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To Explore Strange New Worlds II

Posted on Tue Mar 10th, 2020 @ 9:59am by Captain Enalia Telvan & Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Lieutenant Commander Sonak
Edited on on Fri Mar 20th, 2020 @ 4:02pm

Mission: Dedjoy System Mystery
Location: Dedjoy System, Planet Primordius
Timeline: 2397

"Power readings are dropping across the boards, and the shields are doing a very steady fade, currently at 57 percent and dropping" the pretty pilot reported as she flipped switches and her fingers flew across the touchpad controls. "Activating auxiliary power to put it into the thrusters to see if we can get away, because we are losing altitude. Curiosity to Hera, do you copy? We are losing power and altitude above Primordius, over."

There was a crackling and somewhat garbled reply from the Hera, which indicated to Paris they might or might not have received and understood their report. "Now I'm glad Mona gave all these systems redundancies. We're still losing power and the gravity appears to be sucking us in- any ideas, Mr. Sonak?

''Transferring a power pulse from the deflector will increase our shield output for a short time. As for moving away, the only powerless option we have would be atmospheric skimming. I'm now sending calculations of the trajectory angle and speed needed to bounce off the wave and farther back into space; but this will only work if there is no erratic change in the pattern. I suggest to implement it without delay.''

"In full agreement with you there, Commander," Paris replied, slipping into a very old pattern for the two of them. Sonak's trick of pulsing the deflector to bolster the shields was a tried and true one he had taught her years ago, so that was simple to reproduce in the smaller craft. But even as she modified their flight plan to coordinate with the telemetry the science officer was providing, another unexpected wave struck the vessel, and the lost navigator now found herself fighting with the control yoke.

"System power down to 42 percent, shields are at seventeen percent... our orbit is decaying despite the maneuver, Mister Sonak. Curiosity to Hera, mayday, mayday, we are losing power and our orbit is decaying, we are going down, Hera, do you copy?" There was no reply, so Paris made her choice in the moment, as she tended to do. "Sonak, we're going down. I'm going to readjust our course to minimize our flight time and bring us in, so hopefully I can use the last of the remaining power to cushion our landing."

Were Sonak any other officer, Rita Paris might have consulted with them to see if they objected. But her plan was simple logic, and years before, the Kolinahr had declared that she would plot their course, and he had entrusted her with his very life to do so. Nothing had changed in the intervening years, even as she swung the craft about and pointed it at the maw of the Doomsday Machine. Reaching out to him with her mind, her soul and her heart, she felt the mild headache he was experiencing even as she drew strength from his proximity.

''I am diverting power to the inertial dampeners to cushion our ... landing.''

It had been but for a moment; barely a breath between two words. But as they angled closer to the structure, a sudden searing pain flashed in his head, like being hit by a sudden freezing wave. It took him all of his Vulcan discipline to keep it down.

He could still feel it pounding against his nerves, changing in intensity and varying so much that he could not simply erect a mental barrier against it. Wondering about it's nature was the only thing preventing him from wondering how long he would be able to endure it.

''Inertial dampeners... at... one hundred forty-seven point fifty-three... percent,'' he reported, frowning at the trembling of his fingertips.

"Sonak...?" she asked as, hearing the hesitation and strain in her voice, she knew he was struggling with something. But as she reached out to him through their bond, she encountered his defenses- those with which she was familiar, but unaccustomed to encountering herself. It was not unknown to her- when the master of Gol was concerned that his physical or spiritual state was as such to be detrimental to her, to protect her, he would shut her out of his mind. Allowing only the barest hint of their connection to remain, so as not to sever that which could not be severed in this life. Thusly would he spare her that which, despite his teachings, her mind could not be prepared.

Firing the emergency beacon, it's chemically fueled rockets kicked in once it was launched and away, as they were unaffected by the power drain, and it insured that the Hera would figure out what had happened to the Curiosity if they didn't survive the next few minutes. Which Rita Paris was bound and determined to beat those odds.

