“Paul! What do you make of this?” Sumiko questioned as she pointed toward a vent-like opening in the side of the wreckage.

Paul moved closer to what she was pointing at to get a better look before responding, “It bears a striking resemblance to the technology used in our impulse engines, but at the same time it’s vastly different.”

“I thought so too. Now if only we can find a way to get inside, we could take a look at whatever powered this thing.”

“Mathers to Commander Harrison!” came the voice of the security officer over the comms interrupting the conversation between Paul and Sumiko.

Mathers was some several hundred meters away on the other side of the wreckage. He had been exploring areas around the large craft, looking for anything in the form of weapons or a trap that might pose a danger to the crew.

“Go ahead Lieutenant.” Paul replied.

“I’m on the starboard bow side of whatever this craft is and I’ve located the source of the energy signature, and it’s not coming from within the wreckage. I’ve found an obelisk of sorts with some strange markings on it. And well…I think it might be some kind of beacon or something. The power signature is emanating from it.”

“Understood Lieutenant. I’m on my way.”

When Paul finally joined the lieutenant, he was holding up a tricorder, pointed at the aforementioned obelisk which stood roughly three meters in height and as described had unknown markings on it. Possibly symbols of the ancient Tkon empire. He could hypothesize all day, but in reality it would probably take a team of scientists decades to figure out what they meant.

“What have you got?” Paul asked the Lieutenant.

“Well sir, the tricorder is picking up an energy signature in the upper EM band, not unlike our subspace communications systems. However, the power levels appear to be too low to actually transmit any information. In any case it appears to be a pulsating frequency. That’s all I can really tell you. Here…this is more your area of expertise sir. ”

Paul took the tricorder from the lieutenant and examined the scans for himself. The lieutenant was correct. If the obelisk was in fact a beacon, what was it trying to transmit? Military intelligence? A distress signal? The crashed ship could have supported either scenario. In any case, Paul at least had enough information to provide the captain a significant update.

On the bridge, Treylana was in the midst of a casual conversation with Phil about their mission to date, and how she was looking forward to a respite when it was all over. In all her years in Starfleet, she never dreamed she’d be doing the very things she’d been forced to do over the past several weeks.

“Harrison to Atlantia.” Came the call from the Chief.

“Atlantia here. Go ahead Paul.” Treylana replied.

“We’ve located the wreckage we were looking for. We’re still trying to gain access. However in trying to find it, we tracked a faint energy signature. A signature we assumed to be emanating from the ship. It turns out it’s coming from an artificially created obelisk about three meters tall with some unusual markings on it just outside the ship. I can only assume the markings are in the Tkon language.”

“Based on what you’ve found…”

Before Treylana could finish her sentence she was interrupted by her Operations Officer, “Captain, incoming message from Starfleet, marked as urgent.”

“Standby Paul.”

Treylana pulled up the message on the console next to her chair and began reading.

• To all Starfleet Captains and Flag Officers serving as Commanding Officers,

• Effective immediately, all officers shall be on the lookout for any device resembling an obelisk-like structure. Such obelisks have been reported to exist throughout the galaxy and may function as a beacon in a massive network that controls the galactic barrier. If such beacons are found, every attempt must be taken to ensure the restoration, if applicable, and operation of the device in order to stabilize the galactic barrier and neutralize the continued threat of Omega.

• These orders shall supersede any previous orders under the Omega Directive and shall remain in effect until further notice.

• Sincerely,

• Fleet Admiral Kirsten Clancy
  Starfleet Command

Treylana finished reading the message and then returned her attention to the open comm channel with her Chief Engineer, “Paul, you said you found an obelisk?” She asked, reconfirming what he had previously told her.

“That’s correct.”

“I’ve just received new orders from Starfleet Command. We need to figure out how that thing works and get it operational again. I can’t explain it, but we need to get this done.”

“Understood Captain. I will need to bring down additional personnel and equipment. I think Forrester is on duty in Engineering right now. He’ll know who and what to send down.”

