Star Trek: Rapture - science-corridor

T’Asha led the way down the Science corridor. She was really quite miffed about missing all the fun stuff in the other corridor- she had heard a screech coming from there. They must be having fun researching that, she thought. This corridor was lonely, and devoid of life. But there were Tholians among them, and she was interested in that. What were they doing here? They could time travel, but why the Kon-Tiki?

At the end of the corridor was a bright blue halo of light that was sloooowwwwly moving towards the party.

”Another glowing thing…?? Um, this one seems interested in us…” S’tihuur backed away a bit, taking out their tricorder once more and initializing scans. They desperately wished this thing wasn’t going to run right into them, they suspected that would not be all too nice to experience.

The same neural energy was present in this light, saeme as last time, but it seemed stronger than the tiny orb. Along with the light was also some knocking that was also... getting closer.

S’tihuur put the tricorder away, placing a hand on their phaser… Just in case “I uh… Suspect we’ll be investigating that…?”

Hopps arrived after his orb shenanigans, only to see... Another orb! "These guys remind me of Will O' Wisps from... Some Earth mythology, I can't remember... You're not supposed to follow them into places, though."

The blue light suddenly disappeared, leaving the corridor empty yet again.

“Of course. Do you hear the knocking? It sounds like it is coming closer to us. I suggest readying your phaser.” She led the approach towards the orb. She had her phaser out. But she didn’t know about Will O’ wisps. She only knew she had to prove herself a good scientists today. “For the sake of exploration, maybe we should follow it. I do not believe in superstition.”

There was then another loud screeching noise, this time coming from directly under the party as if the source was in the floor itself.

This earned a small jump in surprise from her and her sensitive ears. But she quickly regained control. She took out her tricorder and started scanning the floor, hopeful to find an answer.

There was yet another loud screeching noise. "YEEK!" It was just a startled Hopps.

The light reappeared, this time directly under the whole party, just vibing there. It was a little warm , but otherwise seemed harmless.

“Hello, strange light. What are you doing here?” She decided to communicate with the orb if she could. Why not? Maybe she could gain some information from it!

S’tihuur went stiff again after the sudden noise. They readied their phaser, feeling rather threatening “Yeah uh… Hi! Is that you making that noise…?”

The orb pulsed a couple times before materialising in the middle of all three people, just hovering above the ground, chilling.

“Either the orb cannot speak, or it does not understand us.” She took out her tricorder and scanned it again. Maybe this one was different, and she had nothing else to do anyhow. She valued her nice hands, so she wasn’t going to risk them by touching the sphere.

”It doesn’t appear to be hostile… That’s a good sign right? Maybe it… Wants something? S’tihuur was throwing around whatever theory popped into their mind, hoping at least something at some point would be accurate.

“Let’s just keep our distance just to be safe.” The Doctor had instructed, and she was absolutely here the entire time, but she was just rather silent, because scientific work of this particular sort was not her specialty.

S’tihuur nodded, creating a bit more space between the orb and themself “I wonder how many of these things there are on the ship…? Or really uh… More importantly, why they are here. I’m assuming they aren’t just to help us see…”

[D] Having been with them the entire time, but so scared he couldn't get himself to say anything, finally regained his composure, coming back to his normal self. "What in tha' sam hell is that thing? I reckon it looks a bit like a toasty ghostie to me!" He took a moment, holstering his phase pistol and simply looked at the thing, it was damn creepy he knew that, but what the hell else worse could happen on a ship like this?

The lights once again flickered at the orb of light floated to the wall, a gut-wrenching scream piercing through the air as it touched a bulkhead.

“Is it possible its just um… Mimicking sounds…? I really hope that’s the case…” S’tihuur was worried the bulkhead was in fact causing it extreme levels of pain.

"Maybe a dang ol' closer scan might give a better idea of what that thing was!" He said excitedly, having gotten past his unbridled terror at the whole situation, and just going with the flow.

“Possibly..! Although I’m not sure if we should really be going near that thing…” S’tihuur didn’t exactly want to disobey the whole ‘keep your distance’ order…

He grinned widely down at S'tihuur and shrugged his shoulders. "Looks justa bout' as harmless as a milk-drunk calf to me! I'll da tha' scannin' for ya!" He said, pulling out his own tricorder and approaching the orb.

The Doctor had raised an eyebrow as she had watched Parker get closer. “Ensign, please- for all we know this thing could vaporize you. Perhaps we should just wait until we can access the ship-wide scanners.”

He threw a cheeky grin to the Doctor and shrugged his shoulders before stepping back to the rest of the group. "Wortha' try!"

