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File #14

This spire was driving Muraco mad. He had spent what seemed like hours trying to hook it up to the Communications module from the Pythagoras and had no success at all. He had done this procedure of replacing a transceiver so many times that he found it impossible to believe that it was his error that was causing this.

Maybe the spire was just not capable of transmitting frequencies on the same carrier wave as subspace communications?

Muraco twisted some of the connections between the module and the spire. "Dammit!" he exclaimed loudly, unable to contain his frustration any longer. It was almost completely pitch black in the forest as night had quickly rolled in, forcing Muraco to work impractically with a flashlight.

"Problems?" chuckled Yusa, almost with amusement as he changed back into his clothes, removing his shirt and allowing Muraco to see his tend, slim frame which Muraco had never really noticed while serving aboard the Warrior together.

"Yeah..." sighed Muraco, sitting down for a second to think. "The computer cannot seem to interface with the spire. The technology might just be too different to ours..."

Yusa finished changing, the warm and humid environment of the forest had made him rather sweaty and uncomfortable, he had felt much better once he had removed his black shirt, just keeping his jacket on. He walked over to Muraco and slumped down beside him, the base of the gigantic crystal spire behind them.

He put a reassuring hand on Muraco's arm. "I'm sure you've done your best..." he said, looking to Muraco who was looking straight on, allowing his constant insecurities to get the better of him, as he always had on the Warrior. Yusa could tell that he blamed himself for everything, as he always had a noticeable pattern of self-loathing, despite being a brilliant engineer.

"Hey..." chuckled Yusa, looking to the stars through the treeline. "Do you remember when Mewsin flew the Warrior out of drydock?"

Muraco looked to him, somewhat confused as to why he was bringing this up to him now, of all times. He wondered why Yusa was chuckling about it, especially considering the amount of work that it had caused him. "I had to repair and repaint the entire lower edge of the saucer section..." he said in a somewhat annoyed tone as they sat there.

"... Yeah..." replied Yusa, who was smirking. "But it was funny... She couldn't get the ship out of drydock without scratching the paint..."

Yusa could not help it, the memory of that event and the seriousness of Captain Greyfell and Muraco just it worse. He began to laugh, which in turn caused Muraco to start giggling as well as he began to realise that in hindsight...

...It was funny.

Uproarious laughter began from both of them as they let the absurdity of that situation take them over, allowing one second of clarity and comedy to come together in a glorious symphony which made their current situation seem less dire.

Muraco appreciated that...

However, their elation was short lived as Yusa's tricorder gave a definitive beep, signalling that it had completed some sort of analysis as Yusa flipped it open with a flick of his wrist. His face changed, from a slight grin to a rather perplexed frown, his brow moving downward.

"What now?" asked Muraco, looking over to him.

"My Tricorder has finished mapping the area. I thought it may be useful, considering that we need to plan our next move. However... this is odd..." he said calmly, keeping Muraco is suspense yet again. "There seems to be some sort of underground structure, directly under this spire."

Muraco could to his feet and looked around. "I don't see a switch or lever... there is no trace of anything we can pull."

"I think we've been looking at this the wrong way..." replied Yusa, once again proving why he was still the top science officer on the Warrior. "I don't think this spire is a transceiver for sending transmissions... but receiving them?"

"Like a door lock?" replied Muraco, his tone beginning to become more confident as for once, he understood Yusa's pedantic science-bable.

Yusa nodded, his claws entering commands into the tricorder. "Now... if I can just find the right sympathetic frequency..."

The engineering problem that had previous stumped Muraco had finally been made clear by both of them working together. The spire was essentially some kind of receiver, it would have never been able to send subspace signals and that was what caused the incompatibility with the Communications Module.

"This could... take some time..." sighed Yusa, realising that he would have to go through the entire sympathetic spectrum in order to find the specific frequency to unlock this puzzle. Which could potentially take them precious hours which they simply did not have at the moment. By now, Administrator Shon Tempest would be searching for them and they had been forced to shoot down another two shuttles.

"Try 42, 71, point 5..?" replied Muraco calmly.

Yusa shrugged, it was worth a try at least although he could not see what Muraco was getting at.

Suddenly the colossal benamite crystal spire began to shake, causing noticeable vibrations in the surrounding ground, crawling backwards in order to reveal a set of steps which led down into a dark abyss below the ground.

Yusa was stunned, he had no idea how Muraco could have possibly known the right frequency...

"How did you..?" he asked in confusion as they approached the steps downward, beneath the surface of this world and looked down into the dark abyss. At least there was good chance that Administrator Tempest would not have discovered this place. The smell alone was dank and musty, like walking into an abandoned house that had been sealed up for years.

Muraco smiled. In all honesty, he had not been sure either when he had suggested that frequency. "I saw your tricorder" he said as he shone his flashlight down into the dank, dark abyss and began stepping down the stairs. "It was the frequency of the neurogenic field that caused our thing..." using his own unique vocabulary.

This answer was a smack in the face to Yusa. His immediate response would have been that he had already thought of that and was going to try it but that would have been a straight up lie. He pondered for a second, following the newly renewed Muraco, who had seemed to imbued himself with some essence of hope for their situation.

"You're one hell of an Engineer..." he said, with genuine respect and disregarding his own ego. If anything, this experience had taught both of them why they deserved to be in Starfleet.

Why they deserved to be on the Warrior.