Spire III

As the shuttle approached the coordinates of where the subterranean region was indicated to be located, no signs of any such breach were observable from above in the dim available light. Instead, they observed a little plateau near a small yet recumbent hill. However, they did notice a spire just off in the distance as well.

After briefly conferring with Commander Riker, they activated spotlights from the shuttle onto the surface and surveyed the region from above. After concluding a sweep of the entire area, helm brought the shuttle down on the plateau approximately fifty meters from the hillside.

The crew then immediately clicked their helmets in place and activated the environmental controls in their suits. Moments later, the door hatch was opened and the security team dispersed to survey the area again on foot. The remaining crew carefully exited the shuttle but remained in proximity to it just as they had done on the previous landing sites. Tricorders were also activated on the gloves of away team members trying to survey the region, but again the active spire nearby deflected most of their attempted scans.

The security team returned approximately ten minutes later.

"No signs of life or anything threatening here Commander." Josh Vincent reported to Riker.

Nodding Riker pointed forward.

"Good.  Head out in security point formation and we will secure the area."

"Understood Commander" Josh Vincent responded as he signaled his team into formation before heading back toward the shuttle.

Once given the go-ahead by the first officer, the exploratory team began to head toward the hillside.

The security team meanwhile re-entered the shuttle and moments later they lifted off toward the nearby spire.

Kalynda then engaged her helmets com to confer with her team as they traveled.

"It would seem appropriate that these chambers would be ensconced from view and environmental conditions. The problem may be how we find an opening to gain entrance into this... facility."

Kalynda then looked into the ultraviolet wavelengths all around her but saw nothing yet.

The away team dispersed slightly as they fanned out and began to circumnavigate around the hill-like protrusion. There was nothing confirming that this mound would provide an entranceway. It was just an instinct. Just as they did not know what they were actually looking for. Perhaps just something out of the ordinary or some type of clue.

After more than an hour of surveying the area, the away team was no closer to discovering an opening than when they had first arrived.

"What are we missing here?" inquired Ryan Phillips. "Could it be that we have the wrong coordinates?"

Kalynda stopped for a moment and rechecked her PADD.

"According to measurements acquired from the holographic sphere in conjunction with navigational computation, the location of these caverns could theoretically be just about anywhere within a two kilometer radius from our landing zone. Therefore, we may need to spread out further and expand our search radius away from this hillside."

Sean had dutifully plied his tricorder about the entire hill along side the other searchers, also to no avail. As the Andorian scientist speculated about widening the search pattern, Andrews suddenly had a thought. One that should have occured to them an hour ago.

"Hey, maybe its hidden by a holoprojection or Isomorphic projection of sorts! Lets search the hill again, but scan for photonic signatures and phase-variant frequencies."

Setting his own unit to scan the phase variancies of the spectrum, Sean waved it around a bit while awaiting the other's comments as to this new idea.

Andrews suggestion was a logical one and Kalynda Hunter didn't know why she hadn't thought of this herself. After all, virtually everything on this planetoid was concealed in some capacity.

"Agreed" noted the Andorian."I am reconfiguring my tricorder now."

As Kaynda finished this process, she added "The range of detection may be limited, so we may have to narrow our scan into rather close proximity."

Listening to the ideas Riker scanned the area never taking his weapon out of stand by position.

"How long would that take?  We don't exactly have the manpower to guard an entire hill for a long time"

(Response))

Later on, as the away team approached an elongated angular slope on the hillside, multiple tricorders simultaneously detected a phase variance in this section.

They all looked at each other. Their expressions conveyed what they were all thinking. Could this lead to an entryway?

Kalynda was then thinking back to that bubble-verse spheroid which they eventually rescued the Sagan team from when she suddenly stopped.

"Perhaps if we each adjust the frequency wavelength along with the phase variance of our tricorder sensors in minute increments similar to what we did to penetrate that spheroid we encountered, these inverted sensors may also eventually find a synchronized variance that could match that of this hidden gateway. We could each establish a different starting point to minimize the time required to complete this process."

