AT 007B - Rojar II R02 Detailed Survey

Posted on 07 Jun 2013 @ 4:25pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman & Amril & Ensign Im'er Mor'an & Petty Officer 3rd Class & Senior Chief Petty Officer Anthony Davis & Commander Scarlet Blake & Petty Officer 2nd Class Lorenzo Donati

4,114 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: Rojar II R02 - Metropolis Ruins
Timeline: MD 05 - 1630 hrs

Previously, on R02 Detailed Survey (Part 2)...

In the distance, a screech of metal sounded like the shriek of a banshee and the sound of crumbling building. It was close by and rubble dust began to rise from what must have been the next street over.

"Donati is over there," Amril observed solemnly, though he made no attempt to move, instead casting a glance to the away team's leader.

"Mr. Amril, lead the way." John replied, anxious to explore some of this surface himself.

"Watch yourselves down here people - regular comm checks every ten minutes for everyone - no exceptions, not even me. If you get into trouble or find something strange, you call me - immediately."

Pointing towards the collection of rubble that Donati had headed towards, John decided that this would be the first stop for his Ops chief and himself.

Amril turned and headed back the way he had come. "We should bring a few more people with us," Amril said to Holliday," we might need to move ruble of Donati has gotten himself trapped." Apparently it did not occur to him to use his commbadge.

"Commbadge will do the job if we need it Lieutenant. For now we should suffice just to chase up one lost sheep."

The XO grinned as he turned back to his team, giving one final set of orders before heading towards his destination.

"Everyone is to return here in one hour - I want full atmospheric analyses as well as testing of groundwater and surface materials - we don't have a lot of time so let's not waste what we have. Split up into teams and get it done. Questions?"

"None here sir," Jared replied in a quiet voice.

Delainey offered a quiet but firm "No sir," even as she felt a bit torn about which group to assist. Her instincts were telling her if someone might be injured, she had a duty to investigate, but it wasn't as if no one else had medical training of any sort. A part of her wanted to use the opportunity to explore things she wouldn't normally be inclined to. She decided to honor that impulse and assessed her opportunities. Jacob's excitement drew her in his direction.

Kohl looked up from his tricorder long enough to shake his head, but then the whirring of his scanner caught his attention again.

Athlen stood up from his tree and walked back over to the group, ducking his head under some branches and coming up next to Kohl. "Morning," he said to the medic, offering a wave.

"Good morning," Kohl replied, answering Athlen's wave with a beaming smile. Looking over at the Crewman, Kohl tapped the edge of his tricorder indicating the readings on his tricorder he wanted Athlen to see.

Mor'an meandered away from the group, having caught sight of a heat signature beyond an outcropping of rocks. She knew the individual signatures of almost everyone on the away team, but this one didn't look familiar. Tapping her comm badge, Mor'an spoke quickly. "Commander, I see a strange heat signature. I am going to find out what it is." Without waiting for a response, she shimmied up the cropping and peered over the edge.

"Stay in contact...no surprises Cadet." John replied with a nod.

Nexia walked over to the nearest security officer. "Excuse me? Senior Chief Davis? Would it be alright if we teamed up, Chief? Not sure what use you would have with an Oceanology Specialist, but I could sure use you.""

The large security officer looked down at the scaled Selkie and gave her a quasi-friendly smile. "No prob. Just stick close to me...no pun intended." he joked.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

As the team diverged into smaller groups, Holliday was all too happy to take the lead heading towards the location of Petty Officer Donati - the terrain was not particularly challenging, having once held an advanced civilisation, a lot of the land around them had been shaped to make it easier to utilise. With his Vorta Ops chief in tow, the XO quickly moved towards Donati.

"Petty Officer! Report!"

Amril tried to keep up with Holliday, pointing down a street. "He was investigating a building down there," the vorta explained.

"I'm fine!" a muffled voice called from near the pile of collapsed rubble that had been the front of a building. Donati stood up from the place where he had taken cover behind a large piece of wall. The man was unharmed and gestured excitedly towards the melted remains of a set of blast doors. "I needed to get in there," he explained, "there's some sort of archive in there."

"Archive?" John called out in reply, it took a few seconds for him to locate exactly where the Petty Officer was calling from. eventually, he focused his eyes on the blast doors ahead of him and smirked.

"How do you know? Those look like military grade doors."

"Well either way, you're not going in until I check you over, it'll only take a second," Scarlet moved forward and headed for Donati. She pulled her tricorder out and started scanning him to make sure he was alright before there could be an argument on it. She gave a nod to him and the others before looking to the melted mess that had been doors, taking a deep breath as she set a hand on her hip. "I guess we won't know until we take a look," she gave a small, almost tempting smile, taking a scan of the area. "Nothing's showing up that would stop us." She pulled her torch out ready and strapped it to her wrist before pulling her phaser out as she headed to the entrance.

