Exploring Eden - Stopping to smell the Roses

Posted on Mon Feb 22nd, 2021 @ 9:55pm by Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Ensign Elegy Nascimento & Lieutenant Darru
Edited on on Mon Feb 22nd, 2021 @ 9:56pm

Mission: Mission 4 - Eden
Location: The Caelestis
Timeline: Day 162, 10:00 hours
3531 words - 7.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Darru felt the shuttle give the familiar jolt meaning they were now docked with the ghost ship, as he'd heard two junior officers calling it earlier. Vulcans had no concept of ghosts so soon found himself and the officers that were coming with him to explore were stood in semi-darkness with EVA suits as the shuttle pod that had brought them to the ship departed to take more crew elsewhere. It was the sad fact of only having a certain amount of pods and EVA suits that they were limited in the crew that could come over for now.

Turning back, Ensign Elegy Nascimento offered one last glance at the shuttlepod through the transparent panels on the airlock. His gloved hands balled into fists as he watched the shuttepod glide away. Serving in Starfleet and growing up on a colony world, Elegy was no stranger to starships. However, stepping onto this alien spaceship was an experience like no other.

Encased in his copper and grey environmental suit, Elegy’s feet felt heavy as he took his first steps into the ghost ship’s corridor. Through the face plate of his helmet, Elegy scanned the corridor with his eyes, searching for the source of the dim green light. He couldn’t quite locate where the light was coming from. Elegy looked to his right when he heard Lieutenant Darru speak.

“Oxygen is enough for us all to breath.” Darru said finally looking at the tricorder as he completed a final check. “But you are more than welcome Doctor to confirm these readings.” He added wanting to involve everyone in the choice to remove the suits.

"Plenty of O2, no harmful other particles in the air," Avira confirmed on her own readings. It was never a great idea to immediately pull off your EVA when coming into alien environments, but if she didn't know any better the readings displayed were such that it seemed almost tailored to their particular crew. She was glad to be rid of the EVA suit helmet and get full range of sensory input from her antennae. After setting the helmet aside she pocketed the scanner before lifting her phaser rifle, taking point in the small group of scientists, "stay behind me. Keep your eyes peeled." She remembered escorting civilians out of a conflict area and this, to her, felt exactly the same. She was fully responsible for the other two in her wake.

Watching Avira through narrowed eyes, Elegy was tentative in his movements as he removed his helmet too. He hooked the helmet to his EV suit, behind his neck. Holding out his hand scanner by its black grips, Elegy clicked the toggle that extended the silver rectangular device, revealing its display from within. He activated its sensors to begin creating a schematic of the starship as they went along. "What are some telltales," Elegy asked, "we should watch for?"

With the rifle set to her shoulder, gaze over the barrel, Avira quietly spoke, "Sudden movements, unidentified sounds," If there was life on this vessel they would probably be moving around in a similar way, which meant the normal identifiers applied. The way the vessel seemed to be configured seemed very close to their own vessels. Similar to the atmosphere on the vessel, it seemed perfectly tailored to be used by the predominantly human crew compliment.

Only moments after she had told him what to watch out for, Elegy's eye's remained locked on his scanner's display screen. Without looking up from his scanner, he broke away from the rest of his away team, and seemed to be walking on a path directly into a bulkhead. But not without purpose. Just because they hadn't found anything yet didn't mean Elegy had to wait to learn something new. He toggled between sensor readings and the scanner's analysis function, and then he shared, "The bulkheads are constructed from a metallic alloy, but our library doesn't recognize all of the component elements." Elegy held the scanner closer to the wall, letting it soak in data about the makeup of the alloy. "Not detecting any tritanium or duranium..."

Darru felt disconnected in his suit, unable to read expressions or someone's body language which he had been trying to rely on to be a better shipmate since his discussion with Avira about his lack of tact. It was as though he was robbed of part of his senses and it made him unsure of options so the helmet being removed allowed him to better gauge things. If the Andorian was taking the front, he would take the rear leaving the human in the middle doing what he did best - Science. “Which by our standards of alloys and building Starships is highly unusual.” The Vulcan mused as the lights flicked on as the Doctor took a step forward but no further that six or seven steps ahead.