Andrews nodded appreciatively at the idea as Kalynda put forth, and responded accordingly.

"Good idea sir. I'll take the high road."

Setting his tricorder to the upper wavelength bands, Sean recalled his first year physics with ease. Both wavelength and frequency were tied conversely to the speed of light. Knowing one of the two, the other could be found by dividing the first into the speed of light, or three times ten to the eighth power, in meters per second. Having set his scan to one hundred megameter's, the high end of the wavelength spectrum denoting extremely low frequency's, Sean set off in a clockwise direction whistling inside his helmeted suit and parting with a chuckle.

"I just love scanning for wavelength's."

Trying not to chuckle as he was still angered by the young ensigns trickery Commander Riker simply shook his head.

"Good glad you love your job. You know what I love?  Getting updates on what you found."

Once the team had their tricorders calibrated, they fanned out and began to survey the hill area again. They continued this process with their devices automatically modifying their sensors in regulated increments as they slowly traversed the region around the hillside.

Twenty-three minutes later, a voice in their helmet's small speakers broke the silence.

"Hey everyone," Anita Muller exclaimed "I'm getting something here. I'll forward these settings to each of you."

Kalynda Hunter immediately recalibrated her tricorder settings to matched the cipher provided by the astrophysicist. She immediately noticed a reaction as she followed the signal on her device like that of an ancient divining rod seeking water.

Within five minutes, this half of the away team stood besides an area of the hill sloped at an eighty-four degree angle from their standing position.  What once appeared as a continuous rock face was now revealed to be a large sealed portal. Off to the side of the portal, the familiar markings and patterns found on the spires could now be seen on another large control panel.

Kalynda went up and studied the symbols and arrangements carefully before she turned to address the first officer.

"Fortunately for us Commander Riker, the pattern and order that we ascertained from the spire seems to be applicable here as well. Shall I key in the sequence, Sir?"

Glancing around the room quickly Riker raised his phaser pistol slightly towards the panel with the symobls.

"Lets hope this works" Riker thought to himself

Without speaking Riker nodded keeping constant watch on the room.

Moments after the code was entered, a rumbling started to occur as a large and slanted zigzagged vertical split began to emerge from the rock face. Then the rumbling desisted as a darkened entryway was now opened to them.

Kalynda turned to Riker.

"Perhaps Commander, before we enter, we could leave one tricorder outside of this entrance... as a signal to the remaining away team members."

A smile curled up on the lips of the astrophysicist as she spoke.

"Our one breadcrumb Lieutenant?"

With a bit of a smirk, the Andorian responded.

"I heard that old Earth child's tale when I was much younger. It always seemed like a logical precaution to me."

"In that case Lieutenant" Anita Muller agreed  "I will leave my tricorder out here; provided you are willing to share yours with me."

"Absolutely" Kalynda confirmed.

With that established, the astrophysicist set her tricorder to emit a homing signal before placing it on the ground approximately one meter away from the entrance.

Anita then looked around and inquired rhetorically.

"Well... what are we waiting for?" as she stepped forward beyond the entryway and into the darkness. 

Reaching out and grabbing Anita Riker shook his head with slight disapproval.

"We do not know what is in there, so I will take point."

Looking back towards the team Riker spoke.

"I will take point, everyone else follow me.  I want scans as soon as we enter and constant updates.  If you see, hear or find anything I want to be the first to know." 

Enabling both handheld and embedded artificial light sources in their suits as they entered, the away team could see that this area was a foyer of some type and not an entrance into the main compartment that they had expected. Studying the sides of the walls as they passed, it appeared as if they were seeing the results of a foyer painstakingly carved out directly from a mountain itself. Or perhaps whomever created this entrance employed some other type of alien technology to accomplish this feat. It was just one of many mysteries that they had encountered since their arrival to this planetoid.

Approximately twenty meters ahead, they found their way to a secondary panel, similar to the first.

After Kalynda keyed in the sequence, the entrance portal rumbled again as it begrudgingly closed itself shut. They were now in total sealed darkness within this foyer.

