The Five Musketeers

Posted on 26 Feb 2018 @ 4:27am by Ensign Quinn Mackie & Petty Officer 2nd Class Mofrich Torg & Lieutenant JG Daniella Blake & Ensign Aidan Crehan & Senior Chief Petty Officer Mila Rasputin

3,063 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Crossing Over
Location: Deck 7
Timeline: MD 35 || 0815 hours

Having left the group behind, Quinn led the way down the dark corridor. It didn't take him to realize that things were labeled. "Does anyone know what these things say?" he asked, trying to read one of the labels in the dark.

"We need some lights," Mila said as she ran one hand along the wall until encountered something jutting out from the wall a bit. "Hmm. What's this?" She ran her fingers around it and along the edges and surface. A second later, whatever it was opened and spilled out a kit that had a snake and cross emblem on it, a silver thing and a couple other small items onto the floor.

She knelt down and fumbled around in the dark and felt a protrusion on one of the things that had spilled out. Immediately the area around them light up from whatever it was and she jumped back. "Well..." she said a bit sheepishly. "We have light."

Quinn turned to look at the woman who spoke, only to accidentally look directly at the light source. He blinked and staggered back in surprise, trying to catch his momentarily lost vision. "That's, uh, that's pretty bright."

Dani blinked at the sudden brightness and found herself looking away. Now, she couldn't read any of the writing if she tried. Not until her temporary blindness wore off. "I can try as soon as I can see again."

Mila rubbed her eyes and pointed the bright light around them and then down at the floor. "What is this?" she asked as she bent over and picked up a curved silvery object.

"It is most certainly an unusual item," replied Aidan. The light had indeed been bright and would prove to be helpful. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the new lighting in the darkened hallway. He turned back to the smaller blonde, "If you are having difficulty seeing, I can help you along. In a moment, at any rate."

The small blonde turned her gaze in the general direction of the voice that spoke to her. "Thank you. Hopefully, it will go away soon," she said with a small smile.

Alora had been thinking of checking her pack for a light and so had been looking down when the bright light suddenly hit. It helped she had been looking down and was in the back of the group but still she slapped a hand over her eyes, the other still clutching the door popper like her life depended on it. There was something comforting about the piece of tech in her hand.

"Well, at least one of us can see better," Quinn said. "That makes you... You get to walk in front of us and light the way. Maybe we can find something."

Mila shined the line on the wall and looked at it. "Torpedo Storage. Does anyone know what a torpedo is?" she asked as she looked around at the others.

Alora shook her head as her eyes cleared, "No." She said looking at the unfamiliar words, she could read them which was something she treasured but the meaning escaped her, "Torpedo..." she said musingly repeating it trying to shake something loose in her mind through sheer force of will.

Quinn thought for a moment, before gesturing to the woman with the ridges to come over. "Come 'ere, Ridges. You opened that door back there earlier. Can you open this one? Let's find out what a torpedo is."

It took Alora moment to realize he was talking to her, she looked down at herself and and touched her face trying to ID the name. Surprised to feel ridges around her nose. So not like the others then. Weird. She didn't feel injured so just must be how she was. Then she caught up to what he said and pleased to actually know how to do something she nodded, "Right." She then took the door popper and placed it on the door. Then tapped the flashing red button and the door popped open 6 inches. She tapped another button and it popped off into her hand.

Quinn stuck both hands into the opening and pulled. It was only then that he realized that he lacked the sufficient strength to fully open the doors. "Um... Can someone...?" he asked between heaves.

Aidan patted the little blonde on the shoulder and headed over to the door. He postured himself opposite the man with the odd hair and grabbed the other door. "Whenever you are ready," he said. Aidan gripped and tensed his muscles, ready to pull.

"On three," instructed Quinn. "One... Two... Three!" At that very moment, Quinn pulled as hard as he could on his door panel. The panel resisted, squealing at its unnatural movement. Alas, their objective was achieved, though it was just another dark room that was barely illuminated by emergency lights. "Everyone spread out. See what you can find."

Aidan pulled and watched as their goal was accomplished. The squealing sound made him hope that it didn't do it every time it opened. He couldn't imagine the horrendous noise filling this hallway each time someone entered or exited.

Mila entered the room with the light and shined it around and illuminated several racks of long, coffin-shaped devices, a workbench with various tools on it, several blank terminals and a assortment of other things which she couldn't identify. Then again, she couldn't really identify anything. She approached the rack and shined the light on it which revealed a display which had been printed and attached to the rack. "I'm assuming that these are some type...of something," she finished a bit lamely, but she welcomed anyone who had more information.

