The Pyramid (part 1)

Posted on Fri Jan 31st, 2020 @ 9:22am by Lieutenant Mira Jayna & Lieutenant T'Pral

1,093 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Food for the Gods
Location: Planetside

ON

When it was time for the tribute to be paid, everyone gathered around the pyramid to watch. Jayna found a good observation point where she could see most of what was happening and still be out of the way. She carefully activated the tricorder in her choker to record everything.

Men and women, dressed in white robes, began to bring baskets of produce and raw materials from a warehouse across from the pyramid. An opening appeared in the side and the people with the baskets walked in. A minute later, they returned without the baskets.

The inhabitants liked the path between the two buildings, making it difficult to see what was going on. For an hour, the robed figures moved back and forth, taking supplies from the warehouse to the pyramid. More people gathered. The noise level rose as they shouted and stomped their encouragement.

Finally, it looked like all the baskets had been taken inside. But the people still stood where they were, clapping and cheering.

Jayna tried to see what was going on. She climbed onto a barrel to get a better view. And then she saw them. Two women, dressed in modest clothing, were being escorted by a row of men, some carrying weapons. Shan and Ronnie. She wanted to rush to them to get them away, but there were far too many people between her and them, and even if she could, she didn't think she could handle a dozen men by herself.

She carefully jumped down. "Where are they taking them?" she asked a woman next to her.

"They're being sent to the Providers," the woman said. "I'm so glad they came today, so we didn't have to have a lottery."

A lottery? Jayna thought. "Do you know where they go?"

The woman shook her head. "No one's ever returned, so we don't know." She looked at Jayna keenly. "You're not from here."

"No. My mother was from here. She told me to come and see the festival," Jayna said, making up a story to divert the woman's attention.

The woman looked at her again. "What is her name?"

Before Jayna could respond, there was a loud cheer as the two women were taken into the pyramid and the door slid shut behind them.

Jayna took the opportunity to slip away before the woman asked more awkward questions.

At a different place in the crowd, T'Prl frowned at her tricorder. The interference was preventing direct readings of the pyramid, but indirect scans were yielding... inconclusive results. With a poor pattern of information to analyze, T'Pral had resorted to analyzing the interference pattern itself. It was curiously familiar, but she couldn't place it. A closer scan would yield better results, but she wasn't sure how to do that.

Then the pyramid opened. The interference pattern spiked and her eyebrows rose. She recognized the radiation pattern of a weak and inconsistent matter-antimatter reaction. But why would such a device be here, of all places? The pyramid closed, and she closed her tricorder, tucking it into her clutch. She had to get into it, that was certain. That's where the answers were.

The celebratory atmosphere didn't end when the pyramid closed, it merely spread. The focus was on the pyramid itself when the... offerings... were made, but as soon as that event was over, the festival began to lose focus. Different groups went in separate directions, each with their own plans. That spread facilitated T'Pral's investigation as the focus shifted off of the pyramid.

The Vulcan woman approached the pyramid and examined the surface. It was perfectly smooth, and without seam. Beyond the technology she had seen so far. She laid a hand on the surface, feeling the cool metal. There must be a way to access the interior, she figured. It was only logical for there to be at least a manual control.

She eyed the surface, making a mental map of the façade. Logic would tell her where the door and activation mechanism lie. She approached the logical location and almost cracked a smile. There, inlaid in the stonework on the floor, was a button, outlined in a millimeter of void that separated it from the rest of the stone. Glancing back, T'Pral looked for prying eyes of the populace. They were distant enough that she couldn't be sure they weren't watching.

"I have found something," T'Pral stated into her communicator, "I could use assistance."

Jayna slipped quietly up to the Vulcan. "What did you find?"

T'Pral glanced at the Bajoran, "There is a switch in the pathway," she said, extending a hand to indicate the area, "presumably so that the door mechanism may operate secretly and automatically when the offerings approach."

She extended a booted foot and depressed the button. The plate sank a fraction of an inch, corresponding with a mechanical grind and clank reverberating through the pyramid. T'Pral turned to the sound of stone scraping to see a section of wall slide upward, revealing the passage beyond.

"The next logical step would be to explore the interior, would it not?"

“It definitely would," Jayna said, smiling. "It's the only way we're going to get answers." She wondered how she was going to get inside and have a look around. She sent a quick message to the Calypso so they'd know what was going on and nodded to the Vulcan. "Lead the way."

The Vulcan responded with a simple nod before simply stepping into the pyramid. Another floor switch greeted her inside, this one a bit more obvious and set off to the side. She flipped open her tricorder and her eyebrows rose to the new information. The pyramid seemed to be acting as a sort of energy defocuser. Anything radiating outside of it became a wash of background interference. Now that she was inside, a lot more data was available to her.

She glanced back and saw Jayna behind her, so she toed the switch, closing the door. Luckily, they weren't entirely ensconced in darkness - light bars along the floor and ceiling illuminated the place, albeit weakly.

"There is still minimal power flowing," T'Pral reported. "Most likely a residual self-sustaining reaction, or perhaps battery power." She closed her tricorder and peered at the corridor illuminated before her. It was a definite contrast to the Steampunk society outside. This was clearly more advanced. All white and angles, it didn't look completely unlike a Starfleet corridor.

(To be continued...)

Lieutenant JG Mira Jayna
Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer

Lieutenant T'Pral
Chief Engineer

NPCs by Mira Jayna

 

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