“Do we crack them?”

“Can we crack them?”

“It’s just a stasis tube, how hard can it be?”

“It’s not a stasis tube you idiot, it’s a cryo tube. Totally different technology.”

“There have to be instructions around here somewhere. They wouldn’t have frozen themselves without telling someone how to unfreeze them. Right?”

The first science team had beamed down from Atlantis roughly half an hour after the discovery of the cryogenic suspension tubes. The site of the pattern enhancers was fastidiously being kept clear as gear would arrive in dribs and drabs, and then a few more specialists in various fields were summoned to examine something in detail and give their expert opinions.

And with what was being called Hall One rapidly being populated by Starfleet officers, Silver Team had assembled just shy of the beam in point. Once the enhancers had been set up and it was confirmed beaming back and forth was safe, Waihou had been dismissed to attend to other duties across the planet and left Silver Team to sweep the entire complex for immediate dangers.

“Four sublevels below us,” Lieutenant Rosa Mackeson said as she and Ensign Amber Leckie joined the rest of the team. “Bottom one is power generation, life support, all the infrastructure of home.” An Australian drawl coming from an Orion was not what anyone expected when they first encountered Rosa Mackeson, nor her distinctly Australian mannerisms either over prolonged exposure.

“And the rest are broken up into compartments like this all given over to cryotubes,” Amber continued with an odd lilting accent that hinted at her southern Delta Vega heritage. “All in all, we counted nearly two thousand tubes on level three and thirty more on four. Guessing they were the folks who were helping everyone into the tubes and froze themselves last.”

“Two thousand on ground level, one and two give us eight thousand and thirty survivors. Any signs of documentation?” Mitchell asked. His phaser rifle was still on his person, a unified part of who he was on the mission, as compared to the rest of the team who had put theirs down, within reach, as soon as the boys, girls and others in blue started to arrive.

“I was about to ask the same thing,” Maxwell Simmons stated as he stepped up to the group. The senior science officer on the ground so far, he’d quickly taken charge of the examination of the cryopods. “These people can build an immense space station around their sun but they can’t build a stasis pod. And I’m hearing rumours the station is a giant time-reversing device too.”

“That last part is true,” Stirling said, speaking up with a carefully modulated volume so those in immediate proximity would hear. And it got the reaction he was looking for – attention completely focused on him. “The teams on the station were briefed hours before we arrived. You weren’t Lieutenant because you were asleep at the time and selected to head up planetary activities.”

“Humpf,” Maxwell replied, channelling the generational indignity of his supposedly aristocratic family. “I’ll have a word with Camargo about this later.”

“Lieutenant Commander Camargo,” Stirling said.

“Pah!” Simmons responded, then backed down when the entirety of Silver Team all straightened in their stances, just their expressions being enough to let him know he’d overstepped with that minor act of disrespect. “Besides the point. Did you find anything?” he continued as he turned on Rosa and Amber.

“Not a thing, Lieutenant,” Rosa responded for the two of them. “Outside of documentation on maintaining a geothermal plant and industrial replicators, both of which are still down on level four and are working just fine as far as I could tell.”

“Hmm. I’ll send an engineer down to retrieve it and make sure everything is actually working just fine.” Simmons half turned away, then stopped. “Oh, dismissed.” It was like he’d remembered the help was still there and needed to be sent away before he continued his turn away and walked off, back to the scientists and engineers who were again growing in number.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Rosa turned on Stirling, “but doesn’t Mitch have seniority over that pompous ass?”

“You both have,” Stirling answered.

“Dammit it’s neat having our own walking, talking know-it-all,” Amber joked with an elbow nudge. “You sure you aren’t some escaped android or something?”

“The Lieutenant,” Brek spoke up, “just has an exceedingly good memory for a human. And is well positioned as the captain’s yeoman to be exposed to such information on a regular basis.”

“It was a joke Brek,” Mitchell said, a nod of his head to the pattern enhancers. “Let’s beat it. The sooner we get back to the barn, the sooner the Old Lady can send us somewhere else tropical and delightful on this snowball.”

“Freak transporter accident Your Honour,” Amber piped up as they walked. “He called the captain Old Lady and well, these things just happen.”

“It’s a term of endearment kiddo,” Rosa answered. “Besides, I’m not worried about the Old Lady, but her Amazon. Or Valkyrie perhaps. She’s German, right? Either way, if you have to get in trouble, she’s the one…”

“All right, cut it out.” Mitchell’s command killed the conversation as he tapped at his commbadge. “Silver Team to Atlantis, five to beam up.”

“Lin, pleasure as always.” Blake Pisani greeted the Chief Tactical officer as she entered into the medical lab where a number of the ship’s medical professionals had started to congregate to go over the findings from the planet below.

“Doctor Pisani,” came the response.

“Ah, sorry, forgot, professional while on duty.” Blake nodded her head in understanding, then waved her head in a ‘follow me’ manner as she took Adelinde Gantzmann to where Doctor Terax was reviewing the most recent scans from the surface.

“They call themselves the Telarook,” Terax uttered as they approached. Diving straight to the point was his form of polite introduction after a fashion, especially when he was working. “And defrosting this lot is going to be a full-time job for someone. Someone not us.”