Meanwhile, Tekris, Dotan and Horom had just arrived at the caves, with their gear in tow. The open room still faintly aglow from the now cooling rock that had been phasered hours previously.

“Hey Dotan. That rock wasn’t glowing when we were here earlier.”

Dotan examined the surroundings, looking particularly at the rock that Horom was pointing out. He’d also noticed what appeared to him to be bags yet they were made from a material that he was not familiar with, “You’re right Horom, and look at these. These weren’t here either. There must be someone or something in these caves.” He said as he went to grab one of the bags left behind by the away team.

Tekris was beginning to feel a little scared. His friends were talking about very unusual things, “Maybe we shouldn’t be here.” He spoke up to his friends.

“C’mon Tekris. Just a little bit longer. I promise, we’ll leave at the first sign of trouble”, Dotan replied, trying to reassure his friend everything was okay.

Tekris hesitated for a moment and then nodded to his friends and then the three of them took off down the cavern passageways in search of more artifacts. As they began to approach the larger cavern room where the wreckage was located, they began to hear the voices of the away team echoing off the walls, albeit very faintly.

Dotan gestured with his hand to signal to his friends to get lower to the ground so they wouldn’t be seen as he discreetly moved closer to the cliff face that was known to be there from their previous trip. He looked below and saw two figures moving about below but could not make out much detail from the distance they were at. What he could see was one of the figures was slowly getting closer.

“I need to run back to camp for my bag. Continue searching for a way into that ship.”

No sooner had the words been uttered, the climbing rope that had been dangling over the edge for the team to repel down on began to move as Paul began to scale it back up the cliff face. The movement startled Dotan and in the blink of an eye, his grip gave way and he went careening over the edge.

“DOTAN!” screamed his two friends in unison.

Paul looked up at the sound of the screams and saw the teenage body hurtling toward him and instinctively went to reach for it. He managed to grab hold, but the momentum was too great and he too got pulled along with the rapidly falling teen. In a matter of seconds Paul and Dotan plummeted the remaining distance and the two became impaled on one of the sharp stalagmites at the base of the cliff.

Hearing the screams, Sumiko came rushing to Paul and the unknown teen’s aid. She frantically slapped her combadge with her hand “Tamura to Atlantia. Medical emergency. Paul and one unknown humanoid to beam directly to sickbay!” she said to whomever would be listening on the other end.

The two bodies dematerialized as they beamed to the ship as instructed. Sumiko looked up toward the top of the climbing rope and saw the dim outline of the two remaining boys hovering over the cliff’s edge. While she acted instinctively to save her colleague, her gut sank as she knew they had been spotted.

“Get me a plasma torch and two doses of anesthizine, twenty milligrams each!” shouted Dr. Brant as he frantically ran to the side of the two bodies that materialized on the floor of sickbay noticing the piece of rock impaled between the two. It was a race against time, but if Allan and his team could stabilize his two patients quickly, there was a high probability they could both be saved.

“Here you go doctor.” responded one of his nurses as she handed him the plasma torch before injecting each patient with the requested anesthetic.

Taking the cutting tool, Allan carefully cut through the piece of rock piercing the two through their chests roughly between the second and third rib; Paul on his right side, and the unknown teen on his left.

Once the two were separated, Allan and the other nurses were able to brace each patient and lift them onto the nearby biobeds. While both patients were in equally as severe a condition, and both were in a position where they could still be saved, he could only work on one patient at a time. He looked at both of them and he made the call that Paul was the one that needed to be treated first. Not just because he was a member of the crew and a friend, but because he was the Chief Engineer and he served a critical role aboard the ship.

“Computer, erect a level 5 stasis field around biobed number two and continue to monitor.”

As Allan continued to work on Paul, Treylana walked into sickbay with two security officers in tow. Even though there was no perceived threat from the alien patient, it was standard protocol to have security stand by, and given that once the patient was conscious and able to speak, they would likely be terrified given their highly advanced surroundings.

