Digging Through the Past
Posted on Sun Nov 13th, 2011 @ 12:03pm by Commodore Samantha York & Colonel Damon Raine & Lieutenant Commander Delon Tovan
1,461 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
The Race for the Lost Treasure
Location: Typhon Promenade
ON
Samantha loved looking through antique shops. Especially shops that had boxes and bins of yet-to-be-catalogued items. She occasionally found fascinating bits of ancient history from one planet or another. Jewelry. Books. Statues.
Today she was still a little shaken by the news about her real origin and needed a distraction, so she found a small, nondescript shop on a side corridor off the main promenade on Starbase Typhon.
For hours, Sam went through boxes in the back room. Boxes full of knick-knacks, oddities and the occasional interesting item.
A small stack of books, jewelry and trinkets began to grow as she searched. In the last box, she found something unexpected. An ivory scroll case with ancient runes carved on it. Sam recognized one or two of them as belonging to a civilization she'd studied before. One that long ago vanished.
She carefully opened the case and pulled out a piece of weathered papyrus made from some sort of skin.
Sam scanned it carefully with her tricorder to verify origin and authenticity. According to the tricorder, it was over 2000 years old and appeared to be authentic.
She spread the scroll across the top of a crate and scanned the contents. It was a galactic map indicating a city of some sort on the fourth planet of a system she didn't recognize. The words at the bottom indicated it led to some sort of treasure. Information, most likely. But it was fascinating. She carefully rolled the scroll back up and put it away. Then she collected the rest of her treasures and took them to the front for purchase.
Outside, she tapped her combadge. "York to Tovan and Raine. Meet me in my ready room in five minutes."
[Calypso}
Sam arrived in her ready room in four minutes and carefully spread the map across her desk. "Computer, search through the database for a matching system. Load all pertinent data onto my console."
Damon walked into the Captain's ready room and was instantly curious as to what was laid out across her table.
"Dumping computers and going back to the 'ole paper and pen?" Damon joked as he walked closer; his eyes scarcely leaving the ancient parchment.
"Considering it," she joked. "Look what I found. The computer verifies that the planet exists, but there's no information on it."
"Odd." Damon said as he looked over the map. "Wait a second, how old is this thing." He seemed only now to notice how ancient this map may actually be.
"Approximately 2300 years," she said. "From the writing, it's from an ancient civilization we've only seen in the ruins of a planet or two. Nothing like this."
"And with this detail on planetary bodies?" He let out a slow whistle. "Advanced indeed."
"Do you think Starfleet will let us investigate?" she asked.
ON
Samantha loved looking through antique shops. Especially shops that had boxes and bins of yet-to-be-catalogued items. She occasionally found fascinating bits of ancient history from one planet or another. Jewelry. Books. Statues.
Today she was still a little shaken by the news about her real origin and needed a distraction, so she found a small, nondescript shop on a side corridor off the main promenade on Starbase Typhon.
For hours, Sam went through boxes in the back room. Boxes full of knick-knacks, oddities and the occasional interesting item.
A small stack of books, jewelry and trinkets began to grow as she searched. In the last box, she found something unexpected. An ivory scroll case with ancient runes carved on it. Sam recognized one or two of them as belonging to a civilization she'd studied before. One that long ago vanished.
She carefully opened the case and pulled out a piece of weathered papyrus made from some sort of skin.
Sam scanned it carefully with her tricorder to verify origin and authenticity. According to the tricorder, it was over 2000 years old and appeared to be authentic.
She spread the scroll across the top of a crate and scanned the contents. It was a galactic map indicating a city of some sort on the fourth planet of a system she didn't recognize. The words at the bottom indicated it led to some sort of treasure. Information, most likely. But it was fascinating. She carefully rolled the scroll back up and put it away. Then she collected the rest of her treasures and took them to the front for purchase.
Outside, she tapped her combadge. "York to Tovan and Raine. Meet me in my ready room in five minutes."
[Calypso]
Sam arrived in her ready room in four minutes and carefully spread the map across her desk. "Computer, search through the database for a matching system. Load all pertinent data onto my console."
Damon walked into the Captain's ready room and was instantly curious as to what was laid out across her table.
"Dumping computers and going back to the 'ole paper and pen?" Damon joked as he walked closer; his eyes scarcely leaving the ancient parchment.
"Considering it," she joked. "Look what I found. The computer verifies that the system exists, but not the planet. There's no information on the sector."
"Odd." Damon said as he looked over the map. "Wait a second, how old is this thing." He seemed only now to notice how ancient this map may actually be.
"Approximately 2300 years," she said. "From the writing, it's from an ancient civilization we've only seen in the ruins of a planet or two. Nothing like this."
"And with this detail on planetary bodies?" He let out a slow whistle. "Advanced indeed."
"Do you think Starfleet will let us investigate?" she asked hopefully.
Tovan stepped into the ready room. He immediately noticed the map of the desk. A careful rise of an eye brow as he approached it he looked with a sense of curiosity upon the map. "I assume we are going to follow the white rabbit...ma'am...?" Tovan asked as he looked up to the Captain.
Sam grinned. "I hope so! I'm pretty sure I can get permission -- especially as the map is authentic. What do you both think?"
Tovan looked at the map once more examining it from corner to corner then looked back up at the Captain. "Interesting indeed. It is something worth looking further into. I will prepare a briefing packet to present to Starfleet."
"Damon nodded. "With the amount of new key staff arriving on the Calypso it should be an easy sell to say that the ship is off working on team building exercises. Besides that," He gave Sam a sideways grin, "I know we both have some vacation time banked up if it comes down to it."
Sam hugged him. "I hadn't thought of that. It looks like,one way or another, we're going on a little treasure hunt."
She looked at Tovan and chuckled. "Sorry, Commander. I know it's unprofessional, but I consider this a private meeting."
Tovan simply nodded. "I understand ma'am." He looked back to the map. "I doubt that Starfleet will have much to say about the mission as one of the priorities of the fleet is to exploration."
"As is one of the priorities of the Calypso," Sam added. "Good. So, if you're both okay with this, I'll contact Admiral Burke and get permission to check this out."
Tovan looked to the Captain and nodded.
"Thank you, Commander. Damon?" She was pretty sure Damon would be okay with this, but she wanted to be sure. It appeared to be a simply exploration mission.
"Of course!" Damon answered enthusiastically. Provided there are no caves..." He smiled at the inside joke.
Sam grinned, remembering the several caves they'd encountered so far.
"You're welcome ma'am." He grabbed his tricoder and quickly scanned the map into it. He figured that the Captain would want to keep the original with her and he wanted to conduct his own research.
"Let me know if you find anything and I'll let you know when I hear from Theta Fleet," Sam said. "If there's nothing else, you can go."
Tovan nodded. "Understood." He turned around after getting what he needed from the map and left.
When Delon was gone, Sam turned to Damon. "I'm looking forward to this. It'll be just like old times. Wanna go down to the planet with me and look around?"
"Absolutely." Damon answered. "I have a few crew evaluations to clean up first, but if you give me a couple of hours it should be enough to clean my desk of work."
"Excellent!" She hugged him again. "Now I'm really looking forward to this."
OFF
Captain Samantha York
Commanding Officer
USS Calypso
Commander Damon Raine
Executive Officer
USS Calypso
Lieutenant Commander Delon Tovan
Chief Operations Officer
USS Calypso
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