Today is gonna be the day, That they're gonna throw it back to you (PART 3)

Posted on Mon Sep 19th, 2016 @ 7:13pm by Captain Rueben Gregnol & Jeassaho Kea (*) & Alika Mahone
Edited on on Mon Sep 19th, 2016 @ 7:13pm

Mission: Mission 2 - Contagion
Location: Deck 4 - Corridor outside Crew Quarters
Timeline: MD 01 10:30
3040 words - 6.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Previously, in ‘And all the lights that lead us there are blinding’

"You know people die when they go face-first into danger," Alika warned, folding arms against her chest. So much for being 'courageous second-in-command.' "Boss shouldn't 'ave gone in there t'begin with. Keep in contact, don't go too far!"

Finn mumbled under his breath, "Aye, but you never live until you go face-first into danger, either."


ON::

Rueben shined the light in the eyes of the first person as they walked in through the cut hull plating, even with the light from the torches in the space the place still felt somber and the air was stale. It was incredulous what was inside the small space to the Captain, he couldn’t understand how Barton hadn’t found the space and sold the contents. The small hold was filled from floor to ceiling of all number of manner of things, from old school communicators all the way up to cabinets filled with piles of books and papers. Rueben shined the light along a shelf filled with artifacts before looking over colored potions and labeled powders that were neatly arranged on tables while large contraptions and machines he could never begin to guess the purposes of covered the other tables.

“What is this place?” Jeassaho asked as she took in the room. The walls nearest to the entrance were covered in a mélange of posters of bands, old world newspaper clippings, handwritten notations, and photographs. She didn't want to pry, but she leaned forward to focus on the closest one which, though in black and white, remained crisp and unaltered showing an animal she didn’t recognize but was connected by a thread to another and so on.

Dr. Olsam Mott, bless his oversized appetite and oversized waistband, struggled to pull himself through the opening that had been cut into the hold. He was here not so much at the request of the ship's chief medical officer, who was unofficially and only by Olsam's insistence the Bolian's colleague, but, rather, from his own curiosity. He'd overheard some of the crew discussing the event, inquired as to the time the cutting would occur, and then showed up late. He would have shown up on time as he was a very prompt person, but he was on sabbatical (a sort of holiday in his mind) and it didn't do to show up early to things when one was on holiday. It just wasn't very leisurely.

Once he'd cleared the edges of the opening, Olsam immediately pulled his Dai-Matsa Consolidated's Polarized Phase Blaster MK IX (also known as "the PPB" or "the Mark Nine") from its side holster and kept it in his right hand with his finger on the trigger guard. In his own imagination, he'd begun to think of his time on the Mary Rose as something out of the Terran Old West. Given the dangers of that time period (and the dangers of the contemporary galaxy), he'd seen fit to arm himself. After all, the hold could have been filled with trafficked sentients or drugs or Orion pirates or tribbles.

Much to his disappointment, it was just full of junk.

"This place is full of junk," Olsam said, voicing his thoughts.

"Not junk," Finn said while inspecting some of the things on display, "collectibles." He took his tricorder and passed it over some of the posters. "These checkout. I recognize the names of a couple of these bands from an old anthropology class, and the paper and ink are all right for the period. If you could find a collector interested in stuff like this, they'd probably pay pretty well for it." He'd made the transition to worrying about making a living after leaving the Academy.

Olsam looked from the junk to Finn then back to the junk and then back again to Finn, trying to see what the other man saw. But he couldn't make the connection. Why would anyone collect this stuff? You could just replicate another one. It didn't seem to have any inherent value beyond being old, so maybe it was a human thing. Humans loved old things to an irrational extent. Or, maybe, this other guy was lying. After all, he did have red hair, and everyone on Bolarus IX knew not to trust a person with red hair. (After a particularly disastrous encounter with a red-haired diplomat from Farius Prime several centuries earlier, Bolians had become culturally averse to red hair.)

"Are you sure? Are you the ship's antiquities dealer?" Olsam asked Finn, then turned to Reuben. "Do we have an antiquities dealer?"

"No... we barely have pilots I don't believe that antiquities dealers are high on my manning list." Rueben replied no hint of amusement on his lips as he tried to see the funny side to the situation but these items seemed creepy, stuck in time and somewhere in this space was a fault that was sucking the life out of the ship.

"We only need one 'pilots,'" came the retort from the opening. Alika absolutely refused to step inside. She'd seen the horror holovids. People died when they were in these situations. If she needed to look at something she could see it perfectly fine from right where she stood. Everyone's lights were shining everywhere. She could communicate (mostly).

Rueben laughed softly as he heard the woman's retort. He did need only one good pilot but it was hard to find a good one especially if he wanted to promote the crew the way he wanted. "Course we do!" He called back as he picked up what looked like a diary. He flicked through it after a moment he sighed, it looked more like an inventory of what was in this store room.

