Hate to Burst Your Bubble
Posted on Thu Jan 5th, 2023 @ 7:39am by Graham & Lieutenant Commander Sofia Nikedoros & Lieutenant Colonel Shaun Bradley & Master Chief Petty Officer Lucas Nilsson & Ieliene t'Leiya & Vanessa Ross & Tal t'Leiya
2,822 words; about a 14 minute read
Mission:
Roll With It
Location: Outside Haumea Business District and 'The Bubble'
Timeline: MD 02
Earlier
Tal's fingers played across the weapons safe in the temporary quarters they had all been occupying while completing the house. When it popped open, he removed a pair of energy weapons, a Federation phaser and a Romulan disruptor. but he didn't equip himself with either of them. Instead, he passed them to Ieliene, who was standing nearby with a sudden solemn maturity and polished edge to carriage that was an impressive switch from her usual age-appropriate immaturity, or even from how she'd been when lost in the caverns.
The teenager checked each of them and slid them into the holster she'd donned. Missing both Caithlin and lacking his wife due to the survey mission - not to mention missing his youngest child, and even Gunnar - had tight, stressed edges to Tal's face, and as they were fresh out of any adults to leave charge and protection of the household to while he went to investigate the situation; it was resulting in the abrupt promotion of the next best available. Father and daughter exchanged a serious look and a measured nod to one another, before Tal made his way out the door and towards the strange phenomenon he heard had appeared overnight that might hold his missing kin.
Even with Graham alerting the surrounding teams to the bubble's breech, both the hologram and Lucas were the first to arrive on scene. As they did, the field's ripples were dying down, and at the source, was brown-haired woman, clad in civilian clothing.
Vanessa stumbled out of the bubble, catching herself before she landed face first on the ground. She blinked at the surroundings around her, feeling as if she'd just woken up from a very strange dream. However, it had all been too real for a dream - a hallucination perhaps, she thought.
Graham's brow rose as his form flickered above the portable hologram projector. "How... interesting."
"Vanessa!" Lucas sprinted toward his very dazed wife, relieved beyond belief.
Tal approached the gathering officers and crewmen with a purposeful stride, the long-former security officer clearly not lacking in confidence that he did and would have a place in this despite his simple civilian garb. Once he came to the gathered group where something seemed to have occurred of note, however, he seemed content for the moment to wait quietly, not intruding yet per se, for the nature of that development to become clearer.
Commotion had drawn out the Colonel to see what was happening. He hadn't been far, less than three hundred meters, and had arrived relatively soon to the comms traffic. As he approached, he slowed his pace, scanning over the people, and looking to see if he could find the immediate officer in charge.
"Ah, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley." On his portable hologram bot, Graham swished over to the Marine effortlessly. "Sir, if I may. While Chief Nilsson and I were overviewing the data to see if we could come to potential hypotheses, we discovered an anomaly within the field, a weakness of the structural integrity of said field, so to speak." He made a gesture toward Vanessa and Lucas. "It appears that the anomaly has given us a first-hand account of the situation."
"Someone has escaped the entrapment?" Tal butted in with a careful but curious tone with a glance at Graham, then Bradley, and towards Vanessa and Lucas.
Ignoring Tal for a moment, the Marine glanced to the field, his eyes scanning it as if seeing if he could physically see the instability it now offered. "What kind of weakness?" The person who had escaped the field was an entirely different issue that he would address is a minute, as he now fully turned to look at the bubble itself. Weaknesses could be exploited, he just needed to know what kind of issues he was looking at here. Could they brute force it? Could they get a tight beam transporter through? What were the options here to try and get people out?
"Results are currently inconclusive," Graham droned. "It appears the field has a way of interfering with my programming, as my current results are identifying this field as a... safety measure for a holosimm program. Which would mean that the program allowed someone to escape, as it was the safest route for the program to take. But, to answer Principal t'Leiya's inquiry as well, yes. It appears one of the colony's civilian members is presently on this side of the field, as opposed to where she was minutes ago, on the inside of the field."
"Change the parameters of your theory," the pilot said as he ran a hand over his face. "If we are assuming this is a safety field, that means we are dealing with something capable of processing threats. We know it doesn't respond the phaser fire, so we need something that can truly trigger whatever it's safety features are." There was a pause as Shaun ran numbers in his head. "Without endangering anyone around the bubble, or inside it." A careful distinction, because a callous program might suggest some kind of high yield warhead to effectively collapse the field itself. He stopped dead in his thoughts and turned to address the Principal now.
