Mysteries wrapped in enigmas (part 2)

Posted on Mon 4th Aug, 2014 @ 3:05am by Lieutenant Zhara Rynn & Lieutenant JG Jerika Cheetal & Colonel Marcus DeSalle & Lieutenant Colonel Tallus Karikkar
Edited on on Mon 4th Aug, 2014 @ 3:39am

1,087 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/6
Location: Various
Timeline: present

... CONTINUED FROM 1ST POST...

OLD

=A=Kell here. It appears we are being 'held' on the bridge. We had an incident with the door and when we stepped out - all hell broke loose. Once we stepped back in, everything was fine.=A= He looked around. =A= Something wants us here for some reason.=A=

NEW

Aboard the Protector, things were not going well. systems had started turning themselves on and off, computer memory banks were running unscheduled diagnostics, and comm channels were being alternately blocked or filled with static.

Marcus looked at his comms officer. "Lieutenant, see what you can do to clear those channels! we've lost comms with the away teams, and I don't like it." He listened for a moment to a burst of static playing over the Ops Center speakers. It almost sounded like something intelligible. "Try filtering for distortion. We'll see if that makes it clearer."

"Aye, sir!" Jerika responded. She began to filter the sound and play with the frequencies. Slowly, over the process of several minutes, the series of roars, squeaks, hisses and pops become more intelligible.

[aboard the Anubis]

On the bridge of the Anubis, Corporal Hunter was fiddling with the communications console. He couldn't believe that this old museum piece was still operational. The old style gumdrop buttons actually performed only one function, and couldn't be reconfigured to do something different, like the LCARS interface. "How did they get anything done?" he muttered aloud as he pressed a button. A burst of static pealed over the loudspeaker, a pattern of repeating screeches, groans, and murmurings. He tried several other buttons, making educated guesses as to their function, and the main viewscreen came to life, showing the familiar outlines of the digital face they had seen since boarding the ship. But this time, it seemed to be looking at them. The digital mouth was somehow synchronized with the sounds coming through the speaker. "Commander!" Hunter exclaimed, "Take a look at this!"

Kell looked over at the console, his ears covered from the screeches coming from what seemed like everywhere. He watched what Hunter pointed to. "See if we can figure out who that is and what he's trying to say!" He turned to the science officer. "Lieutenant Greystone, see if you can help figure this out. And see if we can determine what's causing this." Kell was suddenly worried about the safety of his team. Something in his gut was telling him they should get the hell out of there and off the ship. The problem was, he was pretty sure they were being held prisoner at the moment. Maybe if we figure out what this thing is saying, we can figure a way off the ship."

Lys looked up from the control panel she had been whole heartedly manipulating the best she could. "There is nothing here to figure out, garbled information, bits and pieces of randomness."

Corporal Hunter shot her a look of incredulity. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but there seems to be a correlation between the pitch and timbre of these sounds, and the mouth of that image on the screen. Perhaps it is trying to communicate. Maybe, with your scientific knowledge, you could use the computers to filter out some of that audio and see if the entity on the screen is saying something we can understand..."


Greystone narrowed her dark eyes slightly as she glanced at the Corporal with a look that said maybe just maybe its why I'm a jaygee as a department head and why the smart alec Lieutenant Colonel didn't want me along. "You do realize that my expertise is with plants, which live in dirt and that this system isn't the easiest to manipulate with all its broken garble. A ops or engineer would probably have better luck filtering out this mess then I am. So give me a few minutes as its hard to concentrate with the noise and I don't have the luxury of covering my ears like you do." She didn't say much more as she continued to work.

Kell couldn't help a grin. He wasn't expecting instant answers. He searched over the console and after a few seconds found what he was looking for. He couldn't delete the noise completely - that would defeat their purpose but he was able to cut out some of the noise and lower it to something that didn't pierce through their heads. As a Security Officer, he was familiar with most of the ship's systems, but this ship was ancient and it took a few minutes to find what he needed. "Okay," he took a deep breath. "Let's see if we can all concentrate now and find what we're looking for." He nodded to Greystone. "Better?" He asked.

Lys sighed huge sigh of relief, the disturbing noise was gone but the other noise the one that itched in her mind was still there, this ship it felt all out of place and she was sensitive to those things. "That helped immensely. Thank You" Lys started to hum softly to herself and caught herself and stopped. She grinned suddenly and the the grin disappeared. "Thought I had some thing for a moment but I was wrong." Lys bit at her lower lip in concentration.

"Just keep working Lieutenant." Kell nodded. "Take your time. I don't think whatever this is, is going to let us leave until then." He tried to sound reassuring but couldn't help feeling caged.

[Other Team]

"Make it stop!" The words began to pound through Zhara's head. "Make it stop!" It seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. She turned to Karikkar, "I think what we're sensing is still on the ship."

As the entity seemed determined to herd them somewhere, she pulled out a small notebook she used to jot down thoughts as she counseled the crew and drew a quick map of where they'd been, indicating where the blocked areas were. "Commander, where else re we not to go? I want to see if there's a pattern."

Suddenly the static grew louder, buzzing throughout both the Protector and the Anubis. Then all communications on both vessels went down and there was a ringing silence.


(To be continued...)

Lieutenant Commander Devyn Kell
Chief Security/Tactical Officer

Lieutenant Colonel Tallus Karikkar
Executive Officer/Marine CO

Colonel Marcus DeSalle
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant JG Jerika Cheetal
Communications Officer

Corporal Hunter
Marine

Lieutenant Lys Greystone
former Chief Science Officer

Lieutenant Zhara Rynn
Chief Counselor

 

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