"Very well, let's get it open." John replied, standing back with his phaser in the ready position. These doors had been sealed for a reason - hopefully to keep something out, but the XO wasn't willing to take the risk in case this had been done to keep something from getting outside.

Ignoring the others and their silly concerns with regulations and the like, Donati stepped forward and led the others through the door. Archaeology would wait for no officer, and neither would its follower. He stepped through the still warm doors and sucked into the room beyond.

"Ha!" came his yell of excitement. "Look at this!"

The room beyond the doors was large, stretching out in all directions, up and down included. They stood on some sort of balcony overlooking the place. 'Shelves' filled the place from wall to ceiling and below were scattered piles of technology... and the remains of their owners. It looked like some sort of library, just as Donati had claimed.

The room was indeed expansive, and John gripped his weapon even tighter as the doors parted. Whilst it might have appeared to all be inert, the XO was still acutely aware that this system had already claimed one officer's life, and could easily claim another. A boobytrap, a security system, anything could have been left here.

"Move in....carefully..."

Donati rushed down the metal stairs to the floor below and approached the nearest table. A reading device of some sort was set up. A full skeleton sat down on a stool, its skull resting on the dead, blank control panel, as if it had died reading. Small round objects were scattered across the table and floor in piles. Donati bent over and blew on the desk, sending countless years of dust scattering through the air. Underneath, piles of small glass circles in a variety of colors were revealed, some damaged and broken, but some whole.

"These must be data chips!" Donati declared, whirling on the others. "Don't step on anything!" He would not have a history of these people or an explanation of their language lost to a careless step of some bumbling officer.

"Settle down Mr Donati - before you break something yourself. Let's start getting these things together - we can build an interface back on the Galileo but we need intact chips to do it with."

John looked around in amazement at the array of items and relics around the room, the skeleton was equally as interesting and the medical teams would more than likely have a field day examining it.

"We should take the body as well - we might be able to find out what species it was."

Scarlet moved around with a small smile, taking it all in. She looked around with curiosity, walking directly through to get to a tall frame full of items. She scanned them before leaning to look at them properly, taking it in. From her perspective, she looked for sociological indicators.

As Donati wandered carefully but excited towards one of the shelves that looked to hold more data chips, Amril walked up beside Holliday. "Well, this is quite exciting, Commander," he said with a smile, "I wonder if any of the data chips are actually still readable." He stepped over to the small glass disks Donati had uncovered and scanned them with his tricorder. "It's hard to tell, but it looks like many of them might be degraded, even if the chips themselves are intact."

"Something for the software gurus aboard Galileo to tangle with I think - how good are you with datafile restoration Mr Amril?"

John asked inquisitively, taking out his own tricorder and passing it over the data storage devices. They were certainly different to the isolinear chips used by Starfleet, but they seemed to have a rather substantial crystalline matrix that was perfect for holding large volumes of data. His tricorder returned some readings on the state of the data, but without a working knowledge of what a complete file looked like, the XO was lost as to the current state of these files.

"I might be able to do something with the disks in better condition," Amril replied modestly.

"Very well Lieutenant - do what you can and transfer your findings back to the Galileo - your insight will most likely come in handy once we leave here."

John turned his tricorder's attention to the corpse on the other side of the room - it was heavily degraded after so many years lying here, but there was likely still enough genetic material to at least reconstruct the species appearance, albeit holographically. That would of course require access to a starship.

"Miss Alona, Miss Blake - hows that body looking? The Galileo's morgue seems like a fitting place to transfer it?"

"The best thing to do, I'd say, if we want to take it away and study it that is," Scarlet nodded across to the First Officer with calm eyes, pushing herself back to stand where she was crouched next to it, shrugging at what the tricorder showed. "This is - was - a person afterall. This is its resting place. We'd be taking a dead person away to study it without any knowledge of the beliefs we should respect. We'd be taking a person away from its home."

John had not thought of the corpse as anything resembling a person - his own opinions were after death the body was nothing more than an empty shell, but he could see how some individuals would be a little disheartened at the idea of removing this body.

"Can we get a detailed analysis without removing it to the Galileo? If we would rather leave it resting here?"

"I can get a good basic scan on this," Scarlet motioned with the tricorder. "But that's all. I can also take some tissue samples to take back up with us rather than the whole body," she gave a half smile, shaking her head as she met his eyes. "I'm a counsellor, not a doctor. I'm basically a field medic in terms of medicine. That's about the best I can do for you," she said apologetically.

"You're still better with a medical tricorder than I am Lieutenant. Do your best and return your data to Galileo."

John replied with a nod. He sadly didn't have free access to a member of the medical team right now, but the tricorder was an advanced enough instrument that it would gather sufficient data to allow those more trained in these disciplines to work back on board the ship.

