After three torturous, tedious, more-than-mundane, dreadfully boring, miserable and maddeningly unproductive traumatic terran hours of trying to find it, the three of them finally, hesitantly, reluctantly admitted defeat. They abandoned their search for a crack that had obviously been filled-in to keep them out of the broader stone chamber beyond the now solid rock wall. When they finally mutually agreed they were licked, their cave-weary commodore called for a conference. They were soon back aboard the Ono, finding a seat, and putting it closer to the onboard sensor console directly behind the pilot seat, in her rather cramped control cabin behind the old-style Ono’s Daedalus-class forward maintenance bubble that was also their only escape pod. Commodore Jim, Bob, and Zak were huddled around the Ono sensor console. They frowned in unison as they looked closely at the vibrant on-screen display, showing them a wider view of the world beyond Mount MewiddinMe, its Camii Cave of Knowing, and their top-secret three-man Imagine away team’s ultimate objective: Wittligh Zone Camus II’s now-sealed Chamber of the Open Eye Open. “It’s all been changed since Zak and I were here last, but that was twenty-two years ago,” Bob Wesley realized, wrinkling his high forehead as he peered quizzically at the sensor screen. “It looks like somebody built a building on the other side of the mountain with an open entrance to the interior, just the way the Ancient Camii would have built it. The sensors show... See it? Looks like some busy beavers have been busy all right. They’ve built an interior partition separating the OmniDime Analyzer from the console that powers it. I found the console in the larger cavern beyond this new interior wall, here. The Camii console also powers the QuinSpace Vortex that opens and stabilizes the OmniDimensional Rift between us and the Peneparticle Realms of Liberated Mind. “We’re gonna have to find a way to get to the console. All I have to do then,” Bob assured them, “is enter my security code, and I’ll have access to the OmniDime Analyzer, and that gives me access to the actualization subroutine that opens and stabilizes the QuinSpace Vortex, and that gives us access to the OmniDime Rift, but they’ve obviously sealed off the Chamber of the Open Eye Open to keep anyone from using it.” Zak answered his question even as he said it. “Who are ‘They’?” he asked without thinking. All three of them, even Zak, immediately spoke the word on the tip of their tongues. “Starfleet,” they all said at once. Bob couldn’t have agreed more when he heard Zak say: “They certainly have improved their little secret base since we were here last, haven’t they, Professor.” Commodore Jim was already slipping into the pilot’s chair. “Let’s go take a look,” he offered, hoping Zak and Bob were already strapping themselves in for the quick trip over Mount MewiddinMe to the further side and the newly-built, ancient looking, pseudo-Camii Starfleet installation where a psyonicly immature, understandably anxious, incurably paranoid Sol Three Starfleet, and its often over-cautious Federation Council, looked to save their precious interstellar neighborhood from the ultimate in galactic apocalypse. Who could blame them for not wanting to have to contemplate the super-psyonic carnage that might very well consume their terrific two-quadrant interstellar union? A Matrix Twelve Metawave projection master, like Zak and his endangered twin brother, Jam, by sending out an ultra-meta-mind triple-strength projection, either one of the Mandala Twins could easily vanquish their entire Federation Fleet in an unstoppable super-psyonic nanosecond. A twelve-power mind-flash of deeply azure otherworld light, and twelve state-of-the-art Warp Seven Constitution-class heavy cruisers are suddenly gone. Starfleet History would then be history, consumed in an indomitable disruptive blast of fiveDime penteparticles. All twelve of our once mighty top-of-the-line Federation starships might be everlastingly lost to some utterly unknown ominous OmniDimension beyond the mere earthbound QuadroSpace carbon-based terrestrial terran captives of an often capricious Mother Nature, and her relentlessly persistent space-time-mind mythological soul-mate: a merciless fourth-dimensional Father Time. Could there be a more urgent mission than the one that might keep several of their abominably avaricious Beta Quadrant galactic adversaries -- the nearby Klingons, the Tholians, the Brene, the always fractious Gorn, and the slightly more remote Romulans -- from discovering the OmniDime Analyzer and its companion marvel: the QuinSpace Vortex to the meta-mind-made Paer-Un-Mede Penteparticle Afterlife? Protecting the powerful