Opening the Can

Posted on Mon Jan 6th, 2025 @ 2:37am by Captain Rovak & Ambassador Oriath Velt & Commander Alex Flynn & Lieutenant Rune Thul & Lieutenant S'Lace & Ramielos Volsunga & Doctor Intharia T'Zor & SubCommander Saa & Lieutenant Commander Atna & Senior Chief Petty Officer Gaz & Doctor Ori Enu'Tha & Lieutenant Zar
Edited on on Mon Jan 6th, 2025 @ 3:05am

5,107 words; about a 26 minute read

Mission: Masters of the Stars [2]
Location: Delta Dock HazMat Lab
Timeline: 1330 - MD02

"Thank you all for coming. I have invited you here because Doctor T'Zor and I believe we have figured out how to release the locking mechanism on one of the totem devices like the one she was released from when we found her. With your permission, Captain, we would like to open it." Atna asked Rovak.

Rovak was watching from the second-story viewing area, looking down to where Atna, T'Zor and those involved in the process were preparing. Rovak noticed that the Andorian scientist Dr Enu'Tha had also arrived, remaining quiet and watching from the back.

"What do you believe to be inside?" Rovak asked.

"Based on the scans we took of the original totem and the subsequent comparison to Dr T'Zor, we believe it is a humanoid. The scale of it seems slightly larger, and it may be wearing some manner of armour." Atna explained. "It is difficult however to extrapolate from the limited information any exact details."

Dr T'Zor entered some commands on a nearby console, and an image of the top of the original totem appeared. It was an etching that looked quite identical to her own face. "This was the original totem, in which I was found."

She entered another command, and the totem changed to the one they had in the room with them. It was an etching of a bearded man's face. "We believe this is the individual who will be found within."

"Very well. Unless there are any objections?" Rovak put it to those who had gathered. He was confident that the hazmat lab had any tools they might need to restrain whatever they found within.

"Are you expecting to need a lot of power? The reactor in this dock is currently down so we'll be drawing from elsewhere." Gaz observed from the downstairs area, he had agreed to provide some of the required technical support given the ongoing systems troubles.

"For the opening, only enough for a differentiating particle beam emitter, and forcefields in the event whatever is within needs to be contained. The usage should be quite small." Atna explained.

Gaz nodded, that was enough for him.

"Does this mean you'll be able to open all of them if you can get this one?" Alex asked, knowing there were still a handful of other totems.

"Not immediately, but it should tell us a lot about the process." Atna responded. "There is a unique inconsistency in the locking mechanism that has been developing over time. Unlike Dr T'Zor's totem, which seemed to have not been locked properly, this one seems to be eroding from within. I do of course use the term 'mechanism' euphemistically, as the totem itself is a simple base metal that somehow contains these complex signals and processes."

"Anyone else?" Rovak asked.

S'Lace's expression remained studiously neutral. She was still reading through a great many reports and her knowledge regarding this artifact was sparse. She had a medical kit on hand in case she was needed and wondered if she should have volunteered to be involved in the process. Then again, her ignorance could only hamper the efforts of the staff, be another body for them to work around, and a possible impediment to Security if they were needed.

She met the commander's eyes and gave the slightest of head shakes to indicate she had nothing to add.

"We are Starfleet, and we are explorers there's really no other way but to open it, so with that in mind I have posted guards throughout the dock to make sure only essential personnel can come and go. Of course, forcefields are a helpful measure, but I have put more up throughout the dock to make sure that any damage to the station is contained." Rune spoke up, he gestured to the totem with his rifle tip and then a sweeping gesture with his free hand to the guards around the room wall. "Security team Alpha and I are here to immediately take care of any hostiles that come out. Should that happen, I want all of you to evacuate so we can fight?"

He eyed them all in turn. "Do I have your word that you all will do so?" Rune asked those in the room.

S'Lace felt that a bit extreme, but not unreasonable.

"You have my word," she stated simply. Despite herself her curiosity regarding the artifact was aroused...

