Genesis Marker (Part 1 of 3)

Posted on 20 Nov 2019 @ 2:45pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Ensign Mimi & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Azra Ghoc & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Petra Varelli Ph.D.

3,291 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: Latari System, Latari A III - Shuttlecraft Virginia
Timeline: MD 01, 0501 hours

Previously, on The Genesis Directive (Part 6)...

Lamar Darius' voice quickly replied to the shuttlecraft commander from the bridge's helm station. "Virginia, cap'n says go so go!" he cleared.

...

Although Galileo guided the shuttle from the bay, it was only seconds before the shuttle was under Azra's control at the helm. "Virginia to Galileo, we are clear of the shuttle bay and proceeding to planetary surface."

"That was very unusual," Mimi remarked as the greyness of the shuttle bay gave way to the blackness of space. "no damage to the shuttle though."

Gliding away from the hull of Galileo, the shuttle craft took care not to cross paths with the slowly spinning remnants of Elegy Reiko. The hard angles and sharp planes of his new form had shredded away his Federation-standard jumpsuit. Alone, in the dark, his crystalline form shimmered in the darkness. It was cold out there, colder than Elegy had ever been, and yet Elegy felt full. He felt fulfilled. For the first time since being rescued from the Franconia, Elegy smiled.

But maybe that was just the rictus.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

"Sensors are locked onto the source of the signal, get us as close as you can get us to it Chief." Mimi said to Azra glad that she had taken the pilot seat and that she'd not been forced to attempt to pilot the shuttle herself.

Gabriel looked to the others with wide, dark eyes. Sensors. Signals. Were they all supposed to just ignore the fact that a man had just somehow managed to *leap* through a *forcefield*? Or had he finally cracked and gone mad? He was half out of his seat to try and get a look for himself before shaking his head with confusion, crossing himself.

Azra programmed in the parameters and allowed the computer to plot the relevant course. She had instinctively shut down all but the mission-oriented emotions during the crisis, and she still hadn't come back to herself. She knew that in a few minutes she'd probably start panicking just a bit, but for now she was as calm and precise as a person could wish.

The shuttle followed a path that moved quickly and efficiently through a descending orbit and toward the course of the signal. True to Azra's predictions, her hands started to shake a bit, and she got up briefly to get a drink of water and cool her nerves.

Azra let the computer plot a more leisurely course into the maelstrom of a rapidly changing world. A descent like this was not something to rush. The computer accounted for changes, and Azra checked and verified them. Despite the computer assisted course, the deck bucked and rattled as they descended.

"Do any of you know what exactly we're looking for here?" Azra asked between one lurch and the next. "Within the bounds of protocol, of course?"

Any other time, Gabriel would have been first in there with a playful or sarcy quip...as it was though, he just remained silent, staring out of the viewport with a frown.

"Anything out of the ordinary," Petra replied. "We're looking for answers to what happened on the other colony."

"We are looking for the source of an unusual protomatter signature we picked up when we came near the planet." Mimi added after a few seconds thinking just how much information she can give to them.

Petra was trying hard not to think about Pete and Tilly and how she and Marisa found them back on Kreanus... She turned to the sensors to see where they were headed, but the signal was scrambled. She swore under her breath. "Sensors are malfunctioning. I'll see if I can clear them up."

After coming out on the other side of a small cloud bank another cloud as wide as the eye could see came into view, but this one looked different. Vibrant blue's and purples rippled across it and it crackled with energy.

"That looks like an ion storm." Mimi remarked looking out the window, she glanced down at the sensor readout, the display was giving mixed results but it certainly looked like an ion storm. "Can you plot a course around it chief?

Petra agreed with Mimi. They couldn't trust what the sensors said right now, but it gave all the signs. She knew that with enough time, she would be able to squeak a little more out of the sensors, but they couldn't wait around for that, so she was grateful they had a good pilot.

Azra nodded. "I think so," she said, adjusting the computer-generated course by a few degrees. "To get where we're going we'll have to skirt the edge of the storm. Bumpy will probably be a gentle word for the experience."

