The Orb

Posted on Tue Jan 18th, 2022 @ 12:34am by Lieutenant Xavier Leiko & Ensign Kateyo Fenn & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Senior Chief Petty Officer Mason Malone

Mission: With Gleaming Eyes
Location: Mining Site
Timeline: MD-03 1000
3946 words - 7.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Finn grabbed supplies from engineering and then stopped by her quarters for some additional cargo that she hoped might make Xavier feel a little better down on the surface. Before leaving, she paused at the door for a moment, not really wanting to go to the transporter room. Although curious to see what the investigation into the mine might reveal, she had chosen Fenn and Mason to help and the last time she had seen either of them, things hadn’t ended well. With a sigh, she pushed forward. They’d have to interact at some point anyways, no sense in delaying it.

“Oh, hey Mason,” Finn said awkwardly, initially surprised that someone had arrived in the transporter room before she had. Then again, he was always prompt. “How are you?”

"Hi," Mason greeted, a friendly smile on his face. "Not too badly all things considering. Yourself?"

"Yea, I'm pretty good," she returned the smile, grateful that he didn't still seem upset with her.

Teyo was surprised that Lieutenant Keating had requested him for this mission, maybe that meant he was out of her bad books, or maybe she was hoping he would get a serious dose of radiation on the planet. Either way, he was happy to have something different to do than grunt work. He walked into the transporter room and saw Mason standing there, 'great' he thought to himself. "Ready when you are Lieutenant," he said in his professional voice.

Mason's expression darkened a little upon the sight of the other engineer, but he pulled himself back together quickly enough. They had work to do, now wasn't the time for private quarrels - if any, anyway. "I'm ready too," he said as he readjusted his tricorder and phaser to his belt.

Finn nodded. "Let's get this show on the road then. I'll transport you two next to the shield generator. When you arrive, check the sensors. Make sure no one is in the mines and grab any data on the environmental and equipment status. I'm going to stop by the triage area and drop a couple of things off to Xavier and then I'll meet you there."

"Tell Xav I'll see him after my shift is over," Teyo said. Quarantine or no quarantine, nothing was going to keep him from his friend.

"I can visit too if he wants some company," Mason offered, even though he didn't know the OPS chief all that well.

"I'm just dropping him off some supplies so it won't be much of a visit. I'll tell him you both say hi though," she replied.

Finn then sent the other two as she said and then programmed the transporter to place her close to where Xavier's tent was. Shimmering into existence on the surface moments later, she spotted the tent empty. She scanned the area until her eyes landed on the shuttle still sitting amongst the triage area. If I know Xav, he moved to the shuttle once he came to, she thought.

"Well you look better than the last time I saw you anyways," Finn chuckled from inside her EV suit as she approached the ops officer laying inside the shuttle as she suspected. "I brought you some stuff to make your time in hell a little better." She handed him two thermal canisters, a padd, and a strange looking sheet of bubbles. "Chicken noodle soup, a cold version and a hot one. Made from my family's top secret recipe. And an entertainment padd downloaded with some of my favorite old Earth movies. I also brought this thing. I don't actually know what it is, but my friend Tavin once gave me a sheet of it. It's oddly satisfying to pop the little bubbles."

"Look at you, mingling with the sickies," Xavier said, sitting up at the sound of his friends voice. He took the items and gave her a genuine smile. "Finn, you shouldn't have." He turned the sheet of bubbles over in his hand, giving it a quizzical look. "I mean, you really shouldn't have," he said again with a chuckle. "Since when do you cook?"

"I'm actually pretty good at cooking. Maybe I'll invite you over for dinner sometime when you make it off this planet," she smiled.

Jerant, who had been sleeping at the back of the shuttle, walked forward with the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders at the sound of an additional voice. "Oh...hi," he greeted the chief engineer, instantly feeling like a bit of an intruder in a meeting between friends.

"Oh, hey Jerant. I didn't know you were stuck down here too. If you're interested in plastic bubble sheets, chicken noodle soup, or old Earth movies you might be able to convince Leiko here to share with you," Finn chuckled. "Anyway, I can't stay long," she started to leave but looked back at Xavier before exiting the shuttle. "Mason and Fenn said hi by the way and Fenn said that he'll stop by after his shift. If either of you needs anything let me know, I'm just a com call away."

"I suppose he does owe me a meal," Jerant smiled. just joking. he quickly clarified to Xavier. "Though I don't understand the need for bubble wrap..."

"Thanks Finn," Xavier said ignoring Jerant's jibe. "And I'm holding you to that dinner invitation, if we ever get outta here."

