Chapter 9
Belly Of The Beast
One moment she had been in the hanger below the object, and another moment she didn't know where she was. It was terribly dark, but she could feel her hand light still firmly in her grip. But it seemed to have gone dead.
The only other source of light she had, was the small screen on the alien scanning device in her other hand. But it was only providing a dim glow, which wasn't enough to make out her surroundings. She didn't want to hazard a try to move from where she was standing with no way of seeing her footing. For all she knew, she was surrounded by deep chasms.
She held the scanner in front of her, screen out, and moved it around to try to illuminate her surroundings more, but it still wasn't enough. She decided the light beacon wouldn't be of any more use, so she bent over and slid it along the floor in a random direction. It made a skidding noise for a few feet, so she knew the floor directly before her was solid.
Then it hit something metal. She began to take slow steps forward in the same direction she had slid the dead light.
Her heart was beating rapidly. If it was one thing she hated the most, it was not knowing where she was.
The glow from the device reflected on a surface in front of her as she moved. She could now make out that a wall was in front of her, and when she reached it, she put her hand on it. It was warm, just like the outside of the object had been. She then realized that she must have been moved inside of it somehow, but she hadn't been absolutely sure until now.
"Hello?" She said, hoping for, and dreading a response at the same time.
A few seconds passed and a small light across the room blinked on, it looked like a console of some kind.
"Language analyzed and accepted, Please state request." A female voice said from all around her.
Sil had almost jumped off her feet from surprise, but managed to stay firmly planted on the floor. Request? What kind of request was the voice asking for? She thought for a moment about what to say.
"A light would be nice."
"Normal illumination is not possible in power saving mode, activating emergency lighting," The voice said calmly.
And just like the voice promised, dim lighting came on around the room. Sil took in her now illuminated surroundings.
The color of the room was a greyish white and looked to be extremely dusty. The room had only two prominent objects in it, a console protruding from the far wall which had a large blank screen above it, and a large chair in the center of the room which was facing the screen. From what she could tell, there was no way to leave the room, no doors were in sight. If there was a door, it was blended so well with the walls that it was impossible to find with the naked eye.
She bent and picked up her hand light, which was laying at her feet. After a try or two to turn it on, she discovered it still didn't work.
"Alien technology analyzed, no harmful uses found, reactivating device functionality." The voice said.
In her hand, the light flickered on, temporarily blurring her vision. She had been looking directly at the lens when it had been reactivated.
"Thank you, although it doesn't do me a lot of good now." She said purely irritated. She had realized the voice she was hearing was that of a computer or artificial intelligence.
"Your welcome. Inquiry, would you like to cancel power saving mode?" The voice asked, "Backup power reserves have returned to normal levels since power saving program was activated.
"Power saving mode?" Sil said out loud to herself.
"Would you like to cancel power saving mode?" The voice asked again, "Back up power reserves have returned to normal ..."
Sil interrupted "No, stay at this power mode until further notice."
"Affirmative." The voice replied, and Sil thought this whole situation was turning out to be easy enough.
She had been afraid that whatever beings had created this, what she now knew must be a vessel, were hostile, as Tok had feared. But now she dismissed the possibility. The computers voice seemed too cordial to be created by anyone dangerous.
She moved to the chair and ran her hand across the material, which turned out to be very soft, but sturdy at the same time. She noticed the chair was a size that could most likely accommodate the females of her species, but the males would have trouble getting comfortable, as they were shorter in height.
"Warning, Proximity alert, life forms detected within twenty meters of the ship." The voice said. "Reactivating shields at highest possible percentile."
Sil made a mental note, that the barriers were called shields. She was amazed at the efficiency of the computer to which she was now speaking.
"Can you show me these life forms somehow?" she asked looking around, not sure if she was supposed to address a specific location to talk to the computer. After a few seconds the screen on the wall began to glow, and then displayed the large room outside the craft.
There, Tok was being followed by the guard that she had tricked at the military entrance. Beside Tok was the Leader.
Wro didn't look happy at all, in fact, he appeared to be yelling at Tok.
"Is there a way you can let me hear what they are saying?" Sil asked slowly seating herself into the chair in the center of the room.
"-o excuses Tok, you should have let the council know about this when you found it ten solar passes ago. And you should have given more than just that small device to the science sector, they may have had more luck than you getting this craft open." Wro yelled.
Sil grinned at what he had said, Leader Wro was after all right about that. She had been more successful at getting into the ship. And the device Tok had given the scientists had actually been how she did it.
"I'm sorry Leader, It was important not to let anyone else know, there was the possibility of subterfuge." Tok said and then looked to his left at the soldier who had followed him, "and it seems the Head of Astero Sciences Sil, may be in this facility somewhere."
