Down to the Planet (Take 2) (part 5)

Posted on Wed Mar 21st, 2012 @ 10:05am by Commodore Samantha York & Lieutenant JG Patrick O'Dell & Lieutenant JG Marek Lovok [Lynx] & Lieutenant JG Elizabeth Jackson & Ensign Robert Tyler

837 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: The Race for the Lost Treasure
Location: Planetside

Patrick nodded, "If there wouldn't have been wood casements, It might have kept the water completely out. but if there are similar windows down lower, the salt water likely would have seeped through or broken through if weakened enough with enough of a pressure differential..."

[Continued]

"But WHY put a window at the top of a spire? In the side of a building, yes. In the roof of a spire? No. It doesn't really make sense. Why would they even need a skylight?"

"A question for the builders of the spire." Marek replied.

"If I could find one, I'd ask," Lizzie said, still looking over the ends of the pit. "Hey, I have an idea." She pulled our her tricorder and scanned the window. "Hey, it looks like the window might also be some form of solar power converter."

"Well there's your answer." Marek stated.

Lizzie pulled a face at Marek. "You have an intuitive sense of the obvious, don't you?"

"From down here the scans show more windows going around the tower like some sort of observation deck." The casement under the window gave a little under the shovel and Patrick reached down and pulled, and the frame creaked. He pulled harder and when the window finally popped open, he tumbled backward, banging his head off a cluster of roots behind him. "Owww!"

Lizzie tried not to chuckle. "From up here the tricorder doesn't show that. There's something blocking scans. I don't see any plants like before. What about the soil itself?"

"Maybe the plants from before are good at picking up certain minerals in the soil and concentrating them in a certain way. It could be some of the roots down here are from those plants, even though the plants themselves are dead and gone." He propped the window open and as it caught the overhead sun a faint bit of light started to glow in the room. "Hey, this window/solar panel is still working, a light is coming on a little. Lizzy, can you get one of the portable power units from the shuttle so we can see if we can jury rig this?"

"On my way," she said, disappearing from view. Several minutes later she reappeared with a portable unit and a rope. She lowered it down to Patrick.

"Hey you're the one who asked." Marek said and glared in Lizzie's direction.

"How am I supposed to get any answers if I don't ask the questions?" Lizzie countered. She should have expected as much for an engineer. They didn't think of what ifs like scientists did.

"One word, Tricorder." Marek stated and grinned.

"One word: Interference," Lizzie retorted.

A hum began from deep in the ground and the lights inside the spire turned on.

A door in the side of the spire slid open and Captain Samantha York stepped out. "Hello."

Patrick frowned, The Captain... on the planet, in a place where they couldn't scan, much less beam through. Patrick pulled his phaser. "Who are you?"

"Captain Samantha York. Stand down, Lieutenant."

Patrick didn't lower the phaser. "The Captain is up on the ship, and there's no way you could have transported inside an area that we can't even scan inside."

"Now how'd she get inside the spire?" Marek asked. He approached the Captain. "How'd you get inside?"

"The spire is the top of a city. I was beamed from the ship to communicate with it." Sam sighed. "It's a long story and I really don't want to tell it at the wrong end of a phaser. Lieutenant O'Dell, put the phaser away and let me pass."

Robert, unaccustomed to being the voice of reason, finished scanning Sam with a tricorder. "She checks, Lieutenant. And she's not armed." Robert noted, casually pondering whether or not Lieutenant O'Dell needed a good phaser beam to calm him down. He rested his hand on his phaser, casually, and nodded to the Captain.

Patrick reddened and lowered the Phaser. "Had to be sure, between the sensor jamming plants and everything, it reminded me of some old stories of a planet where they were capable of manufacturing quite lifelike simulacrums of people. A black knight, an old enemy of their captain..."

"Don't worry about it, Lieutenant," Sam assured him. "You did nothing wrong." She used a rope set up by Lizzie and climbed out of the hole to have a look around the island.

When the team that swam down to the city returned they were sent to the shuttle for a mandatory 12-hour decompression before they could safely return to the Calypso.

This gave Sam some extra time to go back down to the city and explore some more.

Finally it was time to bury the hole and board the shuttle. "Okay," Sam said as soon as they were all strapped in. "Let's go home."

OFF

Captain Samantha York
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant JG Patrick O'Dell
Chief Science Officer

Lieutenant JG Marek Lovok
Assistant Chief Engineer

Lieutenant JG Elizabeth Jackson
Botanist

Ensign Robert Tyler
Security Investigations Officer

 

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