Part 2, Finding the Computer Core

Posted on Tue Apr 2nd, 2024 @ 1:35am by Ensign Dani Harper & Lieutenant Jules Mundy

2,417 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Side Plots
Location: The Serenty
Timeline: Day 2, after Part 1

Dani felt Jules stop at the ledge - though the area seemed to widen a little into a possible access station, there wasn't much room for two people to maneuver around. When she stepped onto the platform to talk to Jules she could tell she was covered in grime from the conduit. Loose hair was sticking to her face and her hands felt greasy.

"I've thought about you a lot since meeting you at the party," she admitted. "And even more since... you had me over. I think my intentions were pretty clear that I was wanting to see you again." Dani grinned and reached for Mundy's belt with her right index finger and playfully tugged on it.

"I wished you had stayed in my quarters the whole evening. What we had was amazing." With her tugging at his belt, excited him.

"I want to keep seeing you..." Dani admitted. "I was worried about seeming too clingy with you. I don't want people to just start talking about us like we're a couple. This ship is brand new... well sorta. And I'm probably up for promotion soon. And I need to make a name for myself. Not that Orion girl who is seeing the Chief Operations Officer."

"So, you want to keep things on the down low, then?' Jules asked. "Keep it a secret....sneak around?" Even with the dirt and grease in her hair, she was still beautiful. "Whatever you want to do, that's what we will do then."

Dani gave out an embarrassed laugh. "Well when you say it that way. I don't want to call it sneaking around. Maybe I should have thought this through before I started ..."

"It makes things more exciting that way." He gave her a leer.

"Keeping things discreet while we figure things out, isn't necessarily sneaking..." Dani persisted. "But, um. Is it going to be a thing if I don't say the thing... The thing about me, maybe if you knew more about my background you might see why..." Dani continued nervously. "It just takes me a while to trust people. It's not that I don't want to," she quickly added.

"We had sex a few times the other night, so at this point, I think you can trust me." Mundy smiled at her. "We should get going, it's not that far to the core now. We take care of this then we can to my quarters and take a shower."

"Sure," Dani said. "After you." Though what she was really thinking was more like what in the gods was wrong with men.

Jules started climbing down. He looked up at Dani. "Looks like it's about 15 feet to the core. This should go quick."

"So what do you think?" Dani asked after they finally reached their destination. She pulled out a tricorder to see if she could be of any use.

Mundy looked around. "Let's see if we can find any symbols on the consoles...they may tell what that console is for." He started walking around, scanning each console he passed.

"If this is the computer core, could just about anything be programmed or reprogrammed from here?" Dani asked. "It seems that the interfaces here can work together or independently on the whim of the programmer. Or whatever automated system that has been running things so far."

Mundy nodded. "You could be right, but the problem is figuring out how to interface with the programs, so we don't accidently blow the ship up."

"Maybe now that we've found it, we can tag it and see if there is an easier way out of here," Dani suggested. "The PADD can translate the symbols, but if we're interfacing with the entire ship, Captain Johansen probably wants teams at all major stations before we start fiddling around with this too much."

Jules thought while he scanned a console. "We'll go with your idea. So, your idea, you handle it."

Dani dug through her pack and pulled out a transponder tag and placed it on the wall of the the conduit that they had taken down here. "Okay, let's figure out what deck we are on then," Dani replied. She used her tricorder to scan for a possible exit out of the conduit that didn't require climbing.

"Here," she stated. She reached out and felt the area with her hand, looking for a console or a panel, something that might activate a door. While she was passing her hand over the area, a small rectangle briefly lit up under her hand. "Did you see that?" She asked, moving her hand back, causing it to light up again. With the controls now visible, she could recognize most of them. She tapped two of the buttons and a small door slid open giving access to the deck.

Dani stepped through and looked back to Mundy. before taking in the surroundings of the new deck.

Jules stayed close to Dani, his hand on his phaser. "Just be careful. We don't know if anyone or thing is down here." He pulled out his scanner and started taking readings. He marveled at her ingenuity.

"I don't think this is exactly what we were sent over to do, but probably a good time to report back?" Dani suggested. They had obviously run into another control center of some sort. The immediate area was full of control panels and work stations and there were corridors that spun off in every direction.

"Yes, we should. We've been out of touch for awhile." Mundy pressed his commbadge, but there was no response. "Looks like we're on our own."

Dani let out an exasperated sigh. "What could be blocking our signal," she asked as she pulled out her tricorder. "I recommend we look for another way up, and tag our exit route, see if we can figure out where the communications are being interrupted," she suggested calmly. She looked to him for affirmation, he was the senior officer.

Mundy activated his palm light. "Let's see what we can find." He choose one of the three corridors, selecting the middle one, he started walking.

Dani followed Mundy, popping a tag on on the walls after they had walked a few meters in. She slowed down a bit as she scanned the area with her tricorder and then did a short jog to catch back up to Mundy. "Looks like to the left the wall is almost hull like. Maybe sotrage for volatile materials, or something like a shuttle bay or other area with frequent exposure to space? the tricorder can't get through the material."

She skipped ahead of him several steps. "To our right, whatever is on the other side of this wall is giving off some kind of energy reading. It's more like the readings we were getting from the docking ring that grabbed our shuttle, and those bracelets that the Captain and XO found than the readings that are powering the ship so far."

Dani moved closer to the wall on the right and moved her tricorder slowly up and down the wall trying to see if there were any fluctuations in the readings.