"Keep that there for a moment," Quinn said, approaching it to read. "Looks like an explosive of sorts," he surmised. "Self-propelled..." A thought struck him. "Hey, Ridges. You have anything on you that we can use to crack one of these open?"

Dani stood outside the door with a feeling they were messing around with something they shouldn't have been. That was confirmed the moment she heard the word explosive. While the rest of them might have been content to poke around at things that could cause serious damage, she was not. Without a word to anyone else, the small woman chose to leave, walking down the corridor.

"Um maybe, I seem to have a case of helpful devices like this door opener." Alora replied, "But I don't want to poke at anything explosive." She looked at the schematic worriedly. "Self propelled bombs are maybe something we should leave for later? Maybe look elsewhere for clues?" She filed the information away though, they were in a non natural place that stored self propelled bombs. What kind of place was this? They needed more intel. She still held the door popper with one hand but clutched the strap of the case she wore cross ways, the case somehow comforting.

Mila watched the woman and shrugged. "We're here. We may as well find out what's here instead of wandering around more. She noticed that the petite blonde had wandered off and hoped she knew what she was doing."

Alora turned to the other woman, "I guess we could look around for here.." she noted, conceding the point. "Though if these are torpedos and this is torpedo storage, not sure much else will be here. All guesswork though." She admitted, "I definitely don't think opening a self propelled bomb is going to help. " She looked around a bit as though she hoped something useful would catch her eye.

Quinn had hoped that the warhead would have provided some valuable information. After all, if it were self propelled, then it would have to have some sort of navigational or guidance system. "Probably not the best place to be poking around then, I guess," he acquiesced. "I suppose it's back to wandering then."

Alora glanced at Mila, then back to quinn, "Maybe a quick check of the rest of the room for other clues before we head out?" She tentatively suggested, she wasn't holding out hope but Mila raised a good point so now that the thought was in her mind Alora was now concerned they might miss something. She was relieved though not to be messing with the bombs.

"There doesn't seem to be very much more in here," Mila said as she looked around. "Not that we can identify, but if these bombs are any indication, wherever we are must have been prepared for war."

"These are rather large," said Aidan. "I would say 'war' in the least. These things look like they could cause considerable damage." He moved over to another rack of them and placed his hand on one. "Considerable."

Alora looked around at the dozens of neatly lined up torpedoes. "Must be some war." She said concerned imagining the sheer amount of destruction possible in this one room. "I wonder with who?" The thought of some unknown enemy out there, the reason they needed all of this perhaps, waiting to pounce was not a pleasant thought.

Quinn did not find the concept of war distasteful, but given everyone's lack of curiosity in the storage room, perhaps it was time to move along. "Let's see if there's anything else around here besides a cache of warheads." With that, he started to move towards the exit.

"So where do we go next?" Mila asked as the young man headed for the exit.

Aidan made his way towards the door they had just pried open. Not having the flashlight, nor waiting for the one who did, caused him to trip over some things on the floor. He caught himself on the wall before he hit the floor. With a sigh, he gently pushed the articles to the side with his foot. Once he was out of the doorway, he knelt down and felt around. "What's this?" he said picking up an odd, curve shaped item. It didn't feel familiar to his hands, but he shoved it in a pocket anyway. He picked up the other kit anyway just so no one else would accidentally find it as he did.

Quinn looked down both directions of the dark corridor. Neither direction seemed more appealing than the other, except... Was that a light? He kept his head turned to the left for just a little bit, wondering if it would show up again. Yes! There it was! "I think there's someone over there," he said, pointing. "Let's see if they know something."

Mila gave a nod and headed out the door to the direction the young man was pointing. "Hello? Is anyone there?" she called out.

Alora followed carefully, wishing they had a map and hoping the light they saw was a friend.

Aidan's eyes took a moment to adjust to the lower lighting. He fell in step with the others. "If there is, can you tell us where we are?"

Dani rejoined the group from the direction the lights came in, waiting for the bombardment of questions. Maybe sticking with the group wasa good idea, and that was the plan from this point forward. "Yes, I saw the light. No, I didn't speak to anyone. I realized being on my own was stupid."

Mila looked as the short blonde returned. "Did you find anything else interesting?"

Dani shook her head. "No, but I'm not sure I expected to find anything. I saw lights up ahead and decided to come back to find the rest of you. There has to be more of us on here, and there's no guarantee others are friendly. Did any of you find anything worth nothing?"

"Just a bunch of torpedoes," Quinn said, his eyes still fixated on the light ahead. He was so fixated, in fact, that he unconsciously took a few steps in their direction as the light intensified.

