Repairing the Pyramid

Posted on 11 Jun 2018 @ 11:49am by Commander Marisa Wyatt & Petty Officer 2nd Class Donald Andrews & Petty Officer 3rd Class John Hollenday
Edited on on 21 Aug 2023 @ 2:30pm

1,914 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 16 - A Far Sun
Location: Pleione - Inside the Machine
Timeline: MD 03, 1200 hrs

[ON]

The team materialized in the control room inside the pyramid. Marisa took a moment to look around and take stock of where they were. Because of her time with the book and then the computer, she understood many of the symbols. "Over here," she said, heading to a bank of computers. "I think this is where you can find out what's wrong."

There was a constant thrum throughout the structure. Not quite a hum but something more forceful. If it had been living creature it would be like some giant just sleeping. There were lights on what appeared to be control surfaces but otherwise the rest was bathed in darkness. There was no dust, the place was too well shielded from the outside for that.

John looked around and pulled his engineering tricroder. He followed the science officer over to one machine with a lot of lights on it. "Sure hope that book has instructions in it, I can't even pretend to know exactly what is going on."

"I have a rough understanding of the symbols, but I'm no engineer," Marisa said. "I think that flashing light is an indication that something is wrong."

John snorted a little. "Ma'am there is enough blinking lights on this panel to have a Christmas display that you could see in Atlanta. Donald," he turned to his engineering partner. "Think you might figure out how to get that display on? I will take a look at the main panel and see if get any sense of what is what."

"Lets see." Donald headed over to the display screen and its control panel and had a look around.

The best way Marisa could be of help was to figure out what was what. She'd memorized as much as she could, and put the book in her tricorder. Now she pulled it out and began to scan so that she could see what she could find.

"Bio-detritus culinary ambiguity filter?" She checked again. That couldn't be right. Language shift. She gave herself a mental thwack. She hadn't even considered that the original language and the language in the book had altered. She had no idea how much time had passed between the initial installation to the printing of the book.

"Okay," she said softly. "Let's take this logically." She began to circle the room, looking at every symbol, every light, every computer. On her second lap, some things began to make sense. One panel was clearly not working properly. There was also a very faint beeping noise. But not a regular beep. This one had a pattern. She listened carefully to make out the pattern. "Morse code."

"Your the officer, ma'am," John drawled. "Just a nut buster third class."

She'd occasionally used Morse Code in the field. It took her a minute to attune her ear to what was being transmitted. "It's from Lake." Clever of him to use his combadge that way. The ship should pick it up, but it would mean nothing to the locals. That meant this was the communications panel. And there was definitely something wrong as there were a number of blue-green lights flashing at her. She looked at the other panels. They were red, yellow, purple and orange. There were a few white lights, but none were flashing as much as this panel. Nor were they flashing the same color.

She walked around the room again and stopped back at the panel. Yes. This was definitely different. She looked at the symbols. Communications. But for what?

John followed the science officer. "Donald you get that panel on yet?"

"Working on it." Donald said, he pulled himself up off the ground and checked the panel again. the first small light in a horizontal row of 10 had come to life, he tapped a button next to the lights and it went off so he tapped it again and the light returned. "Ok that's something." There was a small dial beneath the lights and he gave it a little turn.

While looking at the panel the science officer was interested in and listening to the faint beep all of the sudden the entire chamber was flooded with brilliant light. John shut his eyes but he swore that he could still see his hands through the lids. "What the...." he got out. The light lasted for less than a minute before it subdued and he turned around.

Donald was standing there arm shielding eyes with a hand on a knob. The panel was showing what appeared to be another machine of some sort but enveloped with swirls and eddies of light. John was no super scientist but he had learned enough to recognize that it appeared to be plasma eddies.

"Would you look at that! Looks like another machine sitting in what the star itself?"

Marisa looked at the plasma eddies, her excitement building. She pulled out her PADD and compared the data on the machine to the data on her PADD. They were identical. "That has to be it. There's a machine in the sun and for some reason the two machines aren't communicating." Unfortunately, she had no idea how to fix the problem.

She walked around the room again, comparing the panels. "I think the blue-green lights indicate a malfunction."

John scratched his head looking at the panel. "Blinking I can understand but for the life of me you sure those are warnings?"