The boatswain's fingers deftly plied the console. She was by no means as skilled a pilot as several of the dedicated flight control officers, but this was her assignment, and she figured she'd be able to do fine. Manual piloting was part of her training, and she'd kept up to date.

Less than 10 seconds later, the deck jumped beneath the crew as the effects of heavily ionized particles made themselves known. The shuttle jerked in the air hard enough that the inertial dampeners over-compensated.

"We should buckle in," Azra said. She rubbed surreptitiously at her bruised forearm.

Petra nodded and strapped herself in. She had no desire to be thrown about again. That once was enough for her.

Stark frowned as he pulled the strap tight around himself, shaking his head with a sharp breath. He didn't get why people were scared of transporters....shuttles were far more likely to screw you over. Any sort of turbulence was usually enough to remind him of that fact. He thanked his brain for that cheerful thought with no small amount of sarcasm.

Belting up Mimi wrapped her tail around the body of the chair too, she hated turbulence almost as much as Klingons. "Hold on tight everyone." She called out.

The shuttle jerked sideways. The sensor readings of the surface disappeared from her screen and only the feedback regarding airspeed, angle, and best-guess altitude appeared on the console's screens. "We're being pushed into the storm. The shuttle cannot identify exactly where we are anymore."

Outside the shuttle yellow clouds engulfed the shuttle, occasionally glowing blue with the oxidization of lightning. Azra kept the shuttle descending at what was as close to a steady pace as possible. The shuttle jerked, bumped, and shuddered before the ground suddenly became visible.

The computer initiated an autocorrect maneuver, leveling the shuttle out just meters above the rocky ground. Azra's eyes locked onto a sharp ridge on the horizon. "I think I found the crater. I'm heading in that direction."

Azra piloted the shuttle to port, heading directly toward what became more clearly the crater. As she did, the storm moved the opposite direction.

Ten minutes later, when Virginia's skids eventually touched the rocky ground near the impact site, Azra let out a small sharp breath. "We're safely landed. EM shielding was at just less than 30% charge," she said, "hopefully it's better this close to the ground and the shuttle can recharge the shielding. If not, the ascent is going to be far bumpier."

Petra collected her pack and made sure her toolkit was safely in its pocket. She had no idea what she might need here, so she brought her science tricorder and her Forensic toolkit. She never knew when it might come in handy. And a simple boot knife. "Any flight you walk away from is a good one," she quipped.

Gabriel glanced to her, checking his weapon was secure. Usually, he'd have been right in there joking alongside her. However, a flight that started with a man on the roof of the shuttle and using it as a springboard to commit space suicide wasn't his idea of a good flight. Walking away from it or not.

"I'll stay with the shuttle. I'm going to keep it primed for a quick retreat," said Azra. She also had a her phaser at her belt and her eyes glued to the sensor readouts. If there were more people or creatures like the one aboard Galileo there would be trouble.

"Hopefully we will not need to run away quickly but keep your eyes open chief." Mimi said as she strapped on some equipment. "If we are all ready then lets go." She popped the hatch on the shuttle and after having a look around stepped out onto the rocky ground.

Petra glanced at Gabriel. She understood how he felt, but sometimes dark humor helped get through really bad situations. It helped her survive Kreanus. But in the end, it really didn't matter. She'd be more careful around the othres on this trip so she didn't offend anyone.

She smiled at Mimi as she followed her out of the shuttle.


Latari B III - Surface

The Starfleet away team stepped out of their small shuttlecraft into a lush and green patch of terrestrial vegetation. The oxygen in the atmosphere was clean and fresh, devoid of any humanoid-made pollutants. Surface gravity was approximately 1.2 Gs, about twenty percent higher than that of Earth. Flourishing alien flora surrounded them and the occasional fauna could be glimpsed nearby in the tree line observing the arrival of the shuttlecraft. The foreign world the team had just set foot on appeared to be, by any definition of the word, beautiful.