The struggle of the Vulcan science officer was evident to her as Paris fired the maneuvering thrusters to alter their course, recalculating the entry telemetry she was going to attempt. The scanners were useless inside the core of the neutronium shell that formed the crust of the planetoid, so she would have to auger her in and try to find somewhere to put her down before she ran out of juice. Bringing the impulse engines up to speed, she closed the distance, edging up her insertion velocity. With a little luck, the odd internal gravity of the cone would enable them to perform interior orbits in the atmosphere to bleed off speed.

Or they'd hit the surface of the planet that was composed of the titan who, ironically, Rita had conceived the idea and given the order to murder by peppering it with Genesis torpedoes, turning them into this world which was now trying to kill them both. Along with anyone in the neighborhood with an energy signature, apparently.

With their trajectory plotted and the impulse engines up to speed, the gaping maw of the planetoid loomed above and below them as she attempted to insert them into the center of the gravitational anomaly that was the cone-shaped celestial body. One eye nervously watching the power gauges doing their slow yet inexorable decline, the pilot of the past yanked on the stick to port, and a she did so, saw a soft glow on the planet's surface, which then faded. Taking in the stars she could still make out about her, Paris aimed for the flash, diving the small craft into the other atmosphere of the planetoid as the scanners relaying incomplete and hazy data at best.

But now she had twofold problems- the ship was losing power on an exponential curve that was liable to leave then in a powerless crash landing on an unsurveyed alien world, and behind her, the science officer who could make sense of it all was somehow left staggered and reeling by the situation. Which likely meant that the planet itself was detrimental to him. But she'd run the numbers, and escape was a far less likely option than a crash landing, and she'd rather try her hand at an actual planned landing with power.

As the shields flickered, finding the frequency shifts of the energy waves with which they were being buffeted and matching them was beginning to prove too complex for the shielding phase protocols. While Sonak was still struggling to keep up, it was clear that whatever was affecting him was increasing as they approached the surface at a high rate of speed.

"Hold on Sonak.... I'll get us down, you just... hold on," Rita muttered as she fought with the control stick in the surprisingly turbulent upper atmosphere, rerouting and diverting power away from non-essential systems as the ride turned quite bumpy.

''Do not... mind me... Commander.''

Sonak made sure his mental shields would hold even if he lost consciousness; something he was calculating at a forty seven point fifty-three percent chance of occurring presently. The last thing needed now was for his mental debilitation spreading to his wife through their shared bond. She was not Vulcan so normally this was not an issue; but whit his former formidable telepathic ability now slowly reawakening, this was no more a certainty.

If they were even to survive, Rita had to be free of any and all distractions.

Sight blurring and fingers trembling, he managed to send what hazy and scattered sensor telemetry to her nav computer on a continuous signal; this way she would think he was still fully with her and helping her negotiate their forced landing. they could sort things out later but only if there was a later.

And that was now wholly upon her unfettered shoulders.



It was a damn good thing Mona Gonadie had kept the maneuvering stabilizers.

On a starcraft, stabilizers looked like an excess, a stylish flair. But when designing the Cyclone starcraft, Mona Gonadie had made them watertight to 50 meters, space capable, and most importantly of all, aerodynamic. because the Cyclones were designed to be flown under literally any conditions. Dox had conceived of the idea, after all, as a getaway vehicle that could be beamed in when Rita needed to be beamed out. Which often meant inside an atmosphere. Thus the jagged triangular arrowhead shape was made for maneuvering inside an atmosphere.

The problem was that the internal gravity inside the hyperdense cone in space was surprisingly aggressive, and it was taking a lot to bleed off sufficient momentum to bring them down safely. Currently Rita was in her second orbit inside the cone, and their velocity was increasing, which was distressing to her as she was putting the impulse engines in reverse, but it was only slowing them down gradually- she couldn't hit full reverse, because at about 2300 RPMs the hull started cavitating in that 'don't press your luck with the 2 man starship' sort of way, and she knew she had to move on to plan B.

The positive was that while the sensors didn't work, her eyes did, and Rita was scanning visually at least with her suit's recorders. Lush, giant mountaintops that were covered with a frenzy of blues, greens and reds of hearty alien vegetation flourished amongst jagged ebony crystalline structures that dotted the landscape. Lakes and oceans of clear yellowish fluid sloughed below her, and while the sensors couldn't get her a reading from here, it wasn't an ammonia atmosphere, so Rita crossed her fingers for that ocean not being composed of acid.