For a moment, Jerant frowned, then remembered Xavier wouldn't hear him, and that he wasn't hearing Xav either. Or their visitor. It was like feeling he got robbed of one of his senses, and it made him feel a bit off. Just to be sure, he focused on Finn for a moment, trying very hard to get just a hint of her emotional state... but it was like hitting a brick wall instead. He got nothing, at all. "What dinner invitation?" he asked instead, feeling a touch of jealousy there.

"I told Leiko that I would cook for him one night when we all get back. You can come too Jerant. Though I may need to find some sort of telepathy blocking helmet to wear before I have two telepaths in my quarters," she chuckled, only half-joking, before waving goodbye and walking out.

It was a good thing she had turned when she walked out, so she couldn't see how much that comment hurt at least one of the two Betazoid patients. Jerant bit his lower lip, trying hard to keep the anguish from his face. Not because of being a third wheel on an invitation, but because his telepathy was gone. "She doesn't know, does she?" he whispered, looking sideways at his companion.

Xavier shook his head slowly, tears stinging his eyes. He didn't have the energy to speak, the joy at seeing his friend quickly fading into the abyss, just like their telepathy.

-----------------------------

The two men materialised near the entrance of the mine, Teyo was happy to see that the shield was still in place and hadn't been tampered with. "Probably best if you check the sensors and look for lifesigns, I can check the recorded data, Sir," he quickly added on the end, remembering that the man was his senior.

Mason arched an eyebrow at being called sir, but said nothing. "Sure," he replied, moving over to one of the still active consoles. "You don't have to call me sir," he added as he activated the mine's internal sensors. "It feels awkward."

"Just following protocol," Teyo said absentmindedly as he pulled up the records he needed from computer. "Out of curiosity, what would you like to call you?" Teyo could think of a few choice words but decided to keep them to himself, after all, he didn't want to be cleaning engineering again.

"Chief will do... just seems wrong to me that you, a commissioned officer calls me, an enlisted man, sir. Oh I know it might be correct and all, it just feels wrong. Just call me chief."

"You'll be glad to know that Xavier is conscious and he seems to be doing better," Finn mentioned to Fenn as she approached the entrance to the mines. "Now, what have you two found on the sensors? Are we good to enter the mines?"

"Uhmmm.." Mason hesitated, "I think so... but I'm not an engineer."

"Everything looks clear," Teyo said, studying the readings. "However, the radiation isn't helping things much, I can't promise how accurate the information is. I suggest we proceed with caution."

"Understood," Finn nodded before deactivating the shield and leading the way into the mines. The passage was dark, only dimly lit by the flashing of emergency lights. When they arrived in the control room, Finn immediately went to the large panel in the middle of the room. "Ok, we know they were tapping into the core of the planet, but we don't know why. Mason, can you look for a map of the facility in the system? Fenn, you try to pull up a power diagram. Let's see if we can find where all of this energy was going."

Mason nodded, moving over to one of the consoles. "This facility doesn't seem to be listed," he said after several minutes. "At least, not in the way I think you mean. This is listed as a simple ore mine... but what exactly were they mining here?"

"I don't know everything they were mining, but I've seen some traces of deuterium. Hopefully, we'll find more information as we keep digging," Finn replied.

Teyo made his way over to one of the smaller work stations that lined the perimeter of the room. He had read Xavier's report from the day before and tried to familiarise himself with the station's systems as much as possible before heading down. He knew that Xavier had tried to trace the power to the ending source but hadn't had much luck, the Trill was hoping he would find things easier. Unfortunately the computer wasn't playing ball and the facility didn't have enough juice for the simplest of tasks. "Lieutenant, I'm having no luck here," he said to Finn. "We may have to restore main power first before I can determine what the hell they were trying to do here."

"No, we're not going to risk setting this place off again, it was a mess last time," Finn recalled the experience of both radiation poisoning and almost blowing the whole facility up when they were in the mines previously. "I'll have an engineering crew bring down a generator that'll allow us to restore power to specific systems without tapping into the facility's power itself. In the meantime, I found a map. At least, it looks like a map of the facility." She downloaded the file titled in Cardassian that roughly translated to 'Mine Ten Survey'. "I've downloaded it onto my padd. Let's explore some of these tunnels. Maybe we'll find some clues down there."

"Isn't it his job to do the exploring?" Teyo said referring to Mason.

"What...you afraid of the dark?" Mason shot back as he activated his palm light. "Right, let's go then," he added, deftly grabbing the PADD from Finn's fingers.

Finn raised an eyebrow and smirked at Mason's retort before falling into step and walking down one of the tunnels. Just as with the entrance, the corridors were only dimly lit by the flashing of the emergency lights. The whole thing felt like a scene out of one of those old Earth horror movies that her dad liked to watch so much. Don't be ridiculous, it's just a mine, she dismissed the uneasy feeling and busied herself with sending the request for a generator to be hooked up at the main control room.