She thought for a moment. What am I going to tell this person when they wake up? They’re going to think they died. Will they think they are in whatever afterlife they believe in? The answers would not come easy to her, but there was plenty of time for her to ponder those questions while still dealing with the matter at hand.

She motioned for the security detail to remain in sickbay and then proceeded back into the corridors to make her way to engineering.

When she arrived, the atmosphere in the room was vastly different compared to sickbay. Crew were silently working away on assigned tasks, they weren’t chasing down some runaway vessel and they weren’t engaged in a battle with a hostile species. In fact it was so quiet, if it had not been for the hum of the warp core, she could probably have heard a pin drop.

Gazing around, she couldn’t locate the person she was there to see, so she approached the nearest crewmember working at the main diagnostics table in the center of the room. “Excuse me Ensign, where can I find Lieutenant Forrester?”

The ensign looked up from her displays, noticing she was in the presence of the captain and nearly skipped a heartbeat, changing her posture to that of attention, “Sir! I believe the Lieutenant is in the Chief’s office.”

“At ease Ensign. This isn’t a formal inspection. Thank you for your help.”

Treylana let the ensign resume her duties and proceeded to Paul’s office as directed. As expected, Lieutenant Forrester was seated behind the desk, eyeing the terminal before him. She rapped her knuckles on the frame of the door to grab his attention.

Matthew looked up from what he was doing, almost startled as he was not expecting anyone, “Captain! A pleasure to see you. What can I do for you?”

“As you know, Paul was sent down to the planet to survey some ancient technology that was believed to be down there. What you may not know is that he was recently beamed onto the ship in critical condition.”

“Oh my god!” Matthew exclaimed.

“Prior to his accident, he and the away team came across an obelisk of sorts that appears to be emanating some kind of subspace power signature. He requested some additional tools and equipment and said you would know exactly what he meant. I presume that’s because of your expertise in subspace field dynamics.”

Matthew blushed slightly, “Yes ma’am.”

“In light of the current situation, I need for you to not only get what the Commander asked for, but I also need you to take his place on the away team. I need you to repair that obelisk and get it running. Don’t ask why, just get it done. Unfortunately you won’t have the opportunity to undergo the same cosmetic surgery the rest of the away team had, and it would seem that our presence has already been discovered. So you’ll have to use the utmost caution when down on the planet to not make the cultural contamination any worse than it already is.”

“Understood ma’am. I’ll get right on it.”

Mortified after witnessing their friend vanish into thin air, Tekris and Horom ran as fast as they could out of the caves and back toward the town. They had to tell someone what they saw, but who would believe them? Anyone with a decent head on their shoulders would chalk it up as two teenage boys playing a prank to seek attention. The only thing the two boys had going in their favour was the sheer panic on their faces if not hidden by the exhaustion of trek back.

Dotan’s place was the closest of the three teen’s homes. Being so late when they arrived, Tekris pounded his fists furiously on the door hoping that he would wake Dotan’s parents. A shimmer of light peered through a nearby window and shortly after the sound of a sliding locking mechanism was heard on the other side of the door. Tekris nearly fell over when the door opened as he slumped over trying to catch his breath.

“Tekris! Horom! What are you two doing here at this hour and where’s Dotan?” Dotan’s father Jerok asked.

“Dotan…*huff*…Dotan is…*huff*…Dotan is dead.” Tekris finally managed to get out between gasps for air.

Unsure what Tekris was going on about and wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt, Jerok invited the boys in and suggested they sit down. “What’s all the noise?” Dotan’s mother Meena asked as she made her way down the stairs, still in her nighttime attire.

“The boys here seem to think that something terrible has happened to Dotan. I’m hoping they can explain themselves.”

Jerok paused for a moment to allow the boys to catch their breath before asking them to continue, “Now boys. Start at the beginning. What happened?”

Horom chimed in first, “Dotan and I were in the caves just west of town earlier today. We found an interesting artifact in the cave and went to show Tekris this afternoon.”