In the near distance, however, beauty instantly changed to devastation. What looked like the gates of the forbidden afterlife obscured the horizon. Where there should have been continuing forests, tall grass and running creeks, was now a shimmering sea of molten lava and volcanic eruptions. It was from this same direction where the Genesis signal source they'd been sent to discover was located.

After so long trapped on the ship, Gabriel would have thought they'd arrived in paradise. But the not so distant devastation pulled his gaze and mind away from the beauty, and all he could do for a moment was stare. Seeing it with his own eyes, it was breathtakingly savage. He finally pulled his tricorder free, taking a reading of the area so they didn't have any nasty surprises. "That nightmare is about a klick away."

Petra took a long moment to look around at the flora. This would be an incredible place to live. A paradise. Then she turned to the volcanic activity. And that would be Paradise Lost. This was clearly what they'd seen on the other planet--and obviously why they were here. "Shall we have a closer look?" she asked the others.

The Nekomi ensign nodded and turned to lead their short trek. "Let's go."


Fifteen Minutes Later...

The away team finally broke through the dense vegetation of the alien forest then stopped to observe the catastrophe now revealed before them. Miles upon miles of scorched earth could be seen almost as far as the horizon. It appeared localized in, what seemed to be, a massive crater formation with a second and pronounced impact site at the center. Orange and yellow lava veins pulsed in-between the cracks in the planet's crust and emitted intense thermal heat which blurred the team's vision.

Gabriel's breath was taken away by what they saw. It was the kind of mass destruction that couldn't be prepared for. No matter how well trained a person was. He was shaken from the desolate sight as his tricorder beeped at him, making him shake his head slightly as he glanced down. "There's some kind of signal coming right from the centre of that hellscape..." he said with a frown...because he had no idea what kind of signal it was.

"Holy..." Petra whistled. "That's incredible, and terrible." She pulled out her tricorder and scanned the area. "I'm picking up the signal, but I'm not sure what it is. Is it bio-genetic? There are some odd RNA signatures I don't recognize."

Mimi silently observed the situation and despite her reservations, remembered her orders. She gave a wave of her arm and proceeded to move carefully into the volatile terrain.

Petra was close behind, fascinated by the changes. She continued to search for something to explain the bio-matter. And then she saw the same symbol she'd seen flash on the computer screen on the Galileo. And she remembered where she'd seen it before. "Mimi." She caught up to the Nekomi. "Look at this. I've seen it before doing research for a xenopathology paper. Is this what I think it is?" But if it was, they were in a lot of trouble.

The ensign looked at Sandoval's tricorder image then back up to her face with reserved feline features. "It's a protomatter signature," she started, "from the Genesis experiments. But the the details are classified. Starfleet orders, the captain said."

"That's what I thought," Petra replied. "Most of Genesis has been declassified. But I've seen odd little tidbits here and there. Like this," she said, tapping the PADD. "To hint at the real story. Okay, so this is why we're here. What about the colonists?"

Mimi gave the scientist a severe look. "According to the captain, we don't know. Presumed dead I think."

Stark glanced to them as they walked, the frown settling on his features as he bit the inside of his lip. He didn't like being kept in the dark. And as the person responsible for the safety of the team, he liked it even less. He swallowed hard, literally forcing the words down. The extra training he'd sweated through not long ago had taught him well enough that officers didn't expect people like him to demand answers. He was supposed to keep quiet and do as he was told. But it took a huge amount of effort not to open his mouth. It always did.

Gabriel drifted to a stand still as they moved in closer to the crater, his eyes drawn to the large, metallic looking object that was pretty much dead centre. "What the....?" he shook his head, lifting his tricorder to try and get a clue as to what it was.

Petra was curious about the object. Was this an attack on the planet or a case of body snatching in the worst way? If so, Frankenstein was alive and well in the 24th Century.

"Not sure exactly what it is," Gabriel said with a mixture of thoughtfulness and wariness. "It's reading as a tritanium-duranium composite, that's about all I have..."

