Ensign S'Jenes - Feel the Power
James hassell
((Planet Peekaboo - Southern Hemisphere - Ruins Clearing))
S’Jenes: Whatever happens next, Commander, it will be intentional.
S'Jenes felt the shift before the tricorder announced it. The air itself seemed to thicken, vibrations threading through the ground and up his spine as the surrounding stone began to answer something unseen. In his peripheral awareness, patterns unfolded. A single presence became many without truly multiplying. The tricorder's protest was almost redundant; the environment had already declared that observation here would not be simple.
Foster: Can you catch what is being signaled?
S’Jenes: The signals are not encrypted in any conventional sense. ::eyes on the tricorder as it protests::
Tilting his head slightly, S'Jenes turned his attention inward as he parsed the overlapping signals, isolating intent from noise with practiced mental discipline.
Foster: Encrypted data signals? It feels like they’re … reverberating? Bouncing? Could they be using the stones to amplify their signals?
S'Jenes adjusted the tricorder's sensitivity by instinct more than motion, watching the data collapse into interference rather than clarity. The signals were not overpowering the device so much as confusing it, turning its own filtering algorithms against themselves. It was an elegant solution, inefficient by Starfleet standards, but effective in practice.
S’Jenes: The signals...They are recursive, self referencing pulses echoing throughout the surrounding stone. Each reflection alters the phase slightly, creating exponential interference. In effect, the environment IS the transmitter.
Foster: So if we want to go forward we can’t use tricorders. ::he offered a low smirk:: Exploring the old fashioned way.
S’Jenes: Proceeding without tricorders will reduce our informational intake by approximately 43 percent. ::a beat:: However, it will also render us to be less predictable. I assess this as an acceptable exchange.
He disengaged the tricorder, letting it rest against his palm as his attention shifted outward. Sensory input did not end with instruments; it merely required discipline. Listening to the cadence of the air and how light bent against the stone. Proceeding without tools would not be a disadvantage, only a demand for greater precision.
Foster: I get the sense that our friends didn’t expect us to be this stubborn. Maybe their species do not explore much?
Humans advanced not because it was efficient, but because retreat offended their sense of purpose, and vulcans...despite centuries of advising caution...had repeatedly chosen to walk beside them anyway. S'Jenes knew that this was about accepting calculated discomfort in service of understanding.
S’Jenes: It is possible they anticipated caution, hesitation, or retreat. ::glancing towards the ruins, then the surrounding rise:: They do not appear to account for curiosity combined with professional obstinance.
Foster: I’m ready to press forward if you are.
S’Jenes: ::meeting Foster's glance, calm and steady:: I am prepared to continue, Commander. Whatever intention they may have, our intention to explore shall overcome.
S'Jenes inclined his head once and moved first, setting a deliberate pace towards the ruins. The clearing offered no cover now, and they adjusted their path to minimize silhouette against the broken stone.
S'Jenes: The interference diminishes as we approach the structure. ::quietly:: This suggests the signal originates within, not around it.
He paused briefly as they reached the threshold, where shaped stone overtook the planet's natural surface. From here, the ruin's age was unmistakable. It wasn't decayed, but settled, as though time had flowed around it rather than through it. S'Jenes reached down and extracted a compact sampler from his kit. He knelt and extracted a thin core from the stone. He sealed the sample, tagging it for later analysis, his expression tightened with restrained interest.
S'Jenes: This construction shows no correlation with the recent activity we have observed. :: a measured pause:: It was not created recently.
Foster: ?
S'Jenes: That might be, Commander. This stone seems to be centuries old, at it's youngest.
Inside, the ruin opened into a chamber that felt intentionally sparse. No ornamentation. No obvious iconography. Function over reverence. S'Jenes slowed further, senses alert to shifts in air pressure, acoustics, and vibration. The stone around them hummed, not audibly but in a perceptive manner.
He stopped.
At the center of the chamber stood something that was not stone.
S'Jenes: Correct me if I'm wrong, Commander, but that looks like a power source, don't you think?
Foster: ?
S'Jenes: Yes and I am not seeing any indications of known origin at all.
The object was partially embedded in the floor, crystalline and metallic at once. Light bending around it in ways that defied easy categorization.
S'Jenes: are you getting any readings off of it, Commander? is it active? stable at all?
Foster: ?
S'Jenes circled it slowly, resisting the urge to reach out. Instead he activated a surface sampler from his kit...passive, non-invasive, and let it skim the surface. The readings were inconsistent.
S'Jenes: Commander, these readings...they're fluctuating between energy signatures that should not exist.
Foster: ?
S'Jenes: Exactly, and those harmonics are similar to subspace resonance, but they're anchored...as if contained by the structure itself. ::a pause:: This device is not merely powered, It is integrated into the ruin itself.
Foster: ?
He took another sample, microscopic residue from where the object met the surrounding stone, then stepped back and re-centered himself. The presence of the device pressing against his awareness like a vast machine humming just below audible range.
S'Jenes: Commander, whatever entity or entities are observing us, they are unlikely to view interaction with this device as neutral behavior.
Foster: ?
S'Jenes folded his hands behind his back, posture composed but intently sharpened.
S'Jenes: I feel we are no longer dealing with a simple matter of territorial warning. Seeing this device along with the interaction they provided earlier with the obsidian...I feel we are dealing with a matter of custodianship. And custodians tend to respond decisively when the artifact they guard is found, as opposed to not.
Foster: ?