[sb118-artemis] Ensign Tho'Bi - The Billendeium Connection [Part 1]

[Tobi]

((The Giant Trees of Galaris IV))

The green and brown of the landscape stretched out below them, broken up sporadically by the purple and shimmering blue of forest tree and leaf; rivers and streams glimmered  under the sunlight, and above them, the clouds felt almost close enough to touch.  

The Ensign's boots had found footing upon the rough bark of a mighty branch, jutting out towards, and forming a natural bridge to another huge, towering tree.

Kexxin: We should be able to get down from here easily, it’ll be a bit of a walk though. I highly recommend we get you reunited with the rest of your team. I can assure you, they would like your assistance.

As the Grunden General led them across the great bough, the Andorian cast a glance up at the tree they had just climbed; the deep purple of its trunk soared upwards into the white of the clouds and beyond.   His eyes tracked downwards and came to rest on the black, smoldering scar cutting into the countryside below.  The charred and decimated remains of the forest where they had found the drone.

Tho’Bi: ::pointing at the burned forest:: We must be the far side of the drones forest (beat) beyond the mist.

Vailani: Yeah.

As he crossed the halfway point of the tree-bridge, the bough began to thin out, accommodating only single file; the wind seemed to circle around him, pushing and pulling at his arms, torsos, and legs.  The Andorian senses picked up a regular form in the mess of organics; a familiar material to the space-born Andorian, metal.  It tracked upwards on the trunk of the tree opposite, a thin line of silver, glimmering in the sun.

Tho'Bi:  ::shouting ahead to Vailani:: There's an antenna attached to the tree up ahead (beat) that must be the communications device. 

Kexxin: That antenna is no longer in use. It hasn’t been for a long time. ::Shaking his head:: Something that had just never been removed. I-I’m sorry.

The General appeared to be an individual apart from those around him; someone who stood upon an island of his own making; an island, Lieutenant Vailani had no apparent interest in visiting. 

Vailani: Tho’Bi you got that power pack? I want that antenna in use asap. That might be the only way we can get to the Artemis.

They had reached the other side of the branch-bridge.  The blue of the Andorian’s hand patted the cold, weather worn silver of the archaic antenna. 

Tho’Bi:  On it.

Kexxin: We can’t stay here any longer, it’s not safe. We must get you back with your team. Let’s go.

The Grunden General and Bajoran Lieutenant remained at odds as to what to do next.  Once again, the fierce Bajoran proved more than a match for the battle-hardened Grunden.

Vailani: General, we need to get in contact with our ship :: to Tho’Bi :: You get that antenna working and stop whatever it is that’s jamming the signal. We need off this planet. 

Tho’Bi: ::nodded:: Understood.   (Beat) Stay Safe.

The Andorian smiled, but his eyes betrayed concern.  As was her manner, the diminutive Bajoran simply turned on her heel, and followed the bulk and heavy step of the General, dragging her bad leg with her; always on point, always on mission. 

The smell of rain carried on the breeze caught the Andorian’s nostrils.   He looked out across the burnt out carcass of drone-decimated forest, beyond the township-wreckage of contorted structure, ambered blaze, and thick black smoke, to the dark cloud and dim haze of failing rain, rolling in, across field and forest, from the direction of the Kobyar capital.  The deep blue of his eyes lingered on the weather front, moving in at pace, as if spurred on by some unknown force; but perhaps that force was all too known, the Kobyar climate control drones.

Fresh from the Academy, the Engineering Ensign could have spent a time investigating, had it not been for a voice inside his head, telling him to stay on mission.  As he set about the task he'd been given, the young Ensign was entirely unaware of the smile that had crept across his face.

He heaved the rucksack from off his shoulders and snapped open the main compartment.  The Universal Power Supply slid free of its snug resting place.   He pressed and held the start up switch to initiate the standard self-diagnostic.  As the flat grey power supply clicked and hummed, he withdrew his Engineering Tricorder from his utility belt and began to scan the Antenna.

Just as a bright ping and display indicated the Power Supply was fully functional, his Tricorder returned puzzling results from the scan of the Antenna; the material was highly conductive, but of a much lower purity, than he would have expected.

Tho’Bi:  ::looking up at the antenna:: Wow, you're an old one.