"There is a really good chance we are going to have terrified parents and children on both sides of this. We need a civilian presence that can help keep people calm and collected. Can I ask you to manage that?"
Tal hesitated for a brief moment, considering - specifically, among other things, considering what had happened the last time a group of scared, angry, or uncertain colonists had formed in his vicinity. Finally, he came to the conclusion that in this case, the odds were a fair bit less it would end up making him its target even if that ended up repeating itself. Besides, he was reasonably certain his sister-in-law, were she still alive on the other side of the barrier with his daughter, would be taking some level of charge over there. It was he had noted, in the end her first reflex often; that gaining some level of control generally enhanced your odds of survival. "Sure." He glanced over at the other set of those gathered so far. "Has the escapee from the field been able to provide any intelligence on the nature of the situation inside it?"
"We have yet to ask our escapee any questions on the matter at hand," Graham informed the pair, as he gestured toward Vanessa and Lucas. "Should I also send ahead for a medic to assess her physical health?"
"Might as well, yes." Tal nodded human style, and his voice took a slightly firmly tack to it. "As for the yet-to-be-asked questions; that would seem to be something to remedy rapidly, then." Possibly it was an inevitable opinion from a Romulan or for that matter from a former security officer; let alone a man whose kin were trapped within the phenomenon that the woman could perhaps provide intelligence on.
"Let me have a look," Dr. MacQuire called, striding toward them. First bit of excitement in an otherwise tense but boring night of staring at a blank dome, though boring hadn't been all bad. It certainly beat coming into the hospital to inundated with work because both the pint sized CMO and the giant blonde ACMO were both nowhere to be found. "No good asking a lot of questions if the subject is about to faint away."
"She's over here, doctor," Hanna piped up from where she had been watching quietly so as to not draw attention and get sent home again.
With a nod to the volunteer, MacQuire headed toward Vanessa, medscanner already out. "You just relax and let me check you over, ma'am. Are you in any pain?"
"No... Nothing aside from tripping on my way out," Vanessa answered, still a little dazed, "Is... is this real?"
"Yes, I'm here. It's real," Lucas said, trying to comfort his wife.
"We're about as real as anything gets," MacQuire remarked, checking the scan readings. No hallucinogens, so her comment about reality had been inspired by a bad trip - at least not a pharmacological one. "She's okay. Bumps and bruises, a bit dehydrated. Hanna, get the lady some water."
"Yes, Doctor." The teen dashed to a pack and retrieved a bottle, bringing it to the woman.
"There you go. Easy now, slow sips," the doctor advised. "Once you feel a bit more settled, there's folks here with friends in there so we'd all appreciate it if you could tell us what it is and how you managed to get out."
Vanessa took a few sips and a deep breath. "I... I don't know where to begin describing it. Everything was," she paused looking for right description, "out of time. I felt like I was in a fantasy story set on ancient Earth. There were swords and inanimate objects that were alive."
One eyebrow climbed significantly on Tal's face at 'inanimate objects were alive'; hoping the doctor had scanned their witness for things like mind-altering substances she might have been exposed to to lead to an unreliable report. "What did the situation appear to be beyond that - stable? Or actively dangerous?"
"It was... stable. It felt so real, or something that could appear real," Vanessa replied, "It was almost like a good holo-novel."
"No drugs her system," MacQuire pronounced, as if in reply to what the Romulan and possibly everyone else was thinking. "So either something in there is inducing mass hallucation or someone tried to program a big 'Beauty and Beast' holoparty and it got way out hand."
"Fantasy story, which suggests medieval era - certainly fantasy if there were living objects." Graham's vocal note-taking took a strong, monotonous droll. "Ma'am," he stated, addressing Vanessa, "Would you mind explaining how you managed to escape?"
"Well, I was walking in a field next to a cottage and I saw the door to it shimmering. I opened it and found myself here," she replied, "Everything just felt so alive in there, even the grass seemed to sparkle a bit, but that door stood out. It said something in a strange language I've never heard just before I walked through it."
Shaun looped back around to approach the group. He'd been listening to that and a comms conversation at once. "So it is a hologram, which would make this some kind of preventative shield. We could try and kill the power source, see about shutting the system down," he mused to himself as he listened to the conversation. "Miss, was there any signs of our tech present, any communicators or such?"
"No, everything I had on me got replaced by something old. My PaDD turned into a notebook with a quill pen," Vanessa replied, "I think everything I had is back to the way it was."
