The Colony (Part 4 of 4)

Posted on 20 Nov 2019 @ 1:48pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Scarlet Blake & Commander Marisa Wyatt & Lieutenant JG Tris Shizn & Petty Officer 1st Class T'Lin & Petty Officer 3rd Class Peregrine Steele

3,404 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: Latari B III - NW Island Colony Site: HQ
Timeline: MD 01, 1445 Hrs

Previously...

Soft verbal chattering echoed through the colony's command room when the Starfleet team entered, but now the room became silent as the colonists stopped to observe the newcomers. Duke herded the away team to the center of the room and slowed as he approached his boss.

"Maria. They're here." Duke stepped aside to reveal a short and muscular woman with dark cropped hair. Unlike the rest of the colonists, she was dressed in dark grey garbs and had both a makeshift communicator device clipped to her shoulder and an old, curved Type II hand phaser strapped to her appendix. She turned away from her console and now looked at the Starfleet crew - each of them one by one.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Duke introduced the different Starfleet members as best he could remember. "This here is Commander Blake from the Galileo. XO. And the lieutenants from flight and science - the Andorian one is Shizn and the Vulcan is Sandoval. These other two are the enlisted..." he motioned to Steele and T'Lin.

The short woman stared up at all of them then moved forward to greet the team. The skin around her eyes was soft in a feminine way, but also tight with stress creases. Her tanned skin was marred by several scars on her shoulder which only added to her rugged demeanor.

"I'm Vasquez and I run this place," she announced after an awkward pause. "We've been tracking you since you entered the atmosphere and woke up el Chupacabra."

"That's an awfully big Chupacabra," Marisa said. "Where did he come from? Or, rather, who created him? And how long have you been at this site?"

The colony's apparent leader exchanged looks with Duke, who slightly shook his head from side to side. Vazquez interpreted his subtle gesture and responded accordingly.

"We evac'd here about a month ago...after our distress calls went unanswered." She glared at the Starfleet away team as if they were each personally responsible for the tragedy that'd befallen the colony. "We were told a ship was coming - to evacuate us. But no ship ever arrived. So you tell us where it came from."

Tris loved mysteries, and by the looks of things this was not as plain to see. He crossed his arms with interest and curiosity. Much, much more was definitely going on here than spoken, he believed.

"You didn't say where it came from," Marisa said, noting the exchange between Duke and Vasquez. "We found the remains of a starship in orbit. Probably the one that came to help."

"A ship?" replied Vasquez. "From Starfleet? Destroyed?" If true, this was important news to her and the entire colony administration. "What happened?"

"From our side, we lost contact with you," Scarlet offered, shaking her head with a frown of regret. She hadn't flinched from the look she'd given them; she understood it. "When Starfleet didn't hear from you on time, they sent out a ship to check in on you. Unfortunately, we found the debris before bringing the shuttle down. I'm sorry it's taken so long to reach you, Vazquez, but we would like to help how we can."

Stunned silence now permeated the room. One by one, the colonists lowered their eyes while some looked away to hide their dejection.

Vasquez finally looked back to Blake and shook her head. "We...didn't know. Never got a hail or anything on short-range sensors. What was her name?" she asked, referring to the ship. "How many died?".

If the statement did not seem so illogical to T'Lin she would have laughed like some humans did at the statement. There was more than enough equipment in here to easily have monitored anything in orbit and note as the Galileo-A had that possible use of weapons known to be of Tholian signature and yet everything seemed to be orientated on just studying this creature and the site they had encountered it. There was something that did not make logical sense that they would use this level of monitoring and never look outward seemingly in the least. The creature had analyzed as silicone based and that was a curiosity as well. Alternative biochemistries were her specialties and that was something she was curious about as well. This planet had presented she had guessed as carbon based. If so how would a silicone creature arise. The data at hand indicated that there was something going on here or somehow the logical rules of evolution had as humans would say out the window. She kept her mouth shut but if Commander Blake did not mention that she would lend her thoughts later.