"Then let's get closer and have a look," Varelli said. "We're here to figure out what's going on, right?" She slowly advanced, careful about where she stepped.

Gabriel matched Varelli's pace, careful to keep close to the others as they advanced. The mass of destruction gave an impending sense of dread to the situation, and despite rolling his shoulders to try and relax his body, he remained tense and on edge.

The object was about a kilometer ahead of them, which to Petra's thinking was close enough to have a look. She carefully scanned the area to make sure the ground wasn't going to fall away beneath them, and headed for the object. "Come on," she said to Stark.

It was about time for Mimi to do a comm check-in with the shuttle to give Ghoc an update on their status. The ensign tapped her commbadge with her furry fingers and opened a channel to Virginia. "Chief, this is Mimi. We've arrived at the edge of the impact crater. Moving closer to get more detailed readings." Silence passed for a short moment while the Nekomi officer waited for a reply.

By the time the message reached Virginia the residual electromagnetic energy had made a hash of it. Azra crawled out from under the console in the shuttle. "Ghoc to Mimi," she said, "bad copy on your last. Please repeat." Azra let the hyperspanner she was using to shore up the shuttle's damaged sensor package fall to the deck as she did what she could to boost the shuttle's communication array.

"Ghoc.....imi," came the distorted reply which slightly cleared up, "We're at the impact crater. Moving closer to..... readings."

"Understood," Azra replied, further increasing the signal's power, hopefully cutting through the interference. "Virginia's repairs are nearly complete. We are ready for a pickup at your call. Azra out." The half-Cardassian woman slid back under the console and continued the repair work.

After a brisk ten-minute hike towards the center of the impact crater, the gray and white coloration of a large piece of debris could now be clearly seen through the ash and thermal fog. It appeared man-made in form and surprisingly resembled a metallic piece of starship hull. The object was rectangular in shape with frayed and scorched edges lining its entire 75 meter-long silhouette. Lodged deep into the surface of the earth, it was surrounded by a field of similar dormant shrapnel from its violent impact into the planet.

"It seems to be Starfleet," Gabriel shook his head with a frown of confusion, moving in a slow circle around the debris, looking at the readouts on the tricorder. "But...but it's old. Easily 100 years," he added quietly, tilting his head as he looked back up to the large, metallic shard with narrowed, dark eyes.

"Yeah, that fits," Petra said, scanning everything she could as she approached. "Come here. There are some markings..." She scanned them to get a clearer image. "This is not good." She carefully walked around the object, scanning it and all the debris so she could study it later.

When Varelli stepped closer to observe the markings, the team's tricorders lit up with blaring alerts to reveal the mission objective -- protomatter signatures. And high concentrations, at that, all radiating from the unknown object before them.

"Ha! At last you give me the warning," she joked, still moving forward. She got closer to the section that had the markings and bent down to get a better look. "Anyone have a good solvent? No? I'll make do." She began to brush off the debris to reveal what looked like a red Federation chevron and the numbers 8-6-4. The rest was missing. She took another scan with her tricorder, noting the protomatter levels. "Hey, Stark, look at this!"

"What have you got?" Gabriel moved in closer to her, a small smile finally returning to the tense young man. He shook his head as he leant in to try and get a better look for himself....out of sheer curiosity. He hoped whatever it was would calm his tricorder down too. He couldn't help but feel that if a tricorder was freaking out, he probably should be too.

Petra saw another piece with writing on it. She cleaned it off. NCC-1. She swore. "Hey, Stark, what missing starship is NCC - 1864? Might be some other numbers in there."

Gabriel started running the numbers, glancing back to the shard with interest, his features thoughtful as he ran his gaze over the fragment that had clearly seen some hard times. "What are you doing so far away from home..." he said softly, shaking his head slowly.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A

Ensign Mimi
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A

Petra Varelli
Forensic Anthropologist
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Sandoval]

CWO3 Azra Ghoc
Boatswain
USS Galileo-A

PO1 Gabriel Stark
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

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