The Discovery - Part I

Posted on Wed 15th Mar, 2017 @ 8:06pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Commander Zachary Hunt
Edited on on Sun 19th Mar, 2017 @ 9:48am

1,551 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Wrongs Darker Than Death Or Night
Location: Deck 1440: Section 49 Alpha
Timeline: MD-02: 1800 Hours

"Why have resources been taken away from Tactical? I wanted the secondary targeting scanners online by the end of the week!" Drake was tired and could feel himself getting irritable. He glanced at the cup on the right hand side of his desk... empty. Any more coffee and his stomach would start doing somersaults, he feared.

"With Lt. Eberstark's arrival, they should be able to cope without that resource. He's already told me that those secondary targeting scanners will be online by the end of the week so I will chase him up to see if it's on schedule," Hunt could feel Drake getting frustrated but he had taken the steps to ensure everything had been covered.

"I don't understand why we're pulling resources from Tactical, the most understaffed department on the station, when we've got over two thousand unused Marines on the station! If they're not on track for getting those scanners online then pull back the resource and reassign Marines to Security," Drake snapped his response, ending the conversation.

"Lieutenant Dal did request Marine presence to be minimal, Sir. But I'll see to the exchange of resources, if needed." Hunt replied.

"What else do we have to go through?" Drake gave in, picked up his cup and headed to the replicator.

"That's it. We've gone through the daily quota of reports. I'm sure more will arise this time tomorrow, providing nothing major happens." Hunt hated going through reports, he preferred the physical side of the job, rather than what he would describe as the boring side. He would much rather play in a Science lab.

"Coffee," Drake instructed the replicator. He rubbed his temples. "Good... there's only so many reports..."

"D'vir to Drake," a voice sounded over the com system that could only belong to a Vulcan.

"Drake here."

"Sir, your presence is requested on Deck fourteen-forty, section fifty-alpha."

Deck fourteen-forty? Drake wondered. What on Earth was anyone doing down there?

"Understood, on my way." Drake nodded for Hunt to join him and the two exited the Ready Room, crossed Main Operations to a turbolift. "Deck fifteen hundred, section fifty alpha" He ordered the computer before turning to Hunt. "Do we know why there are work crews in that area?" Drake asked, confused.

A Stardock Class was a strange construction - with the upper mushroom being a hive of activity for docking ships and the like. It would be a natural assumption to think that, the lower one went the less important or critical systems became with the lowest point of the station being all but redundant, like a starship... but that would be an incorrect assumption. In actual fact the base's critical systems started on Deck 1 with the primary communications array, and ran throughout the base down until about deck 1401. From there, deck 1401-1499 housed things such as VIP/Guest quarters, Civilian Quarters, Holosuites, Transporter Rooms. Only at that level and below did the base became even slightly redundant. Deck 1500-1825 housed only medical and engineering storage bays, auxiliary environmental control systems, secondary shield generators, emergency transporters and lifepods. Of course with Vanguard there was the addition of Tivoli Gardens beginning on Deck 1500. However from deck 1826 things became more important again and a hive of activity all the way down to deck 2500. If anything, that lower-middle part of the base that was functionally unnecessary and an area which should have been a last port of call for engineering crews to tackle. What's more the FCDA sealed all of these sections during their tenure.

"In all honesty I have no idea," Hunt stated.

After a few minutes the doors opened and the two were hit with a musty smell. How could there be a smell on a hermetically sealed starbase? Drake mused to himself.

They walked a short way down the corridor before being met by the Vulcan engineer who had contacted them previously, his collar indicated the rank of Lieutenant. Behind him were two crewman and an Ensign, also in engineering gold, holding various equipment. "Sirs, thank you for coming down."

"Lieutenant, I didn't think we were working on these decks yet?" Drake inquired.

