Puzzle Rooms - Part I

Posted on Wed Jun 25th, 2025 @ 5:41am by Lieutenant Katya Davi & Lieutenant Amy Gordon
Edited on on Wed Jun 25th, 2025 @ 5:54am

1,484 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: The Foragers
Location: The Adelaide

Kat went in search of Amy. She'd been doing a series of detailed scans of the ship and some things just didn't match up. So, she wanted to go investigating. And, since Amy was intel and as curious as she was, she went to see if the other woman wanted to help her search for hidden treasures.

Kat was able to find Any scrubbing down some walls in one of what would be used for quarters. She had one wall completely cleaned, which was a stark contrast to the wall that she hadn't done as of yet. She was also muttering, "Wax on; wax off," with a slightly amused expression on her face. The ceiling had already been cleaned as well. The jury rigged scaffolding she had used was now residing against another wall.

"Nice. I wish I could take an industrial power scrubber to all the bulkheads. They're a mess. I know it's not the best solution, but it's nice to dream of." Kat grinned. "I want to go treasure hunting. Care to join me?"

"An industrial power scrubber? That sounds divine!" Amy thinking of it with a dreamy expression in her eyes. Then she laughed. "That would be out of the question for the moment with our resources. However, treasure hunting? That sounds great! Let’s go." putting down the cleaning scrubs and picking up the bucket to send the water down to the recycler area. "I'm ready when you are now."

Laughing, Kat led her out and pulled out her PADD. "I've been comparing the scans I've done of each room against the ship specs and I found some discrepancies. I'm hoping it means that the former owners built in some special compartments for smuggling. But I want to check them out before we finish the primary repairs."

"I'm all for searching for hidden things. After all I found that booze in a hidden compartment in the walls of the bathroom. I think next time I do any drinking, it’s not gonna be on an empty stomach." Amy shuddered, as she followed after Kat.

"No, please don't. I don't want to see you like that again." Kat shook her head. "Too bad I didn't think to record it." Then, changing the subject, she pulled out her PADD and showed Amy where she wanted to start looking. "I think the floor is our best bet, although this room and this room have spats in the wall I want to check."

Amy sniggered a little bit at Kat's reaction, then turned her attention to where Katya had indicated. "We just may need a pry bar unless they have a hidden latch?"

"No pry bars. They'd be designed to open and close without being noticed--unless you know where to look. Or you did like me and compared the scans to the blueprints." She did a partial dance move with her hips. "I don't expect much, but I found tools I needed and you found alcohol, so there's bound to be something in one of them."

"More tools, maybe some food stuffs that aren't older than you and I." Amy giving out a laugh." Or even something else entirely. A hidden treasure map which will take us to who knows where." The last part was just a flight of fantasy that Amy decided to throw in.

"If we're talking wishful thinking, I'd be happy with a fancy shuttle design. But I'll settle for anything interesting." Kat shrugged. "Even some empty holds that can't be scanned will be useful. You never know when we need to look like a crew of mercenaries."

" Indeed, and that is what we are needing to look like when we spend our time on this ship." Amy gave a sigh of contentment. "I do like this ship, it has a lot of character to it. However, shall we do a little bit of hidden cargo hold crawling?"

Kat decided to start with the smaller rooms, then move to the cargo hold. "First, the sleeping rooms. I found one small space, so I thought we'd make sure there weren't any others." She pointed to the first room that looked promising and led the way. Just for fun, she checked her room, the one where she found the tools. But the only hidden spot was the one she already found.

The other rooms were likewise empty. Until they got to the last, and smallest, one. "This one should be wider than it is. But I'm not sure where the discrepancy lies, so we can each take a wall and see what we find," Kat said. "It should be something like a hidden latch or indentation."

All joking aside from Amy, she went to her knees to start looking for a hidden latch or indentation, running her fingers along the edge. "Any luck on your side?" sitting back on her heels looking at Kat.

"No..." Then she found a small indentation against the wall, almost undetectable unless you ran your hands across it. "Yes." As she pushed on the indentation, the floor below her opened and she dropped four feet to the floor below.

"I'm okay," she called. She really needed to find a better way to open the space for next time. She crawled around, feeling along the floor until she found her tricorder and turned on a light to have a good look at where she was as only part of the space was lit from the room above.

Kat was there one moment then she disappeared much to Amy's dismay. She was on her belly looking down towards Kat, "Okay glad you are alright. I certainly wasn't expecting that to happen." Amy moving to where she could slip down to join Kat in the hidden compartment. "Could they be connected in some aspect?"

"Connected to what?" Kat was honestly surprised to find this here. It was four feet deep and four feet wide, centering on the corner. But the opening was only wide enough to tip someone into the compartment. "As long as we sit here, there's room, but..." Before she could finish what she was saying, the top slid closed again. "Oh, that's just great." She crawled over to where the latch was and rose up onto her knees so she could feel around for an indentation to let them out.

"Sorry was just thinking out loud. To make what I said make sense, I was wondering if this smuggler's hold would have a side hatchway to another hidden compartment." Amy moving to do some searching of her own. Her backside hit something, the wall revolving and Amy found herself in another compartment, the wall closing rather quickly.

"Great! Did I butt dial the next compartment?" Amy heaving a sigh. She turned on the palm light focusing on what was inside there, plus looking for the latch to open the wall.

"I don't think this is a smuggler's hold," Kat said, going over to the wall to try and find a way to open it for Amy. "I think it's to trap someone looking for smuggled items. Otherwise, why would the latch open the panel beneath the person who pushed it? Try to repeat what you did and see if it lets you back in here."

"I was trying to find the latch to open up where we were at, I crawled backwards....Hit against the wall. Wonder if the toe of my shoes had triggered something. Or someone with a sense of humor decided to have it open with a bump of a butt--Wait maybe the equal weight of knees plus the derrière against the wall..." Amy feeling the area where her knees were at, pressing down, the wall revolving once more with her falling backwards. "Well now, hello there." giving a laugh.

"Welcome back. Now all we need to do is find our way out." Out of curiosity, Kat tried to scan the room below them. "Nothing. This room is shielded. It masks comms, too. But, now that we've figured out one puzzle, we can work on another." She examined the entire ceiling, but found nothing, as she expected. "So, we can't get out the way we came in. I think the answer lies in the room you found, but I want to check this one first. You take that side and I'll take this one. We'll save your trap door for last."

As Kat expected, there was nothing along the side and back walls--she checked. So, she went back to the revolving panel Amy found and began to look at the wall while she waited for Amy to join her. "I won't activate this until you get here. Once we get to the other side, we'll look for a way out there."

To Be Continued...

Lieutenant Katya Davi
Chief Operations Officer
USS Valiant

Lieutenant Amy Gordon
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Valiant

 

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