Star Trek: Starbase 777 - abandoned-factory

@Away Team Three went to the abandoned factory, its looming presence unavoidable when standing in the main street. The crowds thinned out significantly here, although the eyes on the away team seemed to multiply with every step they took. Nobody jumped out at them, though, and indeed, when coming closer, there seemed to be life signs in this building, though where and who was a mystery. The building itself seemed to be doused in even more smog than the street had been, with much of it blackened by ash. At least it seemed to be the case that once they went in, they wouldn't be visible from the street anymore. (edited)

"Keep a hand on your phasers," Vovvi murmured. She didn't expect differently -- just a precaution. She glanced sideways to Elwyn, walking scanner, and Vara'l, holding a tricorder. "How are our readings looking?"

Vara'l continued to check his tricorder as they walked, a hand fimly on his phaser rifle as he walked and visually scanned their surroundings for any potential threat. The Romulan grunted softly before he then proceeded to say. "Life signs detected, location and identity aren't forthcoming but I recommend we proceed with increased caution upon entry." The Romulan informed them. (edited)

As Elwyn looked around as the group walked they couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable with just how many people (or beings) were looking at them, their hands firmly on their powered up phaser rifle. Glancing down at the tricorder on her belt she briefly picked it up with her off hand to look at the readings before putting it back. “I agree.”

Having not noticed anything new yet from his tricorder scan he'd tasked it too, Vara'l tapped the relevant settings on his tricorder as he proceeded to set it to scan the parties proximity. Hopefully with his tricorder tasked that way, they'd get warning if anything other than the away team moved into their vicinity.

He continued in behind the team, keeping his phaser rifle in tight and ready as they progressed into the factory. "This certainly seems like something. If the real life signs are coming in and out of here, it only makes sense for this to be a position of note. Is there any sort of big energy readings coming from in here? Anything that would indicate that theres one of these generator consoles nearby?"

Good question! There were, from the basement. While the entire building seemed to be thrumming with energy, the source of it seemed to be from the basement. The different life signs, for their parts, seemed scattered throughout the building, with some of them located on the ground floor and in the basement. There were none visible at the moment, though, and none seemed to be moving from their spots.

Vara'l looked closely at his tricorder as he attempted to work out the proximity of the ones on the ground floor to the point where they would make entry to the factory at. As he did so he followed the rest of the group into the factory and softly commented. "From what I'm reading, I believe the energy source seems to be.. from the basement, if that's where the generator is, the consoles...could be in close proximity." He then paused. "Life signs on the ground floor and the basement, others scattered throughout the building, everyone should be on alert for potential hostile contact."

Elwyn nodded in response as she kept her eyes and ears firmly focused on any potential threats, following the group as they entered the clearly not-so-abandoned factory. She didn’t like this one bit, but if the power signature was coming from in here that suggested one of the consoles could be in here, which is exactly where they were meant to be going. As well as keeping focus on potential threats, she also began looking for a potential entrance to the basement. (edited)

While there was no clear entrance to the basement, tricorder readings showed a large cavern a little ways to the left that could very well be a stairwell.

"..I'm detecting a cavern a little ways to the left." Vara'l commented after a second of time spent with his attention split between the tricorder as he scanned and his surroundings. The Romulan frowned slightly. "..I think we should probably do our best to look for that." Vara'l attempted to determine if any of the life signs happened to be in proximity to the cavern or its entrance as they continued to move.

Nodding in response, Elwyn started veering to the left in the hopes of finding the potential way down, her eyes rapidly glancing around as she moved practically silently. She just hoped she wouldn’t end up running into anyone unfriendly.

Vovvi hummed in the affirmative, hand on her phaser. Hostile contact was certainly possible.. Mentally, she thanked Alyssa and Senang for that training exercise, following along.

The factory was empty, and on their way to the stairwell, they didn't come across anyone. If they hadn't already known there were people inside, the place would have seemed entirely abandoned. Though, as they came closer to the stairwell, it became clear that someone was in fact standing nearby, just on the other side of the doorless frame, just barely out of view.