"No, but it's the most logical conclusion," Marisa said. She waved her hand around the room. "We have so far concluded that this is the communications panel, and that there's a similar device sending signals from inside the sun. Since we also know that the pyramid is no longer keeping the inhabitants safe from the solar flares, the most likely reason is that there's a problem with the pyramid communicating with the facility in the sun. It would explain everything. And, since this is the only panel flashing blue-green lights, there is a high likelihood that they indicate the device is faulty." She smiled and added. "It also explains why they were called Protectors."

"Alright then let's take a look," John said and pulled his tricorder out to start a scan. "Donald, I am going to try a couple of things, see if you see any changes in the others machines reaction." After a quick scan he figured out how to get the panel off and got out some tools. It would appear that the technology here was at least somewhat similar to what he was use to, not completely but hopefully enough to make an attempt.

"Alright here we go, hold onto you butts..." he put a tool in and made a circuit. As far as he knew it could just as well tell the other machine to blow the star up.

"What ever you did then John, undo it, we just lost half the display." Donald said.

"Alright, that did not work so well. No response from the other machine?"

Donald looked over at the other machine, nothing appeared to have changed. "Nothing."

"Alright, let's try this section here," He moved to another section and redid a circuit.

"Wow, hold it we got something."

Marisa took the opportunity to look around the room again. She was slowly beginning to make sense of more of the symbols. She wished the information in the book hadn't changed so much. She wondered how long the gap was between the original arrival of the Protectors and the printing of the book. And if there were any instructions in the room to help the inhabitants.

That gave her an idea, and she began to search for anything that might be a message to the people of this planet for when they found their way inside.

Marisa stopped what she was doing and turned. "What do you have?" she asked.

John called out from under the console. "Check the lights ma'am, see if they changed colours or something."

Marisa walked quickly over to the console. "The lights are no longer flashing. Some have turned back to red and yellow. There's a message...let me see if I can figure it out."

She ran it through her tricorder first. Big lump runs counter to pig. "No, that can't be right."

She pulled out the book and flipped through it, stopping on a page that looked like it might be of help. Not the description, but the picture itself. It was some sort of diagram with symbols. She looked at the panel again. "I think it says something about restoring from backup."

She tapped her combadge. "Sandoval to Schofield. What are the readings on the sun now?"

=^=Flare seems to be dying down.=^=

"Wonderful. We've reestablished communication between the pyramid and the facility in the sun. The panel is restoring from backup, but it will need a special team to make sure it continues to work properly."

Donald stood watching the monitor, it cycled through several screens before settling on what looked like a graph where a line that had peaked multiple times over as far back as the screen showed had finally leveled off and was starting to drop again, he assumed this was indicating the flare activity. "If this means what I think it means they're right, it is dying down."

John slid out from under the console. "Well ma'am, sounds like something is working but if it is on backup then might be only a matter of time. I will tell you right now that this whole thing is well beyond me. Think we need some experts out here to take a looksie."

"I agree. This is going to take some time to figure out," Marisa said. Then she grinned. "At least the inhabitants will survive."

"If the darn thing holds," John replied. "That and these people are going to be in for quite a shock but guess that is not my worry."

"It'll hold," Marisa said. She sounded confident, but inside she was more hopeful than certain. "The people will be fine. They'll put this down to the Protectors saving them again." She wished she could do something about the way the authorities dealt with unbelievers, but that would be violating the Prime Directive.

"Guess we head back to the ship," John checked the lights on last time. It seemed that more had come back to a steady light and changed hue. He took that as a good thing.

"Sandoval to Schofield. We've got it working for now. Core of Engineers will need to make sure." And science will no doubt want to study the planet and the pyramid. "Away team is ready to beam back."

=^=We have a rescue team coming down, please standby=^=

"Anything we can do to help?" Sandoval asked. "You can beam me over, if necessary."

=^=We are going to try to minimize our presence. Stand by though, just in case.=^=

"Roger." Marisa was still wearing the clothing from her earlier visit to the planet, but she understood that too many people could cause undue attention. If they didn't need another person, she was happy to go back to the ship to start looking at the data they'd collected so far.

[OFF]

--

PO3 John Hollenday
Engineering Mate
USS Schofield
[NPC Alyndra illm Warraquim]

Lieutenant Marisa Sandoval
Chief Science Officer
USS Schofield

Po2 Donald Andrews
Engineer
USS Schofield
[NPC Mimi]

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