"You can count on us, Lieutenant," Saa commed from the lower level, speaking for the technicians who were on site prepping the equipment. She watched with repressed anxiety as the force field emitter array was lowered into place and connected. Considering the unpredictability of their encounters with extrauniversal visitors so far, she had insisted that the experiment be moved as far from Alpha Dock as possible, into this disused section of the station. Even so, she'd had to scavenge some of the equipment needed for the experiment from the fully operational lab in Alpha, and it would take her single functioning Class-3 industrial replicator some time to fabricate replacements if any of it was damaged. Saa would have preferred to postpone the experiment altogether until more of the station was operational, but the fact that this particular artifact appeared to be unexplainably 'decaying' had given the science team an unavoidable deadline.

"We will of course defer to your judgement in the event of an emergency, Lieutenant Thul." Atna said. "Until then, we will observe first contact protocol with our guest. I can assure you that there is a less than 0.01% chance that this object will contain more than one individual."

Thari nodded when she felt Rune's gaze upon her. She was too busy triple-checking the settings on the toroidal suspension array and the harmonics in the emitter assembly to engage with what was said. Soon both would be working simultaneously to override whatever strange science had also trapped her once before. Her nerves were rising. She wanted this to work.

"Your safety is my primary concern, and my team and I will do everything we can to keep you all safe." Rune added with a wink as he continued to look at each officer present. "I just wish that we had the technology and knowledge to know more about what we were tinkering with." He glanced over to the Captain. "Would the Commander be able to help in some way, Captain?"

"He may be willing to share some of what he knows if whatever we discover is something from his native universe. Beyond that however, he has indicated we should not expect any operational support beyond access to the functions of the Excalibur that would be accessible to any other Starfleet vessel." Rovak explained.

S'Lace's eyebrows rose slightly. 'native universe'? She needed to start reading the personnel files more quickly. She glanced about to see if perhaps she could determine which individual they were talking about.

"Understood sir," Rune replied, a little disappointed but respectful. He got his rifle ready as he aimed at the 'lockbox'. He brought it slightly down so he could examine the settings he had it on. Perhaps he should see if it could do the remodulating frequency trick? Unfortunately, he didn't have time to sortie through its configurations.

Ambassador Velt let out a sigh. This felt like something Onda could have done in his place. He lapped at his macchiato.

tag for any further responses if anyone has them?

"Diagnostics, Zar?" Saa commed across the room to the Vulcan lieutenant at the force field array. The two had worked together for some time at the Yard, and Saa knew her thoroughness.

"Finished, SubCommander," Zar replied with the kind of tranquility Saa wished she felt. "All emitters operating at optimal levels."

"Then let's clear the room. The Chief and I will stay behind to monitor."

"Please begin when you are ready, Lieutenant Commander." Rovak told Atna, presuming any opinions had already been voiced.

"Yes, sir. Doctor T'Zor, please begin the procedure." Atna said, approaching a nearby console. She entered a few commands and the totem disappeared in a blur of blue light, reappearing in the center of the circular suspension array, suspended in anti-gravity.

"Commencing polaron beam exposure." T'Zor announced. From under the totem, a pinpoint-thickness powder-blue beam was emitted. For about a minute nobody said or did anything, simply watching for a reaction.

"Instability is rising to predicted cyclical levels." Atna stated, more for the benefit of those watching than Thari, who had the same data in front of her.

"Commencing tetryon emission in line with cyclical instabilities." T'Zor announced. She entered a few commands, and the beam began to glow an intermittently brighter colour. After only a few of the intermittent shifts, small glowing cracks began to appear in the surface of the metallic puck.

"Totemic disassembly in five, four, three, two.." Thari deactivated the emitter, and restored normal gravity at around three, the process was self-sustaining now. Before Atna could finish the countdown, there was a bright flash, and the totem was gone.

The flash was just a little too much, Rune attempted to keep his eyes open to the last possible second but closed them. It was gone, and he had to blink several times. He did it quickly and saw that the object of their attention was now gone. He looked around for any hostiles.

The bright flash was unexpected but S'Lace's inner eyelid prevented her from being blinded. Still, it would have been polite if someone had warned her that was going to happen.

Or...was it as unexpected to the others? Was this the first time it had happened? She remained quiet, curious to see what might happen next...

The light collapsed into an overflow of what appeared to be steam from the central point of the array that held the totem. Forcefields contained the escaping overflow, trapping it in a tall ovular bubble within the suspension array's outer ring. It's makeup was imperceptible to sensors, but it obscured the goings on within. After a long few seconds it dispersed, and a figure remained.

