The Obelisk (Part 2)

Posted on Fri Aug 15th, 2025 @ 12:16am by Captain Taiga Aisaka & Lieutenant JG Kurumi Hatanaka & Commander Jennifer Daxer & Commander Chisato Nishikigi & Lieutenant Commander Casey Washburn & Lieutenant Nezuko & Lieutenant Takina Inoue

1,408 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Preserving The Past
Location: Anerind - Preserver Obelisk
Timeline: January 25, 2397- immediately after "Amerind"

Previously on Star Trek Tokyo:

"To hell with the prime directive." Jen said, looking up to see who else had arrived behind her. Without waiting for anyone to reply, she tapped her COMM badge. "Away team to Tokyo! Medical emergency! Two to beam directly to sickbay!"

"Locking onto you now." Shaw from the Tokyo's transporter room replied. "Beaming you directly to sickbay."

A moment later Daxer and the girl were enveloped in the blue shimmer of a transporter beam. Her last thought as the two dematerialized was that she'd likely catch hell for this.

"Well," Chisato began once the magnitude of what had just happened finally caught up with her. "We just abducted a minor."

Shauna sighed. "Hopefully the Tokyo's medical staff will gave her back down here before anyone notices she is missing." She said. "And it's better than accidentally killing her.. " she turned to the others. "Ok people, back to work.

And now the continuation...

Nezuko had remained behind, the seniormost officer with sense not to go running after the small child, continuing to guide them forward in their search for the obelisk.

She nodded to Chisato and Shauna as they came back within sight, but cocked her head when she realized that Jen was gone.

"So, we may have a bit of a problem," Chisato announced as the two of them approached the group. "We managed to catch up with the suspect, but it turns out that she happened to be one of the locals- and a child at that; she's currently being treated on the Tokyo, but now that we have a local child in our custody, it's only going to be a matter of time before her family grows concerned and raises the alarm."

Nezuko could only put her forehead in her hand and gently shake it. Typical.

The ranking security officer, Lieutenant JG Nielson tapped his COMM badge. "Nielson to security team one, Commander Daxer has returned to the ship. Report to me for now."

"How long do you reckon we've got until they send out a search party?" Takina asked.

"Not long is my guess." Shauna replied. "Ok, we know how to open the Obelisk from Captain Kirks report. So let's get inside and get out of sight." She ordered.p

"Right, then," Shigeru spoke up as he set his backpack down and began to rummage through its contents. "Now let's see, where did I put it..."

Takina sighed. "Okay, what's he doing?"

"Ah-ha!" Shigeru proclaimed as he furnished a rather primitive-looking circuitboard."So! Little science lesson here; the Preservers- at least from around the time the obelisk was created- were a highly-advanced civilization who had developed and entire language around a musical scale, rather than just basic phonics like we're used to. Sound, as we all know, is produced by a source vibrating in a certain manner, which causes it to bump into the surrounding air molecules, which in turn bump into their neighbors, and so on and so forth until those molecules run out of energy. However, in order for our brains to register these vibrations as sound, they need to be vibrating at a certain speed, which we scientifically measure as "frequency." Now, what the Preservers have essentially done is categorize certain ranges of frequencies, and assigned them them their own separate alphabets. So, at what frequency a given letter is emphasized can give it a completely different meaning. And that, of course, leads to this:"

He paused momentarily to hold up the circuitboard. "This, because I imagine that most of you haven't even seen it in your lifetime, is a replica of the circuitboard used in Starfleet-issue communicators back during the "Old Science" era; Now, how it worked was that when you established a line of communication with someone, the communicators would make a series of three distinct clicks, at a frequency of around 2800 hertz; the first click, lasting around 0.116 microseconds, was basically a security check verifying that you were making a call; the second click, lasting around 0.094 milliseconds, actually made a connection to the party with whom you were attempting to communicate; and the third click, lasting approximately 0.204 milliseconds, was a secondary security check verifying that communication was being established with a receiving party. However, in a twist if fate, this exact sequence of clicks just so happens to correspond with a phonetic pattern in the Preserver language; it's basically their equivalent of an electronic voice command that opens up the Obelisk; None other than the late and great James Kirk actually found this out first-hand when he attempted to hail the Enterprise and accidentally opened up a trapdoor that he fell into. Of course, now that we're aware of the presence of a trapdoor and the means with which to open it, it's possible for us to do so on command without any unnecessary pitfalls-!"

"Unless you haven't noticed..." Kurumi said simply as she climbed up onto the obelisk. "We're on a tight schedule." She told him. She opened her tricorder and began to tap on its surface. A few seconds later, it emulated the old hailing frequency of the 2260's flip-style communicator, followed by a simulated recording of Captain James T Kirks Voice.

"Kirk to Enterprise..."

The green hatch at her feet slid open to reveal the way into the obelisk. A small and cramped space built into the ground and stone below them. "Well?"

"Well, excuse me!" Shigeru huffed indignantly at the younger officer stealing his thunder.

"Write a log later." Kurumi said in response coldly.

Shauna simply smiled. She liked this Intelligence Officer. "We'll proceed into the facility. From the report that was submitted by Captain Kirk and Commander Spock, there should be a small room below. However there were other passages leading elsewhere out of this room. Unfortunately, they did not have the time to explore them in depth. Also, no touching of any of the technology. The last time that happened, Kirks brain became a fantastic impression of scrambled eggs for a few months." Shauna ordered. "Ok, that said. Everyone into the hole!"

---

The inside of the Obelisk was at first cramped. A large machine and console with old fashioned equipment stood in the middle. Much of the walls were bare rock, yet some carvings of the 'language' of the Preservers were present on smooth stone. There were four doors that led out of the room, three of them leading to smaller rooms where computers and equipment buzzed and whirred quietly. Whilst another was sealed shut with a large door.

Shauna ran scans on her tricorder. "The primary function of this obelisk is an Asteroid Deflector. Kirk managed to repair it when he was last here." She explained to them all. "I can't get much past that door, all I'm reading is that there are multiple chambers that expand below."

"Well, surely they wouldn't put a door there just to look pretty..." Chisato speculated as she glanced over at one of the derelict consoles.

"Say, Lieutenant," she began, turning her attention to Nezuko. "This may be a bit of a long shot, but what do you reckon your chances would be of getting one of these terminals up and running? Maybe there's some kind of executable that we need to run in order for the door to open?"

Nezuko shot Chisato a dirty look, as if to say ‘have you met me?’ And promptly got to work with her tricorder over a console. She gestured for the Russian kid from the other ship to work with her, knowing once it was online he would probably know the symbology better than anyone else.

The console illuminated and Anton Kurakin looked through the different commands, the alien language not understood but at least vaguely interpreted. “I think we can isolate a frequency which will open each door, but it would need to be inputted each time you needed it opened and the process might take between ten and thirty seconds, depending on the functionality of the door. Or we can remotely force all doors into a permanent open state.”

Nezuko nodded to Chisato. She agreed with the kid’s assessment.

Shauna held out a hand and shrugged. "Give it a try. We don't know anything about this place. So try everything is my guess..."

To be continued...

 

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