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Engineering Lab - The Artifact

Posted Feb. 25, 2021, 11:02 p.m. by Lieutenant Commander Max Wynter (Chief Engineer / 2nd Officer) (David Shotton)

Posted by Lieutenant Kiama Naim (Chief Science Officer) in Engineering Lab - The Artifact

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Max Wynter (Chief Engineer / 2nd Officer) in Engineering Lab - The Artifact

Posted by Lieutenant Kiama Naim (Chief Science Officer) in Engineering Lab - The Artifact
Posted by… suppressed (10) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Taking the box, her hands placed as best as possible on the hand prints, Kiama closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She then focused on the box and on opening it. At the same time she let her mental shields slightly down to make sure she’d be able to fully notice any changes in the box.

~Lt.jg. Naim, aCSO

The moment Kiama let down her mental shield slightly, she became aware of something different about the box. There was life, so much in that tiny amount she had let down her shields that for a moment it would be almost overwhelming with the suddenness of it.

Kiama gasped softly and very nearly dropped box she was hit by … something the moment she started to lower her mental shields. But she managed to continue to hold onto the box and keep her shields lowered.

Max would see that the lines that came from the hand holds on the box where Kiama had placed her hands had begun to glow, and spread from her hands out following the myriad of channels that traced their way all over the surface of the box, lighting the room with a soft golden glow. “You did something,” Max said softly, picking up a scanner and trying to get a reading from what was happening. “There is some kind of energy reading, but I don’t understand where it is coming from,” he explained, as the glowing lines slowly continued to spread.

For Kiama, the sensation might be hard to describe. Every emotion that was possible to be felt was there; joy, sadness, fear, jealousy, contentment and love, and many more that would feel strange to her. It was almost like voices could be felt in whatever connection had been made, but far too many to be able to make out just one clearly, and she would know instinctively that was never the function of it. She would feel that the energy Max spoke about was from her, and that the box was using it. She could stop at any time she somehow knew, she had full control, but she could also give more and open the box.

Lt Cmdr Wynter, CE

Kiama tried to sort through everything she was sensing from the box while also keeping it separate from herself. “I think the energy is coming from … me,” she whispered back, sounding slightly breathless. She knew she could open the box if she wanted to and she did want to. She just wasn’t sure if that was the smartest idea. What if there was something dangerous inside the box? Then again they were explores and if they didn’t open the box they would never find out what was inside. And she knew for herself that it would haunt her, probably forever, if she stopped now. So after taking a deep breath and focused even more on the box, thinking hard about opening it.

~Lt.jg. Naim, aCSO

“From you?” Max answered, and scanned Kiama as well. There was nothing harmful or sinister about what was happening, the device appeared to be using Kiama’s telepathic energy as a battery, but it wasn’t draining her in the slightest. It was more of a symbiotic joining than anything, but not one that seemed to be leaving anything in or on her.

Kiama simply nodded, her focus on the box and her attempt to open it. She didn’t really think speaking aloud would break her focus, but why risk it, when nodding would communicate her answer just as well.

As she focused her thoughts and energy on the box and opening it, the lines glowed brighter and all of the connections were made in the lines on the carved conduits. A soft whooshing sound began and the energy lines appeared in each corner of the box, and spread to all others. The box began to unfold, the left and right sides remaining against Kiama’s hands but they slowly ‘flattened’ out so her hands we left palms upwards, apart and the sides of the box flat in them. The rest of the box unfolded on it’s own and made an almost weightless platform extending from her hands.

With her eyes still closed, Kiama felt the box move in her hands while her hands seemed to adjust their position automatically as the box opened and unfolded.

On top of that platform, suspended by some unknown means was a slowly swirling mass that was recognisable by anyone who had ever looked at a picture of space as a galaxy. It sparkled with the lights of countless millions of stars of different colours, the arms of the galaxy curling around and spreading from the centre as it turned, different hues of colour thrown out by the stars within them and the differing gases found within. Max could only blink for a second in surprise, then raised the scanner quickly.

“There is a containment field of some kind around it,” he explained. “It seems to make the thing exist in it’s own pocket of subspace, but makes it visible to us. Otherwise the black hole at the centre of it would have ripped us apart already. This is amazing,” he said to Kiama, lowering the scanner and looking at her. “It’s a micro-galaxy that shouldn’t exist here. It would take us an impossible amount of time to travel to another one, but you have one in your hands right now.”

With the box opened, Kiama would be able to feel a stronger connection to the galaxy. There was life, it was inhabited like their own but she could not interact with it in any way. She was an observer pure and simple. She instinctively knew that their was more to the device than she knew, more she could discover about it if she wished to make the time to do so.

