Posted by Crewman Guy Fleegman (Security Officer) in Colony: Engineering Team
[snip]

“Ashley?” Guy asked the Engineer. “You passed through Starfleet Academy. You took Engineering courses in multidimensional mechanics and multitronic electronics, and you know about things like Ostrich algorithms and Monkey patching and Spaghetti code! Stella and I only went along to the University of Life. We aren’t highly educated like you! I don’t know what this Micro-Resonator does. I don’t know why my phaser still works. Stella thinks the machines are having a bit of a bad day. But you know all this stuff. You have to give us a hand here. Think back to some course you took or a book you read. Please work out what is going on here and tell us in words we can understand!”

“Trying to put things in simpler terms I can try and do. From what I know. Some of the courses I took involved with some technical studies. I mainly worked more on ship systems honestly. I’m more of a ship engineer more then someone on away mission engineer. But if my memory serves me right, the phaser coil is what charges the phaser. I can most likely say the rest of the working equipment here yes has had a bad day. No Micro-Resenator is something that helps either fixing or something I don’t know much about those. Like I said I’m more of a ship engineer. Not an away team engineer.” She explained.

Guy wished that he could mainly work aboard the ship rather than on Away missions too. That was all he had ever wanted. Instead he was herding cats and being the disposable crewman number five down here.

“I don’t really think equipment has good and bad days, or even has tantrums…” Guy replied. “…but this is serious! That large group of humanoids is less than 1000m from the other landing party and we need some way to warn them other than Stella giving them a holler down the shaft. We need to get something working again!”

“Micro resonators are used to calm down erratic and generally messed up messed up electromagnetic fields. “Stella murmured. ” That is if there is one , or one to be found.” She bit her lower lip and frowned as if in deep thought.” Something was bothering her. ” Wait!” she said suddenly to Guy. ” How do you know those little dots are humanoid?”

“Because it says humanoids on here,” Guy replied confused while pointing at the display. “I guess the machine is making that assumption based only on the size of the red dots, and it clearly cannot discern anything more than that.. so it might be incorrect. But you can clearly see the red dots are a similar size to the green dots, and the green dots are moving like humans would move if roped together… Oh! they’ve stopped now!”

Machines that assume things and machines with tantrums or that have bad days, thought Guy, shaking his head.

Listening to Guy talk about little red and green dots and a total reliance on machinery which had thus far been less than reliable made Stella simply want to kick something. The absurdity of saying because the machine says the green people are ours? Who gave them that designation? Maybe fool them. they should be purple! Maybe someone else could be green to fool them. Hearing Guy talk about them coming together Stella thought about Captain Honey for a minute before asking. ” What now will the red and green turn into brown dots?”

“That’s with pigments and paints,” Guy replied. “When green and red light is brought together you get yellow. When these meet we are going to be able to prevent an overwhelming defeat! There are too many of them!”

Stella asked Guy then, ” Has anyone thought to try raising the ship again? I mean for some reason things down here suddenly decided to come to life in its own fashion. Mebbe we could give the ship a shout out by now. Heck we might even be able to bring down a shuttle for extra redshirts to do that red shirt thing is they

“We might be able to Stella. In fact, we should do that very thing.” She said smiling.

“Well, you might as well try,” Guy replied. “My phaser worked didn’t it!”

“Yeah. True,” Ashley said with a positive attitude.

Stella was fit to be tied. Durn ol’ Captain Honey and a bunch of other people crawling around in the ground with a bunch of dots after them all. She pulled out her communicator and set it scan a wide range of channels just in case they weren’t all on the same wavelength now for some reason =/\= USS Merrimack! =/\= She called out. =/\= Hey you! USS Merrimack you up there? =/\=

=/\= Stella? Uh, we had a slight communications malfunction, but uh …everything’s perfectly all right now. We’ve been trying to make contact with you but we first had to move further away from the planet. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you? =/\=

=/\= This is Lieutenant J.G. Ashley Walker part of Engineering. What’s the status up there? Is there a way we can get in contact with the captain?=/\= She said as she opened her communicator.

