[snip]

”..Energizing now Captain!” The chief called out.

Jasper kept quiet he had anything to report he would not hesitate to do so. As he started scanning the area.

Noting her eyes were closed “Are you, alright doctor?” Jasper Asked softly to her not to draw attention to her.

Before the doctor could reply they materialized and a golden hum and hue later materialized safe and sound. Or that was untilt hey realized they were upside down.....on the ceiling of the cave....

Thankfully a quick check found by their flashlights they were not stuck in the rock or anything terrible. For some reason the rotation of up/down seemed....off here maybe a scan might reveal something that their ship scans had missed obviously?

Visually looking around the tunnel they were in was about 8-10 feet in height slopping up and down a bit from rough hewed rock by some unknown force. At first glance it seemed natural but a closer squint would show a smoothness that almost certainly couldn’t be natural, it was almost like whatever made it had a flowing up and down quality to that and carved out the tunnel they were in leaving behind only a few rough areas now over the passage of time.

Also noticed by visual looking was the tunnel width spanned about 15-18 feet in width in that same wavy left/right patterning. To their ‘left’ which would be a dead end like the chief mentioned. It ended in a half oval shaped rock face smooth as a baby’s behind it was! Ahead to their right they would see about 15 or so feet further down the passage before the thick black gloom of the tunnel swallowed up their flash lights.

Along the wall tiny inspects were seen, at first soft glowing dots of light about an inch wide and long, but once light came near them they became a dull silver-grey color and stopped all movement. Maybe again scans would show more about this life form.

‘’Yuk bugs..I hate bugs’‘ she muttered to herself yet started scanning ‘’maybe they’re pretending to be dead,now lets see what the scan says’‘, said Cross.

If anyone decided too check they would find their comms to the Merrimack were in working order, though their was a slight off echo in their reply and any that came from the ship, almost like there was a overlaid pause/reply quality to it.

William was quick to bring up his Tricorder and starting a general scan as he looked around the cave. Suddenly he got an uneasy feeling in his gut, he hadn’t been on a landing party since his last stint on the Merrimack. Same Captain different Will. What if something goes wrong and people get hurt in a location that he found. Doubts he hadn’t had since he was a twenty-year-old Crewman first class.

Glen didn’t wish to concern the other officers without any evidence, so he sidled up to William as he made his scan. “You have training in both Zoology and Geology?” It was a rhetorical question and Glen carried straight on without waiting for an answer. “These tunnels look natural to me, not artificially made with mining phasers or explosives. The old USS Enterprise, when James Kirk was its captain, they found something like this on Janus Six. It was called a Horta and it killed over fifty Pergium mining engineers before they discovered it was only protecting its eggs… It might also have something to do with those dots of lights moving within the rockface. They look like living things too? Like tiny insects! …Of course, these tunnels could always be volcanic in origin. Is there any current volcanic activity on this planet?”

“There were no indications of volcanic activity during my general scans, it would have come up” He said as he moved closer to the wall “Besides these don’t remind me of any Volcanic caves I’ve ever seen” The scientist looked at the bugs the Captain had indicated “I, of course, remember reading about the Horta, and it is possible that a similar life form evolved in a cavernous environment such as this. These bugs appear to be very nocturnal” He shone the light across several of them, admiring their reactions “Although there doesn’t appear to be any natural light It might be safe to assume that their reaction to light is a survival mechanic of sorts” He hypothesised “This cave is like if someone sanded down a preexisting tunnel, or as you said with the Horta, these could be the creations of some form of Corrosive acid life form. I think until we see any of the other life forms down here we can’t say. My immediate concern is” He said as he looked directly up… or well down he reckoned “Is that we appear to be on the wrong side of the floor.” He said rather calmly “This feels odd” He said as he supressed the urge to suddenly leap into the air.

“Yes, what is causing this?” replied Glen. “Some kind of anti-grav device? Nothing here is anything I expected to find. I have a bad feeling about this!”

Glen, CO