"Anyone see anything else of interest?" He called out to the group.

By coincidence, for the archeologist certainly was not paying attention to the rest of his party, Donati's voice drifted back. "Artifacts!" was the word that bounced down the metal shelved to the atrium the rest of the away team was standing in. A metallic clatter arose shortly thereafter.

Outside the building in which the rest of her team were exploring, Mor'an was investigated the odd spot of heat she had seen earlier. As she climbed over the outcropping of rocks to find it, she pondered what it could be. Cresting the rocks, Mor'an found that, to her dismay, the heat was emanated from nothing other than a natural hot spring bubbling up from the earth. Her delicate lips turning slightly down in disappointment, Mor'an turned and found her way back to her team.

It took her a few moments to locate them, but it wasn't hard. When she did find her team, Mor'an's disappointment quickly turned into excitement at what they had found.

As Mor'an returned and the loud clash sounded down the large room, Scarlet stood from where she had been crouched by the corpse. She frowned, looking in the direction and shining her torch down there. "Everything okay, Donati?" she called. She was starting to wonder if he'd pull the place down around their ears.

"Come!" the archaeologist's voice called, "But carefully!"

Donati stood in the middle of an open area surrounded by the datachip shelves extending in all directions like the spokes on a wheel. It looked like a miniature museum; there were metal stands rising from the floor and taping to pieces of broken technology. The artifacts lay scattered on the floor.

"Look at this," Donati said, turning towards them as they arrived. In his hands he held a long metal staff engraved with symbols. "It looks like a ceremonial piece, probably from their culture, from a time before this city itself." He had put on gloves and now placed one of the covered hands atop the twisted metal top of the stand. "These probably emitted some kind of suspension field. The artifacts would hover over them. Ancient technology, but advanced."

Mor'an knelt down next to Donati and examined the staff, her quick eyes taking in the intricate symbols. She leaned forward, careful not to breathe on the artifact as she spoke in a low voice. "How old do you believe it to be?" she asked, not for any reason other than the fact that she was curious.

Allowing his phaser rifle to sling around onto his back, with the carry strap strung across his chest, the XO pulled his tricorder and began to pass it's sensor array over the piece. There was simply a plethora of components inside this supposed suspension field generator, some of the items looked familiar to modern equivalents, but others were obviously unique to this species, or at least unique to the time period only.

"This thing is really fragile....I'd like to take it back to Galileo but moving it by hand isn't going to be the smart option....suggestions people?"

The XO had his own ideas, but the ideas of his team were just as valuable. If he had learned anything from years of Starfleet service, it was that there was never just one idea to choose from.

"We could beam one to a science lab directly," Amril suggested.

"No!" Donati said, standing up, "This room is perfectly preserved, it's priceless. If it's not meant to be moved, I forbid anything to be removed from this hall besides the data chips. An archaeological survey should handle this." He looked down at the staff in his hands reverently, lifting it slightly, "This... is the discovery of a lifetime. An entire lost civilization..."

"Mr. Donati in case you have forgotten I both outrank you by a significant degree, and am the commanding officer of this mission - forbid is too strong a word to be tossing around near me."

John replied with a sharpened tongue. He had no real issue with allowing more qualified members of the crew to examine the remains down here, but the decision to do so would be made by him, not by a junior.

"We don't have the resource to transfer that many people down here to examine this place - nor the time.... the least we can do is transfer limited items back to the Galileo and Starfleet can send a more detailed research team at a later point."

The sheer size of the ruins meant that even if Galileo were to deploy her entire crew here, it would still take days if not weeks to get the entire picture. There was no way that she could do justice to the information hidden within these ruins.

"We take a few smaller items back to Galileo for analysis, and I'll send a comm to Starfleet to request an archaeological survey team be dispatched with better equipment for this sort of delicate transport work. In the meantime, Mr. Donati, get a stasis unit beamed down here so what we take at least makes it home in one piece."

"Very well, sir," Donati replied with a sigh. "But we must be very careful. Archaeological remains this old are as delicate as they are priceless. I will begin cataloging the contents of the archive and determine what we have the facilities and technology to safely remove."

"Agreed - make your choices with precision." John replied, glad to see that he was not going to have an argument on his hands over whether or not items would be transferred back to the Galileo.

"Miss Blake - if you could be so kind to asist Petty Officer Donati? An extra pair of hands should speed up proceedings."

Donati knelt down and started getting supplies out of his pack.

"Yes, Sir," Scarlet nodded and moved through to get to Donati, casting him a small smile as she knelt to help him. This wasn't work she was familiar with, but she could follow instruction well enough and could get things done quickly.

"Shall I assist as well, Commander?" Amril asked, "We'll need to arrange transport, storage, and anything else Donati requires; I am designed for logistical administration."