His awareness snapping back to his team members, Elegy upped his pace to a quickstep to avoid falling behind. Elegy nodded briefly and he echoed Darru's assessment by sputtering out an incredulous, "Right?" He could read the context clues his crewmates were offering, and so Elegy kept apace between them. The last thing Elegy wanted was to make Lieutenant Darru regret working with him on this boarding party. All the same, Elegy couldn't take his eyes off his first mystery. Elegy clipped the scanner to the forearm of his EV suit and he removed one of his gauntlets. As he followed Avira around a bend in the corridor, Elegy ran the pads of his fingertips along the surface of the nearest bulkhead. Almost immediately, Elegy breathed out a, "Huh..." Elegy was quick to reattach the gauntlet to his EV suit and returned his attention to the hand scanner. As he did so, he shared his Mark 1 skin-based sensor readings with the others: "It looks perfectly smooth, but it feels scaly."

Avira moved smoothly towards the wall and got down on one knee, keeping the rifle at the ready she used her off-hand to reach in the small of her back where she had her medical gear stashed. She pulled the medical tricorder from the belt and opened it, "Do you think this is organic?" She wondered out loud. There had been rumours of space whales for as long as people had taken to the stars, but she had never really encountered a massive extraplanetary lifeform. The scanner didn't really give them any useful information, it seemed as though it was showing even less data than the science scanner in Elegy's hand had given. If it was an organism it had been unlike anything they had ever encountered.

That question elicited a shiver through Elegy. A dreadful fascination lit behind Elegy's eyes when he made eye-contact with Avira. A memory of his first impression of the ghost ship returned to Elegy's mind, unbidden. He remembered how much the exterior of the starship had appeared like the menacing carapace of a beetle to him. Hidden by his EV suit, goosebumps rose up on his skin, and Elegy vaguely replied, "Maybe organic. Once upon a time." He put a heavy emphasis on the maybe, given how alien and unknowable the bulkhead substances were to his scanner's limited analysis engines. "I can't rule it out, but these bulkheads look distinctly manufactured," he added. Elegy swung his hand scanner out in an arc that started over Avira's shoulder and ended over Darru's shoulder. After squinting at the rectangular display screen again, Elegy reported out his sensor readings, "I can't find any biosigns aside from our other away teams." --Clearly, he sounded disappointing, but also puzzled-- "I don't detect anything that resembles a crew."

The Vulcan said nothing apart from pondering what both people had said. A ship couldn’t be living and breathing could it? He ran his own hand over the walls and indeed found that it was scaly. It was not cold like he had been expecting from something that was scaled. Darry glanced at the pair. “Let’s keep exploring. I want to Fonda computer terminal.” He prompted as he confirmed that apart from him and the doctor everyone else was human.

Darru's plan landed well with Elegy. A computer interface would make an impactful start to their away mission. Elegy tightened his hand around the black grips on his hand scanner, and he thumbed at the settings. Tilting his head from side-to-side, Elegy fought a war in his head between educated guesses and the part of his brain that told him not to assume anything. "I suppose it's possible their computers run on bubble gum or soda," Elegy said; "but if they're anything like ours, I'll begin a search for concentrated electromagnetic fields."

Avira got up from her knee and scanned the direct environment, "any hits?" She waited for Elegy to give her a direction to go off to. This whole thing seemed very weird to her, like some sort of flytrap, but for humanoids. She wondered what else they'd find there and was very paranoid about the whole thing.

Elegy consulted the screen of his scanner one more time and he verified the initial sensor readings. He compared the orientation of the scanner's estimated floor plan to his surroundings, and then he pointed an index finger in the direction of a blinking dot on the screen. "That way," Elegy said with some certainty, but he shrugged. "I think." He made eye contact with Avira and Darru to make certain they understood the direction they needed to go.

"It seems to be the logical route for the placement of something of interest," Darru confirmed with a nod.

In tandem, they moved closer to the nearest source of electromagnetic fields. Elegy raised his hand to point at a vaguely rectangular depression in one of the bulkheads. "That's probably a hatch," Elegy said, just before he glanced down at his scanner again. "If we're getting close to a computer interface," Elegy said, "it's on the other side of that hatch."