Marisa let Blake answer that one, too. She was looking at all the monitors, analyzing the data she saw there. The colonists were clearly stunned by the loss of the Franconia, but there was something about the tech around the room. She had a sneaking suspicion they knew a great deal more about the proto-Tholian than they wanted to admit. Did they have a part--albeit unwittingly--in its creation or was all this simply a reaction to recent events?

"The Franconia," Scarlet replied with a softer tone of voice, pausing a moment to let the information sink in. She deliberately ignored the second question though...she didn't want to break the morale of these people any further. She decided to try and refocus them on the problems at hand rather than the tragedies that couldn't be changed now. "But how are your people? What is your status?"

Vasquez quietly glanced around to her fellow colonists. Most remained silent but others like Duke gestured their head toward the Starfleet crew to indicate a mutual exchange of knowledge. The short-statured colony commander looked back to Blake from the corner of her eye. "We're all alive... For now. More than I can say for half the original colony." Dispensing with the pleasantries - if there had been many to begin with - Vazquez started to walk to one of the nearby console stations. "Well... Since you're here, I'm guessing you want the rundown? And you probably want to know what punched a hole through your shuttle's hull at twenty-thousand feet..."

Shizn’s curiosity level rose with that comment. His antennae angling toward Vasquez, fore he was very interested in hearing what brought down that shuttle.

Marisa raised an eyebrow and waited for answers. She still couldn't help feeling that something was wrong here, and she hoped they'd finally get answers.

The colony commander, Vasquez, moved to one of the vacant mission operations consoles. She leant forward and tapped her fingers across the controls at the bottom of the screen to show a new display.

"Come here, look," she instructed. "This was our original colony settlement, stardate 6850.6. Seven months ago." The LCARS display showed a top-down concentrated hub of administration, housing, and trade centers surrounded by agricultural districts in all of the nearby suburbs. "We've been a proper colony for over two years and had just approved a new road system to transport our crops. But then..." Vasquez tapped the console which now changed to replay a visual sensor log of a small, single meteorite descending through the atmosphere and impacting the planet near the colony site. "This happened."

Tris watched in amazement as the display shown and tracked a fireball streaking down through the sky and impacting the surface. Following the impact, debris was cast on every direction, in addition to the tall mushroom looking cloud that went high up into the atmosphere.

"Do you have any data on the meteorite?" Marisa asked. She wanted to compare it with the scans she'd taken at the site. If it brought the material that'd created the bio-silicate, it wasn't natural.

T'Lin just watched analyzing to see what information would be forthcoming. If they had little warning about the incoming meteorite then she had to revise her assessment of the ability to detect objects in orbit or beyound. Thus, it was now quite possible that the colonists did not know the fate of the star ship and if the creature had been menacing and the disruption to the colony they would have had even less interest in what was going on above.

The lieutenant's question was a good one and as an alternative biochemistry trained person was curious on the rise of the silicone creature as well.

Vasquez whistled and gestured to one of the nearby scientists who now ran over to them. "Robles...tell them what you found in the meteorite," she said to the young man. "Tell them everything."

Glancing from his colony commander to the foreign Starfleet crew, Robles took a breath and prepared an impromptu briefing. "We first classified it as Omega-Robles...named after me. I discovered it," he said with a heavy dose of shame. "It was tracking as just another small meteor expected to enter the atmosphere and burn up. It was only the size of a small shuttle and we...I didn't think it would survive the atmosphere. But it did, and impacted only two kicks from our outer settlements."

Vasquez tapped on the console's controls to now show a magnified and more detailed LCARS view of the impact site on the monitor. "Even with our basic orbital sensors from the original colony ship, we could tell the initial impact was soft - it didn't project the sort of damage we expected, and...

"...It changed course towards us during descent," Robles continued. "At first we thought it might have been a probe or a de-orbiting resupply drop we didn't know about..."

Marisa let out a long, slow breath. "How long after impact did the Chupacabra manifest? And when did the geothermic activity begin?" She paused, looking at Robles. "Why call it Omega? Did you know what it was after it landed?"