Cara replied on all the open channels at the same time. =/\= We are holding a geocentric orbit with an apogee significantly beyond that of a geosynchronous orbit, and we are undergoing a few repairs from when the Warp power went offline. Sickbay is dealing with a few slips and falls and heads knocked against bulkheads, but nothing serious. We have been unable to communicate until now because of the field surrounding from the planet, but have now been able to isolate its focal point as a cavern area beneath you inside the mines, which we are assuming is where the Captain’s away team are. However, we haven’t made contact with them, no! =/\=

Ashley did the same thing to reply. =/\= That is correct. The captain is in the cavern area beneath us inside the mines. However, I’m not sure if we will be able to contact them. We will try our best from here. But I do want to ask, if there is a way you can transport us back to the ship once we are finished here.=/\= She was wondering

Cara replied =/\= I think the ship will be too far away from the planet now to get a lock on you, or even to transport, but I’m not an engineer. We’ll let you know. The field surrounds the entire planet, so a shuttlecraft landing isn’t possible either. =/\=

=/\= So your telling me we are on our own for a while then? For how much longer? =/\= Ashley asked.

=/\= The field is originating on the planet where the Captain is. We can’t do anything about it here. It needs to be turned off. =/\= Cara replied.

=/\= Understood. We’ll try and keep tabs if need be. =/\=

Stella literally hissed out loud. ” What the heck are those people talking about? Field this and field that? Do they have a clue? Or do they not know what they are talking about and have just substituted the word field for ’ I don’t know?’ Stella then kicked viciously at some rocks in front of her and regretted the action as soon as she did. The rocks didn’t give way as easily as she had thought they would.

=/\= ” Merrimack this is Lieutenant jg Stella Gagnon. I have a bit of a question if you don’t mind. What field? What is the field made of? Can we see it? Can we smell it? Is there any way at all we can measure it or tell where it is? Obviously, you have found a way to detect this so-called field. So, at this time the chances of us turning anything off are about the same as a Badger mating with an Alligator. So, as you can tell a little sharing would be wonderful.

“Er… I’m a scientist not a farmer! …sorry, I don’t know how it works, I just know that when we were inside its bubble the Warp impact drive died, and nothing would work. The probes that have been sent out all went dead. …but when we moved away from it …now everything is hunky-dory again. Does that help? =/\= Cara replied.

Stella listened to Cara’s reply very carefully to Cara’s reply and then went over it again in her mind trying to make sense of it. =/\= So, to sum up you were in a bubble full of something that you couldn’t see or measure and that had no impact on its environment and is immeasurable. Or for matter may not even be a a bubble but could be a huge gelatinous wobbly cube! =/\= Stella rubbed her forehead. According to all the smart people they were being accosted by nothing. Thus far no one knew the size or shape of the nothing. No one knew what it was composed of. She hung her head as once again the idea that had come to her early in her away team adventure had begun. What seemed to be so long ago. When she had asked for a map showing large amounts of metals concentrated in one place. These along with readings on the planets magnetic field had given her an idea but no. That had been a not bright idea. She had been trying to impress the others on the away team. Then though she asked the question anyway. =/\= Cara? I assume that when the ship approached the planet, they did the normal sorts of scans, atmosphere, planetary magnetic fields and such? =/\=

Cara listened then replied =/\= Yes. …They ran all kinds of different scans. What are you getting at? =/\=

Stella let the question slowly roll around in her brain for a moment as she looked toward all the greenery of the forest no more than a mile or so away at the edge of the tree line. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad living here she thought. It wasn’t much different than her home with the exception of course of something coming up and taking you off into the night. That could be helped she was sure by building homes in the treetops. Yes, life here might not be so bad once they had adjusted to it and right now it was looking as if it may be a reality to consider. After all, one could not fight an enemy you couldn’t see. The problem seemed to be one that had absolutely nothing to do with science. At least any known sciences. Every atom moved. Danced. She smiled. It was this part of science. So eloquent and constant that she loved. And it was that dance that made heat. Left behind signatures of one type or another. From various forms of radio activity to big dumb rocks. Everything could be measured.

