The Alien Vessel, Part 1: Let's Power This Thing Up

Posted on Wed Feb 14th, 2024 @ 2:33pm by Captain Daniel Jackson PhD & Lieutenant JG T'lenn & Ensign Dani Harper & Lieutenant Commander Nash Winters & Lieutenant Jules Mundy

2,425 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Artifact or Artifiction
Location: The Alien Vessel
Timeline: MD: 1, 1820 hours

The alien vessel was still dark when the rest of the away team beamed over to begin working on life support and main systems. In the areas lit up by portable lighting the officers could see that the walls were a metallic gray color, once shiny, but now dull with neglect and age, and as S'Niri had pointed out earlier dust and cobwebs had been collecting for quite some time.

Most of the terminals were clear panels, meant to light up as touch screens and holographic terminals when power was restored. Hidden underneath those panels were the manual controls and overrides.

Vila was the first to speak. "It's...eerie," she said. "Reminds me of the mines on DS9 before the Cardassians left," she said, "In between the switchover." She glanced around. "Alright. Winters, I guess take your team and head down to Engineering. I'll go with Science, and Security, escort Lt. Mundy and his crew to the main Bridge," she instructed. "Let's go," she said. She unholstered her phaser, for whatever reason, and headed off to the right.

“Right away, Commander. Come on, Thisbe, let’s see if we can find our way to whatever they call engineering,” said Nash.

Thisbe nodded, and followed along, toting her kit with her. "Yes, sir. The schematics that Commander Johansen had sent over say that they are on Deck Ten. They don't even have a warp core; this class was still on Impulse engines," she said. "They don't teach that at the Academy anymore, so I'll count on you to guide me, I guess," she said. Even now, warp cores were old tech. Everything new was Slipstream.

“For a species as advanced as these people appear, at least judging by the crystal technology, why wouldn’t they have warp drive? That’s why we’re out here, right, Thisbe? Lead on, let’s go find this engine room, or for whatever passes as one.”

The young woman shrugged. "Perhaps the technology hadn't been invented yet," she ventured. "Or they disliked it?" She said. "Look at us-slipstream just became available, but not every ship or culture has it yet," she said. "It should be...deck 10," she said, not looking forward to that hike.

“Deck 10? Thought you said deck 7. It’s alright, Ensign. We can use the exercise. Watch your step. =^= Nash to Mundy. How’s it doing with life support? Thisbe and I are looking for the engine room.=^=

Thisbe nodded. "I'll be careful," she said. She turned on a flashlight. That helped. "I might've said seven, but it's definitely ten," she said, holding out the PADD. "So...five decks below us. This is the weirdest set up I've ever seen!" She said, beginning the trek as they found the first stairwell. Well, she wouldn't need cardio for a day or so.

Nash looked up, down, left, and right and said, “Yeah, Thisbe, weird is the word. The orientation is all wrong. You would think the engineering deck would be lower down in the ship. Let’s get a move on. Keep a look out for energy readings if any kind. Something about this ship doesn’t sit right with me,” Nash said.

=^= Mundy here. I'm working on it, hope to have it soon,=^= Mundy continued working on what he hoped was the life support panel.

=^=Thanks, Jules. I’ll call again when we get to engineering. See what makes this ship tick.=^= Nash said.

---------

Once they found the main Bridge Mundy and Dani were studying one of the terminals with Ghiram. On the other side of the corridor, Vila spoke. "Let's see if we can get the consoles on," she said. "The Science labs are on the next deck up, we'll have to walk it," she said. Vila led the way, and soon, T'lenn and S'niri were with her at the Labs. On the way to the main lab, they stopped by a door emanating an eerie blue light. "What the HELL is that?" Vila said. She tried the door. Of course, it was locked. "Stand away," she said, pointing her phaser at the metallic door. She fired, drilling a rectangular hole into the door, big enough for a person to climb through. "Going in." She holstered her weapon, and climbed through.

"Commander, do you believe that is wise?" T'lenn asked as she tried to obtain tricorder readings before entry. Her advice came too late, the first officer was already inside.

