Cool Gateway

Posted on 2025, Thu Oct 23rd, @ 5:50pm by Lieutenant Katie Harlow & Commander Cormac Situs & Lieutenant Jep Fallo & Fleet Captain Dean House
Edited on on 2025, Thu Oct 30th, @ 11:53pm

1,578 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 2 "Demons of the Past, Friends of the Future" - USS Halo
Location: The desert worlds surface
Timeline: Day 12

The hot sand gave way and they eventually found themselves in a dark cave. Crystaline formations that would take days to document adorned the walls. Walls that for the most part looked natural, until they revealed obvious geological modifications.

Sharp edges on the corners and supports that looked like they were formed seamlessly on the rock itself. The air was damp and any sounds that were made they were suspiciously snuffed out as they reached the deeper passages.

''Lights!''

At Situs's command the temporary light fixtures that were assembled by the team energized. They were standing in a chamber they labeled as C. 40 meters bellow the surface. And they were inspecting something very peculiar. Its shape was irregular and its arches seemed as if they were grown out of the very stone itself. On its surface, polished symbols of unknown origin. Traces of radiation indicated a power source, long dead.

''The commanding officer gets to name significant findings, sir." Situs announced ceremoniously "Any thoughts?"

Dean took a breath a moment, giving a look to his Tricorder. Setting it to send out a sonar ping so it would map the surrounding area, walls, corridors and pathways. Sending that to the rest of the teams Tricorders. "Yeah...I know exactly what that is, unfortunately. It's not good for anyone either."

Jalurgh was bringing in a case of portable lights and walking past the Fleet Captain. He put the case down amd began activating the mutli purpose lights and handing them out to the team members.

It appeared that they were in a large anteroom with doors leading into 3 other now dark areas...check that. 2 were dark. There was a feint blue light come out of the large 4 metre wide by 5 metre tall archway directly across from the entrance.

Jalurgh gave FCapt House a funny look. "Its definitely Iconian, yeah. What's your thoughts sir?"

Dean's head tilted slightly, "That someone is wanting to try to get this working, because of what it can do. Change things. A leg up, that's exactly what the Iconians tried to do. Bend things to their view and will. I'm not saying we should immediately destroy it but we need to be careful."

"About that...there's a blue glowing light coming from that doorway sirs?" The logistics tech said as he pointed to the archway 30 metres away.

"That would track if it's active..." Dean sighed, "Not this shit again.."

'On it' One of the security officers turned his phaser flashilight off and motioned for a counter part tonfollow him with a portable lights unit. A standard tactic, where 1 officer would iluminate a target area from cover, with the light while the other shot from the darkness if needed.

They went and secured the entrance and after scanning the room from the archway the officers seemed to relax and turn back in a days.

"You wont believe me, so you all might as well come look."

What was inside the far room, was a large iconian gateway. An active one at that. Leading to what appeared to be a desolate world that orbital a blue giant, judging by the light spectrums being emitted.


Having gone into the room so he could actually look at the portal, Dean motioned and called for the room and the adjacent ones locked off. No one in, no on out, without authroization. "Before we do anything else, we need to figure out who activated this gateway. Muchless, why there are so many gateways in this location to start with."

Jalurgh pulled out his tricorder and scanned around, the Fleet Captain was right. There was 2 other gateway to. Though they weren't active like the one infront of them. Over the next few minutes, science teams began to take control and begin their studies as the security team finished sweeping and confirmed the place appeared to be empty.

Katie’s boots crunched against the sand-coated stone as she entered the newly illuminated chamber. The crystalline reflections danced across her uniform, but her eyes were fixed on the archway — the faint blue pulse that filled the far side of the room. Her hand instinctively brushed over her phaser rifle, flipping it to a ready position as her tricorder emitted a soft chirp.

“Confirmed,” she said, voice steady but low. “That’s Iconian architecture all right… and that portal’s not just for show. There’s residual power surging through its matrix — someone wanted this thing awake.”

She moved closer, careful to stay behind the containment line as the science team moved in. Her gaze cut between the blue-lit arch and the tricorder in her hand. “Radiation levels are stable, but there’s a fluctuating subspace signature—someone’s been tampering with it. It’s recent, maybe within the last twenty-four hours.”