It was a humanoid form in heavy mechanical powder-blue armour. The form was enormous, it was in a kneeling pose but was still taller than almost everyone in the room. Analysis would reveal that standing, the being would be eight and a half feet tall. In his hands he held a rifle bigger than any other man's torso. Massive shoulder pauldrons colored yellow carried the decal of a black wolf's head. On his belt was a pistol and what looked like some kind of reinforced chainsaw.

Sensors quickly began to take in data, revealing that the implausibly dense armour contained an extensively genetically and biomechanically modified human male. The sensors showed that he was alive and apparently awake inside, but his armour had no power. On its chest, a bronze metallic winged-skull logo dominated the upper torso.

"Analysis." Rovak said simply to nobody in particular through his combadge. He knew what the sensors said, he wanted to know what his people thought about it.

"The... power supply seems to be inert," Saa reported from below, in an automatic tone that somewhat masked her relief. "The weapons are armed. Explosive projectiles. But there's no power in the suit itself."

"It's definitely of extrauniversal origin," commed Zar from the upper level. "Not from any universe we've contacted."

Huge was an understatement to say the least. Rune immediately pointed his rifle at the new arrival, though in the back of his mind he could feel the weapon size envy poke at him. He did his best to ignore it as he could see the rest of the security team follow suit.

With weapons at the ready, Rune didn't say anything and left the investigation to the professionals. He directed all his focus towards the hulk hopeful to get some read off their new guest, anything would be a win. The news that there was explosives was a little concerning even if there was no power source. A warrior can make anything a weapon.

Dr T'Zor began to review the data from the sensors, shocked by what she was seeing. Even the likes of Cerberus, the most unscrupulous techno-criminals she knew from her own reality had never attempted or succeeded at anything so drastic. The technology behind the alterations and the armour seemed practically unfathomable. "The being within is obviously alive, but I have never seen anything like this. This is a being grown to be this way, not born."

Tapping his combadge, the Andorian scientist and self-proclaimed universal super genius Ori Enu'Tha spoke. "This is a killing machine. A super soldier. A being so extensively and impossibly augmented it makes Khan Singh look like Joe Average. It's extraordinary." He said with humble horror in his voice.

"Is he right?" Rovak asked the team once more.

"It doesn't exactly look friendly," Saa opined. Her screens were displaying detailed scans of the being's weapons, obtained by her drone as it orbited the array. The person-sized rifle was alarming enough, but it was the chainsaw-like implement hanging at the soldier's belt that chiefly disturbed her. There was something unmistakably grim about that weapon.

S'Lace employed her medical tricorder and analyzed the readings.

"I would concur," she noted, "This is a genetically augmented human being, the work to his biology is extensive," she regarded the markings: political or military designations, presumably. "We need to communicate with him before touching his armaments; if he is from a militaristic culture then any attempt to disarm him could be seen as a gross insult at the very least."

Alex didn't have anything useful to say, but she stood by watching. She felt her hand go unconsciously to the phaser on her belt, where she let it rest.

"Is he alive?" Rune announced, perhaps in an attempt to get a response from the soldier.

Within his impregnable armour, Ramielos was alive and awake. He was calm, he had practiced in unpowered armour before. He could not see or hear anything other than the distant din of voices. He released his bolt rifle, letting it fall to the floor. Straining and flexing as required, he moved his arms to his head. With care and strength, he disengaged his helmet manually, and released it.

He took in a deep breath as he beheld the strange sights and individuals around him. They had positioned him inside some sort of ring device. However they had captured him they had been clever and effective. "Kiu vi estas? Kio estas ĉi tiu loko?" He asked them in a language the universal translator didn't recognise.

"All right," S'Lace murmured as the rifle crashed to the floor, "Perhaps I was completely wrong about the import this being places in his weapons..."

Rovak felt his Vulcan threat instincts flare. He knew he needed to be in the room, and left the upper level, passing through the secure airlock.

"Greetings. My name is Atna. We are scientists, you are aboard a station called Deep Space 13. We mean you no harm." Atna said to the face that emerged from under the helmet. She held her palms open in what she hoped was a gesture of peace he would understand. Dr T'Zor backed slowly away from the array, hoping to stay out of the being's field of view.