Looking up, she noticed a light streaming in from further up the tunnel. "Usually they tell you not to walk towards the light at the end of the tunnel," Finn apprehensively chuckled before continuing. About 400 meters later, they arrived at an unmarked yet fully lit room. Sophisticated panels lined the walls and a strange circular device sat in the center with waves of colors emanating from it.

"This room isn't even on the map, is it?" Finn asked.

Teyo followed Finn and Mason into the room and marvelled at the brightness of it. "More importantly," he said as he pulled out his tricorder, "where the hell is the power coming from?" He scanned the room, careful not to get too close to the glowing thing in the middle. "I think," he said uncertainly, not fully believing the readings that he was seeing. "I think this thing is powering itself. I'm detecting 2.5 cochranes and rising," he said turning to Finn.

Mason shook his head as he looked at the map, then at the room, and back at the map. "Nope, that's definitely not on the map," he confirmed as he inched ahead. "powering itself with what, exactly? Like a perpetual mobile or something? nuclear fission? How is what powering what?" He glanced at both engineers. "I'm a linguist...an investigator, not an engineer," he commented with a shrug.

"Check this out," Finn pointed to the data displayed on her screen. "It looks like a line runs directly from one of the processing plants closest to the core to this device here. I wonder if that's why they were mining the core of the planet? To power this thing. Now that's powered it seems pretty self sustaining, but I wonder if it would drain power if it was actually doing whatever it was intended to do." She mused of the possibilities.

"Wait, doesn't this look kind of familiar?" She asked her two crewmtes. The readings from sensors and tricorders brought back a sense of dejavu. She hadn't seem them exactly before, but something about them reminded her of those space cows that they had encountered not that long ago.

Teyo rolled his eyes at Mason, "you really don't have to keep reminding us you're not an engineer, it's painfully obvious." He pressed some buttons on the tricorder trying to prove Finn's theory and from what he could tell, she was right. This thing did seem linked to the planet's core in some way, if not now it was at some point. "Familiar?" He repeated. "No, should it?"

"You don't have to be disrespectful," Finn said in response to the quip aimed at Mason. "The readings look like something we've encountered before." She furrowed a brow in concentration before the lightbulb went off. "Space cows! Look, some of the readings show the same elements as what those pirates were harvesting from the space cows."

"Of course how did I not spot it," Teyo said ignoring Finn's earlier comment. He had been the one tasked with cleaning out the shuttle after P'rel's little trip with the space cows, that memory was burned into his memory forever, he should have spotted this sooner. "You're right," he said as he adjusted the readings of his tricorder. "But what does it mean?" Teyo had not been trusted with the results of the last investigation, the joys of being a lowly engineering grunt.

"Are you saying they're using those cows to power the plant? Or that stuff in the rings, which they seem to uhm...eat?" Mason looked from one to the other, feeling like he was missing something.

"There's another line feeding into this room, maybe that's where the space cow goo is coming from. Preliminarily, it looks like they were extracting energy from the core and then combining that with the space cow elements to create this self-powering thing, whatever it is," she motioned towards the large glowing ball in the center of the room. "Let's send a report to the Athena with our current findings and then try to find where the space cow line starts. Maybe we'll find more answers there."

"I'm just not sure what space cow element you're referring to ma'am," Mason mused as he studied the glowing ball. "That rather looks like a mini sun to me though...."

"Maybe you should stand quietly over there," Teyo said, not taking his eyes off his tricorder readings. "Play with your phaser or something."

"Oh really," Mason shot back, "if you're oh-so knowledgeable, then why don't you tell me what she means. Make the stupid security officer understand."

Teyo rolled his eyes, "our last mission with the space cows, and the pirates, and the harvesting. Well, this thing is showing the same energy readings of the ... excrement. Somehow all this is connected, we just don't know how yet."

"Wait a minute..." Finn stopped just before sending a report to the Athena. "There are schematics buried in here and they're similar to this thing," she pointed towards the glowing orb, "but modified. The base structure is a power generator, but then it looks like it can be weaponized with these changes and additions." Finn squinted and inspected the drawings more closely before looking back at the generator, comparing the two. "I don't know if they were ever planning on weaponizing it or if they were just using it as a really efficient generator. There isn't enough evidence to be conclusive."

"Can we de-weaponize it?" Mason asked as he studied the orb, "or disable it just to be safe?"

"Well, it's not weaponized now. It's just a power generator in its current configuration. We could try to disable it, but we don't know the extent of what it powers so we could be cutting off power to a critical system." Finn looked to her fellow engineer. "Fenn, can you try to track down what its powering while I put together the rest of the report?"