He patted the antenna.

The communication system was housed in a small chamber within the trunk of the tree.  At the centre of the roughly circular chamber, a ladder of root and branch ran both upwards and downwards, by way of a pair of Grunden-and-a-bit shaped holes, one in the floor and one in the ceiling.  Ribbons of dull green moss, spiralled down from the curved ceiling and walls.  

The system itself was a hulking lump of archaic wrought metal technology, set in the shape of a sphere, with chunky switches and dials, sized for Grunden paws; within the curved bulk, through cooling grates, small glass spheres sat, with coils of metal filament contained therein.

The scuffed and rusted sphere nestled comfortably upon a branch that rose and curved upwards, into a cup-like top; as though, grown for purpose.

Flashing lights traced up and down the control face of his Engineering Tricorder, while a series of quiet short beeps punctuated the warm, dry air.  The young Andorian tilted his head one way and then the other.  The curved, cup-shaped, branch-plinth consisted of a surprisingly high amount of metallic mineral; this, in turn, was interfering with the analysis of the communications sphere.  He duly dialed out the interference by narrowing the scanning focus, and relayed the results to the Universal Power Supply. 

A series of mid-frequency shunts, the housing of the Power Supply shuddered for a moment, and synced to the specifications of the communications sphere.  Undetectable even to his Andorian antennae, a focused beam of microwaves propagated within the space between the Universal Power Supply and the Power Supply Unit of the Communications Sphere.  Watching the sphere carefully, the Andorian pushed his finger along the Power Supply control fader; through the crudely cut cooling grates, he could see the filaments contained within the glass spheres begin to glow, a dirty low orange glow.

A bright blue/white flash lit up the chamber, and then died back.  The dark blue of the Andorian’s eyes traced across the power supply and communications sphere, searching for a fault, but the metal coils remained quietly embered.  A steady, distant rumble drew his attention to the rain clouds, rolling in from beyond the Kobyar front line.  

As the weather front was still some distance away, the young Engineer returned to his work.  He picked up the Tricorder and scanned the battered silver antenna, expecting to find a low level signal.   He found nothing. 

Tho’Bi:  ::quietly to himself:: Huh (beat)  Okay.

He pushed the Power Supply a little more, the coiled filaments bloomed into a rich orange, but still he found no evidence of a signal travelling through the antenna.  The Andorian tilted his head to one side.  The chamber erupted in bright blue/white light.  He looked out towards the incoming breeze, and felt the temperature drop a touch, as thunder shuddered from over the battle lines.  The young Engineer turned to the weather worn antenna, climbing its way up the giant tree, into the cloud cover and beyond. 

Tho’Bi:  ::eyes tracking up the antenna:: You’re not an antenna (beat) You're a lightning rod.

Moments of discovery are always moments of elation, but how long that elation lasts, very much depends on the circumstances and the nature of the discovery.  For the young Engineer, months out of the Academy, discovering an antenna was, in fact, a lightning rod, the elation did not last very long at all.

His mind raced through the terrible ramifications of his discovery, the Away Team torn up and bloodied, gasping their last desperate breaths, face down in the dirt.

The young Andorian trembled slightly as he trudged, head down, back into the chamber.  

The dull corners of the chamber lit up with another burst of lightning.   As the light drew back and the low frequency rumble tumbled across the ambience, something above and around drew his attention.  The chamber seemed brighter than before, but not only that, warmer, too.

The blue of his fingers moved up to the spirals of moss, hanging from the curved ceiling above him.  They indeed projected a dim, but present, warm light across his icy blue fingers.  

He pushed the Power Supply a little more, the filaments coils bloomed, this time from rich orange to shimmering rusty gold.  All around the chamber, the ribbons of moss lit up into cascading circles of warm, pulsating light.

The Andorain looked down the ladder shaft and saw it filled with warm, pulsating light; he looked up, and saw the same.

Tho’Bi:  Woah.

Remembering the interference from the branch-plinth, the young Engineer swept up his Tricorder and quickly dialed open the focus of its scans.  His eyes wide, he took in the results.  The entire tree was rich in a metallic mineral, but the mineral in question had been categorized under fringe-spectrum materials.  These were materials deemed too obscure, and of no pertinent, or practical use, and so were not included in the actionable database, but archived instead.