Robles held out a stern hand, frustrated by Starfleet's sudden questioning he was now being subject to. "It wasn't a probe or anything man-made. It was a geothermal capsule containing a biological seed," he revealed. "It was...like nothing I've ever seen. I..never studied non-carbon based lifeforms..."

Vasquez held her eyes low while her best scientist tried to explain himself - she continued when he faltered. "It was a silcon-based lifeform. Took about two months for the alien DNA to propagate and the volcanic activity to start. Then once it grew and breached the surface..." she stopped and shook her head.

"I tracked its original trajectory starting when we first detected it," added Robles. "It's orbital path originated from our sister colony on Latari A."

That surprised Marisa. "Have you had any trouble with them?" She paused. "I know I'm asking a lot of questions. You had no way of knowing what that thing was until it attacked, I'm just trying to get information to figure out what happened and why." She indicated the monitors and the area. "You've done an amazing job here."

T'Lin did not say anything just observed and gathered data. There was little yet to form a logical conclusion other than as she suspected that the silicon based lifeform was not native to this planet. Obviously the grow and need for energy had forced the creature to seek the highest thermal area it could find by going into the molten layer of the planet. Considering it had come from the fellow colony was curious as that was also a M class world and should not have had a native silicone based chemistry either. She had a thought for the commander but would wait until there was a moment to talk to her while the lieutenant made her observations and questions known.

"Problems? No...never," answered Vasquez with a shake of her head. "Those are our friends - we all signed up for this same colony expedition project together. Half of us and our families were assigned here and the other half on the other 'Alpha'. That's what we call them."

Duke stepped forward and leaned a muscular forearm against the nearby wall. "One of the first things we did after the impact was contact them. Well, we tried - but we couldn't get through to them. Something about unexpected solar radiation flares," he added.

"No-" interrupted the scientist Robles. "Excessive solar radiation. It's not possible those levels remained as high as they did for so long. ..Even with a surge of coronal mass ejections across all three stars, we shouldn't have a comm blackout for half a year," he proclaimed.

There was a short moment of tense silence before Vasquez spoke again. "Unless something happened to them as well..." Her dark eyes looked up and stared at each member of the away team. "What's their status? Did something happen there?" she then quickly asked.

T'Lin continued to process the information being given. A half year black out she reasoned would have certainly been a thing to raise concerns. She made a sort of mental map of the system and beyound in her head. The nearest other area would be Tholian space and that was definitely a bit away. Still, she continued in her thinking, the Tholians were definitely silicone based creatures but why would they do something like this and further more did they have the technology to create such a massive surge of energy. She looked the commander and raised an eyebrow hoping the commander would correctly interpret the physical gesture.

"The Galileo was going to check out the other planet," Marisa said, also looking to Blake. Six months was a very long time to not hear anything from their sister colony.

Together in the control room, the colonists collectively listened to the away team's limited information regarding their sister colony on Latari A III. The lack of any detailed information or a status report was met with sighs and dejection, as well as a thick dose of animosity.

"So you don't know if they're dead or alive?" Vasquez said incredulously. "What the hell kind of science mission are you running?!"

"We came to find out why no one has heard from either colony in a while," Marisa said. "We didn't know about the Franconia until we got here, and we sure didn't expect that biosilicate." She shook her head. "Sorry. It's been a long day for us. So, you came here when the Chupacabra showed up? Are you monitoring the magma site for expansion?"

T'Lin finally spoke up. "Excellent question, also the duration of the blackout is concerning along with the destruction of a Federation ship. I believe that faster we repair the ship and contact the Galileo the better. I would recommend that once we do, the survivors here be evacuated immediately. The signature of the eruption has indicated that there are core materials and hence more likely that this will end with a heavy volcanic winter. Estimated that ninety eight point seven percent of current species will not survive the winter."

One of the nearby white-garbed scientists cast a scowl at T'Lin. "Figures. Leave it to a Vulcan to tell us the obvious," she rolled her eyes before stepping to confront the blue-collared petty officer. "Why do you think we sent the distress call??"