Ramielos could not hide his surprise as her language turned from nonsense to his own. She did look human after all, with some minor mutation. "I am Battle-Brother Ramielos Volsunga of the Wolves of Fenris. Release me and none of you need perish."

The line brought a concerned look from Saa, who glanced warily from the armored warrior to the security personnel, and then, discreetly, to her own scans of the man's power armor.

"I am Lieutenant Rune Thul, Regent of the Seventh House of Betazed and Wielder of the Scared Sword. I am Chief of Security and Tactical Officer of this station, Deep Space 13." Rune began so his language can be translated to the soldier's. "You are in no position to demand anything since you just threatened us, our weapons are trained on you." He nodded at Ramielos. "Will you agree to retract that threat? I'm sure after that your release can occur depending on how our Commanding Officer feels you can be trusted."

"You are not our prisoner, battle-brother." Atna said, hoping to de-escalate the situation and steer the armoured man's attention away from the armed guards. "You were trapped within some manner of container unknown to our science. Our intention has only ever been to release you; the ring device surrounding you is an instrument shielded for our protection, this is a laboratory where we handle dangerous materials. From my observation, the biggest obstacle to your freedom currently is your armour. If you will allow us, we may be able to use our matter transporter to extricate you from it."

Ramielos closed his eyes and felt the unseen around him. He knew it felt strange, but it wasn't until he focused on the immaterium that he realised just what he was surrounded by. Empty darkness. No warp. No astronomicon. Wherever he was, he was far from the Emperor's light, and the predations of Chaos. There were psykers aboard, but none greater than an Iota-grade. The man Thul was one of them. He opened his eyes once more, focusing on the man who had introduced himself as Chief of Security. He closed his mind like the Librarians had taught him, erecting ruinous defences against any who would try to enter it.

"The God-Emperor's Angels of Death do not make threats." He said calmly. There was some strain on his face as he began to move. Supporting himself with his arms, he stood from his kneeling position, carrying his helmet under his arm. As he leaned back his head grazed the forcefield surrounding him. He tapped it with the knuckle of his left hand. It was not technology he knew. "If I do decide to make any demands, you would be wise to comply with them." He turned back to Atna. "Lower your forcefields and I will extricate myself."

Rovak entered the man’s field of view, having finally passed through the security between the two levels. “I am Captain Rovak, of Vulcan. I am Commander of this station. I realise that this must all seem very strange to you. We have discovered an anomaly in this star system that acts as a bridge between universes. Our sensors have already determined that you are not native to our universe, or any we are familiar with.” Rovak said, moving slowly forward, but not close enough to be within the enormous man’s reach if he did suddenly breach the containment field.

“We will do everything we can to help you return home, but we will need your cooperation. It is not our way to allow anyone aboard so armed, for the safety of all aboard. If you will agree to relinquish your weapons, we will lower our shields.” Rovak told Ramielos.

The woman Atna he had assumed may be a mutant, but to see another only confirmed a suspicion in the corner of his mind. Aeldari. It all made sense. The detached demeanour. The ears. The tells of their xenos metabolism. They must be concealing their natural psyker potential. Only Aeldari could or would create a trap so strange and pretentious as this. "And if I refuse?" Ramielos asked the leader, looking once again directly into the black eyes of the psyker security chief.

"We are peaceful explorers, we do not seek conflict. If you are unwilling to comply, your situation is unlikely to change." Rovak said, hoping the warrior would see the sense in compliance. He was prepared even if Volsunga did not.

"Your lies are feeble, xenos. Are we aboard your craftworld? Within the webway? Your skills are greater than most of your moribund kind to conceal the Emperor's light from me, but you will fail. I will not submit myself to whatever Aeldari treachery you are attempting. Surrender now and your ends need not be painful." Ramielos' extensive hypnoindoctrination overwhelmed whatever reason he possessed.

Rovak raised an eyebrow at the response. Whether through conditioning or some unseen link, Rovak perceived that the man's reactions were not his own. He did not have time to wonder about the meaning of the strange words he used. Rovak kept his gaze on Ramielos' own. "I am sorry we could not reach an accord. I hope that when we return, more productive discussion can resume."

