Down We Go

Posted on Nov 23, 2016 @ 1:13pm by Ensign Sofia Andersson
Edited on on Nov 23, 2016 @ 1:14pm

Mission: Aftermath

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"Down We Go"
[previous post was "Doorways" by the identity changing Justin]
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LOCATION: SPHINX
SD: [2.16] 1123.1210
SCENE: Flight Deck

It had taken some convincing but Lieutenant Paquette had finally joined the away team on board the SPHINX. Now, all that was left to do was for the Land Mobile Command Unit to make its way down to the surface intact, unlike what had happened when they had attempted the same maneuver on the moon of PI ALPHA III.

"Hang on!" Ttosk bellowed as he sent the craft into a sharp roll to the right making everyone thankful they had been wearing seatbelts and maybe even wondering if the SPHINX had any air-sickness bags at the ready.

"Jesus H Roosevelt Christ!" Sonja screamed from one of the back seats "What the frell was that for?" the CEO quickly added ready to unfasten her harness that very instant, leap at the pilot and slam the Zaldan's head into the flight controls.

"We were on a collision course with a piece of debris," Ttosk explained all so seriously. "I was just trying to avoid us getting into a crash before we actually reached the surface."

Sonja was having none of this, "You might want to return your pilot's license back to the Cracker Jack box where you found it."

Shar'El sighed and shook her head. Yes the forward sensors had detected some minor debris ahead of their current position, but their flight path had placed them several dozen meters away from any possible impact.

"There's another," Ttosk stated as the SPHINX was hurled into another sharp roll, this time in the opposite direction sending any and all unsecured items flying through the air.

"Sweet bleeding jeebus... TTOSK! Do that again, I frelling dare you, you overgrown lumox!"

"You might want to stop that," Shar'El suggested in a whispered tone to the Zaldan pilot. "If she gets out of her chair, crashing this ship may be the only way you will able to avoid her wrath, for a little while."

Ttosk had been ready to defend the need for what he had done but quickly decided against it, thinking that maybe, just maybe he had done enough. At least he would be able to look back at this moment and smile as he recalled the expression on the CEO's face and her all over the place red hair.

"We will be passing through the cloud cover over Paris in about 15 minutes and touching down soon after," the pilot announced now doing his best to keep the SPHINX as steady as possible.

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LOCATION: EARTH, Paris
SCENE: Underground Research facility, Level 1 (White)

The survey team had not only made it into the water treatment facility but they had found the hidden entrance to something far more mysterious. At the end of the long and narrow white corridor they had stepped into, the group had forced the door open allowing them to continue with what Sofia considered to be nothing more than a foolish quest. That was when Ensign Stark presented her with a voiceless query.

"Why?"

Jayson's question had been as simple as could be, but Sofia had found it impossible to give an equally simplistic answer. Why had it been so complicated for her to give an answer? She had trained and succeeded in becoming a Starfleet Medical Officer and as such she had been ready to face all sorts of problems without fear. So, why had she been so reluctant to follow Jayson and Ya'Han?

Before her trial and the suspension of her acquired rank, the three of them had all been Ensigns. Somewhere along the way though Jayson and Ya'Han had gained an amazing amount of confidence in their own skills and abilities where Sofia had lost that and even more. Where the other two had been ready to jump head first into action, she had wanted nothing more than to retreat and find shelter.

Had her having been a disappointment to her family and to Starfleet make her the scared and troubled woman that she had unwillingly become? The realisation of this change might have taken a while to actually be noticed but thanks to Jayson and Ya'Han, Sofia had been forced to face this a lot faster than might have been expected or required. In an attempt to help her deal with her sentence, the blonde haired woman had surrendered a part of herself to guilt, and she thought that it had been time to start reclaiming what she had lost.

"I'm sorry," Sofia offered as she took Jayson's HAZMAT cladded hand into her own. "I can't explain why I am this way, but I will do my best to be the person you all need me to be."

"Good," Jayson smiled. "Now let's go, the others have already gone ahead into whatever was behind that door.

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LOCATION: EARTH, Paris
SCENE: Underground Research facility, Level 2 (Yellow)

The white walls of the entrance corridor had given way to the light yellow colored walls of the second section of the facility once they had stepped down a flight of circular stairs making them be oriented 180 degrees from their initial starting point. The new section gave clear indications that it had been dedicated to some sort of floral research.

"This is a weird place to have a botanical garden," Angelo Tannahill commented as he looked through the thick transparent walls at the hundreds of empty flower pots scattered through several sealed rooms.

"Each of these rooms has specific environmental conditions," Ya'Han said as she looked at one of the small display screen affixed next to a set of double doors. "Well at least they did, looks like the computer is no longer maintaining whatever environment had been programmed."

"It does confirm that this facility was using a computer system with some sort of bio-gel components," Jayson added as he studied another of the small display screens. "Only the most basic functions of this facility are still operating, likely from a backup or auxiliary core."

"One thing is sure," Sheila noted as she kneeled down to more closely study a white robe lying on the floor amidst a pile of ashes. "The radiation hit this place at full strength. The damage to the biomatter is nearly identical to what we observed on the surface."

"He and the others on this level all perished in the same way," Sofia added as she pointed to several other similar robes inside one of the sealed rooms, her sadness having momentarily returned in her words.

"So if the intensity of the Thalaron radiation was the same, or even close to it at the time of the attack, what caused it to so drastically go down?" Jayson inquired as he and the rest of the survey team scanned the room which extended a good distance in every direction.

"And still going down," Angelo corrected. "My scanner is showing just over 350 rads."

"The tags on the pots where the plants were seem to show them has having come from every corner of our galaxy," Sofia pointed out, having gone as close as she could to one of the transparent walls. "I don't know every name listed, but some of them seem to be from systems as far away as the Gamma Quadrant."

"What were they doing here?" Ya'Han asked having voiced the question on everyone else's mind. "This place can't be a simple agricultural research facility. They would not have hid it in this manner if it was."

"With the main computer offline, we would need to gain direct access to the backup or secondary core," Jayson offered. "Hopefully there is some sort of file archive we would be able to look at and get some answers."

"Unless there is a dedicated secondary computer core per level, what we are looking for will likely be at the lowest and most secured level,"the Chief of Security of the ANUBIS stated.

"Well, we have come this far," Sofia said as she rejoined the group that had slowly continued moving forward, "might as well go all the way."

"Down we go," Jayson said with a smile as he turned to look at the blonde woman who had seemed to have regained some of the courage and drive she had previously lost.

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NRPG:

Lorraine, thank you for your help, the first scene is amazing thanks to your editing.

Jerome, how long do we have before we will need to wrap this up? Will give me and everyone else an idea as to how many levels we might have to go through before we reach our goal.

Keep up the great writing everyone!

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Tiffany Reeve

Ensign Sofia Andersson
Currently sentenced to the
VERSAILLES Triage Center