Lt. JG. Gnai - This Feels Too Good To Be True
Lich
(( Drone Extraction - The Breetia Forest - New Kehixa, Galaris IV ))
Being stuck in a muddy forest was far from Gnai’s preferred choice of mission. Being stuck in a muddy forest with a potentially explosive drone, set to go off if anything large came in proximity of it, was even lower on that list. But here it was, programming its tricorder to make it invisible from the ultrasound echolocation (it presumed) of the drone.
Gnai: Yes, this will need to see your tricorders for just a moment, to input the relevant program… ::sending the program over and modifying on the others’ tricorders for their own heights:: This should effectively mask any motion towards the drone, by rendering the user “transparent” to the ultrasound pulses.
With the tricorders now all programmed to send out interfering pulses (and false echolocation reflections) they were ready to go. Almost.
Vailani: Should we be concerned about this mist, Gnai?
A quick pass of its tricorder in front of it provided enough detail on the constitution of the mist. It was perfectly harmless, thankfully.
Gnai: It should be safe, it’s predominantly water, with trace elements from the soil around. Nothing harmful. But it may obscure vision, which could be dangerous…
That might have been an understatement, as the slowly thickening fog and mist had cut their visibility down to a mere fraction of before.
Vailani: Let’s proceed carefully. Fan out, five metre apart. Watch your feeting, consult your tricorder, the terrain isn’t even.
Gnai: Aye, sir. The tricorders might not be able to compensate if someone trips.
Gnai followed Lt. Vailani’s example, moving to the side of Ens. Tho’Bi to reduce the risk of a blast hitting all of them. Two lights shone out into the mist from the other officer’s flashlights, catching droplets of water sparking ahead of them.
Ahead, slowly appearing through the thick air, was the steadily blinking light of the drone they were hunting. Gnai was glad it was further from it than Ens. Tho’Bi, perhaps his (frankly somewhat absurd, in Gnai’s opinion) height would shield it from most of the blast if it did end up triggering.
Vailani: Tho’Bi what do you see?
With the distance and the waterlogged air, the Lieutenant’s voice sounded somewhat different from normal, an odd fact that Gnai registered aimlessly. Through the mist, it was hard to make out, but it didn’t look like there was any sort of concavity to the ground. It hadn’t fallen here, obviously, as the trail had started elsewhere… had it been dragged here? Set up as a trap by someone?
Tho’Bi: No impact crater (beat) looks like it soft landed.
Gnai: Odd…
Vailani: Response
Tho’Bi: Aye, Aye, Lieutenant.
Once again, Gnai was glad someone else was so eager to leap into danger, and spare it the trouble of potential explosives. It was confident in its ability to mask itself from the ultrasonic echolocation, but not 100% confident. No one could be 100% certain about anything, Gnai was certain.
Tho’Bi: It appears to be in some kind of standby mode.
Curious and curiouser. Perhaps set by whoever had retrieved it and brought it here… if such a person really existed. This could be a good trap for an unsuspecting Grunden officer, hunting down another new drone for their effort. But by the Kobyar? It didn’t seem in line with their previous tactics, if the amounts of repurposed drones Gnai had seen were any indication of their perspective on booby-trapping their tech.
Vailani: Response
Tho’Bi: ::looking up at the drone:: It’s like it’s ready for maintenance (beat) but it’s waiting for something.
Gnai: Would a military drone like this… normally enter maintenance mode in a situation like this? How does it sustain the ultrasonic echolocation pulses if it’s in standby?
Obviously it had no idea if these were at all reasonable paths of inquiry to go down, but it had little idea how to square away all the strange inconsistencies with the story of this drone. It had crashed, but elsewhere, and ended up here, in standby/maintenance mode, somehow. And yet it was still hypothetically primed to explode upon contact with another being.
Vailani: Response
Tho’Bi: ::looking down at his PADD:: I know this code (beat) It’s Ferengi in origin ::looks across at Vailani:: The control crystal is sending out a rapidfire series of numbers (beat) each one based on a prime number (beat) my bet (beat) those prime numbers are this drone’s serial number.
Gnai: So… the Ferengi are potentially supplying the Kobyar with technology? This would have suspected the Grunden to be more likely recipients of off-world goods, at least based on their earlier ignorance…
It all seemed too good to be true. There couldn’t be much of value on a planet like this, not as far as Gnai had seen. And the briefing would have mentioned any such valuable resources, ripe for exploitation, wouldn’t it have?
Vailani: Response
Tho’Bi: ::points at the two cylinders:: I think the drone hooks onto the maintenance hub with these two cylinders (beat) then the cylinders are pulled apart to lock on. ::looks back at Vailani:: I think I’m strong enough to pull the two cylinders apart (beat) Lieu-Lieutenant Vailani (beat) you can access the control crystal (beat) and key in the serial number.
To Gnai, those seemed like a lot of assumptions all at once about what was ostensibly alien-tech. But perhaps this wasn’t as novel as they’d assumed, especially if there were Ferengi codes programmed into it.
Vailani: Response
Tho’Bi ::looks at Vailani and Gnai:: there are only two problems (beat) the rapidfire series of numbers are evolving (beat) the Kobyar must cycle serial numbers for security (beat) without our Tricorders ::shakes head:: maybe a Vulcan could do it.
Gnai: Well, there aren’t any Vulcans here…
Nor did it really understand why it needed to be a Vulcan who did the maths for this serial number code… thing.
Vailani: Response
Tho’Bi: And ::looks at Vailani:: I have no idea how to key in the serial number manually.
Gnai: How certain are you that this will actually get the drone out of maintenance mode…? It could just as well be the way to fully arm it, or trigger a self-destruct.
In anticipation of the drone going kaboom (still, hard to kick that worry, especially as if there was a slight chance of Ferengi meddling [who it presumed were plenty happy to have a thing go kaboom lest a product get into the hands of a competitor]), as well as a still-creeping suspicion about a potentially malicious actor drawing them to this spot, Gnai hadn’t moved any closer to the machine. It was going to stay where it was, thank you.
Vailani/Tho’Bi: Response
Gnai: This just isn’t certain that fiddling with the drone right now is the best course of action… it could be beamed up to the ship, and confined in a stasis field for safety… and investigated properly with all the lab equipment…
And they could get beamed up too, and avoid any potential dangers that lurked around them in this forest (and be aboard the beautiful, lovely, sparkling-clean, no-mud-in-sight ship once again). The thick mist that hung around their shoulders seemed more oppressive with each second, and Gnai couldn’t shake the irrational feeling that someone (or something) was out there, watching them, just out of sight.
Vailani/Tho’Bi: Response
Gnai: ::somewhat reluctantly:: This is just… worried. It doesn’t seem right that this drone ended up here. It crashed, did it not? But that was closer to the capital, and somehow it’s now here. ::gesturing at the floating drone, then to the thick mist surrounding them:: It might have been moved here by someone, or remote controlled here… this is just worried that this is some sort of setup! A downed drone, potentially rigged to explode if anyone not sufficiently technologically advanced enough to figure out how to hide from its sensors approaches… ::trailing off::
By that, it meant the Grunden. Referring to their hosts by innuendo was perhaps not the best way to get its point across, however, Gnai felt the need to highlight how they’d managed to bypass such a system in a way the Grunden seemed incapable of. This wasn’t a normal downed Kobyar drone situation, or the Grunden would have lost far more soldiers to these rigged prizes, and perhaps would be more hesitant about repurposing them so widely like they did.
Vailani/Tho’Bi: Response
Tags/TBC :)