By Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
80527.01
After Heading Down
-=Underground: Stra II=-
80527.01
After Heading Down
-=Underground: Stra II=-
With a noticeable jolt from the lift they knew they had arrived. The door slid open sticking in place for a moment almost as though it were reluctant to let them through. When it was finally open, light began to bleed out of the lift only to be lost in what seemed like the unending darkness which now confronted them.
Rada distributed torches to the other three members of the away team present and then took one for himself. They cautiously stepped out of the lift and the door clamped shut behind them, observably quicker than it had opened. They could see in the distance the moving glow of wrist-lamps scuttling around but their immediate environment was blank.
“You’d think a species this technologically advanced would know how to properly install a light bulb,” whispered Reece as they all switched on their torches and the area a few metres in front of them gained some visibility.
“We should keep them on the low setting,” Rada softly advised “someone around here has gone to a lot of trouble to keep us from getting this far. We can’t risk drawing attention to ourselves now that we’re here.”
Reluctantly the torches were turned down and the feeling of blindness crept back upon them with the shadows drawing nearer.
“It looks like this may be the only way to get down here from the upper levels.” suggested Kellyn. “If we can lock this door then we should gain ourselves a little more time”
Rada nodded in agreement as Kellyn set to work removing the casing from the panel next to the lift door. Grace obligingly focused her torch beam upon it so that Kellyn could see what she was doing.
There were constant yet incomprehensible murmurs in the distance and a disturbing slow creak seemed to echo around them. It sounded somehow mechanical; like rusty gears trying to force themselves to move but finding age to be too powerful an adversary. The creak bluntly halted as did instantly the murmurs. Dengar, Lair, Grace and even Reece remained perfectly still and silent as the wrist-lights seemed momentarily to freeze in one place. Slowly the murmurs and the movements of the lights returned and they were free to exhale again.
Rada removed a cloth from his pocket and wiped the sweat away which had already begun to form on his brow. It was hot down here. It was too hot down here. Rada had no doubt that this was why the lighting down here had been deactivated. If Rada was right in his suspicions, this place must have power but in an environment like this even the lights would provide an unacceptable increase in temperature.
Kellyn snapped the panel’s covering back in place and gave the nod to say that it was done. Rada took the lead with the security scans as his guide on the tricorder in his hand. With stooped stature they slowly progressed towards the only other door. Whatever was on the other side was completely unknown.
The tricorder reported two male Strasa life forms approaching their positions. They all turned off their torches becoming close enough to invisible in all of this darkness. Rada said a silent prayer to no one in particular, hoping that close enough would indeed be close enough. They would have hidden behind some cover but there was nothing in this room except for empty space.
“What Lank wants is crazy,” muttered one Strasa man, “it’s such a waste to destroy the M8.”
“We must.” Retorted the other “The Federation crew is getting too close. We’ve been unable to repair the malfunction and it is still refusing to work. All we can do now is to make sure no one finds out about it.”
“The m8?” Dengar mouthed to Kellyn but she just shook her head in acknowledgement that she didn’t recognise the term.
“But what chance do we have of fixing this mess without it?” the first one asked.
The second one just shook his head and replied in a defeated tone “We have no chance anyway. This world is going to die and its blood’ll be on our hands.”
Eventually the sounds of the Strasa’s feet seemed to fade away and Rada gestured for everyone to stand up. He couldn’t help but observe that the wrist-lights were paying them no attention.
“I’m sure that if Pointy were here he’d make a point of pointing out that:” Reece paused to get into character, keeping his voice down but putting on the best ‘Salvek face’ he could muster, “It would be a logical conclusion to suggest that since this m8 in about to be destroyed and this Mim seems to consider itself to be in danger that the two may be one and the same." Grace had to suppress a giggle and to remember that Salvek’s wife was right next to them.
Rada tried adjusting the settings on his tricorder but it wasn’t working. He had been tracking the two Strasa men’s movement until the point that they had entered the very door way that they themselves were heading for but he had lost any trace of them on the other side. The tricorder simply refused to read anything over there.
“Well, their computer seemed to think that this Mim was here.” Rada pointed out with deep concern in his voice “It seems there’s only one place it could be.”
Kellyn agreed and understood Rada’s worried tone when she glanced at his tricorder readings. “Let’s just hope that we can get to it in time.”
*Well Mim,* Rada thought to himself *It looks like your rescue mission is going to consist of two hyper-active trills, a Bajoran who’s well known for her habit of dying and an Angosian who’s incapable of violence,* and then said softly to himself before starting to move again “Good luck.”
Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012