The source turned the corner and abruptly stopped, the flashlight illuminating the group that had gathered down the corridor. "Who goes there!?" a gruff, raspy voice that belonged to an individual named Torg. Beside him were two blue-skinned individuals, one with a seam running down the center of his face, and the other with shining white hair and antannae sticking out. On his other side was a brown-skinned humanoid and a woman with deep green skin and red hair. Without much light shining on this new group, it was impossible to make out their forms and clothing at such a distance.

Alora blinked again adjusting to the light. And how were they supposed to answer that, "'I don't know, how about you?' is not geared to boost confidence." She thought. Her instinct was to watch and learn so that's what she did for the moment hoping one of the others had a better answer than she.

Mila looked at the blue and green people and blinked. "That's a good questions," she responded. "Who are you?"

The Tellarite blinked, but still cautiously approached. He was not armed, but he certainly did not appear to be in a friendly mood. He was about to retort when he noticed that those that he found were wearing the same types of clothing as he. "We would certainly like to know who has altered our minds and trapped us in this... this dark corridor."

"As would we," replied Aidan. "We would also like to know who we are, as well. Perhaps more so than who did this to us. Would you like to join us was attempt to find the answers to both of those questions?" More sets of eyes would always be helpful. And maybe they would have some different thoughts to consider regarding the things they find.

Torg looked at the man closely. He was not as young as the rest of them, yet his appearance suggested otherwise. There was some sort of wisdom or experience still coming from his words, despite the lack of memory to accompany them. "Very well," he said, keeping his light steady, but adjusting it ever so slightly to keep it from burning into retinas. "What would you suggest?"

"To do what we were doing before," Mila said. "Going room to room." She shined the light down the corridor and saw another sign on a door. "Enlisted Officer Mess. Does anyone know what an Enlisted Officer is or why they'd have an entire room to make a mess?"

Pleased the new group was apparently allies Alora relaxed a little as the others talked. "That does seem odd, sorry no idea." She commented at Mila's last and walked over to near the door, re-reading the words trying to parse them together.

"This is interesting," Quinn remarked, having seen a recessed alcove close by. He'd opened what appeared to be a hatch and saw a ladder. "This goes up and down. I wonder where it leads."

Mila shrugged. "No clue unless we go look," she said. "Do we follow it or keep going the way we were? "

"As much as I'd rather stay where we are, maybe seeing where this leads isn't such a bad idea. It would give us some sort of idea how big this place is, I would imagine," Dani said, turning her attention to Quinn. "Do you think we should?"

Quinn looked up and down the dark ladder once more. "Think is relative. Unless you really want to find out what's in that mess. I think we need to find our way to power or some sort of information cache, things of which I have a feeling aren't here."

"I think that's a splendid idea," replied Aidan. "Information is always good to have." He had an odd feeling that he thoroughly enjoyed the acquisition of knowledge.

Alora spoke up thoughtfully, "I agree. And in the interests of full disclosure I seem to have a kit of devices? Tools? Items?" She said not sure what to call it exactly, "That's where I got this.." She held up the door popper she still held and tapped the case still strung over her shoulder with the other. "I haven't had a chance to check the rest in too much detail did you think we should before we head off?" She asked. The items seemed to fit well in her hand as she skimmed them previously but nothing really had come to mind. She hoped there would be more useful items in there but of course couldn't be sure. Worst case at least the others would know about the case and that might help them later.

Dani looked to Alora. "I suppose it couldn't hurt," the petite blonde said. "Then we can decide who goes first."

Alora nodded and took off the case then Knelt, opening it. She carefully placed the useful 'door popper' in it's place. Other items were around it, everything neatly labeled. Alora's hand skimmed each one as she read, "Door Popper, Phaser Welding Torch, Interphasic Coil Spanner, ODN Recoupler, EM Field Manipulator, Coil Spanner, Iso-Modulator, ODN Scanner, Sonic Driver, Phase Decompiler, EJ-7 Interlock." The words tripped off her tongue easily as though she were used to them but she was still working out the details of their use. Operation didn't seem too hard there were but a few buttons on each one, one could figure it out. Never wise though to mess with someone you weren't sure about. In an square area labeled 'spare parts' there were items like 'isolinear chips and coupling links'.

Quinn approached the ladder, and looked up and down. For some reason, he didn't like the idea of going up. Was he afraid of heights? He shook his head as he wasn't sure. Looking down, Quinn could not see the bottom. That was nearly as frightening as the prior option. But, down it would be. He grabbed onto a couple rungs and began to descend.

Mila sighed and headed after the young man with the weird haircut. "It's better than doing nothing, " she said.

Once Mila was in, Dani followed. She didn't know what was going to be waiting for them, but waiting around didn't seem like a good thing. It was time to be proactive. Not that they weren't before now.

Alora quickly closed up her case and slung it over her shoulder, following the others.

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