Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - A disappointing lack of big red levers
Carter Schimpff
(( Previously Abandoned Underground Facility, Kurtûl III ))
The four officers – a Fleet Captain, a security officer, and two physicians with increasingly unreasonable extracurricular obligations – had been making steady progress through the cool, damp passages beneath Kurtûl III. The facility smelled of mineral seepage, stale air, and machinery long since abandoned. Somewhere ahead, the Nasciak commandos were still moving through the complex, or hiding within it, or preparing something Roy would almost certainly find medically objectionable when it finally announced itself.
Their tricorders should have been helping. Instead, a suspicious electromagnetic signature had been chewing through their readings, blinding them to lifesigns and turning every shadow into a possible weapon.
Now the signature was coming from behind an open hatch.
Naturally.
Bancroft: ::whispering:: Signature’s coming from inside this room.
MacKenzie: What are the chances whatever Cole saw went inside?
Cole: ::glancing down the hall the way they came:: Moderately high, considering how dark it is, this would explain the shadow.
MacKenzie: Could it be possible that disabling whatever's giving off the signal might clear up our readings and give us a better idea of the Nasciak's location?
Fairly likely, Roy judged silently. That was the irritating part. It was a detour from their mission, and yet it sat directly in the path of accomplishing that mission. The EM source was not merely a curiosity. It was the blindfold. If they kept moving without dealing with it, they would be hunting armed commandos in an underground alien facility using little more than eyesight and optimism.
Cole: I think it’s worth a quick look, but we shouldn't linger long.
Jaran: Worst case, we at least figure out what it is so we can account for it in our scans.
Roy clicked his tricorder shut and holstered it, then took his rifle in both hands.
There was something deeply offensive about putting away a medical scanner because the rifle had become the more reliable instrument. He did it anyway.
Bancroft: And continuing forward without working tricorders? Ideally not.
MacKenzie cocked her head in a manner Roy had seen many times before.
Skepticism. Not enough to stop the plan, but more than enough to let everyone know the plan had been entered into the permanent record of things she might blame someone for later.
MacKenzie: Well, let's go inside and see where we get. We can't afford a massive detour if we think this might be ahead. Cole, you first.
Cole gave a single nod and readied herself. She swept the room from outside the doorway first, slow and controlled, the blue light casting her features into sharp planes. Then she slipped inside and moved right.
Roy followed half a beat behind, rifle up, taking the left side as he crossed the threshold.
Cole: Clear!
Jaran: Clear but also... nothing is showing up as the source of this signature.
Roy furrowed his brow.
He didn’t bother drawing his own tricorder again. If Jira couldn’t isolate the source, then there was little value in repeating the same failure with a different hand. That was how committees were born. He hated committees.
Bancroft: Anyone see anything that could be concealing this electromagnetic device?
Cole: We have a door, but no sign of our mystery guest.
Jaran: It's basically a utility room, seems like. Probably important to someone who needs power to get from here to there, but it doesn't really help us with anything.
Frustration flared behind Roy’s eyes.
He knew what he had seen on his tricorder. He knew the signature was real. He strongly suspected it was the thing preventing them from detecting lifesigns. And now they were standing in a room that contained, according to their senses and their useless equipment, nothing of sufficient importance to justify the theatrical inconvenience.
So what?
Turn around? Continue blind? Hope they encountered the Nasciak by appointment?
Bancroft: We don’t have the time for a hunt. Maybe we should just try to find a way to cut power to this entire room and hope that also disables the device?
MacKenzie: Response
A blur moved in the edge of Roy’s vision.
Cole lunged, caught something that had not been part of the room a second before, pivoted, and sent a large, dark bundle tumbling onto the floor.
For one absurd heartbeat, Roy wondered if she had decided to express her irritation by assaulting luggage.
Then Cole’s voice snapped through the room.
Cole: Stay down and keep your hands where I can see them.
Roy’s rifle was already trained on the figure before his conscious mind finished arriving.
The figure lay on the floor beneath layers of thick, dark robes that swallowed nearly every identifying detail. Hooded. Shrouded from head to toe. Arms extended in surrender. Hands plainly empty.
Roy lowered his barrel by a fraction.
Jaran: Whoa. Looks like we found whoever you saw. Lieutenant. You ok?