Avira took a couple of steps away from the hatch and scanned the length of the corridor, making sure there wasn't something lying in wait for when they touched it. She slowly made her way back to the two others, "All clear, let's see what we got." She was keeping her weapon at the ready and her antennae were twitching around seemingly scanning the area around them as well. She stepped across the corridor to stand on the opposite wall of Elegy who was fiddling with the access panel, looking down the entire length of the corridor both ways, the nozzle of her rifle following her line of sight.

"I hear or smell nothing other than us." Darru followed carefully listening and sniffing the air. He had not taken any numbing agents for this very purpose to allow himself to be of better use than just being science. Darru moved to open the hatch by hitting the panel next to him but the door opened with a faint hiss without him even reaching it.

"Good to know," Avira stepped past Darru, taking point into the new room, quickly and efficiently clearing the area and determining that there wasn't any threat. It was a weird sensation stepping into a room with slightly higher temperature and humidity. The green of the room around her made it so that her eyes had to adjust to the surroundings. It was also difficult to tell if there was someone inside due to all the shadows being cast by the different light sources and plants, "ehm, what do your scanners indicate?" She stepped aside and took up a defensive position behind a large plant not two meters away from the entrance. She didn't recognise the plants and resisted the urge to reach out and touch them, even though it had been quite some time since they were planetside and she yearned for the feeling of 'solid ground'. For all she knew the plants in this room were all highly poisonous, something that was always possible in unknown space. She stepped aside and scanned the immediate vicinity, their own little hydroponics bay seemed laughably small in comparison to the wall to wall plantlife being held inside.

Elegy wasn't very far through the hatch when he hooked a thumb to his left. "This should be it," Elegy said surely, even though his eyes were still on the screen of his scanner. He hardly knew what he was speaking about until he looked up. The greenery growing from hydroponic racks and roundels were the first to catch his gaze, but it wasn't long until he narrowed his eyes on a couple of angled panels of black glass that were protruding from a bulkhead. Approaching the panels, Elegy bobbed and weaved around them in search of a keyboard, but he could only find smooth bulkheads behind the panels. "I can't find any switches or gauges..." Elegy admitted in mild frustration.

"Crewman Jones would approve of this compartment." Was all Darru said looking at the space. It looked maintained and organised, to say the least, someone had to be picking the fruit and replanting the space often. Darru looked back at the scanner trying to organise all the thoughts he had over this experience. "Nothing seems poisonous from my scans but the scanner does not recognize 54% of the items here. Perhaps it is touch screen?" Darru offered thinking that ships were only switches or gauges due to pressures that potentially a ship when through.

"Better get her in here then, perhaps there's something useful we can glean from the tech used in here, some foreign plants that we can introduce, expand our available resources," Avira would love to have more medicinal herbs available in the arboretum, this could be a perfect place to get that started, "Any luck with the computer interface ensign?"

"He... Finn Jones." Darru corrected agreeing with her sentiments on acquiring some more resources from this farm. It was a treasure trove of opportunity for them, he thought using the human term. "I am sure he will jump at the chance to explore in here."

"Sorry, human names all look alike, I might have mixed him up with Johannson," Avira didn't quite know why she felt the need to defend herself in that particular situation, but she couldn't help it, "regardless it might be good to take some samples in case something happens before the rest of the teams have an opportunity to get on board."

"I am sure he will be over here first chance he gets." The Vulcan assured quickly as he moved to a huge vine that seemed to be wrapped around everything. It seemed to have large flowers, which as far as he could see were dark blue, dark purple, light yellow and dark bronze. It had to have some type of value to have been included on this type of ship. Nothing they had seen so far had an ouch of something friverous. Everything had meaning.

While the flora growing from every surface had captured Avira and Darru's attentions, Elegy Nascimento could see nothing but the slabs of what looked like black glass. They were the only ones of their kind in the vaulting chamber and they mystified Elegy. Computer operating systems had been a particular passion of Elegy's at STC, more so than botany. That was why he wasn't the first to take a soil sample; no, he laid his palm on the black glass. The surface was, oddly, warm to the touch, feeling like he'd stepped into a tub on a cold day. On the surface of display panel, a blue circle spun around the circumference of his hand. A graphical user interface spidered out from that circle, forming blue bars and menu boxes in an alien script Elegy had never seen before.

