Or a power source of some kind?
Jovenan: Hard to say. I don’t think they’re there just for decoration, but without identifying the chemical composition and the structure, I can’t say what they’re here for. ::pause:: It’s never just a rock, and crystals are one quirky group of rocks.
Bergmen shrugged and carried on exploring the room. Jovenan looked at the crystals some more, trying to replace her tricorder with the results her limited eyes and even more limited brain could do. It was not much. The colour and the geometry of the faces didn’t help her identify them as anything she would have been familiar with, so she shrugged as well. If it weren’t for the Maelstrom, she would have told them already what they were for – then again, if it weren’t for the spatial anomaly, she wouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Bergmen: ::humming to himself silently:: Carekê ewqas şahane, bihêz û dirêj, lê padîşahî radibin û padîşahî hildiweşin, û mirov jî wisa dikin, carekê ew taca zengarbûyî li xwe kiribû…
Leaving the crystals for later, Jovenan looked around the room while listening to the JayGee singing something in a language where she couldn’t pick up a word. She tilted her head side to side, stretching the muscles of her neck. Keeping up with the Federation Standard and figuring out its grammatical oddities caused her some mental strain she really didn’t need while trying to figure out how to survive, so just acknowledging that there were also words that she didn’t need to try and interpret and nothing would happen because of it gave her some relief at least. She missed the Universal Translator the most… after the replicator, sonic shower, communications, and the rest of the ship.
Bancroft: Response
Bergmen: Anything interesting you found?
K’Wara: Maybe... ::looks to Bergmen:: What about you?
Bergmen walked over to Jovenan, handing her something. Squinting her eyes, she tried to figure out what it was; an old, weathered sheet of metal?
Bergmen: I found … something … with the engravings similar to the one we saw in the caves. Not making much of them, so a second pair of eyes would be good.
Jovenan: Oh, look at that! You have a good eye to spot them, they’re very worn out. ::squints, looks closer:: Although I still can’t tell what these markings are supposed to be.
Bancroft: Response
The entire team was gathered around the sheet. Jovenan believed the curious lines on the surface of the sheet were drawings, like those at the walls of many a cave. She couldn’t begin to figure out why that would be the case, since they had also found what she was fairly certain was text, and such an advanced culture surely would use writing over drawing their messages to whatever surface they had at their disposal. Was the image produced before or after the flood? Was it an instruction or a recording of long forgotten lore?
K’Wara: A... Swirl? Cloud? … A box with a hole in it. Lightning… A box without a hole-
Jovenan: The cliffs, maybe? It could be described as a box with holes.
Bancroft/Bergmen: Response
Jovenan scratched her chin. She had no idea how archaeologists and anthropologists could say anything of ancient text and drawings with any kind of certainty. Sure, they must have had more resources and probably also more insight to the culture they were studying through other discoveries and recordings, and quite often the culture hadn’t truly died out completely, leaving marks to other civilisations or evolving or changing forms to something else. Meanwhile, Jovenan couldn’t come up anything better than “ceremonial use” for most of the things she saw. K’Wara, however, turned sharply towards the door.
K’Wara: Like that?
Huh? The door? It was… exactly like the hole in the box in the drawing.
Jovenan: Hmm. It’s definitely possible. A bit convenient, perhaps. But then again, we find the drawing in here.
Bancroft/Bergmen: Response
K’Wara: Commander, maybe if we try closing the door? If the ‘box’ on the sheet is meant to signify this room, perhaps closing the door will complete a circuit of some kind?
Jovenan covered her lower face with her palm and looked at the sheet before lifting it up towards the door again. The angular line could represent a lightning, which was for the most civilisations the most obvious introduction to the electricity. As such, a circuit was possible. Or, it could be a fracture, one that revealed this cavern, or a symbolic representation of destruction or tension between groups or the might of a deity…
Jovenan: That’s… one interpretation. It could be an instruction how to close the circuit, but it could also be a warning that something happens to the people inside. ::pause:: Which means, if we’re to try this out, I need to ask some of you to step out. K’Wara, Doctor?
Bancroft/Bergmen/K’Wara: Response
Soon, Jovenan would find out how useful or useless her gathering fruits to her backpack ended up being. Obviously, the room hadn’t been quite large enough to warrant food for the duration of the expedition, but if she and Bergmen were going to be trapped inside when the door closed, they would survive a few days longer.
The natural light dimmed as the door slowly slid back into its place, and soon, the two officers inside were entirely at the mercy of their torches. Jovenan flashed an apologetic smile at Bergmen, whom she had forcibly volunteered to stay behind with her, when the door clanked fully to its place. There was no obvious change in the inside of the room, no machinery fans starting to roll, no lights switching on, nothing. Except for a very familiar chirp.
Jovenan: Wait, what?
She pressed her combadge, causing it to chirp again. The unexpected reminder of the days she had thought long gone caused her to go into an elated frenzy and press the combadge repeatedly. She turned to look at Bergmen, and her smile widened at each chirp she heard as a response to her tap.
Bancroft/Bergmen/K’Wara: Response
Jovenan: The structure of the room must be shielding us from the Maelstrom. Like an unconductive mesh cage. ::taps combadge:: =/\= K’Wara, Bancroft, do you hear me? =/\=
Bancroft/Bergmen/K’Wara: Response
((OOC: Just to be clear, K’Wara and Bancroft would not hear her through their combadges as they’re inoperative outside the Faraday cage. They might however hear her through the door.))
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Lieutenant Commander Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11