technological metawave miracles sealed inside the awesome Camii Chamber of the Open Eye Open was the reason Starfleet put an intricately configured, complicated, cloaked satellite sensor net in orbit around a deserted and desolate Camus II. Starfleet’s invisible duotronic eye in the sky sought to continually guard their known galaxy’s most potentially disastrous, life-prolonging, possibly mentally perilous, dangerously meta-mind-expanding, fiveDime formidable Camii triple Matrix Twelve super-psyonic science. Zak, Bob, and probably Commodore Jim, too, certainly sympathized with Starfleet, but Zak wondered if Starfleet might be too clever for their own good. They built their top-secret base -- the above-ground part of it, anyway -- to conceal the OmniDime Analyzer by leaving it inside an average looking Ancient Camii building that they intentionally put in plain sight. The OmniDime Analyzer might be even more dangerous than taking Robert Lee Wesley’s potent penteparticle quinSpace conduit to Heaven. It could make a normal four-metawave warrior Klingon, lava-lizard Tholian, Cold Planet Brene, or coldblooded, ruthlessly reptilian Gorn, into a super-psyonic, ultra-meta-mind homicidal twelve-power mental maniac. Zak had taken the portside seat directly behind the Commodore at the Engineering Console. Bob kept his eye on the starboard Sensor Console. As the Ono’s thrusters were lifting them off the beach beside Mount MewiddinMe, and into the pale yellow and red-streaked alien sky, as they were smoothly ascending through the cool Camus II ethers to get up and over the mountain, former Acting Captain Zak asked a logical question. The former Captain’s Gig Acting Captain touched the back of their mission commander’s red shirt, tapping Jim on the left shoulder. “Why didn’t we just beam over, Commodore, sir?” Commander Zak inquired quietly. The covert Commodore actually laughed before he said: “My favorite Starfleet sawbones says using the Transporter will give me one hell of a bellyache.” Jim was still smiling when he added: “I suspect the Good Doctor is just an old-fashioned fellow who’s afraid he’s shedding too many of his precious molecules, and leaving them behind in matter-stream limbo, every time he hears the word: ‘energize,’” the grinning Commodore claimed. “But, I say, why take chances?” Jim offered. “I figure: it’s best to follow Doctor’s orders,” Mister 910 MacFeeders suggested, though Commander Zak had been a Starfleet officer long enough to know what the cautious commodore was really up to. Zak suspected the clever Commodore 910 wanted to make sure they kept the Ono close at hand. Zak wondered if it was a twelve-metawave-psyonic inkling that convinced him to believe Commodore MacFeeders – like Professor Bob and Zak – adored serving their glorious twenty-third-century interstellar community. All three of them were sure of each other. They knew they were unquestionably loyal and eternally devoted to their beloved United Federation of Planets. But all three of them – Zak decided – must have a healthy skepticism when it came to relying too much on the faithfulness and farsightedness of an often misguided, all too frequently impulsive, and occasionally ruthlessly righteous Sol Three Starfleet. Commodore Jim no doubt also wanted to make sure nobody else – like allied Romulans and/or technology-hungry, terran-loathing, fiercely committed, always commandeering Charrah Klingons – got anywhere near the Ono. Maybe Mister Feets just wanted to make sure the Ono was ready and near at hand, just in case they needed to make an old-fashioned quick Warp Six get-away for some awful reason Zak didn’t want to have to think about right now. He was worried about his brother aboard the Excalibur. Professor Bob was in his favorite chair, still scrutinizing the on-screen sensor display. “Starfleet did do a good job of building their new building into the rock face. The Camii used to love to build their dwellings as part of the natural surroundings like that,” the pleased professor informed us. “They obviously did their homework,” Bob added, meaning Starfleet must have looked at his homework. “They made their new building look very much like an average Camii official place of business, and they really did do a good job of it,” Bob was glad to admit, as the Commodore calmly and efficiently landed Zak’s captain’s gig down smoothly in front of the building’s typical Camii open entrance. The fabricated ancient-looking building had an inner door beyond the open portico. The traditional inner door would keep the weather out on bad days, but the Camii were fond of letting as much of their paltry little sun’s begrudging pale light in as possible. As a result of their love of light, their dwellings’ often-intricately-carved interior doors were often missing, so Starfleet decided to do the same, and not reproduce one to fit the wide-open secret entrance to their long-standing, mostly subterranean, covert Camus II installation. The weather door was missing from the inner doorway of their new old-style Camii building, too. Professor Bob appreciated their attention to archeological and anthropological detail. If the noted anthropologist, Robert Lee Wesley, took up the uncertain quest to find an actual inner door for Starfleet’s fabricated ancient Camii house of commerce, it would be another of Professor Bob’s singular anthropological achievements. In a hundred years, he might replicate one, just to keep the always icy rain off his flawless twenty-fourth-century replica of an intricately woven, wonderfully traditional, exquisitely beautiful pseudo-Camii carpet. For now, though, Bob Wesley had to content himself with being the first of his three-man Camus II away team to leap through the Ono’s control room exit hatch in the deck, after Commodore Feets opened it, allowing Bob Wesley to immediately drop down onto the sand under the ship, and moving out from under it, eventually dash into the darkened doorway where Bob would find the visible manifestation of the awesome OmniDime Analyzer: the twelve-panel mosaic and its Splendid Twelve Transcendent Deities of the long-gone Camii Civilization that survived long after the last days of a dying Fibrini culture. Their Camii descendants would survive one hundred millennia after the last of the Fibrini explorers who first conquered their understandable fear of the woefully star-deprived Wittligh Zone, were no more. Gustov Wittligh himself, who found the eternally ebony interstellar desert for Starfleet a hundred years ago, admitted that the vast star-desert that would bear his name scared the living daylights out of him. Starfleet Historians know the well-traveled Captain Wittligh was a brave man, but he modestly admitted he was terrified the first time he scanned the frightfully empty, utterly black, ominously vast, cold, silent interstellar sectors dead ahead of his tiny little warp-ship. Bob would follow in Gustov’s valiant footsteps to discover that the space faring Fibrini and their colonial-planet descendents, the Camii, believed in the same gods and spoke almost the same language. Today, two latter-day versions of the ancient Fibrini language are spoken on Vulcan and on Romulus. The proof of the Fibrini-Camii-Vulcan-Romulan cultural connection -- according to Professor Robert Lee Wesley -- was right before their eyes, as Bob, Zak, and then the recently stymied Commodore, invaded the inner room and looked to their right. On a dark wall, a twelve-panel mosaic -- three wide and four high -- was hidden in a late-day shadow, but they could all see it plainly enough. Bob would once again began explaining everything about the half-million year-old line of social evolution that -- in time -- would eventually become the long-lasting telepathic society of the Vulcans and the Romulans. The happy Professor Wesley would elaborate endlessly on the twelve-panel OmniDime Analyzer mosaic in exquisite and excruciating detail. But first, Bob proved to his covert landing party mates that the brilliant anthropologist was also a “street-wise” scientist. Zak knew the laid-back Professor Wesley was a genial fellow but he also knew his old friend was no one’s fool. His two companions nodded their heads in tacit agreement, after Feets and Zak heard Bob say: “I hate to have to tell you this, but there can be little doubt: we’re being watched. They’ve got to have sensors everywhere,” the long-lived Professor Wesley guessed. He looked up at the flat ceiling and remembered the cloaked orbital satellite net three hundred thirty-three standard miles above his ample, bright crimson, curly locks. “You can bet they know we’re here, boys,” he sighed, his uncertain bright blue eyes losing a little of their almost omnipresent, startlingly azure, ever joyful, always optimistic, lightning-bright sparkle. Bob didn’t notice but Zak thought it peculiar: Their fearless leader refused to beam over, probably to keep the Ono close. But, suddenly, the perfectly placid Commodore MacFeeders wasn’t at all concerned. “No worries, Gents,” Starfleet’s chief secret agent man assured them. Feets didn’t give their imminent discovery by Starfleet a second thought, but the Commodore was almost instantly utterly fascinated with the twelve-panel Camii mosaic. He kept standing in front of it with his hands behind his back, staring at the Analyzer mosaic, seemingly abandoning their urgent search for the secret door into the Open Eye cavern just beyond the solid interior