Season 4: Episode 13 TBR063 – “Envoy”

 

The Potemkin, while on an overlay at Starbase 364 received orders to investigate energy patterns indicating a connection to Tilikaal technology. To this end they were given permission to break the speed limit and race to the Dysathus system. Why the rush? Well that would be due to the proximity to the Romulan border. Historical records also show that these readings are the same as those encountered by the USS Lexington 130 years ago in a system that was light years away.

 

As the Potemkin races towards the Dysathus system the bridge crew reviews the information that they have. The system and surrounding space, while being close to Federation and Romulan space is in fact neutral. The proximity to two major powers has led to the region being used by independent traders as a way to skip past border and customs checks.

 

The long range probes had detected life forms, ships and equipment on and below the surface. The probe ruled out Federation, Klingon and Romulan and it is believed to be a civilian outpost or mining operation. Navigational difficulties were encountered, but were common anomalies encountered throughout the expanse. In addition to the ‘normal’ anomalies was a dense asteroid belt between the third and forth planets which will pose a problem for a ship the size of the Potemkin as she navigates through.

 

The probe was unable to lock down the location of the gravimetric distortions but has narrowed it down and plotted a search grid for the more powerful sensors of the Potemkin.

 

Just a few short hours later the Potemkin drops to transitions back to real space at the edge of the system. Engineering and Sciences reconfigure the sensors to better cut through the interference as the ship makes its way further in system, towards the unusually dense asteroid field. As their excellent pilot maneuvers the big ship through the field sensors pick up what appears to be a crashed ship on one of the larger rocks, as they near the vessel sensor show that the crashed ship is a civilian freighter of Rigellian design. The ship has been badly damaged, including life support with one life sign. An Orion.

 

The Pilot says that they had been hired by a mining guild to transport them to the second planet. While uninjured the Orion’s ship is beyond repair and so the crew would take them to the second planet where they could contact further help, they were unwilling to do so from the Potemkin. Most likely from distrust of the fleet in general!

 

As the Potemkin nears the second planet, sensors pinpoint a camp less than a kilometer from the coast of an inland sea in the planet’s northern polar region. Located some distance from a collection of temporary structures is an Orion shuttle and an assortment of drilling and mining equipment. Embedded into the rock and ice is a truly massive structure; this is the source of the gravimetric readings. Sensors also show humanoid life forms operating a submersible near the buried structure and a drilling beam appears to be in use in clearing the rock and ice from around the structure.

 

Upon opening a channel with the privateers Pax speaks with E’loruul, an Orion woman who is most annoyed that she is being contacted, and contacted by starfleet at that! However, she is grateful that the Potemkin had rescued their wayward pilot. Before either side could continue the ship’s sensor indicated a disturbance and suggested that the submersible was in some kind of distress.

 

With transporters being unsafe to use while this gravimetric interference is active a shuttle craft would be better prepared and the better choice for the away team to take.

 

As they near they have the opportunity to help the submersible, using the shuttle’s tractor beam they are able to drag the Orion craft up and out the water placing it on the shore. There is a lot of turbulence within the water around the structure. No sooner had they landed and departed the shuttle than they noticed that the impossible was happening. The seemingly immovable towering structure was stabbing up into the sky. The whole building was rising from its resting place from half a kilometer of rock and ice!

 

While the Orions stood dumbfounded by this revelation the away team immediately started to scan the building. From their combined scans they can tell that it is of Iconian origin and is at least as old as the Tilikaal structures that they had come across so far, furthermore the entire building seems to be inert. As the building settles their tricorders show that the gravimetric interference is disappearing rapidly before disappearing completely. Although their scans, even those aboard the Potemkin are unable to penetrate the Iconion structure, an entrance is discovered.

 

As it looks like a fight might break out between the Orions and the away team, vibrations from the building draw everyone’s attention. Renewed energy readings are detected and life signs, Vulcan life signs are detected at the entrance! A Vulcan woman emerges from the structure wearing the blue uniform of Starfleet Sciences… from over 100 years before!

 

The away team rush to meet with her, she identifies herself as Lieutenant T’rhyn, a junior Science Officer aboard the Starship Lexington, a ship that was in service more than 100 years before. Ships records state that T’rhyn was MIA after entering a structure on a world in the Madrigal system. T’rhyn says that it had been just a few days since she entered the Iconion building. 

 

After speaking with Pax on the Potemkin the away team enters and is led by Lieutenant T’rhyn. She calls the structure the Locus and leads them into another construct which is about the size of a family home, which T’rhyn calls the Oracle.

 

The room contains Iconion glyphs in the form of a star map, with T’rhyn’s help the away team reconfigure their tricorders and with help from the ship’s computer are able to translate the glyphs. They represent locations around the Shackleton Expanse and other isolated areas of the Galaxy where caches of Tilikaal physical bodies may be stored in stasis.

 

“Once activated, the Oracle can interface with the Locus and its companions, connecting them to a network created by the Tilikaal to link the pocket universe to which the Tilikaal transferred their aderi. In theory, this network can allow the Tilikaal to return to this universe and their physical forms.”

 

The away team continued to translate the symbols and discovered that the Iconians began planning, eons ago after their initial encounters with the Tilikaal and understanding the hazard of transfering from a physical body to a non-corporeal existence. The Iconians feared what would happen if the Tilikaal’s aderi continued to suffer even while continuing to master their mental abilities. They saw only one course of action, to return their aderi back to their bodies. However, before they could finish this task they suffered their own trails and their civilization eventually disappeared. All Iconian technology went dormant, activating a series of measures to keep it hidden. Until now, apparently.

Given how valued the Oracle was constructed with a means of jumping at random intervals and with arbitrary destinations in space and time. The last time it was encountered was in 2269 and the database shows a host of jumps across thousands of years.

 

Pax warns the away team that the structures last burst of power was a form of a communications burst and Narendra Station’s long-range sensors have reported increased activity in Tilikaal structures and sites throughout the Expanse. Whatever it did it is likely that anyone with any interest in the region will have ‘heard’ the signal!