Teyo nodded as he grabbed his diagnostic kit. His tricorder wasn't giving him the information he needed and he needed more equipment to work this out. He studied the schematics and compared it to his readings on the instruments, but everything was coming up blank. The only power line he detected was the one running to the planet's core, clearly where this device was drawing its energy from. The power line appeared to be operating in two directions, one direction feeding from the core, the other one feeding the core more power. Like some kind of feedback loop.

"What if it's both?" Teyo said out loud. "What if it's a power generator and a weapon? What if it's a bomb?"

"Then we need to disable it, at the risk of putting a lot of people without power," Mason suggested as he circled around the orb, studying it for a moment. "Maybe put a dampening field around it? Or just... turn it off?"

"But look," Finn pointed to the schematic. "It's missing a detonator and the reaction sequence is off if it was a weapon. In order to weaponize there would need to be a program to change the reaction sequence and speed it up. I haven't found anything that would do that yet. I suppose that doesn't mean one doesn't exist." She placed her hand on her chin and thought for a moment in silence before typing in some commands on her padd. Another moment passed before she looked up at her companions. "Engineering is sending down the equipment we need to put a protective field around this thing. Can you two collect it from the entrance and meet me back here?"

Mason looked at Teyo, then shrugged. "Yea we probably can, if mister engineer here doesn't feel too good about hauling goods around." He smirked at the other man. "When we're done though, I have to report elsewhere."

Teyo ignored the manchild and made his way out of the room towards the mine's entrance. The two walked in silence, a mutual dislike for each other, or maybe just not wanting to rub each other up the wrong way even further. To be honest, Teyo's mind was more on the mysterious orb, what was its purpose? Where had it come from? How was it related to the space cows? And more importantly, why hadn't the Cardassians come back for it? Maybe the shield that Finn and Xavier had erected prevented them from doing so?

The pair reached the entrance and found the equipment waiting for them just as Finn said it would be. Teyo grabbed what he could and waited for Mason to do the same. As they were heading back the way they came, Teyo finally decided to speak. "You're an idiot for wasting your time with that Trill you know?"

"Oh?" Mason turned his head, glaring at the man, almost dropping the gear in the process. "Maybe I'm just biding my time? Why... what do you care?"

"Who said I cared?" Teyo asked indignantly. "But he's clearly not into you, you see that right?"

Mason just shook his head, unwilling to disclose anything. "It seems like you care or you wouldn't be harping about it. Why...are you saying you're better suited?"

Teyo stopped dead in his tracks, as though completely stunned. "Have you seen me? Of course I'm better suited. I'm the hottest Trill on the ship, without question."

"Hottest....maybe... but character leaves a lot to be desired," Mason quipped as he brushed past the man, deliberately close as he did so. "Plus aren't you pining for Finn?"

Teyo frowned. "You don't know anything about my character, in fact, all you really know is that I'm brutally honest, I bet your friend can't say the same," he added as he started to follow Mason down the passage back towards the room where Finn was waiting. He purposely ignored the question about his feelings for the blonde engineer. He liked her yes, but was he pinning? Absolutely not. Either way, it wasn't the security officer's concern.

"All I know is that you butted in on what was supposed to be a date, and your presence probably ruined any chance I had," Mason bit back, "honest? Maybe... and maybe Kev isn't honest, but that's not being honest with himself." He glanced ahead, hoping Finn wasn't overhearing. "And I'm a linguist by training, you forget that body language can be very telling to a linguist." If he was paying attention to it, anyway, which he really wasn't, right now.

Teyo glared at the man, how can anyone wearing that uniform be this stupid. "Lying to yourself is the WORST kind of lie," he half-shouted, not caring if Finn heard or not. "And, if it was a date, I apologise, but considering the fact that Finn was there too, I'm going to guess it wasn't a date. AND if you remember correctly, I stuck up for you, even though I think you're a creepy stalker who can't take no for an answer."

Teyo didn't wait for the security officer's reply, he marched into the room with the orb and handed Finn the equipment she had requested. "Let's get this setup and leave this shit planet."

"Ok then," Finn raised an eyebrow at Fenn before looking to Mason. "I think we can take it from here. Thanks for your help."

Biting back an angry retort while glaring at Fenn's retreating back, Mason turned to Finn and cast her an almost grateful smile. "Right-o," he answered, "and uhm.... sorry about that..." Giving her a final apologetic smile, Mason hurried away.

Finn waved goodbye. A very observant eye might have noticed the tiny slump of her shoulders as he left. Even if Mason wasn't interested in a romantic relationship, she'd have enjoyed working with him.

"Alright," Finn turned back to Fenn. "Let's get this thing put together so that we can get off this, what did you call it? Shit planet?" She smiled.