Tekris interrupted to continue the story, “Yeah. They showed it to me and invited me to join them tonight to go look for more, but when we got there, there were people already in the cave. They were looking at something big. Bigger than I’ve ever seen before.

“Anyway, there was a cliff and Dotan was looking down over the edge. Something must have scared him because he lost his balance and went over. We ran to grab him but it was too late and he got stabbed by the rocks below along with one of the people in the cave. Before we knew it they both vanished.”

Meena nearly collapsed after what she heard. Her son couldn’t possibly be dead. Tears began to roll down her face as she started to cry while pleading with her husband, “You must find him, Jerok. He can’t be dead.”

Jerok believed the boy’s story to be a little far-fetched, though elements of it were believable. He attempted to comfort his wife and reassure her that he would do everything he could to find their son, but if he had vanished like the boys said, where would he even begin? Wherever it was, he was going to need some help, and lots of it.

Matthew materialized in the cave with his toolkit in hand and two large storage containers at his sides. With any luck, he had everything he needed to get the obelisk the captain told him about working again. “Tamura…Mathers, are you there?” he said, calling out for his colleagues.

“Over here!” replied Mathers from a distance.

Matthew gawked in amazement at the large vessel as he followed the direction from where the sound of the lieutenant came. Never had he seen something look so old, yet so modern. It was an engineer’s dream, but it wasn’t his reason for being there. He approached Mathers who had been sitting on a nearby boulder, waiting for something to do. “What have we got?” he said to him.

“Obelisk here seems to be emanating a subspace signal, very faint. Captain told Harrison it might be a beacon and we needed to restore it. Didn’t catch why.”

“Alright, let me take a look.”

Matthew pulled out his tricorder and began his scans. Everything looked as expected; the frequency, the modulation, all was within a tolerance for transmitting a signal. The only issue seemed to be a lack of power. The tricorder obviously wasn’t going to tell him anything at this point that would help him. He had to either find the source of the energy drain or find a way to get it some power. He turned his examination next to the obelisk itself.

The obelisk was approximately one and a half meters square at its base. At the base around the perimeter there were several embossed markings, pictographs of sorts. The imagery was impossible to distinguish due to the surface erosion over the course of however long the obelisk had been placed there. There also appeared to be a rectangular cover panel in the center of several of the markings on one of the faces. Matthew kneeled down and attempted to open the panel but it was sealed tight. He then tried to touch, slide or turn to no avail some of the embossed markings in the hopes that any one of them could have been a locking mechanism to open the panel.

Suddenly, the obelisk and the wreckage behind the two men experienced a small surge in power. Various parts of the obelisk, invisible to the naked eye, lit up from under layers of dust that had accumulated over millennia. The ship appeared to be powering up as if beginning a pre-launch sequence. After a few seconds both returned to their previously unpowered state.

“What the hell was that?!” Mathers said as he nearly fell backward off the boulder.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Where’s Tamura?”

“I don’t know. I suspect by now she’s found a way inside that thing” Mathers replied pointing at the ship.

Matthew tapped his combadge in an attempt to contact his Operations colleague, “Forrester to Tamura, what’s your status?”

“I’m inside this ship. Don’t tell me…you want to know if I know anything about that power surge?” Tamura replied.

“How did you guess?”

“Well, that’s because it was probably me. I found what appears to be the engine core of this thing. There’s a small reaction chamber that was open on it. I closed it so that I could try to bring the engine back online but there doesn’t seem to be sufficient fuel to keep it running.”

Matthew took a moment to process what he had just heard and the observations he had witnessed outside. The moment the ship powered up, so did the obelisk. Could they have been trying to transfer power to the obelisk and then run out of fuel? Six hundred thousand years is a long time, and maybe nothing on this planet was compatible.

“I’m coming in there.”

Matthew joined Sumiko after a couple of minutes and she explained to him everything she had done since being able to get into the ship including how she found the reaction chamber. He proceeded to examine the chamber, in particular noting how in essence it operated very much like the warp reaction chambers on starfleet vessels. The main difference being that it operated with a fuel that produced a much larger reaction than that of matter and antimatter using dilithium crystals as indicated by the heavily reinforced chamber walls.