Lt Cmdr Wynter, CE

It wasn’t until Max spoke again that Kiama slowly opened her eyes. The moment she lay eyes on the tiny galaxy, she gasped ever so softly. Her eyes were wide and her lips slightly parted. For a while she just stared at the galaxy while she tried to make sense of everything she was feeling and sensing. She wasn’t trying to prob more. Not yet anyway. For now she just tried to make heads and tails out of what she was already feeling. It was breathtaking, almost overwhelming, and without he noticing it, a single tear was rolling down her dark cheek. “This is beautiful and … unbelievable,” she whispered, her voice hushed, barely audible. “Commander … I can sense life within this galaxy. I don’t think I could interact with them, but there are innumerable different forms of life. How is that possible? How can I hold a galaxy in my hands?” For the briefest moment her eyes flickered up to Max, before she stared in awe at the galaxy again.

~Lt.jg. Naim, aCSO

Max looked at the galaxy, and just shook his head slowly. “I can’t explain it easily, I’m not even sure that I can explain it,” he admitted as he lay the scanner aside and just looked at the galaxy laid out before them. “Maybe this galaxy came from an alternate universe where the laws of physics are different. Maybe it’s held in a subspace pocket by the device, I can’t say. I do know that it should be producing gravitational effects that would have ripped this galaxy apart a long time before you opened the box, you aren’t just holding a galaxy after all, you’re holding a singularity, a black hole. How that is possible I can’t explain. Maybe it is a variation on the technology the Romulans have for using micro singularities as their power cores? Whatever it is, it has contained it safely.”

Lt Cmdr Wynter, CE

bump

As a scientist all that Max was saying made sense. Though of course those were only speculations and there were even more questions to answer. And that was only the scientific side of things. For while she wasn’t exactly a religious person, she did consider herself as spiritual and on that level she felt deeply moved and in awe. Moving her gaze from the galaxy in her hands to Max, Kiama asked softly, “How do you suggest we continue from here Sir?” She wanted to run more tests, but apart from being worried to accidentally do something that would alter or damage the galaxy’s containment worried her, if she was honest. And since she was able to sense life, she didn’t want to be more intrusive than necessary.

~Lt.jg. Naim, aCSO

He rubbed his jaw for a moment as he looked at the Galaxy, then picked up his tricorder and tried to take more readings. There was a lot for the tricorder to read, too much in a very real way. “Well, I believe that whatever this device is that has contained it, it’s sold and safe. I’m detecting no power fluctuations nor what appears to be a power spike. You seem to have the ability to, I don’t know, control it?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I have the ability to control it. But whoever build this must have been telepathic as well,” Kiama mused and then looked briefly up at Max before fixing her gaze on the galaxy again. “Maybe I could go more, but to be honest I’m not sure if I dare to even try. What if I do something wrong and destroy this and most likely along with it our own galaxy?”

He looked at it for what felt like a long time, staring into the depths of the colours and arms that spread out before the two of them, like a pair of mighty titans looking down at the universe. “It’s frightening, isn’t it,” He said, to see this, and wonder if our own galaxy is somehow contained the same way as this one.”

Lt Cmdr Wynter, CE

“It is,” Kiama replied in a low voice, her eyes still fixed on the galaxy in her hands. “And that would be really strange. I mean, I’m standing here, holding a galaxy in my hands and at the same time I find it hard to imagine that our own galaxy might be exactly the same. But either way it raises the question: Why? And who did this? And how?” Once more she reached out with her mind to sense the emotions of all the sentient beings contained in that ball and after a few moments she dared to try something else and opened her mind a little more to find out if maybe she could hear their thoughts as well. Despite knowing that that had to be overwhelming if she was able to do that.

~Lt. j.g. Naim, aCSO

“There might be other artifacts in the collection that we found,” Max suggested, although he shrugged lightly, “although aside from some old cups and pottery this was the only thing of any real interest either mechanically or mysteriously.”

The emotions she sensed were a muddled mixture of everything, including some that she couldn’t identify from species that nobody had likely ever dreamt of. They were all there, but nothing was clear. This would be logical considering the distances involved in that galaxy, despite the numberless individuals those emotions hailed from.

When she opened her mind further, there was no revelation or great surge of anything. Just a gentle hum of something in the back of her mind as she listened. Like a room full of whispers covered by a blanket, it was there and Naim would know that each one was an individual voice, but she was too far away to hear anything except the gentle white noise of the galactic voice. What she would feel though, was a draw towards the galaxy. A pull of her mind towards everything in it, as if she could zoom in as far as she wanted, explore each arm and each nebula piecemeal. How much time this was taking outside her head she couldn’t know but in the moment, Kiama was the traveller of an entire galaxy which lay spread out before her.

Lt Cmdr Wynter, CE


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