wall between a suddenly oblivious Commodore Jim, a dreadfully distracted Zak and, as for Bob: the delighted professor stood there staring at the OmniDime Analyzer mosaic with a nearly speechless Mister Feets; Wesley smiling blissfully, anticipating his joy in relishing this omicron-rare opportunity to tell a captivated, intelligent, top-level Starfleet commodore all about it, and seemingly not noticing his endless lecture that was so very interesting to the enchanted Commodore Feets, was also sorely trying Zak’s increasingly short supply of patience, while Bob’s old Camus II comrade tried his best not to resent his old friend for thoroughly indulging himself doing it. Zak wanted to fire-up the OmniDime Analyzer forthwith, and let it scan his triple-metawave matrix, and after paralyzing him for much more than a few agonizing seconds, the frozen subject must endure several endless Sol Three seconds on stand-by, while the OmniDime Analyzer transfers its meta-mind scan to the now-hidden Camii Control Console, where its ingenious compuSystem subroutine will conjure up the QuinSpace Vortex, almost instantly filling the currently sealed Chamber of the Open Eye Open with a lovely, ethereal, flaring silver-blue otherworld-eerie column of liberated five-realm ultra-light penteparticle photons from beyond our frightfully limited, ultra-meta-mind fabricated, eternally time-dependent, merciless, marvelous, miraculous, and ultimately perilous --, frightful and fabulous -- mortal four quadroSpace dimensions. Zak wanted them all to get safely through the OmniDimensional Rift where they might find the perfect mind-born-metawave miraculous, fiveDime fantastic, heaven-sent remedy to save his brave identical brother from the Excalibur’s deadly dilemma: How to hold off, out run, or out last two indomitable, lethal, hyper-light warships attacking him simultaneously. The last thing Zak wanted their rescue party to do was admire Professor Wesley’s grasp of Camii culture. Still, an Aquarian ship’s counselor with twenty-two long years’ experience ought to understand: Zak had to let Bob be Bob. The Professor was pleased beyond words to see Commodore MacFeeders peering at every detail of the OmniDime Analyzer mosaic. A mostly silent Commodore Jim scrutinized it almost ceaselessly the whole time their Mount MewiddinMe away mission’s reconnoiter was limited to the much smaller interior room that Starfleet built with its solid walls of seeming native sun-yellow stone. The new interior stone wall that made the OmniDime Analyzer room so very narrow, now made separate what was once a wide open space between the OmniDiime Analyzer and its twelve-tile mosaic, and the nearby, wide, round, shimmering gray dais that contains the presently-inactive, deeply azure, otherworld ultra-light column of flaring otherworld pale blue fiveDime photons, and countless, dreadful, but harmless (to eight-power meta-minds, anyway) powerful otherworld bolts of ultra-violet lightning made by the artificial materialization of formerly fifth-dimensional penteparticles into a frightfully tenuous QuadroSpace. The Analyzer and the QuinSpace Vortex that leads across the awesome OmniDime Rift to the Paer-Un-Mede Pentepaarticle Middle Land Mindscape Realms of Self, Soul, Spirit, and Being used to occupy the same vast cavern. But now, Starfleet’s blasted new stone wall was in the way that was not here the last time a lowly Lieutenant Commander Zak found himself in desperate need of heavenly aid that he eventually, finally, also found when he found a fortune-favored fiveDime rmindscape reprieve, after completing his first mission with Ono Acting Captain, Commander Doctor Janice Lester M.D. Ph.D., running the show. They were able to redeem the fallen reputation of a miserly space-time-mind multiverse of long-gone maiden-voyage misery. Zak found resolution to many of his vexing questions about life, the universe, and everything, after he stepped into the fiery dilithium-blue QuinSpace Vortex for the first time a score and two home-planet years ago, and eventually found his way to Five World Four Age Aquarius Eden Isle TriOm. That was one hell of a multifaceted, multi-dimensional, multi-universal maiden-voyage excursion when Zak, on his very first Starfleet mission, came to Camus II, and what was supposed to have been a simple search and rescue mission turned into so much more, when Zak and Janice’s Wittligh Zone quest to find a missing one-hundred-eleven year-old Professor Wesley transcended all Starfleet away mission parameters, when Zak found Bob in Aquarius Eden – was it really twenty-two long years ago, now?
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:16:33 +0000
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