Unknown Hazards
Posted on 06 May 2025 @ 8:57pm by Commander Calliope Zahn
Edited on on 06 May 2025 @ 8:59pm
Mission:
M4 - Falling Out
Location: Loki System, Ort Cloud
Timeline: MD27 during the eng conference
1469 words - 2.9 OF Standard Post Measure
Charger. Karlson. V’rishner. Pershing.
In their heavily padded and shielded protective suits and full helmets the team members were each largely indistinguishable one from another, all four of them gathered in the back of the shuttle, encircling the sealed containment pod.
A small alert chirped.
“Auto pilot says we’re at the prescribed distance.” Behind them in the shuttle’s cockpit the navigational display showed a model of the Loki system, tracking the distance from key planets and locations, most notably from Loki III and Obsidian Command, where the population centers were. They had hightailed it to the outer edge of the system at warp seven, closing the considerable distance in mere moments. For common approach and departure, most ships were required to travel several hours at low warp in-system, but bomb disposal had special clearance to use in removal situations, just like this one.
Out here in the system’s ort cloud, a gravimetric pulse, quantum shift, or subspace disruption would be less likely to have any pronounced effect on the rest of the system.
It was time to find out what they had.
The Explosive Ordinance Removal team ate, slept, and lived their training. Everyone was fairly sure that if motion or warp speed differential were going to trigger this suitcase, they’d have been space dust already. But those possibilities had already been determined unlikely in the initial evaluation. If they had found evidence of the object having changed anything observable about its state when they had first placed it under containment, the specialized containment device would have alerted them to the immediate nature of the situation. It had, instead, remained inert.
Accustomed to worst case scenario training, they were too experienced to believe that their luck was going to last.
“Alright, boys.” Sergeant Charger nodded in her suit’s shielded helmet. She was the shortest of the lot of them. “Let’s get a closer look.”
Karlson and V’rishner, standing on opposite sides of the unit, each entered a code and turned a ratchet handle that gave a satisfying pop as the cover released from multiple seals. They lifted the top off and walked it aside where they leaned it on a wall within quick and easy reach.
Inside, the case in question confiscated from the Engineering Conference, now sat in a cushioned recess. Charger thought it looked pretty battered, the edges and details scuffed and marked heavily. Otherwise it was a fairly unremarkable piece of luggage, one maybe used to transport common gear. “Deputy Lofthammer wasn’t kidding. This thing’s had some mistreatment.”
“Possibly before it was armed.” Karlson said while cautiously turning the case straight and examining the physical attributes, looking for any interesting modifications.
“If it’s armed at all”
“You sound disappointed V’rish.” Charger’s barking chuckle was distinctive. “Let’s keep it like that. Pershing.” She called on the youngest of their number.
“Sergeant.”
“Acoustics? Rads?”
“Nothing, Ma’am. The container shows traces of Saridimide on the surface. Commonly found in industrial by products. The container walls are made of a scan resistant mineral, endocalmichite”
“Isn’t that some seashell derived thing on Bolius?” Karlson asked.
“Sure enough. Organics derived mineral deposit,” V’rishner replied.
Karlson huffed. “Went to a lot of trouble….”
“Not really. It’s a common privacy measure to make luggage out of it.” There was a pause between V’rishner and his teammates. “What? My father in law got us endocalmite luggage for our anniversary.”
Karlson snorted. “What do you have to hide?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Karlson pointed out a sonic view on the scan. “The hinges are built into the outer shell. The clasp is encoded.”
“What’s the call boss? Drop it out the airlock and torpedo it? Or get out the tweezer kit?”
Charger sighed. So far there was nothing that was screaming bomb in the explosive sense to her. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t something more to the thing. “If we add energy to it, it might contain some kind of exotic matter and backfire on us. We aren’t going to learn anything else from the outside of this thing. Let’s defeat the latch.”
Karlson clapped his thick gloves together. “We got the suspect’s biometrics?”