Bancroft: Jira, can you get a read on them?
MacKenzie: Response
The Bajoran turned their tricorder toward the figure. A look of consternation crossed their features almost immediately.
Jaran: I still can't get a reading on them, but there's obviously someone right there. I'm worried about what we're not seeing.
Roy let out a short, exasperated breath.
Not at Jira.
At the room. At the facility. At whatever genius had designed a system capable of making the plainly visible behave like little more than a schoolyard rumor.
Bancroft: Alright, thanks Jira. Give ‘em a once over to make sure they aren’t injured, please. ::to the others:: I’m going to look for a kill switch.
MacKenzie/Cole: Response
Jira sighed and looked down at the concealed figure.
Jaran: ::to the unknown figure:: Are you injured?
While Jira tended to their unexpected guest, Roy began a circuit of the room.
He moved slowly, rifle angled down but ready, scanning with eyes and hands rather than instruments. A minor in Engineering was useful in the same way a pocketknife was useful during a cave-in: better than nothing, not enough to make one feel particularly useful. He looked for access panels, emergency disconnects, nonstandard heat shimmer, scorch marks, cable routing, anything that suggested where power came in and where it could be persuaded to stop.
Imril would have found the answer in seventeen seconds and then explained it in a way that made Roy feel both grateful and underqualified.
Gavrin, bless him, might have discovered it by tripping into the correct panel with inspirational violence.
Neither of them was here. And because the universe remained committed to its bit, there was no giant red lever helpfully labeled DO NOT PULL UNLESS YOU WOULD LIKE THE PLOT TO ADVANCE.
Bancroft: ::heavy sigh:: I’ve got nothing.
MacKenzie/Cole: Response
As he finished his lap, fruitless, a pulsing thrum began to emit from behind a door in the room. Roy reached for his tricorder on instinct, flicking it open, but Jaran was faster on the draw.
Jaran: Hey, I know we're busy, but something's happening. Seems maybe important.
Bancroft: EM signature is spiking in increasing waves. ::beat:: It’ll soon reach levels that could be dangerous to us. Captain, we need to shut whatever this is down.
Previously, whatever was generating these electromagnetic waves had simply posed a blockade to their efforts to find the Nasciak commandos – interfering with their scanning equipment’s ability to detect lifesigns.
But now? Another few minutes, and the pulses would become strong enough to begin interfering with bioelectrical activity. Possibly even induce seizures.
MacKenzie/Cole/Jaran: Response
As the others set to work on whatever lay behind Door Number Two, Roy crouched beside the shrouded figure. He slung his rifle behind him but kept it within easy reach. It did not take four officers to disable a dangerous emitter, and someone needed to keep eyes on the person who had apparently been hiding in a room their instruments insisted was empty.
The figure remained still.
Roy kept his voice low and quick, but not unkind. He had spent enough time with frightened patients to know the tone to use: I am not here to harm you… provided you don’t force me to revise that assessment.
Bancroft: Are you with the Nasciak?
The shrouded figure shook its head in the negative – a nonverbal movement that seemed to transcend species and culture.
Bancroft: Are you part of the staff of this facility?
Again, a negative shake of the head. Roy resisted rolling his eyes – they didn’t have time for twenty questions.
Bancroft: Alright, you’re… ::searching around the room with his eyes:: what, then? A patient?
Finally, a positive nod. Roy’s tone softened despite himself.
Bancroft: Do you know where anyone else in this facility is right now?
The answer was another shake of the head.
Negative.
Roy nodded once and stood, turning toward the others just as the thrum behind the door began to fade. The pressure in the room eased by degrees. The air seemed less crowded. His tricorder display, blessedly, began to remember its reason for existing.
Bancroft: ::to the others:: No help from this one. Seems to be some sort of patient here at the facility. ::checking his tricorder:: Good news, I can now see it – him – clearly registered as a lifesign on my tricorder now.
MacKenzie/Cole/Jaran: Response
He whirled in the direction indicated – just east of them, according to his tricorder – and saw it, too.
Bancroft: Definitely Nasciak. Male. Three hundred meters down the corridor. Do we wait here? Or go and find him?
MacKenzie/Cole/Jaran: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1