In The Belly Of The Planet

Posted on Fri Sep 19th, 2025 @ 4:43am by Lieutenant JG Jenna Jade & Tessa di'Orion & Lieutenant JG Rala & Lieutenant JG Katie Kellerman

Mission: A Princess Of Tial
Location: Caverns underneath Light's End
Timeline: A few hours after landing.

The elevator opened into a very well-lit cavern rather than the torch-lit passage that the officers had been led down initially, their first real sign of technology beyond fire and sword and bow since they had landed on the world. The Tialan that was their guide stayed in the elevator for the return trip as another blonde had been waiting for them as they had exited and gestured to another man who wheeled over a case on a cart, "My Ladies, welcome to the most advanced facility on or under the surface of Tial. I am Priest Fifth Class of Skull'a'Dea Romis'e'Koves Veltran, the third-senior of the Order here and I have been designated to be your guide."

Katie leaned over to Jenna and whispered under her breath, "could we just call him....Tim?"

With a gesture to the one, who had stopped, the case was opened to reveal some tricorders and PADDs that had been shipped down. "At the request of Her Grace and your Captain, we brought some of your scanners and data recording equipment so that you wouldn't have to try to decipher our own during your visit. They have been protected from our atmosphere and are fully functional. The series of rooms before the elevator were designed as airlocks to keep our atmosphere out, and we have a similar system for when we launch shuttles into orbit." He gestured towards a truly massive set of doors that was about three kilometers away. "We used to launch our people into space using chained nuclear explosions, but we now use fusion to power this cavern and our shuttles as well as starships."

Jenna paused as she stepped around the short sword that Katie had strapped to her side, but she hadn't been given one and she knew why: it wouldn't have been proper in their society. "So you're tellin' me that this entire place would be useless if your atmosphere got in?"

"That would be correct. Small amounts we could counter, but if there were a serious breach, we could lose the cavern until we reseal it and do a full atmosphere change. We do have protocols in the case that happens, but we haven't been required to enact them yet." He was very serious.

Rala snagged a tricorder and a PADD from the case, made sure they were linked, and started doing some general environmental scans of the cavern.

Katie looked around. "Shield generators near the outer sections might help as a better line of defense," she said. "It would also potentially open up areas outside the airlocks to sensor stations and launch platforms."

“Unfortunately, My Lady, while our shields are capable of being angled enough to deflect some energy weaponry, they aren’t able to properly segregate atmospheres, at least not over a significant enough area to allow shuttles through, much less one of the Augents.” He used his hands to mimic one of the smaller escort ships that had been out there, “We are experimenting in scaling up, but the power requirements are beyond what we’re willing to accept a risk of exploding under the castle.”

Jenna looked at Katie, “We may be able to do some thin’ about that, if we can get the Captain’s permission, what do you think?”

"Maybe," Katie said. "We'd need to figure out the power requirements...and we'd still have the chicken/egg issue."

“Power issues may be able to be… Handled, again dependin’ on the Captain.” Jenna didn’t mention the ‘portable’ power generators. Making it ‘permanent’ was more along the lines of making sure it had a feed of antimatter and more significant mounting. “But why the chicken and the egg?”

"Well, we'll need to set up something to clear the atmosphere outside so that the emitters can function and get the shields up, so that they can power the shields that will then keep the atmosphere away."

Jenna gave an apologetic smile to their guide, “Sorry, suh, this may take a minute” She reached out and physically turned Katie to look at the opening, a cut off gasp from the Tialan as she manhandled the blonde, “No need for that, Feed lines to four projectors mounted on the walls of the corridor between the airlock doors there, extend the shields out to the inside edge of the outer doors. Don’t even need to have them powered on while the outside door is closed, saves power and even space as needed. Backup shielding’ units on the inside?”

Katie looked and her eyes lit up. "Matryoshka!" she said, the Russian word making her sound like her sister. The blank looks around her made her realize she needed to add context. "They're these little, hand-painted, linden wood, Russian dolls. My mother has a bunch of them. They nest one inside the other. We could have two sets of shields nested to give them protection at the door, and a bit beyond it as a failsafe. It wouldn't keep out enemy fire but it'd allow for more secure technology. If we can expand the concept, they could establish more external defense. Oh!" She looked at their guide. "How strong is the sunlight in this area?"

"Moderate only, Milady. The forests around here are double-canopy so it's only filtered light on the ground. The Eastern Reach has more plainslands than the Watch, but just out that door is the Wastrach Ocean. Go out about ten kilometers," The word was a translation, "And you have almost all the sunlight you could desire. There is too much condensation locally from the river's fall about three hundred meters away as well as the ocean current."

Katie frowned, then looked at Rala. "What do you think? Hydropower if we routed some water nearby?"

Rala scratched the side of her snout as she pondered. “Should be doable. I was also thinking about seeing if we could do something with their existing fusion power; either improving efficiency, or coming up with a more compact reactor design—or maybe both, if we can manage it.”

"Stability, My Ladies." Romis interjected, "Our problem with power production is that any larger of a reactor and we risk instabilities and that putting more in would reduce our space significantly." He gestured towards an apparatus along the far wall that covered much of the wall itself, along with a large portion of one corner of the entire facility.

Jenna nodded at him, "Which is why Ah think we should upgrade them to matter/antimatter." She referred to Katie and Rala for that, "What if we converted their fusion reactor to a production facility for antimatter? We don't need dilithium to attenuate a small reaction and it'd give them about a two hundred or so percent increase in power? More than enough of a power budget to run the shields as well as give a ninety percent increase in usable power if my back-of-the-brain calculations are right."

Katie nodded. "Scans showed a sizeable amount of lithium deposits in the ground. We could go really, really old school with MARC tech and rig up a lithium converter rather than dilithium. They could have a sizeable shield grid just with their current reactors." She looked at Rala. "What do you think? We get one converted in a day, document, let them handle the rest?"

Rala pondered some more. “That...might work. I might need someone else to take the lead on it; I, uh...didn’t exactly commit that part of engineering history to memory very well. But I’m down to give it a shot.”

"Don't worry, Rala, we can handle most of the engineerin' side of things, but while Ah can't speak for Katie here, Ah'm a bit weak on the programmin' side of things and Ah think you'd be the best person to help round out the power consumption levels again. We have to keep in mind," The engineer gave the Tialan with him an apologetic look, "that we need this to be a self sufficient reactor in most respects. And as for records keepin', we all know that Operations is the best at it, right?"

Katie nodded enthusiastically. "I can definitely get the programs written. Rala if you can get us the specs we'll need, and help Jenna and I assemble it, I can take the basic equations and programs we use and adapt them easily enough."

“Sounds like a plan,” Rala said. She looked across the cavern to the apparatus Romis had indicated. She raised her tricorder toward it, tapped a few buttons, examined the readouts. “Yeah, we should be able to work with this.” She looked at Romis. “I’ll need to get closer scans, if I may? Not necessarily right now, but soon.”

"By all means, Milady." Romis stated, snapping his fingers, which caught the attention of another blonde that came over immediately, "If you need anything else, let Dromak know, just please don't puncture any of the pipes or containers, we haven't had a containment spill in decades and we don't wish to have any more."

Jenna smiled at Rala, "Have fun with that, Rala, Ah'll go with Romis and we'll get started with materials. Katie, start craftin' the programmin' we'll need and we'll all three of us collaborate on the design. All right team, let's do this!"