His Tricorder did not contain the archived database, but the more generous and research orientated memory banks of his PADD did.  The Ensign flipped open the large compartment on the back of the rucksack, and fished out the PADD.

The metallic mineral was first discovered deep within The Paulson Nebula, by researchers at Deep Space 224 in 2386; twenty years earlier, the Enterprise D had taken refuge in the Nebula, while attempted to evade the Borg; retroactive examinations of Enterprise’s sensor logs, revealed small deposits of the mineral at the Nebula’s heart.[1] 

 

After several failed attempts, due to the density of material within the Nebula, an automated probe managed to retrieve a sample of the mineral.  The mineral, however, proved resistant to all known forms of metallurgy; this, its relative obscurity, and the difficulties involved in obtaining it, resulted in it being consigned to the archive of curious, but useless things.

Blue fingertips called up the name of the mineral.

Tho’Bi: ::reading out loud:: Billendeium.[2]

The Andorian smacked his tongue off the roof of his mouth.  The leading edge of the stormfront must have reached the burning remains of the Grunden township; advancing winds had carried the acrid stink of smoke, horror born, to him, high up in the giant tree. 

 

The dark blue of his eyes tracked across the landscape, but he could not catch sight of Lieutenant Vailiani or the other members of the Away Team.  His mind drifted to burned out forest floors; Lieutenant Vailani dragging her injured leg through smoldering ash and clinging mud.  He wondered if the Grunden General might offer to help the Lieutenant, and then smiled as he imagined what her response might be.   

His gaze returned to the irregular line of warm, pulsating glows emanating from giant trees, stretching out, as far as his eyes could see or antennae sense.  Apparently, the entire forest of giant trees was one vast antenna, stretching for countless kilometers.

Tho’Bi:  ::quietly to himself:: Alright (beat) Let’s do it. 

Within the snug and warm glow of the chamber, his Engineering Tricoder was quietly whirring away to itself; frequencies represented numerically, swept through on the display at blistering rates of computation.  A quick, bright double tone alerted the young Engineer to the successful completion of the task.  Synced to the Communication Sphere, the Tricorder could now act as a relay between his Combadge and the Sphere.

He tapped the input on the Tricorder to deliver a connection ping to the network of SubSpace Transceivers embedded across Artemis’ hull.  Given their small size, the range of ComBadges was extremely limited and insufficient to achieve communications with a spacecraft in orbit; the SubSpace Transceivers served to augment and enhance the ComBadge signal, thereby facilitating ship to shore communications.  The connection ping was a simple data pulse that, if successfully received by the Artemis Subspace Transceiver Network, would be met with a matching reply pulse.  A handshake bridging the stratosphere.[3]

Silence.

Tho’Bi:  ::quiet intensity to no one:: Zalexu.[4]

TBC in Part 2

((OOC: Tho’Bi found himself with a bit of the mission all to himself, so I went with it.  All this two-part sim does, in terms of how it relates to anyone else, is link up the beaming for the Grunden Away Team.  And I’ll do a separate OOC breakdown of any the world building.  The footnotes carry over from Part 1 to Part 2.))  

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Paulson Nebular was selected from the SB118Wiki Map of The Borderlands and the information regarding the Enterprise D is from Memory-Alpha.

[2] Billendeium is an ‘unobtainium’, I made up for this Sim.  It is a metallic mineral that can only be worked with within an organic lifeform, such as a tree or plant.  The Billendeium is drawn up from the ground by the roots, and adapts itself naturally to the needs of the tree or plant. The name is a combination of the names, Bill, Len, and De, as in Bill Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Deforest Kelly.  The Trekkie Trinity.

[3] The ping is my idea.  Everything about the Combadge and ship tech is taken from the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual pages 94 - 96.  Yes, I know.  It doesn't really make sense.  Trekkie Tech!

[4]Zalexu! Is an Andorain swear/curse, I derived from the SB118Wiki Guide to Andorain/Graalen.  It literally means, “Touched unexpectedly by ice” and is broadly similar to “For f—’s sake!”.  It is usually in response to reactive or sudden events.

————————————

Ensign Tho’Bi

Engineering

USS Artemis-A

A240203T11