Within a matter of seconds though, a new series of deep rumblings occurred as a horizontal split began to emerge in front of them. This process took longer than the fron entryway as the wall which stood before them now vanished into undetected recessed areas above and below where they stood.

After standing there for a moment to ensure that this aperture was stable, the team moved cautiously forward, beyond the newly presented opening. Approximately five meters into their forward excursion, the aperture began to close.

Even with their visible lights sending beams around into the area, it only revealed pinpoints of illumination off in the distance of this large volume of space.

Kalynda then looked away from the illuminated areas and once again and used the photoreceptors in her one remaining Andorian antennae to peer into the ultraviolet spectrum.

With a slight smile emerging on her face, Kalynda engaged her com.

"Sir, eliminate the visible lights and readjust your helmet's visor back into the 245 nm of the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum."

Flipping off his light Riker spoke to the team again.

"You heard her.  All lamps off and set visor to 245 nm ultraviolet"

As soon as this transition was complete, an expansively cavernous hexagonal prism-shaped subterranean area suddenly popped into each team member's view; filled at first glance with brilliant glowing lines and colors.

Each of the six large rectangular-shaped walls they observed seemed to have its own color scheme and perhaps purpose as they were brimming with colored panels, large visual displays, symbols and a variety of controls and switches.

The away team fanned out again in this voluminous area and began closely observing each of the large outlined walls. They were all marked with a whole new series of glyphs and symbols that were much more complex and elaborate than the simple celestial ones they found on the spire and control panels.

Studying just one set of markings on a wall, Kalynda activated the communications microphone in her helmet.

"Commander,  we are going to need some type of linguistics and symbolic decoding experts here with us if we are hoping to decipher the complexity of these markings."

Tapping his microphone the disappointment in his voice was noticeable.

"Sending down another away team member is not an option right now not until we are sure this area is secure.  We can use communicators and tricorders to establish a relay system."

Looking around to gauge the size of the tunnels.

"We will relay the information to the ship and move on based on what responses we get back from them.  Unless there is someone here who thinks they can help."

Kalynda looked around for a moment.

"Unfortunately Commander, I do not believe that we have anyone here that would qualify for that task."

 *            *             *

Meanwhile, the security team had just completed deactivating the energy field and communication inhibitors from the third spire in a triangulated area surrounding their latest landing site. All other aspects of the spire remained intact, as was done previously in the other spires they visited as well.

This half of the away team returned to the Wildfire as helmsman James Traynor then attempted to contact the Phoenix again. They had been unsuccessful after the first two attempts.

"Wildfire to USS Phoenix. Wildfire to USS Phoenix. Do you copy?"

Within a few seconds a reply was returned.

"Phoenix here. It is a relief to hear from you again Wildfire" Adalia Valerous noted from her Ops post aboard the starship.

"As you can hear, we have temporarily nullified the communications barrier in this select region " James replied.  "We're heading back to the original landing site in this region near where the other half of our landing party was searching for an entryway. Stand by for further communications soon after our arrival."

 "Acknowledged" Adalia noted.  "Standing by as requested."

Several moments later, the Wildfire effortlessly landed back to the original site in this area.

After the team exited the shuttle's hatch, they tried unsuccessfully to hair their counterparts.

Josh Vincent then noted a homing beacon on his tricorder emanating from the direction of the nearby hill.

He engaged communication to the ship.

"Vincent to Captain Syntron"

Valerous instanly patched the incoming signal to the center seat.

"Syntron here Lieutenant Commander. Proceed."

"Sir, we arrived back to the landing site.  However, even though we nullified the communication inhibitors,  we have not been able to establish communication with the other half of our team."

Syntron leaned back in the chair for a moment as he considered this situation.

"Perhaps Mister Vincent, they have not only found the entryway they were searching for, but have passed through it. Are there any other signs or signals present in the area?"

"Yes Sir," Josh replied "I was just about to inform you that we are picking up a homing beacon in the vicinity of the hillside that they were going to investigate."

"That signal may be a marker left to establish their entry point Mister Vincent. However, before you proceed to this marker, there is something I need you to do."