Finn just rolled his eyes at the doctor. 'Great,' he thought to himself. 'A Bolian.' He'd never understood it, but many of the Bolians he met were just instantly hostile toward him. He'd seen them be perfectly nice to everyone else, then turn to him with a look that said they'd just stepped in something unpleasant. He'd given up trying to figure them out. He carefully picked up one of the books, turning it over to be able to read the spine. He ran the scanner over it then spoke to the captain loudly enough for the doctor to hear. "Sir, the scientist you hired has just performed an extremely objective analysis of the materials binding this book, "The Old Man and the Sea." He turned to glare at the doctor. "It clearly dates back to mid-twentieth century Earth. If that's not an antique, I'm not sure what would be."

Olsam glared back. "What scientist? I don't see any scientist."

"Enough bickering!" Rueben piped up from the darkness as more people entered in the shadows of the hold.

Finn just glared at the Bolian, but he wasn't about to go against the captain. He may not have served on a Starfleet vessel before leaving the Academy, but the respect for a ship's captain was ingrained in him. There was no such respect ingrained Bolian doctors, though. He turned away to start exploring more of what he clearly knew were treasures. The doctor could go hang himself for all Finn cared. Although in free moments, Finn began thinking about how he could best inconvenience the bastard. Klingons said revenge was a dish best served cold, but Finn's temper generally kept his emotions fairly hot.

"Captain," he called, holding up what looked to be a blade sheathed in skins. "I think this is an ice fang from Andor. It's ceremonial, but still a deadly weapon. The markings look like..." he consulted his tricorder, "...early 22nd Dynasty. There's definitely a market for weapons like this." He pulled it out of the sheath. The curved blade made of clear crystal sparkled madly, catching every bit of light in the dark room.

"Is that legal? Are you allowed to just loot antique weapons from a ship and then turn around and sell them? Isn't there some kind of law against that?" Somewhere behind Olsam, someone laughed at that. The Bolian's head whipped around to see who'd been sniggering at him, but the light was too low to make everyone out properly. "I don't see what's so funny about following interstellar conventions on antiquities trading and weapons sales."

"Well how about we just check what is here and then decide what to do." Rueben decided not wanting to get involved in a debate on interstellar conventions in this type of lack of space.

Finn gritted his teeth so hard he was afraid they might shatter. The only thing that made him unclench was the thought of cracking one of them and then having to go to this prick of a Bolian to have it fixed. This was twice now that the man had attacked him with no provocation. He'd questioned Finn's abilities, professional credentials, and his ethics. He was getting tired of it. The man was insufferable, and he was getting away with it. Finn's blood ratcheted up another few degrees toward boiling.

Bradon entered right behind Jeassaho, the beam of his penlight flashing around the room. He noticed that back corners of the room were still shrouded in darkness, so he headed that way, playing the light around in front of him as he did so.

Various things kept getting caught in the light. A stack of books - honest to goodness actual books - were leaning against what looking like an old entertainment device back from centuries before. What had his friend's grandpa called that one he had seen back on Earth? A jukebox? He grinned to himself as he continued to explore the room.

"Do you think we can acquire that? My mother used to have one in the kitchen that came with our house." Jeassaho whispered shining her light on the jukebox as she walked up on the Chief Engineer. "We could have it in the Control Room." The woman said already planning on where to put it before Rueben piped up.

"I believe JJ it would look better in the Ward Room." He called a small smile on his solemn face as he tried to take everything in. There was just too much for them to look at.

Alika snorted. "If it isn't haunted by the ghost of whoever had it first! What if the guy who had this thing before us was a soul snatcher? You know, from Rugeline VI?" She eyed the rest of the crew as they continued to poke around. "Please tell me I'm not the only one who's seen that."

"No... I saw the report. I've only just left Starfleet." Jeassaho said when a silence descended again in the storeroom. "But I really like the jukebox. I wonder if it works." She crouched to see if she could get it to work there and then.

Well if it wasn't haunted this would be a treasure trove!!??? Tabitha spotted and ancient PINBALL machine?!?!?!?! Her father in his time had collected games like this. She'd fell in love with engineering because of them... She went to the framework partially covered by a blanket and yanked at it hard. She gagged at the cloud of dust but kept pulling. She looked in Awe as the blanket fell away at last. It was unpowered but otherwise looked great. It was titled. "Star Trek" dating to 2009.....

Finn swept his tricorder over the contraption that the Engineers had found. "There are vinyl discs inside. I believe they were called 'records.' Most of them are in fairly good condition. If the information on them hasn't degraded, it would just be a matter of restoring the mechanism which played it back."