He thought for a moment. With a few modifications, he could easily convert the engine to run on Starfleet technology. It may not get the same lifecycle, but if necessary, Starfleet could schedule routine expeditions to service the engine and keep it running after they were gone.

Not being a fan of awkward silences, Sumiko politely interrupted Matthew’s thoughts out of concern for her other colleague in sickbay, “How’s Paul doing?”

“Hmm? Oh. I’m not sure. I didn’t see him. I beamed down not long after the Captain requested it. I’m sure he’s doing fine though. We’ve got one of the best doctors in the fleet. I’m sure you heard about his mission on the Hiawatha. The man discovered that the plague that was infecting the local population was actually a biological weapon. If he can do that, Paul’s got nothing to worry about.”

Feeling comforted, Sumiko let Matthew continue with his work. He contacted the ship to request the needed materials that he had not previously beamed down with and then started with the conversion.

It took the better part of a couple of hours to make the necessary modifications, but as the last of the fuel was being loaded into their respective tanks, Matthew closed the reaction chamber door. Instantly the engines began to power back up as if by design, and this time the power stayed on. If all had gone well, Matthew knew that the obelisk would also be lit up. He called the lieutenant to confirm his assumption.

“It’s lit up like a Christmas tree out here. Power levels are rising. I think we’ve done it.”

The team would have to do some more research, but it would seem that the vessel was sent to repair the obelisk, rather than for military purposes and in doing so, they became stranded. Matthew contacted the ship and notified them of their completion and then packed up his remaining tools in order to beam back to the ship.

Treylana made her way back to sickbay just as Allan was cleaning up the surgical area. She looked over at the two biobeds at her sleeping crewmate and longtime friend and the young teenage boy who nearly had his whole life taken away from him. She didn’t fully understand the readouts, only what she had learned in basic triage at the academy, but everything looked positive.

“Hello Captain. Come to check on the patients? They will be just fine. Perhaps a bit sore for the next week though.” Allan said, slightly catching his captain off guard.

“That’s great news Doctor. Can I speak with the boy?”, she replied.

“I’d prefer to let him sleep, but I can allow a brief conversation.”

As Allan went to fetch a hypospray, Treylana moved closer to the sleeping teen. When she felt comfortable to answer any questions this boy might have when he woke, she signaled to administer the medication.

As the medication travelled through his system, the boy slowly began to open his eyes. As things came to focus and the grogginess wore off, he suddenly realized he was no longer in the cave with his friends and shot himself into an upright position on the bed, in shock of his now alien surroundings. The sudden movement caused some undue stress on his now mended tissues, he gripped his chest, near his shoulder in pain.

“Please, try to relax. You’ve been in an accident.” Treylana said calmly, trying to ease the boy’s tensions.

He looked up at her and at the man on the opposite side of the bed to her and noticed they looked nothing like he did. In fact they looked nothing like each other, though there were similarities.

“Y-y-you speak my language?”

“That’s difficult for me to explain under the circumstances, but suffice it to say we can understand one another thanks to some help. My name is Treylana. What’s yours?”

Still puzzled, he replied “Dotan. What happened to me? Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?”

“As I said, there was an accident. You and one of my officers over there, were in an accident in a cave. We brought you to our infirmary. We’ve treated your injuries. You will be just fine.”

“Can I see my mother and father?”

“We have no intention of keeping you here, but we would suggest that you get some rest and perhaps something to eat before we bring you to them. Can you tell us what you were doing in the cave before the accident?”

Dotan recounted the events that brought him and his friend to the cave that night and that they were just there to try and find other cool artifacts when they stumbled across the others in the deeper parts of the cave. When asked if anyone else knew about the cave, he explained that he and his friends lied about where they were going to avoid being denied the opportunity.

Treylana listened to every word in detail and then excused herself to speak with Allan privately, “Would it be possible to wipe his memory of the last several hours?”