"Understood  Captain. What would that be?"

"Since the signal came in from the surface, we have attempted... though unsuccessfully at this point, to transport an item to the surface. You will need to go back into the shuttle and remove the pattern enhancers that were stored in there prior to departure. Afterward, set them up, activate them, and inform me when they are ready."

"Understood Captain" Vincent replied. "I am heading there now."

Jush Vincent entered the shuttle. After speaking with the helm team, he carefully unlatched the devices from their storage compartment and carried them out to an empy patch approximately a dozen meters away from the shuttle and set them on the ground.

Josh carefully grasped the highly-polished silver-colored main body encasing the primary portion of the enhancer with one hand while he removed and extended with the flip of a switch each cylinder's trio of legs which were encased within the body of the equipment while stored and adjusted them with the other hand. He then turned them into their vertical position with both hands as he balanced them evenly onto the flat surface. Once in place, these cylindrical pattern enhancers were just over one meter in height from the surface upon which they rested to their apex.

After each of the three pattern enhancers were set-up in an equilateral triangular formation ten meters apart, Josh carefully adjusted the conical top of each device. Josh then placed a simple canteen in the triangular area within the pattern enhancers. After this was completed, he set the control cuff and each device was rotated 85° clockwise. Moments later the the top of each enhancer was lit, indicating that the the pattern enhancers were now active. All pattern enhancers immediately began sensor data transmission of the canteen contained within the confines of the trio of deployed enhancers.

Josh then engaged his communicator in his helmet.

"Josh Vincent to Captain Syntron."

Within a few seconds a reply arrived to his helmet's speakers.

"Syntron here. Go ahead Lieutenant Commander."

"Captain, the pattern enhancers are set-up and activated. In fact, I have a small item ready for transport up to the ship whenever you are ready."

"Standby Mister Vincent" Syntron responded as he had a message sent down to transporter one.

A minute later a message was sent back to the captain, who then engaged communication back to the surface of the planetoid.

"Mister Vincent, your canteen arrived in tact. Standby for the next trial."

Several minutes later, a large case was beamed down within the triangular glow of the enhancers.

"The package arrived Captain" Josh noted as he reach down and grabbed the built in handles on each side. "I will take it inside the shuttle and examine the integrity of its contents"

"Acknowledged" the captain simply replied.

With the low gravity on the planetoid, the large container was easy to manage.

Once they were sealed within the shuttle and the environmental conditions were returned to normal levels, Josh snapped open the latches of the transported case and lifted the lid. He examined the contents first before he removed one glove and reached in to grab an item.

Holding the last item in his hand, he engaged his helmet's communicator.

"Well Captain,  the bottle of water, the tomato, the Vulcan plant, the two hamsters in the cage and the lizard all managed to survive the transport. I would guess that it would now be safe to transport someone to the surface or to the ship as you see fit."

"Confirmed Lieutenant Commander. Keep those devices activated as you seek out your remaining team members."

"Understood Sir" the security chief replied as he placed the items back in the container and sealed them up again.  

Stepping out into the newly designated transportation area, he placed the case back into the  triangulated enhancers realm and activated the transporter. Moments later it shimmered out of existence.

He then stood up and headed toward the hill where the other team members had traveled and the beacon beckoned to him.

*             *             *

Kalynda stood silently in front of another elongated wall full of kaleidoscopic ancient technology inside the hexagonal cavern and felt totally useless. Each of these extended facades appeared to serve some specific imperative function that she just could not yet interpret. She prided herself on her ability in solving challenging puzzles and resolving perplexing dilemmas, but these complex markings were of a greater magnitude than she had ever experienced. This did not bode well with her as she stepped back and capture panoramic images of everything on each wall. She had first connected her tricorder into her PAAD to allow her device to capture images in the ultraviolet spectrum rather than the minute range of visible light.   

As she traveled along each wall, with a slight tinge of despair in her voice she commented to the commanding officer of the away team.

"Commander Riker, it would seem at this point that we need to uncover some sort of Rosetta Stone to have any hope to be able to translate these vast symbols or language that are present throughout this cavern."