They put a hand out to stop the group, gesturing for Vara'l to scan them before anyone else went forward.

Stopping in her tracks, Elwyn slightly raised their rifle towards the hole where doors should be, prepared to quickly and swiftly open fire if needed, but all things considered they’d much rather not because firing could alert the Undine via sensors. It wasn’t exactly quiet, either.

Vara'l scanned the individual as he pressed in to the side of one of the walls and lowered his phaser rifle ready if things turned violent. As he scanned them, once he arrived at that position of readiness, he remained stock still. One part of him focused on the tricorder reading, the other focused on the stranger.

The tricorder reading read... mostly vulcanoid, with some unidentifiable things in there. The life signs were inconsistent with actual vulcans though, the heartbeat too slow and their blood oxygen level far higher than normal. Also, they were stock still, not moving a muscle. They didn't even seem to blink.

Vara'l signalled for people to remain still as he backed up slightly and quietly so he'd be less likely to alert the stranger as he softly added to that signal. "Mainly Vulcanoid readings, far too many inconsistencies for a actual vulcanoid however.." He informed them all very quietly as he continued to train his phaser in the direction of the stranger. (edited)

She glanced down at the readings, brows furrowing a little, though she remained steady. She gestured for them to be silent, looking for another way through if possible.

None. This was the way down.

Vara'l lapsed into silence after his very quiet report, the tricorder grasped carefully in one hand as he rested the phaser rifle barrel on the arm he clapsed it in in a rough and ready aiming stance. The readings from his tricorder observed, Vara'l looked to Lt.Cdr t'Rei' nak and then back to the tricorder for a moment before he turned his focus fully in the direction of the stranger..

Looking between Vara’l and Vovvi, the android briefly mouthed ‘Undine’ to their fellow Security officer before returning their attention to the person in their way. Thinking, trying to figure out a solution, an idea eventually popped into their head after what felt like forever but was actually only a few seconds. Gesturing for the group to fall back for a moment, the android moved far enough away to be able to quietly communicate, hopefully without alerting anyone unwanted. “Back on the street I saw the holograms acting fairly normally, but of the people were acting really strange, moving weird.” They whispered. “I think they’re Undine disguised as other species, trying to act like them.” They added, gesturing towards the stairs and the Vulcanoid in the group’s way. “What if we pretended to be Undine disguised as people?”

2

Vovvi lowered her phaser and nodded to Elwyn, mouthing a 'good work, Ensign' before standing up straight. How did... Undine act, exactly? Or, rather, an Undine pretending to be a Romulan? Shitty stereotypes?.. She stood up straight, steeling her nerves and hardening her gaze, marching forward -- and hopefully down the stairwell-- with an unwavering confidence. Her steps were just a bit too wobbly, or too big. Going first, just in case something happened.

"My theatrical experience, coming in handy at last!" Acting like he was bad at acting: the true acting challenge. None of the Undine had any reason to suspect that there might be imposters on the base, so if they all acted as naturally unnatural an Undine might be trying to pretend it was a lifeform so dissimilar from itself, they'd probably be fine.

T'she shifted their demeanor slightly, calling upon their experience trying to fit in when they were younger. Maybe that would help them pretend to be an undine... pretending to be a vulcan...

Vara'l suppressed a wince at the others exclamation as he checked to see if the other had been heard by the undine. As he checked that.. he also noted Vovvi's departure and watched them lead the way off. So...deception was going to be attempted. He quietly hoped it'd work but was prepared for if it failed.

Deciding it best to sling her rifle so as to not rouse and suspicions, Elwyn did just that, keeping it powered up along with the one in her holster just in case. She didn't really know how to act like anything other than herself, and because she was modelled after Humans she was pretty good at acting like one, but taking into account the slightly weirder movements the android attempted to behave ever so slightly less naturally as she followed the others, all while hoping to not be shot or stabbed or hurt in some way by this Undine disguised as a Vulcanoid.