Stella picked up a rock and threw it. This place had taken all that beautiful eloquence away from her! She used a dirty sleeve to dab a small tear away from the corner of her eye before answering Cara. =/\= I am looking for large deposits of nickel and iron. Large, concentrated deposits whether together or separately. If you find those you may find a portion of the planets magnetic field misbehaving. =/\= Stella then leaned back against the metal building with her eyes closed thinking that she could always change her name to Jane

There was a pause while Cara could be heard speaking to someone, then she replied =/\= Stella? We’ve noted your idea and we will look into it, but we don’t currently have a Ship’s geologist, and all the engineers who could answer your suggestion are down there in the room with you. I also suggest that you try to contact the Captain again since he is sitting on the source by all accounts. Cara out! =/\=

Stella listened and then shook her communicator to make sure there wasn’t a malfunction of some sort. Stella then said in a cheery voice. =/\= Thank very much for all your help =//\= Stella was astounded. A n entire ship of people with labs and operating machinery Computers that would answer questions and everything! Full sized equipment that would do any jobs. All this and she was being told they’d have to keep guessing with no resources. Maybe they thought that that cute little resonator would do things it wasn’t meant to do? Two hours and in a small area maybe sure. But there was one thing she could accomplish. If she couldn’t even get the data from the ships approach, she could at least warn the captain. She took a deep breath and then put her mouth close to the speaker. =/\= Captain Fergusson this is Lieutenant Gagnon. I’m being authorized to tell you that have a big group of possibly red dots coming toward your present position. =/\=

Stella having done the only thing she could got up and went to look for something that would make a good stout long staff. Who knew that learning Bo-Jitsu might someday come in handy?

Unfortunately though it seemed as though Stella’s call went out over the comms, there was no response. It was obviously not reaching the Captain.

After not getting any reply from the captain Stella tried again. Still nothing. She simply looked at the communicator and shook her head. She had just been talking to the ship. They had wanted her to contact the captain. This being said her only conclusion was that the ships comms couldn’t reach the captain’s party. So then the comms must all be out once more. Stella fully expected to see the Mad Hatter and a white rabbit to go by at any moment.

Stella sat down once again and leaned back against the building full of people trying to get some sort of ore out of the ground. She was hungry, covered with dirt and sweat.” I can’t even turn in my resignation to the captain in person now. ” She complained to herself. Then after a bit of thought she began to make up a list in her head of what she would need for survival for being stranded on a planet. The miners were only thinking of one thing, and they didn’t seem to do that very well. So, she would have to worry about herself and whoever else went with her. For right now the ship wouldn’t come any closer and the captain was either somewhere underground or not. Up was down and down was up.

Stella Gagnon Lt.jg. Comms

Guy asked Ashley, “Are you still seeing those red dots moving towards the green dots?”

“Yes I’m seeing them.” She replied to Guy.

“Listen up folks!” Guy told the group, “We can sit here flattening your buttocks even longer, playing with your broken equipment, trying to make it work again, and maybe, just maybe, that would be the safe choice. Or else we could follow the Captain into the mines and help them to escape from that big group of things coming toward them …but I’m not leaving anyone behind here, because I still don’t know what kind of voodoo we are up against. So, it has to be a unanimous decision. We all go, or else none go! What do you think? So, waddyasay? Can we get a show of hands here?”

Guy immediately put his own hand in the air and waited for the rest to follow him.

• Guy, Sec

Lieutenant J.G. Ashley Walker
Engineering Physicist
U.S.S. Merrimack