“Marshal’s office put it through to us before we launched.”
“Run a spoof.”
Karlson held up a handheld holo projector which reverse engineered a three-dimensional eye, hovering in the air where ever his palm directed it. He slowly moved it over the latch. A display popped up with a countdown.
Heart rates rose and the team came more alive. “Run the algo! The algo!” Charger barked.
“On it!” V’rishner had it already prepped and the device was spinning through a broad series of possibilities, first detecting what factors were being asked for, and then, determining that it was the 12 point musical scale of the Tellerite folkpipes, ran through various possible lines.
The countdown clock ran into smaller and smaller units.
Finally, the unit played a small musical phrase. It wasn’t an earworm. Just a sort of random series in varied lengths.
The display didn’t stop. The latch display ran down to zero. Everyone stood still. The meters all hovered in stable readings. For a moment, nothing changed.
A small error noise emitted from the case.
“Please re-scan iris. Identity not confirmed,” Pershing read aloud from the tiny display.
Karlson would have scratched his head if he could have. “Why did it ask for the code if the iris didn’t pass?”
“No idea.” V’rishner was equally stumped. “Guess it doesn’t tell you until you’ve done the whole sequence.”
“So it’s not keyed to the suspect?” Charger asked.
“Seems like not.” V’rishner confirmed.
“What about to the guy he’s impersonating?” suggested Karlson, thoughtfully.
The Antican keyed a comlink on her arm band. “Charger to Station Security. Need an emergency authorization of the use of biometric data on Doctor Fezzer Davit the second. Tap into subspace file. Station record is corrupt.” Charger was worried it was going to be a request that might take minutes.. even hours. “How long do we estimate on that file?”
It was only a beat until the answer came back. “Deputy T’Sai opened an active investigation. Already have it. Putting it through to you now, Sergeant.”
With the new biometrics, Karlson ran a new spoof eyeball of the Tellerite who supposedly actually owned the case. When the countdown clock restarted they reentered the not-so musical code.
The latches whirred.
Everyone leaned back.
There was an escape of misty gasses which created a fog. Through her helmet display Charger could see a complex inner device, layered in nanochip flakeboard and impossibly tiny tublets woven in complex inter crossing to various other units. It was far from a nest of lines– more akin to an awe inducing mathematical mandala several layers deep. While getting a look at it, between one blink and the next a gel began to pool in the bottom of the case and something sparked like a miniature arc of lightning.
Flickering began in one section of the inner workings and then moved like a small wave from one end to the other. Behind it the tissue thin flakeboard which had been active just a moment ago looked gray and dead, the energy seemingly evaporating in the puff of air that had been released.
“Uh, I think that was pressurized stabilizer gas of some kind.” Karlson said, looking up at the gasses already being suctioned into the shuttle’s vents and headed for scrubbing.
V’rishner whistled low. “It’s a quantum computing unit. Or was.”
“It’s too small!” The young Pershing insisted. “No one has miniaturized a quantum computer this small.”
“There are quantum computer link-ups this compact.” Karlson countered.
“Nope, this is a primary unit.” Pershing insisted.
“Either way,” Charger sighed, unlatching her helmet and lifting it off. She threw down a heavy glove and rubbed the top of her sweaty head. “I’m fairly certain we’ve voided the warranty.”
The rest of the team proceeded in kind, shedding the oppressive protective suits a piece at a time.
“Good work, everybody.” Karlson snorted, heading for the cockpit.
“Pershing,” snapped Charger.
“Sergeant.”
“Close this back up for evidence and prep all the scans and footage. Security is going to want all of it for their records. And don't touch that slime in there. Dogs-of-war," she swore. "It'll likely as not chemically flay you.” Maybe. Maybe it was innocuous and she was still just hoping to find danger to justify this action with.
"Ugh. " Charger threw her other glove aside, knowing the next duty fell to her. “I can’t wait to update Major Finn…”