“I don’t see why not. His people’s brains are wired similarly to most humanoid species we’ve encountered.”

“Good. We’re going to get him something to eat. Then as soon as his basic needs are taken care of, we’ll issue him a sedative and wipe his memory. I’ll beam down with him under the guise that I’ve found him near the caves. As far as his friends are concerned, when they see us, anyone they’ve told their story to will undoubtedly think they’re exaggerating. I’ll need your surgical expertise Doc.”

Before returning her attention to the teen, she called upon Sumiko and requested she beam back down to the cave entrance as soon as possible and set up a holo-emitter to make the cave entrance look like solid rock. She then offered to take the boy to the mess hall with the doctor’s approval.

Down on the planet, dawn was rapidly approaching. Tekris, Horom, Dotan’s parents and several of the other local townsfolk had been marching toward the caves where the boys said the incident took place, armed with whatever they could find to use as a potential weapon in case whatever took Dotan was still around.

At the same time, Treylana had just beamed down just outside the cave entrance with an unconscious Dotan, memory freshly wiped and ready to be returned to his people. It was one of the few times when spending so much time trying to stay fit paid off as she picked up the boy and put him over her shoulder. Taking a quick glance toward where the cave entrance where the entrance to the cave was supposed to be, she was relieved that Sumiko had managed to install the holo-emitter before anyone had arrived.

After several minutes of hiking, she could see the faint silhouettes of the approaching mob. As fit as she was, however, she attempted to wave to them with her free hand before collapsing to the ground under the immense weight she’d been carrying.

Dotan’s mother instantly recognized him as soon as they were close enough and ran to his side screaming, “DOTAN!”

“It’s a good thing you guys showed up. I don’t know how much longer I could have carried this young man.” Treylana said, hoping her disguise was good enough to fool them, ignoring the bellowing woman now kneeled at the boy’s side.

“Tekris and Horom here said that they saw my son vanish. Where did you find him?”

“I’ve been travelling for days from a town on the other side of the mountains.” Treylana began, trying to ad lib a hopefully believable fable, “When I reached this side a few hours ago, I found him lying on the ground passed out. I think he may have hit his head.”

“Was he anywhere near a cave? We were told there were some unusual goings on in some cave nearby. You don’t know anything about that do you?”

“I didn’t see one in my travels. Nothing but solid rock as far as the eye can see.”

“Well then, perhaps my instinct is correct and this whole ordeal is nothing but the wild imaginations of young boys. I wish to thank you for finding our son. Please let us host you for breakfast. It’s the least we could do.”

Treylana respectfully declined, explaining that her journey was very time sensitive and that if she was going to make it on time she needed to continue with her journey. Dotan’s father, while disappointed, countered telling her that if she changed her mind the town was East of their present location and any of the townsfolk would be able to direct her to their home.

She thanked them and advised the parents to have a doctor look at the boy and make sure nothing was wrong, even if she knew Allan made sure of it already.

She waited a while, feigning further exhaustion and needing to catch her breath, while the others picked up the boy and carried him back to town. As soon as they were out of sight, she signaled the ship to be beamed back.

There was still much to do before Treylana could call the mission complete. Restoring her physical appearance was one of them. Before she did that, she wanted to remove herself from the planet as far away as possible. That location was back in the Alpha Quadrant.

After stepping off the transporter platform, she made her way to the bridge with due haste. There were some odd looks from various crew members that had not been aware that she had undergone cosmetic surgery, but Phil, having been kept apprised of her activities over the last several hours, reassured the crew that she was in fact the captain.

“Helm, set a course for the Barzan wormhole, warp six. As soon as we’ve arrived in the Alpha Quadrant, alter our course to the nearest Federation repair facility. I’m sure Mr. Harrison would like to get the warp coils replaced as soon as possible.”

Acknowledging the captain’s orders, the helm officer plotted their course as requested, launching the ship into faster than light speed. Now all that remained was for Treylana to complete her mission briefing to Starfleet and pay a visit to sickbay.