Vila could still hear the Vulcan. "Probably not, but I don't have any better ideas," she said, her voice muffled. A pause happened.

"Holy Sh....Someone, get in here," she said, through the hole. She made her way to the computer, trying desperately to open the door. There, in front of them, was a lab...with a light on. She just wanted to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

When was her last psych exam?

T'lenn stepped through the hole that Lorut had blasted through the door careful not to touch anything. "What have you discovered, Commander?"

"A lab...with...are those...lights?" She said to the Vulcan. "How...auxiliary power? Should I call engineering?" She wasn't really asking, just musing. Her normally quick mind and sharp tongue were flummoxed.

"Theoretically, each individual system on this vessel could run on an independent power source," T'lenn responded. She walked to the panel with a tricorder. "The power crystals could function to power one terminal, or could be linked to larger generators that power main systems. Perhaps this was something that was important enough to have a priority power system, independent from the others."

- - - - -

Mundy followed the lead team to get to the bridge. He made sure Dani was behind him. He kept his weapon ready as they walked. When they made it to the abandoned, if it was actually abandoned, he looked around, making sure they were indeed alone. They he started checking what looked like terminals to see if any of them had power.

Dani several of those panels when her team made it to the Bridge. She walked up to one, and used the sleeve of her EV suit to clear the top of the layer of dust that had gathered. It helped a little. She laughed a little at the dust all over her arm, and used a gloved hand to try to clear some of the dust off of the writing on the panel above it. She took out the PADD with the translations that T'lenn had been working on. "T'lenn thinks that once we get some verbal input on their language from the computer the universal translator will be able to piece this together a lot better."

Mundy walked over beside Dani. "We can try talking to the console see if it responses. Computer, respond." He waited.

"Maybe once we get some power going," Dani offered with a shrug. Now that there was more space between the two of them and the others she whispered, "What was you said about not interacting much on away teams?"

Dani then dropped down to her knees and started jimmying a long vertical panel underneath the console. One it was off she carefully slid out a drawer of the same height and width, the top row held the colorful power crystals, easy to slide out and replace. Below those were dozens and dozens of clear flat rectangles, like thick microscope slide with etchings on it - the code that controlled the programs on the ship.

Looking back at Mundy she said "We should try your idea of scanning for enough of these crystals that are giving off an energy signature and borrow the working ones and put them all into one terminal."

Ghiram stayed in the middle of the pack, a wireless data drive shoved in his holster so that his heavy-duty tricorder could take in as much data as possible without running out of room. From the alloys used to construct the walls to the chemical composition of the atmosphere, he was trying to make as much use of his time aboard the ship as he could. He was so distracted by the constant stream of incoming readings that he hadn't even bothered to insult the other members of the away team.

Mundy pulled out his scanner, knelt down and start scanning the crystals, looking for any active one.

Seconds later, "Top row, 3rd from right." He continued scanning. "Third row, first on the left." He continued scanning, and Dani pulled the ones that registered they had enough power. "Is that enough?"

The crystals in the power terminal slowly began to glow. As they did, the terminal flickered on briefly then off a few times before the single terminal finally powered on.

"I'd say so," Dani said slowly standing up. She took out her tricorder for readings. "Maybe we can use this to find a main power generator somewhere and do the same thing."

"Sounds good." He leaned closer and whispered. "Not only sexy but brilliant as well." Mundy pulled out his tricorder. "Whenever you're ready, I'll scan for readings."

Dani shook her head and whispered back, "You need to stop, if Lorut hears you to talking to me like that..." She didn't finish her sentence.

"Seriously?" Ghiram scoffed. "Does anyone on this ship other than the Vulcan have an ounce of professionalism in their body?

"Anyone ever tell you it's not nice to eavesdrop on someone's private conversation, lieutenant?" Mundy looked at Ghiram.

Ghiram wiggled his large porcine ears back at him. "Then don't start a private conversation 2 feet away from me on an open comm line."