Elegy said, "Jackpot, Lieutenant."

As the console came to life a speck of light appeared at the far end of the hydroponic bay. It formed into a figure until a humanoid woman stood there. She had long blonde, straight hair neatly coiffed with a thin black headband keeping it out of her face, cat eyeliner and a nude lip, it almost looked human in style, an homage to Earth’s hippie era apart from the outfit she wore was plastic and black. Glinting brown eyes, set wickedly within their sockets, watched the trio as they started back.

“Hello. I am E.D.E.N. I am The Caelestis’ Emergency Disaster Engagement Network. Who are you?” The figure demanded in Earth standard though the figure flickered a few times looking between them as they were scanned.

Avira immediately raised her gun at the movement in the far side of the room, she stepped in front of the two scientists to shield them from any potential incoming danger, there was a tingle in her antennae that she could quite place, "Prime Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenar, assigned to the starship Atlantis," She kept peering at the figure through the sights down the barrel of her rifle, making sure to keep aiming for the centre mass of the humanoid form, "your vessel was sending out a distress call, we are here to help."

“The Emergency distress call was what activated me. I do not know the nature of it. There is no crew to tell me.” E.D.E.N Informed the group.

"Can you please confirm something surrounding that last statement, was there never a crew on this vessel, or aren't there any currently?" Avira asked, not lowering her weapon from the figure. She was wondering where the figure had come from, and how she was 'activated'. But all of that would have to wait until the more prominent questions were answered.

"There are no longer any crew on board." E.D.E.N replied flickering in the odd way that she did. "You have more crew on board." She said not as a question but as a statement.

Flanked by his away team, Elegy Nascimento absorbed every bit of data E.D.E.N. was sharing, as if he were a Human sponge. He observed the ways E.D.E.N. communicated with them and the ways E.D.E.N. observed them; calculating for himself how best to use his posture and the timbre of his voice to appear comforting to her. He held his hand scanner a little more discreetly than Avira was pointing her particle rifle. Although he had instructed the scanner to drink up and analyze everything it could learn about E.D.E.N., Elegy tapped its interface to spare some processing power to locate the other away teams. When the not-entirely-solid being made mention of his crew mates, Elegy took a look to make certain they were still where they were supposed to be.

The hologram looked at the woman before looking at the men in the group who had stayed mostly quiet. “None of you are the same species?” She questioned.

Avira looked over her shoulder over at Darru and Elegy before turning back to face the hologram, "we are not." She confirmed to the female figure, "The Atlantis is home to a couple of different species. I am Andorian." She wanted to offer the others a chance to introduce themselves.

Darru carried on looking around at the bay to try and make more sense of it all. “I am Darru. I am Vulcan.” He introduced himself.

After clearing his throat, Elegy announced, "We're representatives of the United Earth Starfleet. Our mission is to seek out new life and new civilizations." Lowering his hand scanner, Elegy put a hand on his chest, and he shared, "I come from a planet called Earth. Earth is also the origin of the language you're speaking now, E.D.E.N. Did you learn this language from us?"

“This Emergency Disaster Engagement Network is able to translate into native tongue of whoever hears it. I am able to translate into anything you need me too. I...” , E.D.E.N revealed as her image blinked several times before disappearing. Darru raised an eyebrow looking at the pair.

“Well that was... different.” The Vulcan finally decided was a good choice of words.

Cocking his head to the side, Elegy furrowed his brow and stared at the empty space from where E.D.E.N. had vanished. "Did we..." Elegy hesitantly asked, "offend her?" He looked from side to side at his two companions, his eyebrows raised in curiosity and wonderment. "Or maybe her network was damaged," Elegy said, hypothesizing aloud, "by whatever set off their distress beacon..."

"Maybe one of the other teams fixed whatever was causing the distress, no distress no Emergency Disaster Engagement Network needed." Avira slowly lowered her weapon, "it's weird though, right, someone just appearing out of thin air and then disappearing?" It didn't really sit right with her, "alright, if there's nothing else in here, it's time we pack up and report back." She stepped by the two scientists back into the hallway, weapon at the ready, "eyes peeled."