Lazarus
Fleet Captain
Hi all, I'd like to share with you the inaugural part of what I hope will develop into an interesting and enjoyable story involving the characters and universe from Star Trek Voyager. Have a read and tell me what you think! Thanks!
Watchtower
Chakotay blew out a long breath, watching as the moisture briefly sublimated upon contact with the cold visor of his helmet before being removed by the atmospheric systems of his environmental suit.
It occurred to him that despite the thirty-five years that had passed since his first experience of donning a pressurised garment as a freshman at Starfleet Academy for the required zero-gravity acclimatisation and training regime, Starfleet's EVA suits had changed very little. Admittedly the technology that the latest suits now incorporated meant that they were unquestionably safer and more reliable than every before, able to operate for anything up to twenty-four hours in total vacuum, but they were still claustrophobic, uncomfortable and, to Chakotay's mind, far too warm and humid after only a few hours of use.
But the most unsettling aspect of going EVA for Chakotay had always been the silence. In the vacuum of space no sound could be heard other than his own heavy breathing and the hum of environmental systems circulating air throughout the insulated fabric of the spacesuit.
As a result of his adversity to it, Chakotay had always made it something of a guiding principle that he would never engage in such extra vehicular activities unless it was absolutely essential.
Less than an hour earlier, standing in the EVA staging area, he'd postulated that surely in an era of subspace telescopes that could observe stellar phenomena half a galaxy away in astonishing detail, of starship sensors able to scan a person standing on the surface of a planet down to the quantum level from orbit, of artificial-intelligence guided probes sent to explore the galaxy for years on end before reporting back with their findings, there was no longer a need for fragile humanoids to struggle into ill-fitting pressurised suits and explore the hostile vacuum in person?
But as the lights mounted on Chakotay's helmet picked out two identically-attired figures moving in slow leaps across the rocky surface of the massive asteroid, he concluded that once again fate had conspired to present him with a situation where all the advanced technology of a 24th century Starfleet vessel required the assistance of three men in spacesuits.
"I can't believe we're having to go to all this trouble to open a closed door," Daniel Byrd grumbled, the mild annoyance in his tone carrying clearly over the open comlink between himself, the ship and the other two members of the away team.
Chakotay smiled as he took another flying-leap in the low-gravity of the asteroid, his heavy boots kicking up a small cloud of chalky regolith as he took flight before lightly touching down five meters from where he'd begun.
As a precaution Chakotay had chosen a beam-down site a healthy distance from their objective, so that any foreseeable difficulty the team may encounter could be identified early enough that they could be beamed back to the safety of the ship at a moment's notice.
"Presumably you consider such a task to be an inefficient use of your undoubted talents," came the sarcastic reply of the Vulcan Farad, the remaining member of the party.
"Danny doesn't consider anything less than averting a warp-core breach to be an effective use of his talents," Harry Kim transmitted jokingly, observing the away-team's progress from the bridge of the spacecraft that hung in space a kilometre above their heads.
Chakotay watched as one of the fingers on one of Byrd's gloved hands extended, aimed squarely at the starship whose seldom-used searchlights illuminated their progress across the surface.
"I saw that," Kim called down the comlink.
"You were meant to," Byrd shot back without missing a beat. "It's all well and good sitting up there in your ivory tower, sipping tea and watching from a safe distance while I'm down here putting my life on the line in the name of exploration."
"Actually it's coffee," Kim told him matter-of-factly. "And someone has to stay up here and run things while you're off unlocking the mysteries of the universe."
"Or unlocking doors," Farad chimed in.
"Ex astris, scientia!" Byrd intoned dramatically, quoting the famous motto of Starfleet Academy.
"As inspiring and humbling as this audience with Starfleet's best and brightest is, gentlemen," Chakotay interjected lightly, a wide grin present on his tattooed face as he jokingly chastised them, "Might I trouble you all for a brief interlude given that we've reached our destination."
The Watchtower.
Standing just over a hundred metres tall the ancient alien structure thrust out of the rocky surface of the asteroid like the mythical sword in the stone of Arthurian legend. The powerful searchlights from the ship shone through its battered walls in too many places to count, and the peak had been been completely sheared off at an indeterminate point in the past. But the Watchtower's ruined state only contributed to its forbidding aura, and the equal amounts of both curiosity and dread that it generated in the psyches of the first three Starfleet officers to observe it in person.
"Would you look at that," Chakotay breathed, standing motionless on the limb of the crater between Byrd and Farad as their eyes drank in the dark, twisted majesty of the Watchtower.
"Looks like the stuff of nightmares doesn't it?" Byrd commented, his voice little more than a whisper over the comlink as if reluctant to speak loudly for fear of awakening whatever may lie within.