"Power's down to 10 percent, Mister Sonak... looks like it's do or die time," Rita muttered. Deciding to head in to the small inland sea she'd scouted on the last orbit, the plan was to bleed off their momentum skipping across the body of fluid to slow them down for a proper landing. Which was her plan when they hit a crystal outcropping at 9 kilometers above sea level, that she would have sworn was most definitely not there a moment ago.

All of which was now irrelevant, as their momentum had certainly been arrested, but they were now hurtling out of control toward the planet below.

"Nononononono!" Rita Paris fought with the stick, the telemetry from the rear appearing onscreen for a few seconds, long enough to assess her of their situation. "Bless you Sonak!"

Firing the thrusters to pull them out of the spin, Rita was still fighting with them as the inland sea she had been aiming for came up, which did definitely help arrest their momentum, as the sea turned out to be composed of resin. Still very fluid that this level, but quite sticky, it began to cling to the bright blue craft as it skipped across the surface, creating sonic booms as it did so. Inside the cockpit, Paris hit the injectors on her anti-nausea as she fought to gain control of the beleaguered small craft, to no avail. Fortunately, her course and heading had been true, and when the beach of the rocky crystalline shore came into view, they were nearly down to a safe velocity.

Which was fortunate, because that was when the holo systems began going dark as the shields ran out of power. Then the redundant internally powered systems that Gonadie had installed in the small craft as a backup to such an emergency winked out, one by one. As the little ship hopped and skipped across the waves, the eye of the navigator watched, timing, timing, timing, before she hit the BFI foam button.

In the design of a good starship, there are redundancy systems. As the Cyclones were designed to go out and get into trouble, one safety addition Rita Paris had requested was the addition of BFI foam- a crystalline micro honeycombed structure that would flood the cockpit, filling it completely and immobilizing the inhabitants for impact. Then in 10 seconds time, the cellular structure would break down and evaporate into it's native gasses.

Thus the two astronauts, wearing protective armor, seat belts, a craft designed to survive and a safety feature... survived a rather high-speed crash landing from orbit.

As the foam dispersed, Rita looked through the cockpit to assess their situation, only to be confronted by a jagged black crystal that had penetrated the cockpit, stopping only two dozen centimeters from her face. Blanching a bit at the realization that might have killed her, Rita wagged a finger at the crystal. "Not today, buddy."

Which was when the crystal moved, elongating to cover a quarter of the distance between them.

"Oh no you don't!" Rita took in the situation at a glance- they had made it to the beach of the inland sea, which looked to be maybe a dozen kliks or so from that beacon she had spotted, which if she had counted correctly was going off once every 17 seconds. Flipping open the ejector casing, Rita hit the canopy eject. Power or not, explosive bolts still worked just fine, and Rita Paris grinned a bit. Inertial dampeners and forcefields were fine, but as redundancies went, sometimes old school really paid off.

Unbuckling herself from her flight harness, the cool-headed commander stood in her seat to check her fellow officer, only to realize that he was out cold. Which was impressive to her on a number of levels. Sonak could lose an arm and still stay calm, cool and collected. Probably slow his bleeding- hell, he might be able to reattach it if you got it back to him. He didn't really sleep much, even, he just meditated. Which left him more mentally recharged than most on a good night's sleep. So for him to be unconscious was not only distressing, but puzzling and impressive somehow.

"First things first, let's get you out of this ship..." the armored explorer looked around, only to realize that the crystalline protrusion on the beach which had halted them once and for all was growing onto the hull of the Curiosity. At a rather urgent rate.

"Right, getting you out of here... c'mon Sonak, time to go..." One foot between his legs and one on the floorboard, she unsnapped him from his safety harness, and hunkered over to get him onto her shoulder. With a grunt she rose, Sonak in a fireman's carry over her shoulder as she stepped out of the small starcraft. Taking a few steps away, she paused and peered back into the open cockpit as the crystals began overrunning the control panel, and Rita watched as the various systems flared to life. The crystalline forms became more orderly and rigid in their shapes in order to interface with the systems, but it appeared that they were interacting, and powering them up.

