Stardate: 60719:1530
Title: Infinity and Beyond
Author: Executive Officer Abigail Winters
Time: After "Revelations 2830"
Scene: Parsus - Progenitor Complex
Abby considered herself to be quite open-minded, believing in angels, pixies,
ghosts and the like. However, the things that had just appeared out of the
walls, injured McFrey with a lance and then disappeared had left her quite
unsettled. Furthermore, to all of this was the Captain's reaction it was as if
he had expected it.
The possibility of finding a book with information that could lead to
revolutionary new technologies sounded plausible. It was the other stuff that
was bothering Abby - if it was just a book why did the Captain need the rest of
the team to retrieve it, why hadn't it been retrieved before and were the
strange guardian creatures telling them the truth about an adversary they would
have to face?
Alex had said they would need to trust him and as he stood at the doorway
waiting to see who would join him, Abby could feel the Away Team looking at her
to see what she would do. Putting her phaser back in its holster she looked up
and met the Captain's piercing blue eyes. The XO felt she had lived many
lifetimes with him and with a sigh of acceptance that life would never be dull
under his command Abby joined Captain Khavok.
Slowly moving forward the rest of the Away Team joined them and the XO couldn't
be sure whether it was because they believed in their commanders or whether the
mystery was too great to resist.
"Which way?" Abby asked when confronted with the choice of two different
corridors.
"Left" came the reply from Maxine. The Captain looked slightly surprised at the
CSO's prompt response but Abby and Maxine were friends of old and the XO had
hinted to the Alex about Maxine's incredibly useful intuition.
"Left it is" said the Captain as he preceded them down the hall.
The walls of the corridor seemed to gentle shimmer and the floor gently sloped
down taking them further underground. Abigail had the distinct feeling that they
were being watched. It wasn't a bad feeling, she didn't feel they being hunted
and were in immediate mortal danger; it was more like they were being assessed
and judged.
At the end of the corridor a door opened out into a room that was shrouded in
darkness and as they paused at the threshold the sound of trickling water
permeated the silence. Alex placed a foot inside the room and a gentle light
fell from the ceiling, and as the rays illuminated the room, a collective gasp
of wonder rippled through the group. The room was like an under ground
reservoir, the walls were made of a substance similar to black marble and water
gently cascaded down into the dark blue lake. Large blue pebbles had been placed
as stepping-stones that formed a path around the perimeter of the room and as
the group cautiously edged out and looked into the water it was impossible to
see the bottom.
In the centre of the room lay a metallic table, but none of the stones were
close enough to get a good look and the seemingly deep water prevented them from
stepping off the pebbles. Abby moved to the far side of the room, stepping
across several stones. She stopped when one pebble shimmered and made a pleasant
kind of hum. When she moved on to the next step the shimmering faded and the
noise stopped. Kal behind her stepped onto the previously humming step, but
nothing happened. The Captain had navigated himself to the far side of the room
and had just stepped on a pebble that started to shimmer and hum. The away team
circled the room and it became clear that there was a pebble that would only hum
and shimmer when a certain person stood on it.
When everyone was stood on their personal humming pebbles the water started to
gently bubble and further stepping-stones appeared giving them access to the
table. Cautiously Alex, Abby, Kal and Maxine made their way to the table whilst
the others held their positions. The four stood around the table that appeared
to be empty. Kal started gently tapping the surface and after a couple of knocks
a lid flipped opened to reveal a screen.
After a few seconds the screen lit up, illuminating the words "Only together
will you be able to build a bridge to infinity and beyond."
========================
Lt. Commander Abigail Winters
Executive Officer
USS Relentless
NCC-11966
========================