"Lucila, calm down," interjected Vasquez before tempers started to rise further. She could understand both her own peoples' frustration alongside the ignorance of the Starfleet's crew. That didn't make it any harder to swallow, however - that after months of suffering, Starfleet's best response was a small investigative science team instead of a full-scale planetary evacuation.

"Look, this isn't our first rodeo. We're colonists and we know things won't always be easy for us," Vasquez replied to the Galileo team. "But this is something else. It's some sort of...life form that we don't understand, and we don't know why it came here. And it's killing us - do you understand? You can have our scans and data but we can't stay here anymore. It's not safe with that...thing here."

Marisa nodded. "We understand, and we empathize. We didn't get your distress call or there would have been an evacuation." She wasn't going to mention the Franconia again. "But T'lin is right. If we can get our shuttle working enough to send a message--or if you have something strong enough to reach the Galileo, we can ask for help now." She looked at Vasquez and the scientists. "And yes, I do want your data. I want to add it to what I've already gathered so I can understand more about how the bio-silicate you call El Chupacabra came to exist."

"You want to contact your ship?" said Robles with wide eyes. "We can't even get comms across the solar system..."

Marisa nodded.

Duke chewed on the side of his lip while pondering the request. "Yeah, we couldn't. But they have all their fancy starships and instruments." The large man looked to the Andorian then back to Vasquez as an idea formed in his head. "How long until their shuttle is salvaged?" he asked.

Now staring at a topographical display of the colony on one of the nearby LCARS panels, Vasquez zoomed it out to track the progress of her salvage teams. At least ten personnel had arrived at the beach and were now rigging the damaged Waverider to be moved out of the water. "Three, four hours?" she estimated.

"Once we get their shuttle back," Duke started to propose, "we can tap into their comm array. Probably get a more powerful signal that can punch through the atmosphere."

Robles excitedly raised his hand and stepped forward. "Yes, yes. A good idea. I need to be there to inspect the shuttle and its capabilities." He craned his head to look at Blake and the rest of the away team. "I don't suppose you have a technical manual of your shuttle I can study?"

"Can I get a copy of your data first?" Marisa asked. "I'd really like to learn who created that creature." She wanted to get off the planet, and get the colonists somewhere safe, but she couldn't lose the opportunity to get a copy of the data they'd acquired.

A lot had been said, and for Lt. Shizn, he knew to stay out of the discussion. But now he thought he could help, looking to Robles, “I don’t think we have the technical manual you need, but I would like to help with the shuttle situation.”

The offer from the Andorian was a welcome gesture which didn't go unnoticed to the colonists nearby. A short pause of silence ensued while Vasquez and Duke exchanged silent facial expressions, shrugs, and hand gestures. Finally, the colony commander turned back to the away team.

"Fine. It's a deal. Access to your shuttle in exchange for our science scans of the alien," Vasquez offered.

Marisa had no authority to agree to that, so she waited for Commander Blake to answer.

Thinking that he may have helped in some way, Shizn turned to Blake and gave a subtle blink of his left eyelid.

"Commander a moment," T'Lin asked and leaned in close. "The Franconia showed signatures from Tholian weapons fire and yet no Tholians in the area. Why would they do that and then leave? Also if it was to claim area or to protect the creature why would they have left the remaining colonists? They certainly would have been able to so scans of the area even with the volcanic interference. There are puzzles here that we need to let the Galileo know about."

Marisa heard T'Lin's whispered comment and silently agreed. She needed to get that data for future analysis. Again, there were so many questions that needed answers.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo-A

LT Marisa Sandoval
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

LTJG Tris Shizn
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A

PO2 T'Lin
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Warraquim]

PO3 Peregrine Steele
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A
[NPC Warraquim]

Duke
Colony Security Chief
Latari B III
[PNPC Saalm]

Maria Vasquez
Colony Administrator
Latari B III
[PNPC Saalm]

Other Colonists
Latari B III
[NPC Saalm]

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