"Fascinating, but maybe I should see about waking you up first," the golden armored astronaut decided, taking a few steps up the beach until the reached the shore, which seemed to be devoid of crystals nearby. Instead, glowing blue fungi radiated a soft underlighting. Easing the blue-suited explorer to the ground, Rita extended a datajack and plugged her suit into his. Already set to low power mode, it was still monitoring his vitals, which showed his blood pressure to be alarmingly low. Frowning, the fingertips of the golden ceramic plates stroked the faceplate of the sombre scientist's space suit.

"Sonak? Can you hear me? We're on the planet's surface and I think there's a beacon nearby." Looking over at the Curiosity, which was now more than halfway covered by black crystalline protrusions which continued to grow and consume the small starship. "The crystals appear to be eating the Curiosity- at least covering it. But they were powering up the systems- I think they might be learning from it, too."

"Sonak? I need you, Commander. We're crash landed on an alien world and our suits are... going to need to be on solar recharge, because the sun always shines in here, and it will help offset the power drain," she muttered, making the change in her own suit and his as well. When he still had not stirred, she checked their perimeter, then leaned in to reach for him through their bond.

A wall; impenetrable, immovable, dry and dusty as Vulcan itself barred her path, made of stones too large for her to move confronted her, and while she could still feel their connection, it was as if they were simply too distant to perceive one another, despite their actual proximity. He had distanced himself- ideally, she knew, to protect her. But she wouldn't have it.

Pounding on the implacable stones, she shouted. "Sonak! Let me in, I can help!"

I am here.

In the landscape of the mind, she could not see him. His voice sounded as if he were on the other side of the stone wall, slightly muffled, yet still very clear.

My mind is currently under attack. There is a powerful psychic energy output here that is assaulting my perceptions and thoughts; it is comparable to the Talosian mind effect we experienced back in the days of the Exeter. But my mental powers are not as powerful here as they were, back then and there. My defenses are much less adequate. And it is so invasive that, if I open our bond, it will overwhelm you through me. I will not permit this.

There was the moment of rebellion, of course, because the thought that she couldn’t help was an anathema to her. But at the same time, Sonak knew his limits well. If he had decided this would overwhelm him, then that was the case. The joy of logic was, after all, that it could not be argued with. Facts were simply facts, unless based upon erroneous data. When it came to Sonak and knowing his limits and what was and was not possible for him, this was never a consideration. If he thought it would overwhelm her, that was a fact; he knew her mind as well as his own. Any defenses he had erected in her mind for such contingencies would be insufficient, and they would both be out cold were he not protecting her.

All of this she knew and understood, but it was still hard to accept. They faced everything together, after all- it was in truth one of their greatest strengths as an investigation team, and as a couple. But in this case, she understood. He was bearing this and protecting her from the psychic pressure that was genuinely unbearable to him, so that she would be able to act in the physical world, and continue their mission. Thus the emotional executive took his hand on both of hers, and held it tightly.

“Save your strength, t’hy’la”, she whispered. “I’ll get us out of this… somehow. You just hang on for now, okay?” Turning about, she sat him up, then draped his arm over her shoulder, then the other, before grasping his legs and placing him in a ‘piggyback’ position to carry the stricken Kolinahr without injuring him. Rising carefully, she was grateful that all the working out she had done on Kathool had not all faded as yet. Her core was still strong, and she would be able to carry her logical mate across the landscape.

“Just don’t be surprised if I talk through all of this, okay? I know you need to conserve your strength, but I need to stay sane and focused, and you know me, chatterbox to the end.” While she was worried about Sonak, she shoved that aside. She had to trust the Vulcan master of his own mind to protect himself for now. Instead, she had to focus on getting to that signal beacon she’d seen, which she judged to be perhaps a dozen kilometers to the southeast. For which she would have to rely upon her own navigation, as the sensors, here on the surface of the planet inside the neutronium ring, were completely useless.

His thoughts came to her, still oddly distant yet perfectly clear.

