The Heavy Burden of Command

Posted on Thu Feb 22nd, 2024 @ 7:12pm by Lieutenant Tracey Walker Jr

Mission: Visit to Eden
Location: Eden
Timeline: Current

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It took Trace a few seconds to register what had just happened, and he turned toward the remaining officers with an embarrassing look of confusion on his face.

Geneva Thorne arched and eyebrow, the corner of her mouth turning up slightly in the beginning of what Trace could only describe as a smirk. There eyes met, and despite himself, Trace felt a shared moment of incredulity with her. She could see him, he thought, and that was rare. He forced his brain back into gear and cleared his throat.

“All right, you heard him. Thorne, can you link our tricorders for added computing power and put them to work on deciphering this language? We can’t do anything without understanding what these control consoles do, and the last thing we want to do is accidentally set off the self destruct sequence.”

“Aye sir,” she said, taking his tricorder and linking the two of them up. She turned toward the linguist and the two of them got their heads together on translation.

Trace turned toward the security guard. “I want you stationed at the end of the ramp leading to this room. Phase rifle set to stun, and alert me if anything shows up.”

“Aye sir,” he responded.

A few minutes went by before the two women had something to report. “This console seems to be the control mechanism, but it doesn’t have any power.” Thorne said, looking around for some way to power it.

“That I can help with.” He said, and promptly crawled under the console. He quickly located one of the conduits that ran through the floor and up into the console, but which wasn’t glowing like the rest. He found the end of it and jammed it into a receptacle on the bottom, and the console hummed to life. Alien technology or not, power flow was power flow, he thought sardonically.

He pulled himself out from under the console as the Science Officer and linguist started pushing buttons on the console. “I think we’ve given ourselves access.” Stated Geneva.
Trace nodded. “Computer, can you hear me?”

“Auditory systems are operational.” It stated.

“All right, what are you?” He asked.

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Lieutenant Tracey “Trace” Walker
Chief Engineer
USS Chuck Norris