"She's probably just doing what you should have done, if you find her I want to speak to her personally. The alien craft in the harbor has responded to our communique in a short text message. They want to open communications, and I want Sil to be the one to talk to them. She was the one who detected the alien ship. And she has very high marks in the fields of math and science, which the aliens will probably understand the most. After all, science and mathematics could be considered a universal language." Wro said as he looked up at the ship in front of him.
When Sil heard this she nearly fell out of the chair. Wro was actually taking her expertise over Tok's, and even Ret's. She was equally surprised to hear the use of the word universal in Wro's statement, as before today, no one had really used that word in normal conversation in almost four thousand years. The field had seen to that. Most had forgotten that there was even a universe out there, but many in the field of science and religious sectors weren't that forgetful.
"Ok, I've heard enough. Thank you." She said.
"Deactivating external sound. Your welcome. Would you like to view ships status?" The voice asked cordially.
"Yes, please." Sil said, and the screen changed once more, this time to display an image of the ship. Sil could now see its shape was that of an oblong with two long objects horizontally attached to either side.
The Language displayed on the screen was unreadable, but she saw a small area of the ship was colored in green.
"What does this color represent?" She asked pointing to the green section, and then wondered if the computer would see her action.
"That section of the ship is where you are currently located." The voice replied.
"And where is this, I mean, what is this room?"
"You are currently located on the bridge."
Sil looked around once more, it seemed rather small to be a command center, perhaps there was more to the room than she was seeing.
"What is this ship called, and where is it from?"
"This is the Vessel, Causality, Registry number, NX-32. This vessel was launched on Universal Date 2378.0817 from the planet Mars, located in the Alpha Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy." The computer replied.
The names and labels in this log were definitely not of Frain origin and Sil didn't know most of the terms. Milky Way galaxy, Alpha Quadrant were most likely place names, just unknown to her. But the word planet she did know, and the planet Mars sounded fascinating because it was another planet with intelligent life. And those intelligent life forms were beings who could create technology superior to their own.
"How did this ship get here?"
"Temporal encryption failure, reviewing information. This ship is equipped with a temporal momentum drive, after being activated, the causality traveled through time and space and arrived at its current location. However, upon reaching its destination an unknown occurrence caused the Causality to travel back in time four thousand four hundred and ten years and crash on the surface of this planet."
"Four thousand years, "Sil said, now knowing that this ship had crashed almost around the same period the field had appeared around their solar system. "Why was the Causality coming here in the first place?"
"Temporal encryption failure. Mission report so states, the Captain of the causality ordered the activation of the ships temporal drive system upon orders from Admiral Kino Fran, and the causality was brought to 2003.0513, in orbit around the planet earth. The mission in that time period was successfully completed, The Captain then ordered another jump to 2378.0817, location, Delta Quadrant, to rendezvous with the starship Voyager."
Sil's eyes widened, all this information about time travel was amazing. But what was the Causality's mission?
"What..." she began to ask, but behind Sil, a stream of sparks suddenly spat from the wall, and then just as quickly stopped.
"Warning, systems have experienced degradation from time spent in power saving mode."
"Degradation? " Sil asked standing upright looking over at the smoking hole in the wall.
"Diagnostics show that computer systems have been damaged, eighty-four percent of memory retrieval circuits have been fused and are offline until repairs can be made. Temporal encryption failure, Ships systems were not designed to be active for such a long duration without maintenance."
"Let me guess, I suppose all the relative information to this ships mission on Fra are now irretrievable."
"Affirmative."
Sil had no idea what to do next. She could go on asking the computer questions for a while longer and hope that not all the information was out of reach, but she knew she had a duty to her people. And the Leader wanted her to be the one to talk to the aliens on the other craft. She decided to ask the computer a few more questions and then find a way to return to the exterior of the causality.
"What is the name of the species who ran this ship? Sil asked, curious about that detail, which might help her when the time came to talk to the aliens.
"Ships complement is currently composed of multiple species, these races are thirteen humans, one cardassian, two klingons, two betazoids, four ferengi, four vulcans, and two crew members are half human-half klingon. Total ships compliment is currently twenty nine, comprised of the prior listed twenty eight crewman, and one human passenger."
"You mean the crew compliment was twenty nine, I do believe you have to recalculate your current data..." Sil said.
Was it possible the computer hadn't taken into consideration that the crew had died almost four thousand years ago? Perhaps the degradation had effected the ships computer as well as the memory banks.
"Reconfirming data... proximity to unknown material is preventing scanners from retrieving long range scan data, adjusting scanners for full strength, scattering material bypassed..."said the computer, and then there was an extremely long pause.