Away Mission: Day 2 (Exploring the Cave), part 1

Posted on Fri Jan 1st, 2010 @ 9:19pm by Commodore Samantha York & Colonel Damon Raine

1,183 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Devils Snare
Location: Planetside

ON

Samantha led her team into the cave. The tunnel wound down for quite a ways, opening at last into a large cavern filled with ancient technology. A large machine of some kind stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by consoles filled with buttons. A shelf full of strange devices decorated the far wall.

Sam immediately began scanning the room with her tricorder, trying to decipher the words that were here and there on the consoles. It looked familiar to her... She tried to remember where she'd seen some of these symbols before.

She wished she had access to the science database on the Orion. It would allow her to determine what the language was, and to decipher it. As she couldn't she'd have to see if she could figure it out on her own.

She scanned the entire facility, then sat down to see if she could work it out. It took her a while, but finally she began to make sense of how the machine worked.

Sergeant Riley wasn't sharing Lieutenant York's enthusiasm for breaking the language. Everything about this cave bothered him. Even the fact that the machine itself had no dust on it meant it was well maintained and taken care of. The question now, was who was maintaining it and where were they?

He kept his carbine snug against his shoulder and his eyes constantly scanned the surrounding cave for any kind of movement.

"Ma'am." He spoke with his back to her. "I would rather you did that back at camp."

"Why? Maybe this will give us a way to communicate with the Orion? Or find out what is causing the power dampening field," Sam said.

"Oh I agree that it warrants interest, I just don't like this cave. If you need to come back and push a bunch of buttons you can do it with a squad of Marines watching your back."

"And here I was hoping we could move everyone into the cave so I could spend all my free time working on this," she said, only half serious. "Okay. Let me take a few more scans and then I'll come back later."

Just then there was a deep boom and the chamber filled with dust.

Riley dropped to one knee and leveled his carbine at the funnel mouth to the room. His visibility dropped to only a few feet as the dust consumed his vision. He more heard then saw the shadow of one of the other Marines running up to cover the other side of the same entrance he had eyes on.

"Everyone okay?" He said, keeping his voice low.

Scotty nodded.

Sam immediately pulled the neck of her shirt up to cover her mouth and nose when the dust began to billow into the room. She waited for the dust to settle before opening her eyes and pulling her shirt back down. Still, she coughed several times before she was able to reply. "I think we're all fine. Go see what happened." She looked around the room. Everyone was fine, if covered in dust.

Riley looked over to the other Marine on point and without any words being exchanged the two moved into the dust-shrouded corridor.

As they moved through the winding hallway, the area around them darkened considerably. Sergeant Riley suddenly feared he knew what had happened as he flicked on the light attached to his carbine. The piercing ray of light lanced forward into the thick dust still hanging up ahead. The next few steps forward confirmed his fear and his heart sank at the sight. There, just on the edge of his light source was where the entrance used to be. Large boulders and heavy deposits of soil blocked their only way out of the cave.

With a heavy sigh, the two Marines turned and headed back to the rest of their party.

"Hope you brought extra rations." He said as he closed in with the group "We aren't going anywhere for a while. Halfway out it looks like the tunnel collapsed." He shook his head "It doesn't look good."

"I have maybe a dozen protein bars in my pack -- I always keep some in there. And a canteen of water, but nothing more." Sam paused to think things through for a bit. She knew Damon would miss them and send out a rescue party before long. She closed her eyes and tried to contact him telepathically. She'd been able to talk to him this way before... but he was too far away. She got nothing outside their small group. It was... quiet.

"Okay," she said after a few minutes. "We can't stay here, obviously. How deep is the cave-in, do you think? Is there any possibility of us removing enough rocks to make an opening big enough to crawl through? If we focus on the ceiling?"

The Sergeant shook his head. "Dispersal is even from top to bottom. Whatever isn't a rock is packed solid with a clay-like soil. We might be able to blow a hole through with some of the ordinance we have with us, but if it's a natural cave in we would likely be doing more harm."

Sam ran a hand through her hair. That's what she'd feared. They were trapped. She looked around the cavern, thinking. "Okay. For now, you and your men check the walls of the cavern. See if there's any other way out, any hidden passages, etc. I'll keep working on the machine. There's an excellent chance it does something that will help us get out of here..." She turned back to the machine and her notes. She was beginning to think this machine was the force behind the power-dampening field. If she could deactivate it, the Orion could get them out somehow.

Riley motioned for the two other Marines to begin their search while he pulled out a tricorder and began to take atmospheric readings of the cave. He wanted to know how much oxygen they had left in case the Marines couldn't find another exit.

After a couple of minutes had passed, he was not impressed with the numbers he was seeing. With a shake of his head he moved over to where the Commander was working.

"I think looking for another way out of here is a waste of time." He said in a hushed tone, so as not to raise an alarm so early. "I took these readings a few minutes ago and I'm already seeing a drop." He handed the tricorder over to her to see for herself.

Sam looked at the readings and nodded. He was right. They were bad. They had six to eight hours, if they were careful and didn't exert themselves. Less if they climbed around. She'd already looked around the perimeter of the cavern. She'd found no other passageways. They would most likely be dead by morning.

(To be continued...)

OFF

Lieutenant Commander Samantha York
Chief Science Officer
USS Orion

Lieutenant JG Alexandra Adeyemon
Chief Engineer
USS Orion

Staff Sergeant Allen Riley (NPC)
Marine
USS Orion

 

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