Confused by the symbols as much as everyone else Riker responded.

"We may have to make our own.  If we find any symbols for things we know or are connected to devices we can decipher we can calculate a basic algorithm.  If not we are going to have to find something.  Everyone keep an eye out."

Kalynda nodded as she spoke.

"I have been trying that Sir, but have yet to make any actual headway with anything yet." 

As she continued documenting the panels along each of the sides, Kalynda eventually reached a wall area on the opposite side from the entrance. That was when she noticed something peculiar compared to the other walls she had examined. It had a whole area of blankness. It was relatively smooth with no technology, symbols or color adorned on it. It was the first thing that she carefully touched with a gloved hand.

Kalynda then stepped back and began to examine everything along the perimeter of this blank wall. As her eyes and antennae closely examined all of the features surrounding this void in a clockwise and then a counter-clockwise motion, she noticed something else slightly unusual. There was a small rectangular shaped protrusion with an even smaller glass-like hemisphere protuberance emanating from its center on the upper right side of the blank wall. As she examined it,  her antennae detected a minute pulsing beam emerging faintly from it. It was too imperceptibly faint to be seen in normal conditions.

Kalynda then stretched out her arm up as far as it would reach and barely passed a few gloved fingers passed the pulsing beam. Immediately, the blank wall before her recessed and in a matter of seconds presented an opening to another darkened chamber. She then immediately engaged her com.

"Commander Riker, I have found another chamber here."

Once the team had gathered around her, Kalynda explained what just occurred.

"I was standing in front of a blank wall section when I noticed this slight beam emanating from that bubble shaped protrusion"

She pointed to the small rectangular spot.

"Apparently, when my glove passed through that energy beam there was some sort of sensor or detector that was activated through either my motion or some form of energy from me which triggered it." 

Riker waved his hand over the opening.

"Not so much a false wall as a door built into the wall.  Those were very common on Earth for several centuries it kept the beauty of a room without having to remove the need for a door."

Pointing his gun at the new space Riker stepped forward.

"This is our most promising lead yet, everyone follow me"

Stepping through the door Riker waved for the team to follow him into the new space.

As she followed Riker into the next cavern, the most intriguing aspect of this area noticeable at first glance by the Andorian was that it seemed to be partitioned in sections.

It became rather labyrinthine as they traveled through corridors basically zigzagging through this elaborate maze. Kalynda was feeling like one of those lab rats she had seen images of when she was younger as she tried to figure out where they were going. Then they came to an opening which offered three other available pathways. They stopped dead in their tracks.

Kalynda was busy scanning as she observed a slight energy signature that was different than what she observed in the preceding cavern.

"Commander, I have a very feint energy reading emanating over to the right of our current position." 

Glancing over in the direction to the right Riker could see the faint shadow outline showing that the hallway was much longer than the others.  Turning his phaser pistol towards the empty hallway Riker tapped the ground slightly with his foot, leaned in and then proceeded down the hallway waving for the team to follow him.  As they followed what appeared to be a main hallway they came upon a set of narrow pathways.  Stopping at the narrow pathways Riker addressed the team behind him.

"Something does not feel right.  We move forward, but everyone stay alert."

Hearing the Exec of the Phoenix speak, Elliago refrained from laughing outloud and blurting out the retort that had instantly come to his mind. It was pointless. His protest was on record and their decision had been made. He could only accept that he was with the wrong crew doing all the wrong things the wrong way... and they were all totally convinced of their rightfullness, Federation articles and charter, Starfleet General Orders and regulations, morality and simple common sense be damned. Now, they were all, himself included, no better than old Earth colonialist tomb robbers...

Instead, he kept his mouth shut, widened his own tricorder for life signs and splitted it's scanners to search for both carbon-based life forms and silicon based life as well, which would include even exotic xenoforms like Hortaes... and sohisticated artificial ones like soong-type-androids.... but not holographic sentience or some previously never before encountered types of life.

They were intruding; he jost hoped there would be nobody home.