Her tone sharpened as she looked to Dean. “Sir, I recommend we increase the security perimeter. No one touches that gateway without my authorization or yours. We’ve seen what Iconian tech can do — and if it’s active, we’re standing on the wrong side of history waiting to repeat itself.”

Katie tapped her commbadge.
“Harlow to surface team command. Secure the external access tunnel. Double the watch. Anyone approaching this site without clearance gets detained first, questions later.”

Her eyes returned to the shimmering gateway as she spoke, almost under her breath.
“Last thing we need is for this thing to decide it remembers how to open itself.”

She adjusted her stance, scanning the two dormant gateways. “If this place is a hub… there’s a reason it’s buried. And I don’t think whoever woke it up planned on sharing their discovery.”

"Uh...maybe we're the ones that woke it up." Jalurgh said. After a few minutes of making sure the gear they needed was being moved in and the lights were set up, Jalurgh quickly found and excuse to head back to basecamp.

Katie’s brow furrowed as Jalurgh spoke. The faint hum of the gateway seemed to grow louder, like it was aware of their presence. Her tricorder pinged again, the readings spiking just enough to make her tighten her grip on it.

“Not impossible,” she muttered, tapping through the scans. “The power flux started less than three minutes after we entered the chamber. Could be we tripped an environmental sensor — Iconian tech was reactive to proximity, even emotion in some cases.”

She shot a look toward Jalurgh as he made his exit, her tone dry. “Good timing, Chief. I’d say you’re the lucky one heading topside before this thing starts singing to us.”

Turning back to the portal, Katie crouched near one of the crystalline formations now faintly glowing with the same eerie blue hue. “If it’s responding to us, that means its core isn’t fully dormant. The system’s got a failsafe or a wake protocol tied to biological readings.” She straightened, looking to Dean. “Sir, permission to bring in an engineering detachment. I want a field dampener grid around this chamber — we isolate the energy field before it does anything we can’t undo.”

Her gaze lingered on the archway again, its light pulsing rhythmically now. “Whatever this place was… it didn’t want to be found. And if we woke it, we’d better be ready to deal with what comes next.”

When Jalurgh exited the structure he arrived back at base camp just in time to to seen a half dozen Romulans beam down. None were in uniform and all appeared to have gear and supplies.

As if on cue a comment came from the Halo informingnthen that Romulans wihld be beaming down to join them.

"Prompt as usualy" he thought to himself.

Katie’s combadge chirped, interrupting the quiet hum of tricorders and the unsettling pulse of the gateway. She tapped it immediately.

“Go ahead, Halo.”

The voice on the other end was clear, calm — routine. “Be advised, Lieutenant. Romulan civilian specialists have been cleared to assist with site analysis. They’ve just beamed down near your base camp.”

Katie exhaled through her nose, the kind of sigh that came from too many years in Starfleet Security. “Acknowledged, Halo. I’ll make sure our people are aware. Harlow out.”

She switched channels.
“Harlow to Jalurgh. I see your company just tripled. Halo confirmed the Romulan team’s authorized, but keep eyes open anyway — they’re not in uniform, and that’s always a red flag. Make sure our outer perimeter sensors are calibrated to track non-Starfleet comm signatures. Last thing I want is anyone disappearing into those caves without us noticing.”

A faint rumble from deeper within the tunnel made her glance back toward the glowing Iconian structure. The blue shimmer flickered again, almost…reactively.

“Dean,” she said quietly, “we might want to keep them topside until we know what this thing is doing. The last time Federation and Romulan tech met inside a live Iconian construct, it didn’t end well.”

Katie adjusted her rifle on her shoulder, the blue glow reflecting in her eyes. “If we really did wake this place up… the fewer people wandering around, the better.”

One of the science officers on Situs's who was passing by Katie performing some tricorder scan.

"Doesn't look like we woke anything up. This gateway has been open for centuries if not millienia. These ion decay readings are pretty clear. This had been sitting like this for a very, very long time."

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