As Vovvi walked through the doorstep, the 'Vulcan' did start to move, very suddenly. "I don't recognise you," it proclaimed. "Who are you, and why are you here?" A reasonable enough question, asked in, for the Vulcan speakers, pretty shitty Vulcan. It was clear that this guy was on guard duty for a reason; he probably didn't have enough seniority or experience to get an actually interesting job.

Vovvi stiffened, though played it off as annoyance. "We have our orders." she said, raising an eyebrow. "And you have yours. I suggest you get back to it for when a real threat comes through," she said firmly.

The Vulcan looked put out by that, a little miffed at his own situation. Still, he nodded jerkily, glancing over the entire group as if to take in their vastly superior humanoid disguises, before returning to his original position, once more resembling a statue. It seemed like they were free to continue on.

1

Vara'l followed the other members of the group as the conversation seemed to conclude. As he moved he attempted to act like a undine disguised as a Liberated Borg Romulan. His rifle lowered and his tricorder discreetly held down to one side as he moved.

T'she was glad that their disguises were not questioned that much, that made their job much easier. A part of them was worried that it was just a matter of time before someone did pick up on it and they would have to fight -- fighting meant that someone would get hurt. Nevertheless, they followed the others.

The way down was unobstructed from there. There were no more guards in the stairwell, at least not on the way down.

Vara'l proceeded to bring up his tricorder again as they headed down, the proximity scan called up as he checked to see if the position of the guard outside could be detected. As he did so, he also looked for signs of any individuals down in the basement near where the stairs came out at. He continued to keep a firm grip on his phaser rifle as they headed down.

Having found it very hard to not look at the fake Vulcan, Elwyn kept up the act of pretending to be a fake Human and followed the others, very glad that her seams weren’t visible thanks to her suit. Keeping her eyes open and ears focused, she kept lookout to try and make sure they weren’t about to be ambushed, all while feeling quite unnerved that she wasn’t holding a phaser, but not wanting to alert the guards took priority.

As they moved down, they got a look at any guards in the basement before they looked at them; everyone in the room was conveniently turned away from them. While there were a few here and there that were stationed as guards, four Undine were standing around various consoles. They were all big, having taken the shape of Klingons and Nausicaans, and would need to either be convinced, or forced to move.

4

Noticing the various life forms Elwyn was quick to glance at the others and then back to the consoles as if to say ‘these might be important’, all while trying to not raise any suspicions as they were all pretending to be Undine.

Maya mostly quietly tailed of the Away Team from the rear in order to get a better look at it all, both amazed and somewhat amused by the amount of detail by the Undine in setting all of this up. When they arrived to the basement of the factory, she stepped forward within the group to get a better look at all the consoles. "If these consoles control the generator, then we might be in the right place..." Maya whispered to Elwyn, pulling out a tricorder to confirm her suspicions and to see which of them could be the main console. "Not sure if they are actually as big as the disguises want us to believe... but if we're posing as them, maybe we can try persuading them to leave? Maybe for a couple of hours for some 'Maintenance work' if that makes sense?" The engineer quietly suggested, glancing over to the others for their thoughts. (edited)

2

"We do have some engineers among us, maybe we could use some technobabble to make this maintenence work seem more believable," they spoke as they looked around to the others.

"In cybersecurity, myself," Vovvi offered, "I certainly know my way around a console. Hopefully this tech isn't too hard to adapt to."

Elwyn nodded in agreement with what Maya suggested, thinking it probably the best shot they had at getting access to the consoles to try and see if any of them are the ones they need. “I agree, but I’m really bad at lying so I don’t think I’ll be of much help.” The android responded in a hushed tone. “Something to take into consideration, though, is that using the console could alert the Undine after we’ve done what we need to do, so we need to be prepared for that.” She added quietly.

"Perhaps some of us could stand guard or cause a distraction of some sort." They offered quietly as they started to think of what they might be able to do to that endm

No more time to discuss. Their discussion had been noticed by two of the people standing guard, a Romulan and a huge Gorn, who approached them with scowls on their faces. They were less janky than the guy upstairs, though they were still less than believable. "What are you doing here?" the Romulan demanded impatiently.