"Maybe the hull and the inner walls are constructed with materials that doesn't permit communicators to function." replied Mundy.

"We communicate through hull plating all the time," Dani said dismissively. "I bet it's something from in here," she said as she continued to study the readings from behind the wall. "I wonder if there is a way in..." The young scientist was curious. She hadn't seen a doorway yet. She looked ahead to see if there was one in sight. "Maybe it's hidden like the one in tube we climbed down? Or it could be on the other side of whatever room this is?"

She handed the tricorder to Jules, "Lend me hand? Scan for any jumps or anomalies while I feel this out?" She shoved the tricorder in his hand unceremoniously and turned back to the wall, running her palms over the wall looking carefully for any lights and listening for any sounds.

Jules took the tricorder, and if he didn't love her, he would have reminded her that he was the senior officer here. He started scanning for the anomalies she asked for.

Dani frowned in disappointment when she didn't find anything right away. She let out a sigh. "There must be a way in, if not here, then somewhere..." she said as she continued inching down the wall, her palms pressed flat against the surface as she felt for any change in material, any sign of a control panel dead or alive.

Dani persisted like this for a few minutes, and then she felt the material change to something more metallic. "I think I have something," she said excitedly, slowly bringing her right hand to meet where her left hand had found a metallic plate. The plating definitely felt different, but appearance wise, it blended into the wall as if nothing was there.

Once both of Dani's hands were on the surface of the invisible plating she disappeared from Mundy's sight. Falling through the wall. Dani landed with a bit of a thud, having had enough of her body weight pressed against the wall that when it gave out on her when she opened the secret door - or whatever it was - she had fallen to the ground. She stood up and let her eyes adjust to the dimly lit room. A laboratory maybe. She turned around noticed that Jules wasn't behind her.

She tapped her comm, "Harper to Mundy, can you hear me?" The comm didn't make the chirp it was supposed to when activated. Dani went back to the wall and tried to feel for the same panel that got her stuck in here.

"Jules?" She called out. "Jules can you here me?" She tried yelling through the wall.

"Dani?" Mundy replied. "I can barely hear you. Where are you?"

Dani yelled louder, "A Lab or something. I'm looking for a door!"

Dani scanned the room. Surely there was another way out other than a secret door. Jules had her tricorder, so all she really had was her flashlight. She took it out and tried to get a better visual on the room. She tagged the wall where she had fallen through before leaving the space and walking the edges of the walls. She was cautious not to touch anything now. If she went through another wall, she wouldn't know where Jules was.

She turned away from the wall a moment and looked at the tables and storage containers. There was a lot of equipment in here too. Her light caught the reflection of something across the room. A bulkhead. She went back to the wall.

"Jules? Jules? Can you hear me?" She yelled again. "On the opposite side of the room. About 10 meters back the way we came, there's a bulkhead. Maybe a door there. Do you think that's where one of the other hallways went?" She yelled through the wall. "One of the ones we didn't take."

She pressed her cheek to the wall as she yelled, hoping he could hear her and that she was making sense.

"Hang on, I'm on my way." Jules headed back down the corridor. When he reached the area he yelled out, "Dani, can you here me?"

Dani followed him down the wall. "Yeah, barely. So if you go to the other side - is there are corridor there? Maybe a wall to get in here?"

"Checking." Mundy started pressing against the walls, looking for a door or a panel that may open.

Dani flashed her light around and noticed a visible door across the room. She made her way over to the door and tried to key in an access code for it to open. After several tries with no luck, she took out her phaser and shot the panel disengaging the seal on the door. She then began to try to manually pull the heavy doors open. Using all of her strength and body weight she managed to urge the door open by a couple of centimeters. Dani began yelling through the crack in the door.

"Jules! Jules, can you hear me?"

Jules heard the phaser fire. "DANI!! You alright?" Then he saw the crack in the wall and walked over. "Dani, stand clear."

"I'm fine, I just blew out the control panel on the door. I think we can pull these doors open, I'm just not strong enough to do it on my own," she responded. "There's a whole lab of weird stuff in here," she told him.

"Let me see what I can do on my end." Jules was able to get a hold of the edge of the door opening, then started pulling as hard as he could. After a few minutes, sweat poured down his face, the door started opening, inch by inch.

When the door was open wide enough for Dani to squeeze through she stepped out, but shined her light into the room for Jules to see. More artifacts. Items that looked innocuous at first glance, but had the telltale signs of being able to be animated by touch or proximity.

"Maybe we just go back the way we came, and tell the Commander about this place once we get in comms range."

"That's a good idea." Jules looked at her. "Nothing personal, but you are a mess. You need a good shower." He paused. "I have a good shower. Door is always open to you."

"Oh yeah? There may not be room in that shower. You don't look so hot yourself," Dani retorted. "This place is weird," Dani commented looking around. "We should come back and examine that lab tomorrow with better equipment," she commented walking back to the narrow conduit that brought them down here. Climbing was going to be even less fun.

"There'll be room if we stay close together." Jules nodded. "Yes, you're right, those instruments seemed interesting." He walked to the conduit with her. "You want me to lead the way, or stay behind you in case something happens?"

"You're too overprotective," Dani commented while rolling her eyes dramatically. "It really doesn't matter. I'll go first."

"Fine with me. I'm always glad to watch your backside anyway." He smiled a devilish smile.

Dani shook her head as she began her ascent of the ladder. "Watch your mouth or I'll kick you in the face," she teased.

[End?]

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