"That is correct, Colonel. My work detail was assigned to deck forteen-oh-one to get the VIP guest quarters made ready for our diplomatic parties. We traced a faulty EPS power relay to this deck and proceeded to repair it when we picked up an anomalous energy signature behind this bulkhead." He motioned towards the wall in front of them, one eyebrow raised. "There appears to be some unregistered power source which is emitting a cloaking field. Scans reveal it is not connected to the main power distribution system. If it were not for the fact that it is malfunctioning, we would not have detected it."

"What? A cloaking field?" Drake folded his arms.

"There is something even more peculiar." The Vulcan lieutenant raised an over sized Engineering PADD, which showed a deck schematic. "As you can see the section down there is Forty-Eight Alpha." He pointed down the corridor, Drake nodded in agreement. "We are standing in front of fifty-alpha and down there is fifty-one alpha. However, according to these schematics, section forty-nine alpha should be located in this spot. The bulkhead here, however, is marked fifty alpha, and manually pacing off the frame members marked with that designation reveals it to be twice the size of the other two sections."

"Normally I would say in and of itself, this isn't strange... but I get a feeling you've got more to tell me?" Drake knew that in a base of this size there were bound to be a few errors like this.

"Indeed." Lieutenant D'vir pressed a button on his PADD to change the display. "I retrieved the original base schematics from the computer... as you can clearly see, we should now be standing in front of section forty-nine alpha. At some point between the original construction of this base and now, the construction was altered, with the frame number plates duplicated between this section and the next."

"Again, no real cause for concern... " Drake's voice trailed off. That kind of duplication was unusual, but not impossible. Having been discovered, it should have been an easy matter for the Lieutenant to simply relabel the frames; for him to bring it up to command meant there was yet more.

"You are correct, sir - there were over a thousand additions and edits to the original schematics after construction was completed. However, that does not explain why scans reveal a void behind this bulkhead." D'vir looked as smug as a Vulcan could.

"A void?" Hunt asked.

"It is difficult to detect, but the fluctuating conduit is producing gaps in the efficiency of the cloaking field. Normal scans of this deck reveal nothing behind this bulkhead. However, a scan during a fluctuation reveals a void... perhaps a room."

"Someone has hidden a room behind a cloaking field?" Drake asked, confirming the thread of the engineer's narrative. He turned to Hunt.

"Is there a way in?" Hunt asked the Vulcan. This was all they both needed at this point in time

"I believe if I can drain even more power from the conduit then the cloaking field may collapse altogether." He responded with a raise of his his eyebrow.

"Do it" Drake said.

D'Vir moved towards the bulkhead, signalling his engineering team to fall back to where Drake and Hunt were standing. He removed an access panel and starting tapping on the console, in unison with his tricorder.

"I am attempting to drain power from the conduit... ninety percent... eighty five percent..." He tapped his tricorder. "Secondary systems are re-routing power... I am disabling them... seventy percent... sixty perecent." He looked up to Drake, "I believe it is working, sir."

A high pitched noise filled the air and started getting louder. "Curious... I am detecting an energy build up behind this bulkhead... yet I am drawing power..." He cut himself off mid-sentence, looking up from his tricorder and locking eyes with Drake. "It's an explosive devi..."

Drake saw the flashpoint seconds before he felt it... it wasn't until it spun him around and slammed him into the deck plating did he actually hear anything. Hunt and the rest of the engineering team had rounded the corner and were protected from the mainstay of the explosion, but Drake felt as if his insides had just been scrambled. His face burned and his body screamed out in pain, but he knew it wasn't life threatening... to feel the pain was a good thing.

He pushed himself onto his knees and tapped his comm. badge, his voice was croaky. "Drake to Ops, Security Alert."

Slowly, but surely he pushed himself to his feet using the bulkhead as support, he could see Hunt holding his left arm now, he was saying something but he couldn't understand what it was.

He precariously limped towards the body of D'Vir, what was left of it. He lay in a mangled mess, his face black, yet his Vulcan expression intact. Appearances could be deceiving... there may still have been hope for him... he indicated to the Vulcan's number two to join him. "Drake to the Infirmary, medical emergency. Two to beam directly to the Infirmary."

TO BE CONTINUED...

 

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