"Mr Gaz, please make our guest comfortable." Rovak said to the Ops chief, a coded instruction to switch the atmospheric filters within the array's shielding to a heavy dose of anesthizine gas.

Gaz had the protocol ready at the touch of a button since the big fellow from across the verse first started twitching. He wished he was upstairs. He tapped it keenly. He hoped he wasn't visible from his position.

From behind the Captain, Saa watched the confrontation with silent but growing unease. At 480 kilograms, it wasn't often that she felt physically intimidated by a humanoid, and she didn't now. Still, her engineer's mind couldn't help calculating the stupendous force required to stand and move under the weight of that hyper-dense armor. Her hunch was that, if force fields proved inadequate, 'Battle-Brother Ramielos Volsunga' could lift her or anyone else present and tear on the dotted line.

Her gaze shifted to Lieutenant Thul. Cetaceans weren't telepathic by nature, but she'd worked alongside Betazoids often enough to know how to get her thoughts across. She focused, keying him into the alarming results that her scans were showing. #Lieutenant, it would take all our phasers on maximum stun to get through that armor.#

Rune slowly approached the armoured battle-brother, his rifle still in position with its butt against his shoulder. The nosal aimed at Ramielos, he did managed to get some telepathic response before he was expertly expelled from Ramielos' mind. He saw what the other man wanted to see that Ramielos expected to be mentally connected to as the soldier thought about what was missing. Then he went down the path of all that was going on was some elaborate plan carried out by their enemy the Aeldari. Could they be their universe's Vulcans?

"Battle-Brother, how would one in your God-Emperor's service prove themselves to you that they tell the truth..." the Betazoid began, that's when he heard Saa's voice in his mind. He sent back a reply along that wavelength so Saa would be the only one to hear him. #Thank you for that,# he made a hand gesture that informed his Security team that they should change their weapons to max stun just before he did so himself.

"Even as you speak of truth and His Holy Name you ready your weapons to fell me." Ramielos said, inhaling deeply, a process that took significantly longer than most humanoids as a result of his enormous lungs. "Your chemical weapons would not pass as adolescent narcotics on Fenris. I hope your sacred sword is made of sterner stuff." With slow and deliberate movements, he reattached his helmet. When he stood upright, it grazed the apex of the egg-shaped shield, lighting him like a halo.

He reached one enormous hand around to his back, where a large auxiliary equipment 'backpack' was affixed. He pressed in a round metallic protrusion about as thick as one of his fingers, and it withdrew into the pack, before extending outward as a short spike at the lower outward face. If it was a weapon it wasn't a very impressive one. He drew his hand back around and struck the forcefield in front of him hard with his fist.

The shield visibly distorted. "Hazmat shield down to 77%." Gaz announced.

"Oh to the hell of inside-out salting with this, call me when this is resolved." Ambassador Velt said to all in the upper observation area, moving towards the door with haste.

Alex couldn't blame the ambassador for leaving. She wanted to do like Rovak and get down there, but if things went south, she knew her responsibility was to get to safety and maintain command. She remained where she was.

Atna looked back to the alcove to her right, where Thari was watching, looking less than certain about staying. She crossed the room to her quickly, drawing her phaser and backing up to the asari. "You should go. You can continue monitoring remotely." Atna told Dr T'Zor.

"I can't leave you all here. I can -" T'Zor tried to say when Atna interrupted her.

"For all your skills and knowledge, you are a civilian, this is not your place."

"I've been drilling in ranged and close-quarters combat for twice as long as you've been alive." Intharia told her.

"Thari. Please." Atna said, gently putting her hand around Intharia's.

The gesture somehow swayed her. Without another word, Dr T'Zor ran across the room, past the other side of the array and out past Chief Gaz.

"Chief, activate secondary and tertiary hazard shielding." Rovak instructed Gaz.

"Aye, Captain." Gaz said, bringing both up eagerly, and rerouting enough power to keep them going. They were still within safety margins, but his inner pessimist was grumbling.

"SubCommander, increase gravity within the confinement array to 10 times standard." Rovak instructed Saa, without taking his eyes off Volsunga.