You have all the knowledge, the skills and the tools to see us both through this. I will now initiate a healing trance. This will insulate me and you completely from the psionic assault. But it will leave me totally powerless... until you wake me up. You know what to do then.

I do. Sleep, my love, and I will awaken you when we are safe or the need is dire. Be well... I won't fail you.

And so, his pulse slowed to a faint crawl, his breathing became barely perceptible and his body heat dropped significantly. It was now as if she were carrying a dead body.

But still, she could feel their mating bond, as strong as ever.

Shuffling the load, she locked the elbow joints of her armor so her arms would not have to bear the strain. Taking a few long leg stretches, she looked about for a hillside she could climb to assess the landscape and plot her course. Setting off at a jog, she had it climbed in only two minutes, and the vast canopy of a neon blue, green and scarlet jungle canopy was arrayed before her. In the distance, as she watched, a dim glow pulsed to life, which gave her hope.

Sidestepping down the hill, the extradimensional explorer from Earth, carrying her unconscious superman, began jogging into the neon alien jungle.

The underbrush of the alien landscape was thick. Far thicker than should have been possible, considering how young the environment was, even with the Genesis effect, it seemed. But as Rita moved as quickly as she could, she did her best to take a mental note of everything she saw.

An explorer to the core, she noticed that most of the plant life from the low-lying brush at the base to the trees themselves seemed to possess some degree of bioluminescence, not unlike cave-based algae or undersea life on earth. But with the planetoid's open maw constantly facing the nearest star, that seemed strange. Of the two of them, Sonak may have been the scientist, but Rita Paris was no slouch, and she knew her way around the scientific method. The black crystals here were the x-factor. They devoured the Curiosity, seeming to integrate with its powered systems before her eyes as they grew across the surface. It was one of many questions she put her mind to work on as she moved towards the direction of the pulsing light she had spotted. The light she fervently hoped was a beacon.

As she and Sonak had survived their crash, it was entirely possible that the crew of the Turing's shuttlecraft did as well, and they too were Starfleet officers. So there was hope, and where there was hope, Rita Paris would always pursue it. Thus she pressed on, periodically checking her HUD display to keep an eye on Sonak's vitals, she was relieved to see that while they were low almost to the point of death, they had stabilized, meaning his healing trance was effective.

No surprise there. Sonak, in her experience, seldom if ever made mistakes, save occasionally in dealing with his alien and emotional wife... but never when it came to science or matters of factual evidence.

The trees were interconnected, she noticed. The root systems seemed to twist and twine together with that same blue glow that emitted from the fungi she had taken note of earlier, that seemed to thrum slightly as she passed by them. It almost felt as if she was seeing some form of communication from tree to tree. With each footfall, there was a phosphorescent shimmer in her wake along the floor of the exotic landscape. Colorful pollens and particles swirled behind as she disturbed the undergrowth. But the one thing she could confirm from her exploration thus far, was the lack of any form of animal or insect life. But the bizarre gravimetric fields may have compensated for the lack of animals to distribute pollen as on Earth.

The sensor readings from her HUD were virtually nonexistent, but they COULD chart the data of forces that affected her directly, and gravity was one such force. And that force seemed to waver in intensity as she moved. It increased in some places and decreased in others. That, combined with the thin, unbreathable atmosphere created a sort of network of airborne rivers that carried the pollen and debris she kicked up throughout different parts of the forest. It was all remarkably fascinating, and she knew that Sonak would likely be quite excited by the data she was collecting once they returned to the Hera.

Well, as excited as the emotionless Kolinahr ever became.

Shifting the load a bit and tightening her grip on her unconscious love, Rita came into a clearing. The Beacon lie ahead, at the top of a ridge that was closer than ever and she was determined to reach it. It was either survivors, or it was where she would wait for rescue. Because if SHE saw it and assumed it was a beacon, so too would the next rescue team from the Hera. So she ignored her fatigue, ignored her anxiety over her husband’s health and the potential hopelessness of the situation, and jogged down into the clearing. There was a light in the distance, and that light was hope.

As per usual, where there was hope, Rita Paris was running toward. Even as behind her was danger loomed... as per usual.

To Be Continued...

 

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