7

Elwyn’s attention rapidly turned towards the very clearly fake Romulan and Gorn that approached the group, their face remaining calm despite how they actually felt feeling the exact opposite. Okay, training, follow your training, you know how to lie to save your own skin so do that thing! Going off of what had just been discussed, they spoke in as firm of a tone as possible, attempting to sound assertive despite being an absolutely terrible liar. “We have orders from our superiors to carry out maintenance work on these consoles.” Cool, classy, not at all panicked. If Elwyn could sweat when stressed they’d be a running tap right about now.

The Romulan frowned, clearly looking dubious, but the Gorn, who didn't seem to catch that Elwyn didn't seem totally confident (or perhaps assumed it was part of her disguise), called over another Undine. "Hey, 6032, we've got maintenance crew. You were complaining earlier, so you should talk to them." As he got punched by the Romulan, 6032 looked up, a rough looking Klingon imitator on the far end of the room. He grunts something along the lines of "c'mere" before returning to his console.

Glancing over at the fake Klingon, Elwyn looked over at the others before walking over to 6032’s console, feeling really glad that the fake Gorn had fallen their lie exactly as they hoped they would. “What were you complaining about 6032? Which systems weren’t functioning properly?” Keep it going, you’re good. Find an excuse to get everyone to leave so you can ‘perform maintenance’ and you’ll be golden.

6032 just grunted again, and made a sweeping motion that clearly conveyed "everything sucks" to the away team. He seemed to have a better grasp on humanoid behaviour than many of the others so far, and used it specifically to let his body language speak for him so he wouldn't have to speak. The Nausicaan beside him piped up. "Four of our generators have been down for a while, so we're bearing a bigger load than we're supposed to long-term. Whatever you can do to help the system increase its load-bearing capacity would be good." That at least gave a pretty concrete idea of what to do, and a clear opening for how to proceed. Just a systems update, right? Just in the opposite direction of what these Undine were currently anticipating.

Four generators are down? Oh really… How very intriguing, Elwyn thought. Time to go along with this like you know what you’re doing, despite very much so not. “Welllll to increase the capacity we’re going to have to perform a full system update which could take a while. We’ll need to use all of the consoles in here to speed the process up so we can get this issue fixed before it becomes a bigger problem, but it’ll take at least an hour. Maybe even two. There’s no point in any of you being here wasting your time while we do this, you might as well take a break.” Please work, please work, please work!

Vovvi nodded in quiet agreement, arms crossed. "You're lucky we might even be able to cut it down to two in the first place," she piped in. "And there's the matter of refreshing security systems, making sure all the little bits and pieces are up to date.." She waved a hand idly, in an "and all of that jazz" way.

The Nausicaan looked unsurely at 6032, who seemed to think about it for a few seconds before he waved his hands and motioned up. Then he turned to Elwyn and Vovvi and pointed at the console he was standing at. The Nausicaan translated. "We'll be upstairs, so be quick. The old man gets antsy if he's not around his machines." Success! The Undine, all nine of them, filed out of the room, and made their way up the stairs. Away Team Three had succeeded, and now had free reign to do whatever they needed to do.

Maya froze a bit as the Gorn and Romulan approached the group, taking in a deep breath as she thought of what exactly to say. But as the others spoke, Maya quietly prepped her tools to look more convincing in some sense, and was ultimately relieved that the Undine actually believed their little gambit and left. When the coast was clear and she felt the looming weight of the guards go away, she let out a sigh of relief and let out a big grin, quietly chuckling to herself. "I- I couldn't believed that actually worked... but I'm glad it did! Nice job!" Maya said with a smile to Elwyn and Vovvi before she looked around the console and headed to 6032's console with tricorder on hand "Now let's get going!"

Remaining entirely silent as the Undine left the room, only giving a single nod in response to being told to be quick, Elwyn briefly glanced up the stairs to make sure they had left before sighing a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness.” They said under their breath, before turning back to the others and grinning at Maya in response to her own smile. “Thank you! We should still probably be quiet though so they don’t hear anything. Someone should keep watch in case they try to come back.” The android said in a friendly yet focused tone, before opening a pouch on their uniform belt and pulling out an isolinear chip. “I’ve got the chip.” They said, putting it on the console as they did before bringing their slung rifle back around to the front. “I can help you if you need an extra set of hands, but until you do I’d like to make sure I’m prepared for any backlash.”