"Brilliant. Engineer project Chief?" Jeassaho announced looking at the Chief Engineer with a grin. He had been looking for a group project to keep them out of trouble and promote team work in the group that they had especially as most of them had never been in Starfleet and didn't appreciate team work or command structure. How Rueben was putting up with a lack of respect from certain people was beyond her?

As if hearing her thoughts the Captain came over and looked the jukebox over. "Maybe it has some of that music your mother used to listen to?" He said fondly thinking of Lwustrexen Kea and her infamous music collection. He smiled at Jeassaho just a hint to remind her, he hadn't forgotten anything before he turned as someone interrupted his thoughts.

Bradon looked over at Jeassaho and returned her grin. "That sounds like a great idea!" he stated enthusiastically. "Take the lead on that. And I think the best place for it would be somewhere on the recreational deck. That will give us an excuse to get that deck back in order so it can be used again." If anything, his grin got bigger.

"And the bowling alley?" Jeassaho grinned more at the other Engineer.

A bowling alley sounded like fun to Finn, but he was feeling overwhelmed by the mishmash of objects all around them. "Captain, what do you want us to do with all of this stuff? Just cataloging it all properly so we know what the hell is here will take at least a week."

"Well, it'll keep you out of trouble then." Rueben countered with a grin. They hadn't found anything scientific up until now so this would be a good ploy to see how the science department worked.

"Apparently the good doctor is mortally concerned about the provenance of every piece in here," Finn countered. "Perhaps he should be the one to do all the cataloging and research...unless he'd rather keep his trap shut about how I do my job." Finn wasn't one to let things go, but he at least took a little solace in the fact that he wasn't the one who started this trouble, though he'd gladly be the one to finish it.

Tabs found a power point in the back underside of the machine, sneezing against the swirling dust. The machine blared and flashed than seemed to settle down to a low hum. Tabs was grinning a kid. "I want this one!!"! she said out loud, It would be a feat just moving it without taking it apart... She looked over the front and top, and found what she thought was a "Coin slot." COINS!!!!! Holy Shit!!!! It was genuine!!!!! It had to be worth more than the ship..???

"Will you two stop it! You can both catalog it." Rueben commented on with a sigh as Tabitha turned on a machine. "Turn that off as well." He commented on annoyed by the sudden flashing of lights when they had just adjusted to the lack of lighting and developed night vision.

"Fine," Finn snarled. "As long as he understands he's working for me on this. The man has done nothing but attacks and insult me since we got here. I don't know what his problem is, but it can't possibly be my fault. I've never seen him before coming on board. If he has issues or some kind of instability, he needs to work it out on his own time. If he's going to keep treating a crewmate like this while at work, well, you need to address it as captain...sir. Otherwise, I'll have to address it myself." He could feel his knuckles just itching to punch the smug bastard, but he's learned better control than that in the time he'd spent at the Academy. He may not have used that control much since leaving, but he still had it.

Olsam looked like he was about to reply when the security officer stepped in.

Ben, stepped in between the two combatants. "Look, you two need to quit slinging the shit around. I don't know about anyone else in here, but I am tired of hearing it." He cut his eyes back and forth, "From both of you. So, why don't you both put on your big boy pants and quit your whining."

As a trained physician with a certifiable case of mysophobia, Olsam would never be caught slinging excrement around. The ship was unsanitary enough without adding those sorts of problems to the mix. And he was about to say as much to both Eagleheart and Bek when something caught his eye. It was a small box with a front window and a rudimentary control panel to operate the device. Scrawled across the front in a font meant to appeal to children (and simple-minded Bolian physicians), it said: EASY-BAKE MINI OVEN. Out of all the items in the hold, Olsam reckoned it was the only one with any real value and moved off to inspect it without so much as saying a word in response to Eagleheart or Bek.

Alika perked up at the sound and sight of a video game starting up, glossing over the debate on 'legalities' and 'selling.' It all sounded Ferengi to her. What good did she have in it? "We should at least shed some real light on it, though. Do ya think we can get power to the area somehow? Reroute a minor system for a low-light? Hauling everything out would seem like it'd take some time."

Jeassaho looked around the space and smiled softly as Rueben shined a light on her lighting her up as she finally looked back at the group. "If we can fix the issue with the power going through this compartment i am sure we can rig something to shin some light on these items." She assured, if they could fix the issue that kept turning the power off on the ship, She was sure between the Engineers they could rig up a lighting system.

OFF::

Olsam Mott, M.D.
Hapless Passenger
SS Mary Rose

Rueben Gregnol
Captain
SS Mary Rose

Lieutenant Commander (LOA) Jeassaho Kea
Engineer
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Gregnol)

Benjamin Eagleheart
Security Specialist
SS Mary Rose

Brandon Gordon
Chief Engineer
SS Mary Rose

Finn Bek
Science Chief
SS Mary Rose