“Those scanners would likely be in the Science lab. We should get going.” And so, she would lead the way to wherever they needed to go.

Angela, despite being the ranking officer, had moved with the rest of the team. “Let’s stay close to each other.” Angela stated, she was very much able to spot a science lab- after all it was very much similar to a medical lab, perhaps there they’d find a replacement for their tricorders, assuming they were still inoperable.

[COMMS] "Lieutenant Xakarix to Commanders Olson and tr'Torre'vnau, we may have figured out some crucial information down here"

She looked around, she was confused where the voice was coming from, but after scanning the walls, she spotted the speaker on the bulkhead. She approached it, and at first pressed the wrong button- and then the right one. “This is, Olson- I think I’ve got you, what have you found?”

[COMMS] "Glad to know you have figured out the wall panel Doctor! We were able to recover a single log entry left by the helmsman shortly before the events leading to the ships departure from the 22nd century." "It seems that the Kon-Tiki had been sent to study our wormhole friend when they got intercepted by a Tholian cruiser. Apparently the Captain of the Tholian ship decided to pull a very stereotypical move from the likes of ancient Terran movies and described in detail exactly what they had planned to do to the crew and ship, and boy it was a doozy! Apparently the Tholians utilized some sort of bio-electric 'mind control' field on the crew and had them load up the escape pods and jettison them, leaving the ship prime for study and dissection back on their homeworld. That devices afteraffects are what have consituted our little ghost friends, residual bio-electric energy from the crew." "I have a theory of what happened to the crew and the ship though. We think before the ship could be snatched by the Tholians, the wormhole fluctuated and sent the ship through, somehow sterilizing it in the process and dumped it ever so carefully on Rapture's doorstep. I'm surmising that the escape pods, and the poor souls in them suffered a similar fate, though where and when they went I couldn't tell you."

The Doctor listened attentively, and she certainly had mixed feelings. She rubbed her chin in contemplation and pressed the button to respond. “That’s certainly unfortunate. We’ve been encountering these orbs. They seem to scream when they collide with the walls, that sounds sort of like what you’re describing. We haven’t made it to the science lab yet, but right now those things don’t seem hostile- so I figure we ought to continue trying to get the impulse drive online. Just in case someone decides to attack us, I might be rusty in terms of 22nd century history, but I’m certainly aware of the many threats that lurked about, it was very much like the wild west out here.” “Have you been able to get anything working in engineering? Warp drive? Ship-wide scanners?” The Doctor had enquired, remembering the crew was in engineering and probably had access to just about everything on the ship.

[COMMS] "We all would appreciate any more information you could give us Doctor! We have some very good news for you as well! As far as we can tell, this ship is as fully mission-capable as it could be, almost like it was just built! We've currently got every system online and running at full capacity, even replicators!"

There was a sigh of relief from the Doctor. “I see, that’s exciting news! Please try and see if you can start accessing the scanners, and running a sweep for those orbs. Rai’s team should be on the bridge soon enough, I’ll get to the science lab and continue looking for clues there. Watch each other’s backs- it might appear to be normal, but something about this ship quite simply is not right.*

"Mind control? That's horrible..." Hopps did NOT like the idea of technology that could do that. It was kinda Borg-y, but worse, because they'd been able to control the people remotely through this bio-electric field. They were gone now though, right? And the people in the escape pods... So this ship was free real estate if they could get it back to the other side of the wormhole. Would it be worth it? He wasn't into retro ships, so he wasn't sure what the value of the Kon-Tiki was, but getting the ship back to Rapture would also get them back to their own time, which would be nice. "Hmmm... This all seems quite tech and physics-based. I'm not sure I'm going to be much help this away mission. Ah, well, can't win them all!"

”Same here… Unless the device happens to be made out of flora I’m rather unqualified to help…” S’tihhur sighed again, wishing they could be of some use. But they’d really just been doing basic stuff that anyone in their division was capable of.

She took her hand off of the panel to address her team. “Stop it at once. Each of you is more than qualified for this away mission, this team. While we might not be able to explain the orbs, I know that we will preserve the timeline and we will return home, now while this might not fit into our exact specialties, one thing I do know is that a scanner is remarkably easy to read, and we have our basic Starfleet training to fallback on. You’ve all be excellent help, and it is my expectation you continue to perform that way.” She returned to the panel. “Lieutenant, we’re going to be on our way. There should be another comm panel in the science lab when we get there. But until then, it’s radio silence.”

Walking with the rest of the team, he made his way to #turbolift-2 to head to the bridge.