The Cetacean acknowledged automatically, manipulators deploying in concert with her sonar beam. In the floor beneath the prisoner, superconducting stators of thoronium arkenide spun up, quickly reaching ten times their normal RPM, generating a punishing graviton stream weighing him down to the deck.

"Lieutenant, please stand by in the event that the shields should fail." Rovak said, conscious of keeping his hand away from the weapon on his hip, but quite acutely aware of its presence.

"Sir, we can fire through the field as an option." Rune offered but added a moment later. "Aye sir," he gestured for the Security team to prepare to fire and at what looked like key joint areas that are facing each team member. It was a way to make it that no matter what Ramielos did, at least several beams will impact him.

He wondered how quickly he could reconfigure the forcefield emitter to conduct a magneton flash powerful enough to knock Ramielos out. He decided to let Saa know about the idea hopeful that he'd get the time to suggest it to the Captain once Saa was ready.

#SubCommander Saa, could you prep a Magneton Flash Scan from the Containment Array's Sensors to bounce inside the forcefield, it may take a moment but it has been known to disorientate individuals. I feel that if we use anything electromagnetic could recharge his suit.# Rune explained in his thoughts as he adjusted his stance to a wider one and bent his knees ready to fire.

He didn't say anything as it seemed no matter what he said Ramielos probably won't listen anymore.

Saa's airmouth opened to speak, before she caught herself and thought-voiced instead. #A... a what? Nevermind,# she quickly corrected, #I see what you mean.# It was a completely improper procedure, but it might work.

Ramielos sagged as the gravity seemed to thicken the air all around him. He had strength enough to lift one fist and bring it down in a heavy hammer blow to a lower section. He did not have the strength to continue, and seemed to slump backwards against the layers of shielding. The spike that had emerged from his backpack made contact with the field. He lay there almost motionlessly as the shield flickered against the weight of him.

Gaz's eyes widened as the powerflow suddenly grew by orders of magnitude. "Captain, the shields are now drawing significantly more power. We're going to need to start shutting down non-essentials stationwide unless there's another reactor active somewhere I don't know about."

Atna noticed the same thing on her own readings that she monitored from cover, phaser ready. Was he somehow drawing power from the shields? Surely not, she told herself. Such a thing was impossible without simply burning out the entire system.

"You can link with shuttles and auxiliary crafts for their power," Rune offered to the Chief Operations Officer.

"Not at the drop of a hat we can't, sir, and not with this patchwork power system that's already about to fail." Gaz told Thul.

Alex was relaying everything back to Lieutenant Onda in Ops, presently in command of the CIC. They were all watching intently there on the main screen.

"Expand the shields beyond the array borders." Rovak instructed. Damage to the sensitive equipment within was an acceptable price to pay if it kept them safe and prevented the power grid from destabilising.

"Aye, sir." Gaz said, expanding the internal volume of the shielded area.

As the shield expanded Battle-Brother Volsunga was lowered gradually against the array floor, his head and upper shoulders resting against the outer array, the weight already causing them to depress against him. Slowly, he managed to right himself by pushing against the array, leaving massive dents where his hands made contact. Up on his feet once more, he swayed like he could collapse at any moment. With an upswing of strength, he lifted his fist in the air, and brought it down as hard as he could manage into the floor plating beneath him, aided by the artificial gravity.

A loud crash and sudden darkness followed. "EPS failure!" Gaz called out with some urgency as the red emergency lights kicked in. He ran towards the wall where he recollected he could find a hardwired engineering terminal. He tapped at it furiously, looking continuously backwards to where everyone else's attention was focused inbetween inputs. They had lost power in this half of the dock. The station-facing side was still active, but there was extensive rerouting to do to get anything more than lights back.

There was a sound of shorting and failing systems, smoke obscured Ramielos' position. The sounds within stopped as the last dregs of power were consumed. Suddenly another humming noise kicked in. A whirring sound of something powering up, a heavy, impossibly complex system well beyond the technology of Starfleet. From within the smoking central point of the array, two glowing red eyes emerged, as a fully powered suit of primaris armour arose, backup batteries recharged well enough by the auxiliary power spike to trigger the microfusion reactor within.

"FOR THE EMPEROR!" Volsunga called out, his voice magnified and deepened to a terrifying battlecry.

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