He slowly unslung her rifle from his shoulder and positioned himself just out of sight at the bottom of the stairs. "Just make it quick, whatever you're doing. The last thing we need is a bunch of angry Undine coming down here why our repairs aren't working." He took a moment to glance around the space down here, trying to look for anything relevant. "Now that we're down here, is there any other way out rather than past all those guys upstairs?"

Nope, just the one staircase. This factory projection wasn't modelled with modern safety precautions in mind. But the building itself was multi-storied, and, with any luck, the crew would be on one of the upper levels, as opposed to the ground floor.

"Thanks." Maya quickly said with a nod to Elwyn as she glanced over to the chip and looked over the console, relieved to know she would have extra help as she took a deep breath before she began to undo a panel in the console to see if there is a place for her to plug the adaptable isolinear chip in and hoped for the best. As the chip did its thing and gave what could probably be a welcomed 'software update' to the console, Maya kept tabs on the console with her tricorder, so she could be ready in case something went wrong or if they tripped some security thing. Nevertheless, she wondered how the other away teams were doing, trusting that they had also made good progress at this point.

The console did indeed take easily to the isolinear chip, and the program that would obstruct any further use of the generator downloaded without a hitch. For now, it didn't seem to do much, aside from confirming that the program was starting to shut certain systems down. In return it also downloaded something from the console, but that would need to wait to be accessed, maybe through connecting it to a tricorder. Getting out now, before they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, would probably be for the best! (edited)

"Right, then," Vovvi nodded politely, signalling her gratitude, "Let's go see what else this place has to offer, while we've got time to explore. Perhaps the museum next?" Quick thinking and good work on Elwyn and Maya's part. She made note to commend them for it later, once they were safe and sound back on the station. She stepped back and started moving back up the stairs, halting after a few and waiting for everyone to follow after.

Vara'l nodded once at that as he returned his rifle to a ready standby posture. One hand clasped on the tricorder and the other firmly clasped on his phaser rifle, the Romulan checked the proximity scan on the tricorder a moment as he started to follow Lt.Cdr Rei'nak. "Museum sounds good." He commented as he looked at the tricorder

She let out a smile and a small quiet cheer at the sight of the chip doing what it needed to do, quickly unplugging the chip once it had finished the exchange of files and inserting it into her tricorder for it to process the console files in the chip before holstering her tricorder back in her uniform belt to read up later once they're back on the Eventide or 777. "Isolinear chip is secure and its data is being processed in my tricorder as we speak." She said as she placed the panel back in the console, heavily considering actually fixing the power load distribution problem the Undine had been experiencing, but ultimately decided against it as she stood back up and pulled out her phaser, turning over to Vovvi with an excited grin. "Museum sounds fun." (edited)

On the way out, the group only came across the Vulcan who'd previously learned not to interrogate them. They were free to leave and go to the museum. On Maya's tricorder, the data downloaded showed an external crew manifest. On display were lists of Undine that had been on missions away from the terrasphere. This would be valuable information to take back to the ship, so that Starfleet and the Allied Fleet Service could put an end to the Undine infiltration. (edited)

Once they were safely away from the Vulcan,Varal double checked the proximity scans as he attempted to work out if their route to the exit remained clear of other Undine. Other than that, he continued on with the group,weapon relaxed but ready just in case they encountered anyone who didnt buy their Undine act.

There were two things that ran through Maya's mind as she read the crew manifest as they left the factory: First: Holy shit! The User Interface of the entire application is so fucking pretty!!!; Second: Was on the curious thought on how were the Undine able to infiltrate the Alliance's chain of command, and that she should probably protect this tricorder with her very life. She quickly closed the tricorder and holstered it back on her belt, keeping one hand on it at all times whilst the other stayed at the phaser.