Subterranean Secrets, Part II

Posted on 02 Nov 2024 @ 10:54am by Commander Elleese Elloyia & Lieutenant Commander Cintia Sha'mer & Petty Officer 2nd Class Alizabeth Omari

1,552 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Miranda

They spent a few more minutes scanning the field and looking for a door, but as it happened--like it was happening a lot the past few weeks--the door found them. So to speak.

After traversing the corridor for about two minutes, they found a person. Of course, Elleese and Sha'mer were not unaware of the person once they had come through the field, but Elleese knew that she did not pick up on any untoward intentions. Just...patience and curiosity. A little bit of eagerness. Once in visual range, they found a woman. She was average height for a human, not skinny but not overweight. Her eyes, though, were a bright green and she smiled as they approached.

"You are from the group that Maria found, I believe?" she asked pleasantly.

"Yes, we are," Ell replied on behalf of the team, though she glanced back at Sha'mer and Aliza. "I am Commander Elloyia of the USS Odin. Lieutenant Commander Sha'mer and Petty Officer Omari," she continued, adding the names of their security detail as well.

Sha'mer gave a nod of acknowledgement when she was introduced. "Pleased to meet you," she replied. Once again, all her senses, both the regular ones and the less-obvious ones, were alert. There appeared to be nothing here beyond what they had already sensed before. Part of her was wondering if her past experiences really made her so paranoid that she couldn't believe everything was exactly as it met the eye, or that there really was something buried so deeply under the surface that only a deep intuition picked up on it.

Aliza stepped to the left slightly, she was left handed so if needed she had space to work. Dropping her head into a slight bob, her smile bright meeting the new woman’s eyes with a pleasant expression. As a woman with interesting eyes, she definitely too, note of them. Her spine was straight but managed to look relaxed.

The woman smiled and nodded to each of them. "A pleasure," she said. "My name is Gadra, and I have been determined to be your..." She paused thoughtfully. "...welcoming committee, I believe is the term." She laughed, a perfectly pleasant sound that still somehow echoed a little hollow to the empaths in the group, even if it was hard to put a finger on why. "We haven't really had occasion to use that term much recently.

"As you are kind enough to have Avery and the others as guests, would you like to see our home as well?" She gestured to a shimmering purple field behind her that seemed to conceal a rock wall, but that wave of her hand made the rock fade from sight to show a much more artificial, high-tech corridor behind it.

Elleese argued with her senses for a few moments, trying to understand what she felt, but then she nodded once. After all, this was why they had come. "Do you mind if we use our scanning devices at times while we are here?" she asked politely. "We are fascinated by this place that you have created."

Gadra inclined her head. "That would be fine while you are in the corridors. For specific rooms and working areas, please check first. There may be technology at work that could respond to your equipment that we would wish to be careful of."

Somehow, the Betazoid sensed it was more than that, but on the surface, it was logical. This group was different from them in many ways, even as much as they were the same.

The purple field dropped, and Gadra led them through the new doorway into the rock and to the hall beyond. In many ways, it was architecturally similar to Federation ships and bases, but...shinier, in some way, and a little more sterile. Ell used her tricorder as surreptitiously as she could while taking it all in, but it was such a sudden change from the caves they had just been in that the effect was a little disorienting.

Sha'mer held her own tricorder loosely in her hand, only glancing at it occasionally. Her senses, as far as she could use them, were strained outward, sifting through the layers, analyising. Taking it all in. The worlds she had left behind, in a past distant in years as well as in lightyears, had a technology level beyond that which was commonly used in the Federation or its close neighbours. It gave her an unique perspective on the various possibilities of technology.

"So you've had visitors in the past?" she asked casually, honing in on the word 'recently' Gadra had used.

The yeoman never took her eyes off Gadra but she stepped up to Elleese’s left standing by her friend’s shoulder as they moved in past the purple field, “I am very excited to see how you all live. I am fascinated by the opportunity to meet new people.” Her smile echoed the sentiment in the words, Aliza was good with most people and she just had dialed the notch up from her normal easy going friendly to a hint more focused upon Gadra herself.

"Not in my lifetime," Gadra replied to Sha'mer before smiling at the yeoman. "I have been told that it happened in the past, however. We are very excited for it to happen now and are pleased to meet you. Maria has already said that she was very...intrigued by your fellow crewman that she met initially."

“How long have you been down here anyway? Aliza asked with that easy smile again. It would be easy for someone to believe she hadn’t a thought in her prettily adorned head. “It is so beautiful here though, would be really nice to live on a planet like this.”

There was an odd feeling that would come from Gadra's continued smile in response to the yeoman's next question, although it was the sort of shift that would be hard to pin down exactly what it was--even for an empath. (Ell sensed it, of course, as she was sure that Sha'mer did but without violating the woman's mental privacy, the counselor could not discern exactly what the "off" feeling was...)

Gadra said, "It has been roughly four hundred years, according to our earliest records. I was not, of course, here for it." The odd sense continued to be felt through her soft, seemingly lightheartedj laugh as well.

For some reason an Sha'mer thought of old phrase she'd heard before, something from a human story, or song. Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly… She had no idea why she suddenly thought of it, it wasn't a thought she had picked up from anyone. But something had shifted, something in the mood, perhaps, or deep into Gadra's mind. Sha'mer couldn't put her finger on it, but at least she took notice of what her own thought gave her and filed it away.

If one would look into assignments, there was probably a reason these three were sent on this task, they each had their way of evaluating people. Some more based in their DNA or training and Aliza in her life as a merchant’s child. There were things you learned with her background. How to know when someone wanted something but acted like they didn’t, people that were just browsing, those out to swindle you or pull a fast one, as the ancient Earth saying was, and Aliza had a distinct impression that the last applied here. As she didn’t have enough information to guess what that might be relating to she did not let her intuitive response show and might even have made herself look a little less observant on purpose.

As they walked, they were passed by other members of the colony. The occurrences were sporadic, but there was a shared aspect to all of them... They were all distinctly human, yet somehow distant from the telepaths and otherwise somewhat...vacant in expression, even as they smiled. Tall, slender, and attractive down to a one with similar utilitarian jumpsuits in a variety of colors.

Gadra paid these people no mind and made no introductions. Instead, she pointed out the room where the waterworks were, using ground water and naturally occurring organics to filter it, the geothermal room where the heat was processed. (It was cold underground otherwise.) And then the algae-and-fungus farm rooms where the majority of their sustenance was grown. She answered their questions with that same vague-pleasant sort of way, seemingly speaking with earnestness while not really telling them anything.

Eventually, they arrived at a room with tables and chairs. It was all sleek, clean lines in pale colors and dim lighting. She gestured them inside. "Please, help yourself to the drink cart as you like, and I will bring someone to meet you that can answer more of your questions than I can," she said, standing aside to let them enter and them bowing slightly before she stepped out of the doorframe. Once in the hall, after the door slid shut, her smile dropped. "Lock it," she ordered the computer, gesturing a nearby man in a black jumpsuit to stand at the door before she turned on her heel and headed off to speak to Miss Baran...

 

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