On a sudden impulse, he switched the reconfigured his combadge from comm system to simple signal relay between the away team and the shuttle.No one was willing to listen to him anyway so, as a precaution, he thought to establish a strong link between them and the shuttle; by now, Josh Vincent would be able to listen to them and should have worked out a way to at least use the shuttle's transporter to get them out in any emergency situation, even through this jamming they were experiencing.

((response))

They followed this next set of pathways until it open up again. This time there were not any pathways or corridors, but instead a large opening dead ahead of them.

As they began walking into this darkened region, Kalynda stopped dead in her tracks as her antennae caught a glimpse of where this signal was emanating from.

"What the..."   

The partial comment sent a chill down the spine of Ryan Phillips who was already imagining the worst several meters behind the Andorian and Commander Riker.

The geologist stopped as he inquirely worriedly "What is it...  what are you seeing?"

The others gathered behind them as well just as Kalynda removed a high-powered flashlight from her belt and adjusted it to a wide-angle level before turning it on.

Caught in the high visible light beam was what appeared to be the bow section of a very large alien starship.

"Whoa" muttered Anita Muller in astonishment as she finally began to recognize what they had found.

By this time, the remainder of the away had hastily grabbed their flashlights and were casting beams of light all over this vessel as they began to cautiously walk a perimeter path all around it.

It was a vast ship, and very unusual in its overall design.

Phillips just gazed at the vessel in bewilderment.

"How the heck did they get this monstrosity all the way back here inside this chamber?" he curiously wondered out loud. 

Thinking about the same thing since she first cast an antennae upon it, Kalynda hypothesized.

"I would speculate that it was not brought all the way back here from where we entered. There may be another access point to this chamber... perhaps even one directly above us."

Immediately, lights were cast directly upward to a high-vaulted ceiling as photon beams scurried along paths throughout the roof of the large chamber. Among the dark lines of rock crevices, almost imperceptible traces of interconnected structures were seen interlaced among the indigenous material.

With her head still focused upward, Anita Muller marveled at the complex yet symmetrical nature of the immense hanger doors that encompassed nearly half of the ceiling overhead.

Phillips noted what he was thinking into his com.

"That extensive entryway set-up must lead to the top of the hill that we were traveling about."

Anita responded "I would hate to be walking on top of that hill when this thing was activated."

They eventually brought their attention back down to the tremendous alien craft as they continued encircling it; in an elongated, oblong manner.

Kalynda then noticed a cable-like cylinder plugged into the craft emanating from the floor. She shined her light from the floor to were the cable connected.

"Maybe this is some sort of recharging power source for this vessel" she pondered out loud.

Phillips questioned in puzzlement. "You mean you think that this vessel still retains some level of power within it?"

Rechecking her scanner, Kalynda confirmed "This is a source of the energy signature."

Anita Muller was also running here bioscans.

"In case any of you were wondering.... I am still not detecting any life forms anywhere here, other than our own."

Visually scanning the area around the alien space craft Riker glanced around to the team and proceeded slowly towards the ship.

"We might no be detecting any life signs but that does not mean we are alone.  So keep alert"

With his eyes as wide as old-fashioned silver dollars, Phillips immediately chimed in "Oh, you can't count on that, Sir!" as his helmet swiveled around his environmental suit as it were a beacon on a lighthouse.

Glancing up and down over the ship Riker continued.

"Encountering and discovering a new species, or at least the remnants of one.  This why some of us put this uniform on every day."

Seeing the chance for new exploration Riker addressed the entire team.

"Security keep a perimeter watch, all other members of the away team I want only scans of the ship no one is to touch anything until we know more about what we are dealing with."

Pointing towards the rocks and soil around the ship Riker continued,

"I want samples of the earth and debris around the spacecraft, non invasive of course, and maybe we can figure out more about who built this cavern."

"Yes Sir" Kalynda, Anita, and Ryan all responded simultaneously as they immediately complied with the XO's orders and began their scientific examinations of the area surrounding them.

Looking up at the massive overhead Riker sighed.

"I highly doubt this cave was formed naturally."