Hanna cringed as only a teen could at the concept of a PaDD being turned to paper and quill pen. MacQuire on the other hand, considered that a moment before reacting. "I don't suppose you took any notes?" It would be interesting to see if they got entered on the PaDD, but the woman's expression seemed to question his sanity for even asking, so he didn't press it.
Graham cleared his throat. "Lieutenant Colonel, I have received a message from inside the field," he stated, and in as deadpan a tone as a hologram could muster, "It begins 'S'up, Bitches.' I believe someone has found a way through the programming. Shall I go on?"
"No," Shaun said, running his fingers across his eyes and groaning. He had a good idea on who had sent that message, it was the right signature tone. "Can we get a triangulation on that message? And more importantly, can I get a transporter beam through?"
Tal’s first instinct was to immediately insist that if anyone could, he also go along with it; before forcibly restraining himself from voicing such: As much as one of his children was stranded within, there were four still to protect on this side of the barrier, for himself and his sister-in-law; and he had to trust that she would protect Raikael for him there as he would protect Arenn and Telek for her.
"Triangulation? One moment." Graham's holographic form flickered in silence. His brow rose. "An estimate location would be where the center of the bubble is placed; The Bray Foundation building."
Shaun's eyes rolled and he shook his head. Scientists he mentally groaned. It was always scientists, messing with something better left well enough alone that lead to Marines getting in trouble. It didn't surprise him this was also causing him grief.
Hanna scowled. "Bray - they're probably using everyone in there as guinea pigs for something."
"Cool your jet, kids," MacQuire advised laconically. "More likely they thought they had something under control but it turned out ...not so much. Given the start of that message, I wouldn't rule out polywater."
Graham fell uncomfortably silent, but there was an evident frown on his face. "Unfortunately, I cannot seem to get more than a transmitted message through at the present time. The program seems to be utilizing power from outside the Bray Foundation's building to maintain integrity throughout the whole city."
"Then we cut the power. Whatever this is probably can't maintain such a large field without it," Shaun said, mentally pondering the matter at hand. "We don't want to server the connections permanently, but we can probably shut down the external sources. Any idea which power systems specifically?"
"If it is like many municipal systems; it should be possible to cut power entirely simply to a particular sector, such as downtown overall, and prevent it from drawing on the rest of the grid either; using protocols meant for use in case of a large fire or such?" While it was somewhat a statement; it was also very much a question, as Tal wasn't sure if it would be true in such a small frontier settlement, and he looked over at Graham and Nilsson for confirmation or denial of it.
With a whistle, Shaun waved over a passing Ops Officer. "Get me a portable holotable please. Lieutenant," he added at the end to the Junior Lieutenant, in an effort to appease the sudden splash of self importance that had run across the woman's face. She returned a moment later, the wheeled table in toe, and Shaun fired it up. "Here is a map of the city's power distribution. I'll be honest, I don't know heads or tails of how this works, so we'll need an engineer to take that lead."
Lucas snapped back to the conversation, as he'd been focused on making sure Vanessa was alright. Looking at the map Shaun was holding up, he began "Yes, we should be able to cut the power. I can shut off that part of the grid coming from the reactor, but it looks like that would cut off that entire side of the colony. Alternately, we could physically sever the conduit with a laser cutter, or even a phaser, to only shut off a smaller area. The damage wouldn't take more than a day to repair."
"Sounds like typical engineer version of surgical precision," MacQuire muttered acerbically and opened his comm. "MacQuire to hospital. They're gonna try to cut power to the weird dome things out here. Make sure the back-up generators are good to go, just in case."
"What's that?" Shaun asked, pointing at the swelling power consumption. Something inside the field was now drawing an inordinate amount of power. "The Bray centre seems to be drawing... four hundred percent more power? That's can't be right, there is no way those system are designed to handle that. Master Chief, can you isolate the lines it using to draw then and just disconnect them remotely?"
"There's no time! I need a phaser," Lucas responded, looking at the map Shaun still had displayed. He pointed at a location on the displayed grid. "We'd need to cut the conduit here, but it's only barely outside the 'bubble'. Otherwise, we'll lose power to most of the colony's environmental systems."
"If I may-" Graham cut in, holographic form flickering, as if his own power was being drained from this debacle, "Chief, our current environment is not unsustainable without the support of our systems. It may be prudent to see if there is a... how did the scientists put this... less 'explodey' option available to us?"
"Perhaps.." Lucas drifted into thought, "We could set up a force field that will temporarily block the flow of plasma. This would let us effectively shut off specific conduits without damaging them."
"Well, congratulations, kid," the doctor snarked. "You've hit on the concept behind a vascular clamp."
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