Lt. Commander Doz Finch - The Gateway Room
Doz Finch
((Dry Lab Complex, Gibaria Outpost))
After seeing Naledi off, the team moved into an area that contained walls of mechanical exoskeletons designed, she reckoned, to aid the scientists with their heavier pursuits. Beyond the idle machines and at the furthest end of the hall she could see a bright and undulating light.
Finch: That very well might be the gateway room. If it is, we’ll tread lightly. Take snapshots, readings if we can, of course, but our priority remains securing a clear path for the other teams. If there’s anything in there, well. Let’s just be careful about where we aim, shall we?
Neathler: Noted.
Espinoza: Consider my treads light and my aim careful, Commander.
Doz nodded once to Ethan, and then to Samira, as she carefully started to walk through the lines of industrial exoskeleton suits, the urge to pause and examine them ever present. If she could convince the Admiral, and she was sure she could, they’d have made a cracking addition to shuttle bay operations. Still, it was a wandering thought too many and was soon cut short by another discovery. Their Chief of Security had found something humming.
Neathler: This thing kept track of the radiation levels before something broke it. ::She looked up, taking a deep breath, showing the results to the others.:: It measured radiation levels double the amount that was mentioned in the briefing.
Espinoza: Which means… what? The anti-rads might not have been enough? Do we have any way at all of trackin’ just how irradiated we are down here?
Finch: Our tricorders have been programmed to alert us if we’re overexposed. But if at any point from here on out either of you feel even marginally different, then speak up. We’re good to no-one in a gloop.
Mind you, Doz Finch most certainly was not a doctor. She knew how to wrap a bandage, by god, and could deliver basic first aid like no one's business, but her realm of expertise was engines, powerlines, structural integrity, and everything but biology. On a diet of tea and bourbon biscuits, she wasn’t exactly the person to go to for medical advice.
Seconds into minutes, they entered the room at the end of the mech-hall, and that’s when things really began to get interesting.
((The Gateway Room, Gibaria Outpost))
Goodness me.
Vast and circular, this room had to have been sublime before the encroaching took place. A technological nexus of pure wonder. Now reduced to something grimmer, more webbed in appearance. Sitting comfortably in the middle of the room was the gate itself, a large pointed arch that had been constructed from dull metals, from what she could gather beyond the tangle of flora snaking around it.
Here it was a bit different. The vines were actually flowering with mulberry coloured spikes, and something carmine and hairy ran the length of the frame of the gate in swirls and twirls. There were spores here too, lots of spores, cloudy and very big, enough to see without her having to squint, exiting and re-entering the whirlpool within the structure itself as if the thing was taking long and horribly raspy breaths.
She was suddenly struck by a memory.
((Flashback: Some Years Ago, USS Marigold))
Computer: =/\= This is an evacuation alert. Please remain calm and begin evacuation protocols. Leave all personal items behind and proceed in an orderly fashion to your nearest escape pod locations. =/\=
She felt her stomach twisting into a knot as she lurched forward towards the doors intending to go back inside. Refusing to open, the woman started banging her fists ferociously against them, pleading for the things to part, until with a gasp she ran to the gleaming panel nearby and started to pound in access codes. Access denied. Unidentified code. Access denied.
With a guttural cry she slammed her fist against it one more time, and through some version of a miracle, the doors opened. The maintenance engineer flew inside and immediately stumbled forwards onto her hands and knees with a grunt, head whipping up to the sight of the swirling vortex again. It hovered there above the control station of the warp core dominating the room, pulling equipment towards it like a magnet, hinges snapping, bolts popping, heat surging. Her best friend stood below it transfixed, hands gripped to the alien device, hypnotized and unable…or unwilling? To move.
Then a sound…no, not a sound, a voice? Surely not…how could it have been? Yet it was! It was. It was a voice. A voice from the whirlpool beyond. Beckoning him to go forward. To join it. This way, Murphy. Don’t turn around. Come this way.
There was no getting through to him.
((Presently: The Gateway Room, Gibaria Outpost))
Air left her lungs as she stood and stared, the memory like a whip to her cranium. She’d blocked so much of it out over the years.
The combination of Samira’s voice and something mechanical hissing and squeaking snapped her out of the stupor she might have stayed in forever. The pixie-haired woman had gestured to something over to one side of the room. A mecha-suit was on its back, its left hand opening and closing continuously as its other powered hand remained gripped onto a crimson-coated creature, with six legs and a red-tufted head busied inside the chest cavity of the exoskeleton suit.
Was there a scientist in there being gobbled alive?
Neathler: That's…
Espinoza: Another issue. Thank God. I thought we were startin’ to run outta them.
Finch: Remember, loveys, it's fast and it doesn't seem to think first, so that's something we can use against it.
The creature rose from the hollow of the suit in a slow and sinuous unfurling way, bending its torso until pale, cataract-clouded eyes pinned to all three of them. A wet and tremulous growl rippled through its serrated teeth, and the ensign among them quickly looked at her for some direction.
Espinoza: Does this, uhh… constitute the need for careful aim -
Finch: As long as it lands on the creature, and not on the gate!
Neathler: Response
A crack of motion was rapidly followed by the gathering of vines that, like a sharp knife, stabbed through the head of the beast itself with a precision that would put Doctor V’Lar to shame. The red and furry thing fell limp, and dangled there in mid-air as unseen tendrils coursed through its body via any available ingress.
If the older woman’s forehead was wrinkly before, then it had reached a Himalayan extremity by now. This wasn’t the place for an ensign. It was dark, it was unforgiving, it was science gone terribly, terribly wrong. She was thankful she had Samira with her. The two of them hadn't half gone through it together over the years. Skarbek, the Borg timeline. At the very least, the young man was in the company of two women who'd survived a hell of a lot already.
And the other teams. Were they managing?
Espinoza: I don’t think we’re walkin’ past this one…
Finch: No, although again I'm completely perplexed by the behaviour of the flora. If it really wanted to get rid of us, then it would have done just that. There has got to be more going on that we’re just not understanding yet.
Neathler: Response
Espinoza: There’s enough of those suits, so I really do think we oughta try an’ put at least one of ‘em to use. I can't imagine they're hard to maneuver, and I imagine the noise will keep those vines away.
She blinked down toward the almost-lifeless suit, and then took a moment to examine the interior layout of the Gateway Room. There were cameras fixed to certain points and lights running in long skinny lines along the vertical apple-core curves. And there facing the gate from hovering vantage point: a view box.
Finch: There’s a gallery up there.
Neathler / Espinoza: Response
Finch: It’s where the scientists would probably watch the gate with their own eyes.
Neathler / Espinoza: Response