Chakotay saw a number of holographic indicators projected onto the lower-part of his visor switch from green to amber as the medical monitoring systems built into his suit warned him of a sudden increase in adrenalin and heart rate.
Sliding slightly in the regolith, Chakotay lead the way down the shallow curve of the crater wall toward the base of the Watchtower. In the two days since discovering the vast asteroid and the mysterious ancient structure that had been constructed on its barren surface, the Watchtower had undergone a full battery of scans from the Starfleet vessel orbiting above it, followed by an investigation via remotely-piloted microprobes, possibly the first visitors in a millennium.
The tower itself had been constructed approximately fifteen hundred years ago according to the metallurgical analysis conducted on a fragment beamed aboard. It had been built from an unremarkable duranium ore that occurred naturally in planetary crusts throughout the explored galaxy, giving no indication about its builders. In many ways, the most remarkable aspect of the Watchtower was the site on which it had been built all those centuries ago.
The asteroid itself was one of the most remarkable geological discoveries in recent history. Dubbed the 'leola root' by Harry Kim, recalling the unappetizing Delta Quadrant vegetable that Neelix had once introduced to Voyager's hydroponics bay, the asteroid was over fifty kilometres in length, twenty-five in width and fifteen kilometres deep. But while far larger asteroids could be found in almost every planetary system every visited by a Starfleet vessel, the 'leola root' had one defining characteristic that made it incomparably different.
It was neutronium.
Usually found within the cores of neutron stars, neutronium was the densest material yet to be encountered by Federation science and was virtually impenetrable to current sensor technology. For centuries the Federation's greatest minds had strived to create the substance artificially, neutronium's invulnerability to both sensors and any known weapons providing an almost irresistible lure. But despite massive amounts of resources directed at achieving their goal, success continued to elude them.
And yet the colossal asteroid on which Chakotay now stood, drifting through the outskirts of an unremarkable solar system in a previously unexplored region of the galaxy, was composed of the very substance those Federation scientists would pay any price to create, naturally occurring outside the savage gravitational-environment of a neutron star.
When we get home they're going to have to re-write the rulebooks, Chakotay thought to himself as he approached the base of the ruined Watchtower.
"Should we knock?" Byrd asked, landing lightly beside Chakotay and Farad before the large archway that served as the structure's only entrance.
"You go first," Farad urged him. "Just in case it's a trap."
"If anyone goes first it should be you," Byrd countered. "We've got loads more science officers on the ship. Losing one won't make any difference."
"We're entering the Watchtower now, Harry," Chakotay said, moving forward through the tall archway and into the darkened Watchtower, emerging into a circular atrium whose condition matched the exterior of the structure. The ship's searchlights still provided some illumination via the cracks in the walls, but the powerful torches built into the EVA suit's helmet were now invaluable.
The large room had two curves staircases on either side leading upwards to the higher floors, but these had already been thoroughly searched by both the ship's sensors and the microprobes that had been investigating the structure. Both had found nothing but empty rooms, many of which had collapsed into one another during whatever tragedy had befallen the Watchtower in the past to account for its present condition. One room towards what was left of the tower's peak appeared to contain the remains of what they guessed was communications equipment.
On the ground floor of the tower was a ramp leading a few metres downward into the neutronium surface of the asteroid, ending in a large door that had stopped the remote probes from exploring further.
Chakotay walked slowly down the ramp, aware of the feeling of foreboding as he descended and the smooth, unblemished neutronium walls rose up either side of him. He came to a halt a few feet in front of the large door, approximately three metres in height and circular. One of the microprobes lay at the base of the door, apparently awaiting the arrival of the away-team from the ship.
"How the hell did they carve this ramp into neutronium?" Byrd said, running his gloved hands across the walls of the ramp as he descended. "We could park the whole of Starfleet out there and fire every photon torpedo we had at this thing and not even scratch the surface."
"That's what we're here to find out, lieutenant," Chakotay said, watching himself and his suit's lights reflected in the surface of the door.
"Well I'm not sure what you want me to do," Byrd said, his helmet moving around as he visually inspected the door and surrounding area. "There's no locking mechanism that I can access. There's not even a handle. And as much as it pains me to agree with Lieutenant Farad we're not exactly going to cut our way through with current Federation science."
For long moments, Chakotay remained silent, moving closer towards the door considered their situation.
"Maybe there are some things we're just not meant to see," Farad mused.
Chakotay reached out a gloved hand and pressed it against the surface. It rippled like water and vanished.
"Or perhaps you just have to knock," Byrd breathed, amazed as the three men stared into the abyss.
Shining their lights into the seemingly endless downward spiral of the tunnel beyond the door, they didn't need their tricorders to know that the tunnel bore straight down into the core of the asteroid.
***
Your descriptive writing and terrific dialogue really brought the scene to life... and as for the mysteries of when and where this event is actually taking place adds to the sense of wonder.