“Care to elaborate on that Doctor?” Adelinde asked as she took up a spot opposite Terax, looking at the Edosian through the holo tank on the table that dominated the middle of the lab.

The beauty of three arms it turns out is that one can cross their arms in a disgruntled fashion and still have a central arm free to operate a control to make their point. A holographic image popped up, one of the tanks occupying the facility that had been dubbed ‘The Vault’ for now. “Just over eight thousand cryogenic suspension pods and all of them were produced after the thermonuclear bombardment of their world. What little documentation Lieutenant Maxwell has found hints that pod production started shortly after the exchange.”

The holographic display changed to show the facility layout, its floor stacked on top of each other, heat pipes descending into the table representing the geothermal plant, and a single egress tunnel to the surface. “This wasn’t meant as a shelter, but a military bunker that just happened to have industrial replicators. The command staff kept bringing in survivors but quickly realised that life support wouldn’t cope, so they started constructing cryopods because it’s what they had on hand. There’s a rather angry spiel from a technician about not having modern stasis pod patterns on file.”

“So they started to freeze refugees and themselves in order to survive the nuclear winter?” Adelinde asked.

“That was the intent. But their own medical documentation hints at a species-wide issue with coming out of cryogenic suspension. An issue that’s made worse by how long they’ve been in suspension.” Blake brought up several hovering windows, each filled with screeds of medical text, diagrams and tables. “They made the files freely available on their computers so that anyone who finds them would be able to access them and read them to understand why their defrosting protocols have to be followed to the letter.”

“It’s a long and complicated process. We could, with all our medical staff and facilities, manage twenty, maybe thirty?” Blake’s questioning look to Terax was met with an affirmative nod. “A week that is. Twenty or thirty a week.”

“Five to nearly eight years of effort. And we couldn’t defrost a handful and let them continue with the work because they’d just be in the same place as when they started this process.” Terax’s arms unfolded, hands settling on the edge of the table. “Someone not us has to help these people. The best we can do is make sure all the documentation is ready for someone else and give everything a service so it doesn’t break down.”

“And there is no way to cut corners or speed up the process?” The negative headshakes of both Pisani and Terax answered the question for Adelinde well enough. “Recommendations?”

“Get Starfleet to send out a medical ship. Or something with larger medical facilities so they can address more pods at once. I have enough medical facilities and personnel for this ship, not babysitting a species that nature never intended to be frozen like this.” Terax’s gruff answer was at least clear.

“Understood. I’ll take that to the captain.” Adelinde was halfway back across the lab, past the other doctors still reviewing documentation to see if perhaps there was an answer they’d missed, when Blake caught up to her, walking alongside. “Something I can do for you doctor?”

“Heard from Commander MacIntyre?”

“Last report they had made some progress in understanding the temporal driver systems of the station. He should be calling with an update in ten minutes.” Adelinde had barely turned her head to catch sight of a nearby chronometer. She’d maintained her professional chill this whole time, but broke ever so slightly, offering a smile. “Would you like to come to the bridge to hear it?”

“Gives us a chance to reschedule our interrupted couples date night,” Blake said as she exited with Adelinde. “Tell me, ever heard of this absolutely horrific band Kolar Blight? And I mean absolutely, positively need to be flat-out drunk to enjoy horrific.”

“Silver One, Silver Three here.”

“Go ahead Three.”

“We’ve got a functional computer here in silo nineteen. Looks like this was the command bunker for this silo complex. And a collection of dead bodies as well. Decay is pretty extensive but we’re seeing extensive signs of trauma.”

“Three, Five here. I’m on my way to look at those bodies.” Amber said over the comm channel with professional ice to her tone.

“A take it you’ve already accessed the computer Three?” Mitchell’s tone hinted at his expectation of a positive.

“Yes sir,” Fightmaster responded. “They were sent launch orders targeting their own cities. Security feed shows a disagreement between the operators followed by a firefight breaking out. Two survivors then launched before seemingly walking outside.”

Mitchell came back over the channel. “Get all that information back to the ship and keep looking. There has to be a reason why they did this.”

“Four here,” Brek chimed in. “I’ve just found a personal device I was able to power up. There’s a saved video file on it and you’ll want to hear this.”

The comm channel was quiet, then a slight click as something was patched in before it started. The alien voice started speaking but was then quickly overridden by the universal translator.

“No more! No more no more no more no more no more!” The voice sounded crazed, angry and desperate. “We can’t live like this! A day into weeks and months and who knows how long! We’re trapped in a loop of our own making and only we can end it! And if we’re wrong,” the voice stopped, silence hung for a few seconds, “then we just get to make the same mistake again tomorrow, today, yesterday.”

“There was a banner at the bottom of the video,” Brek said almost straight away, giving no time for contemplation. “It listed the speaker as the Planetary Assembly Minister of Defensive Isolation.”

“One man went crazy and did all of this?” Rosa asked over the comms.

“There are other files on the device. A quick inspection shows a lot of similar news feed clips.”

“All right Silver, back on task,” Mitchell commanded. “Four, get that device back to the ship, let the Blues look into it. No doubt Counsellor Hu will have insights as well.”