Dani could feel her face grow hot, she didn't realize that Ghiram was that close behind them. She took a deep breath and propped her PADD up behind the now lit up interface panel and scanned quickly to see if she could recognize any of the etchings. "It would be nice if there was a way to interface our technology with theirs. Maybe the computers could talk to each other and speed some of this up."

Dani decided to try a few basic commands, but as soon as she touched the interface the entire terminal began humming and a beam emitted scanning her. Dani stepped back. She didn't feel anything, but she wasn't trying to take any chances. The scanning beam turned off and a low hum could be heard around the Bridge before the sound of gas filling the room.

"Are you alright?" Mundy moved to Dani's side. His tricorder beeped. "Whatever you did, environmental readings are showing 22% oxygen and 77% nitrogen, almost breathable." He cared little about the readings then he did about Dani.

"I think so," Dani said perplexed. "I didn't feel anything." The panel was now projecting an image of a person, a female dressed in beige and silver uniform of some kind and speaking in a language that the universal translator was not comprehending. "Oh boy," Dani said, reaching around the projection to carefully grab her PADD. "Here we go," she said typing things into the PADD. She looked around and noticed they were alone on the Bridge. "Maybe we should get Commander Lorut back, or T'lenn. Hopefully we can get the UT working from this."

"Already on it," Ghiram said. He walked up to the hologram, scanning the panel behind it. "Let's see if I can start downloading the ship's databanks from here. No guarantees, though; we might have to tap into the computer manually if the system doesn't have wireless access. Mundy- you comm the others, my hands are a bit full here." He took a second away from staring at the tricorder's output to look at the hologram. He looked for any distinguishing features on the alien- forehead ridges, ears, the usual.

Mundy tapped the comm button on his EVA suit. "Lieutenant Mundy to Commander Lorut and Lieutenant T'lenn. Can you rendezvous with is in what I think is the bridge? Ensign Harper seems to have accessed this ship's memory banks." While he waited for a reply, "I'm going to try to get life support up for the ship." He started searching for more generators, to see if he could access them and get life support going. He was going to try to replicate what Harper did to get that console working. So, he started looking for more crystals to power up more consoles.

Once he had enough crystals, he started replacing crystals in non-working consoles. He went through 3 before one actually started working. He was trying to recognize symbols that may represent life support functions. He found several diagrams that could be life support, based on his experience. He tried activating several programs, until one started working. Since the other panel had scanned Dani earlier, this panel started showing a shot of levels increasing as he watched. He checked his tricorder and saw that the oxygen and nitrogen readings have stabilized at a safe level, ship wide. "Mundy to landing party. I think I have stabilized life support. Stand by." He unfastened his headgear and removed it, and took a big sniff. The air was stuffy, but it quickly started being more breathable. "Confirmed, life support operational. Mundy out."

Ghiram kept his helmet on while watching Mundy work. "How could you tell which symbols meant what?"

"Simple. In any language, symbols are the one constant. Like this one," Mundy was trying to explain to Ghiram how he knew that the panel he was working on was life support. "see this symbol? To me it looks like a figure and the waves surrounding them means life support. The waves are air. See?"

"There it is- from that angle, it looked like a guy drowning." Ghiram took his helmet off. "Not bad. I'll take a look at the other ones and see if I can start figuring out a basic symbology."

Dani took off her oxygen and took off her head equipment as well. "Maybe if there are audible command responses or something that we could activate, we could speed up the Universal Translater." She tapped the PADD in her hand. "Or if the ship's computer could interface with this, I wonder if it would learn our language?"


> > > Nex post is Part 2, Let's Power This Thing Up > > >

Commander Vila Lorut & Ensign P'Rar
First Officer
USS Astrea

Lt. Commander Nash Winters
Chief Engineer (2nd Officer)
USS Astrea

Lieutenant Ghiram Korin
Chief Science Officer
USS Astrea

Lieutenant JG Jules Mundy
Chief Operations Officer
USS Astrea

Ensign Dani Harper & Lieutenant J.G. T'lenn
Science Officer
USS Astrea

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