"A strange word for it Mr. Amril? Designed?" John mentioned, before thinking a little more closely about the origins of the Vorta and their place within the Dominion. Designed actually wasn't that bad a word, after all, any species that was grown specifically for a purpose and then cloned repeatedly was simply living up to their design.

"Very well Lieutenant - get to work - I'll report back to the Captain."

"Of course, sir," Amril said with a nod, tapping his commbadge and contacting ops back on the ship, walking away as he did so.

=^=Holliday to Galileo - Captain Saalm do you read? =^=

It took only a few moments before Lirha's voice sounded back across the comm. "Saalm here. Is everything proceeding smoothly on the surface, commander?" she inquired

=^= Yes Ma'am - we've found some sort of ruin...it was sealed up pretty tight but we have gained access and there is a lot to survey. We've recovered what look like data storage devices that we will be returning to Galileo along with a series of smaller artifacts but I strongly advise we contact Starfleet to charter a more dedicated archeological team to be dispatched.=^=

Lirha felt a twinge of excitement at the mention of ruins and recovered alien data chips. Such a find was no doubt monumental, especially in an unknown region of space in which Starfleet had no prior contact or presence. "That sounds very exciting," she answered with an unseen grin, "I will be sure to contact Starfleet immediately and report our preliminary findings. Are the data chips...functional?" she asked with hopefulness in her voice.

=^=Mr Amril feels that he might be able to do something about that particular problem - preliminary investigations show that some of the storage units are intact, and we just need to construct some sort of interface to make it compatible with a Starfleet datalink - we're preparing to bring several back to the ship for further analysis. =^=

"Very good." came the captain's content reply across the comm. "I am looking forward to your debriefing once you are all back on board. Saalm out."

As the comm channel closed, John turned back to face his team, who were enthusiastically working their way through the myriad of items, relics, leftovers and evidence that were strewn around these almost cavernous ruins.

"Make sure we haven't missed anything....Cadet Mor'an - check that lower corridor...I don't want the Captain dragging me up because we missed a piece of pottery or a computer chip."

"Aye," Mor'an said quickly, glad to have a job to do. She moved away, silent as a shadow, down the corridor.

"Excellent. Mr Donati, Mr Amril, I presume we'll be ready to beam this lot back to the Galileo in short time?"

Donati gave Holliday a 'clearly you aren't an archeologist' look. "That depends on how much we want to move. In a place this size, properly cataloging artifacts could take hours. These chips... it will take an archeological team a long time to catalog them."

"Well," Amril interjected, "I'm sure we can get what we can done in the available time."

Mor'an's sharp eyes swept the corridor as she crept along. Though she knew that IR and UV sight probably wouldn't help much, she used it anyway. As she approached the halfway mark, she still had found nothing. Her disappointment was once again mounting as findings of a less-than-exciting nature presented themselves to her. Rocks. Rubble. Tiny heat signatures of insects. More rocks.

As Mor'an crested a mound of rubble, she found something that was much more exciting than a rock -- not that that was all too difficult. The corpse of a long-dead Borg drone was lying at the base of the mound, just waiting to be found. Mor'an grinned, excited that she had been the one to find it. She tapped her comm badge.

"Sir!" she said gaily, "I have found a Borg drone!" She carefully, nimbly climbed down the pile of rubble to sit next to the corpse, not daring to touch it until the rest of the team arrived.

As the voice of the young cadet echoed from the XO's commbadge, John leapt to his feet, clutching his rifle tight to his chest as he bounded across the chamber and towards the young girl's position. Thoughts ran through his mind - was the drone active, indeed was it alive, and currently making the young Cadet the latest member of the collective?

Raising his weapon and increasing the power level to a more deadly setting, the Commander leapt the first pile of rubble with monkey-like dexterity, before coming to rest beside the cadet, his weapon pointed squarely at the remains of his long-deceased opponent.

"Cadet - are you alright?" John asked, taking a moment to lower his phaser and then drawing his tricorder, passing the sensor package over the remains, before finally sighing deeply in relief.

"Of course I am, sir," Mor'an said, too fascinated by the drone to pay close attention to her commander's concern.

"I'm not picking up any signs of activity...this drone took a massive plasma surge to it's chest armour...seemingly enough to fry any implant it came in contact with...it won't be getting up any time soon."

John's data was conclusive - there was no risk of this drone regnerating or reactivating after all. Still, it was evidence enough that the Borg had indeed done their damage to this world.

=^=Holliday to Away Team - begin preparations to return to the Galileo - we have done enough here today. =^=

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. JG. Scarlet Blake
Chief Counsellor
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Amril
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo
played by Psylus Anon

PO2 Lorenzo Donati
Archaeologist
USS Galileo
played by Psylus Anon

Cadet Senior Grade Im'er Mor'an
red Squad Intern
USS Galileo

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