LTJG Josh Herrick: Circle Gets The Square
Mark P
(( Sphere Chamber , Alpha Brenkelvi II ))
The hooded figures vanished as quickly as they’d appeared; the group was cult like, and Josh was glad to be rid of them. He would be making a concerted effort to keep his hands to himself and nowhere near the orb ‘thingy’ going forward. Who they were and what the cause of the apparition was remaining to be answered, and of course it would be Starfleet to answer the call.
Maxwell: Aye, but where did they go?
Etan: A very good question. They appeared at the same moment that the Sphere appeared to brush again Mr. Herrick. :: beat :: I would hypothesize there is some correlation. Although that doesn’t explain what we just saw.
Arlill: Umm ::looking back and forth between the officers:: It’s definitely temporal in nature.
Etan: Perhaps it was some of temporal ech-
Their reprieve from the spooky vibes had been brief, as the cavern filled with overlapping voices that were growing in volume and number. Josh had tried to make out what language it was in the beginning, but the escalation had been so rapid that it was hard to distinguish any discernible conversation.
Maxwell: Routine science mission, aye?
Arlill: Anything but. What are you seeing?
Herrick: ::increasing his voice to compensate:: Well, if I recall correctly from my academy days, if we are only detecting chronitons and nothing else, it would seem limited to our dimension or universe. So, ::shrugging:: ghosts of Christmas past?
Maxwell: My auld da always said there was nae such thing.
Josh felt an uneasy feeling as the voices escalated. At first, he was worried that he was descending into another panic attack, but he realized he felt sad for these unknown people. He couldn’t tell why, but there was a desperation in their tone. Somehow, he knew these people were destined for doom.
As the ground shook, and in alignment with his comment around Christmas, dust started snowing from the ceiling of the cavern on the officers. Josh wondered what Alpha Brenkelvi II had in store for them as the group looked to their tricorders for reassurance.
Etan: The chroniton energy leakage is increasing- :: he had to raise his above the growing din. :: - and I’m detecting what look like weak points in the layers of this object! :: beat :: I think it’s about to lose structural cohesion!
Arlill: I’m picking up some fragmentation in the orb’s energy field.
Herrick: ::looking to Maxwell:: Do we shoot it?
Maxwell: Response
Taking Max’s cue, the team backed away. It wasn’t smart to shoot at something that could literally blow up in their face. What had seemed like an almost perfect sphere started rippling like the sea under heavy winds and the rhythmic drumming became so loud it downed out the voices. It was deafening. The team continued to move backwards slowly, almost as if they were fearful that something too sudden would set off the thingy.
They had almost made their escape when the noises faded away and, when Josh looked at the center of the cavern, he saw that the sphere stopped spinning and hung limply in the air — it was dead for lack of a better term. The three incandescent prongs beneath lost their lustre, revealing their original composition to some kind of transparent material.
The silence was its own flavour of deafening; it took a few moments for the team to regain their composure, looking around at the space and then each other.
Etan: Oookay… :: he said, trailing off in confusion. ::
Arlill: Active for thousands of years and now that we’ve arrived it just goes dark?
Maxwell: Response.
Etan: The energy field has returned to normal, and the… object appears to be… offline, for want of a better phrase. :: beat :: I’m also detecting what looks like a massive energy grid running throughout the underground complex. It seems to be drawing power from the field.
Arlill: I’m picking up less power being directed towards that object now, it’s like it was just turned off.
Herrick: Could someone be playing a trick on us?
Maxwell: Response.
Etan: Let’s come at this from a 25th century perspective. :: beat :: Say a plasma relay malfunctions and threatens to overload. What steps do we take to prevent that from happening? :: he looked between Arlill and Herrick, who were well versed in the systems of the ‘Oumuamua. ::
Arlill: First I’d shunt power through other relays to avoid outages and then shut down the faulty plasma relay ::trailing off:: (beat) ahhh….
Herrick: ::bridging off the Chief of Ops :: In original starship designs, before shunts, the course of action would be an automatic shut down. Even today, with secondaries and redundant backups, if they exceed a maximum and the system gets killed. Better to lose a function than blow up. It stands to reason that rather than being able to compensate, it shut down when it malfunctioned.
Maxwell: Response.
Etan: What if the same thing happened here? Perhaps the grid is powered by the energy field and detected this object malfunctioning- and it deactivated it? :: beat :: And the apparitions we saw and the voices we heard were a… temporal containment breach?
Arlill: But what was the purpose of the orb in the first place? Were they experimenting with temporal technology?
Herrick: There was something I heard, but it wasn’t so clear. Insh'alha…something. It was hard to make it out, but I heard something that sounded like that a couple times. Does that mean anything to anyone?
Etan / Maxwell: Response.
Arlill: ::looking at Etan:: Is this anything like the Bajoran orbs? Is it possible this is one in the same?
Etan / Maxwell: Response.
Arlill: But if it’s similar, how’s that possible? With what we know of the aliens from the wormhole, do you think it’s possible for them to have brought this here?
Herrick: If I recall my history correctly, ::looking at the commander:: I think the texts say that the orbs had been delivered by the prophets unto Bajor from the celestial temple. Knowing what we know now, it’s possible that they fired them off from both sides of the wormhole.
Etan / Maxwell: Response.
Herrick: So, ::looking around:: are we talking about a second influenced culture?
Etan / Maxwell: Response.
Josh had been raised by monotheists but as he grew older and examined history more closely, he had converted to polytheism. There were parallels in his belief system to that of The Way of the Prophets; so much so that in conversations like these, it was easier for him to get distracted. Thankfully Toxin had been there to bring the team back into focus.
Arlill: Should we try to find the source of the energy that was being provided to the orb? It may tell us more.
Etan / Maxwell: Response.
The dim glow from the overhead lighting was no longer sufficient without the orb casting off its own illumination, so Josh overrode the VRD and manually switched on his light. The team followed suit and they had been scanning the walls for other exit points. He passed several archways that seemed ceremonial; there were no doors or, if there had been, they’d been replaced and filled with stone. Again, Josh wondered if maybe they were keeping something out, or trapping something inside.
It was hard to detect exactly where they should head next; there were conduits piping in energy from all directions, so a singular ‘control room’ or power source wasn’t jumping out on the scanners. What it did indicate was that this object needed a great degree of power and was important enough for the civilization to funnel enough power to run a small city to keep it online.
They were missing something, and Josh didn’t know what it was; it seemed odd to have just one entrance and exit.
Herrick: ::thinking out loud:: If I was the leader of a cult and building a ceremonial temple room…
Etan / Arlill / Maxwell: Response.
Herrick: ::caught off guard:: Oh, just trying to put myself in the same mindset. Like, why are there all these useless archways?
Etan / Arlill / Maxwell: Response.
Combined with the other officer’s light source, it was much easier to see the minute details on the archways. The border along the arch had circles and dots running across it and seemed like what they saw at the entrance. However, on the left side of the arch, about three feet up, there was a square shape.
Herrick: They hid that mechanism in the floor in the last room, I reckon this might be the door control; it’s the only square in the whole pattern… Should we push it?
Etan / Arlill / Maxwell: Response.
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Lieutenant JG Josh Herrick
Acting Chief Engineer
USS ‘Oumuamua
O240005JH3
he/him/his (player/character)