Dear Lord, Have Mercy

Posted on Sat Feb 15th, 2025 @ 8:44am by Ensign Madelyn 'Madi' Moore & Ensign Mercy Mourne
Edited on on Sat Feb 15th, 2025 @ 9:33am

Mission: Remnant
Location: A Very Interesting Place
Timeline: Early morning, Day 409
2423 words - 4.8 OF Standard Post Measure

"Are you sure we shouldn't have woken someone up to say where we were going?"

Dawn had come much quicker than anticipated for a number of reasons. The relief of sharing a tent with Mercy rather than being forced to sleep alone had been short-lived, as the comfort of listening to someone else breathe had swiftly become the envy of listening to someone sleep while every rustle of every leaf had left Madi staring up at the canvas in unhappy anticipation of something nasty. Insect-proofing had also only been marginally successful and occasionally flicking her flashlight on to figure out what had just zipped past her nose hadn't improved the situation and had eventually only drawn the attention of those on night duty. Embarrassment had quelled the urge to try that again, but ignorance refused to be bliss and Madi had rounded off a day of contented exploration with a night of horrific insomnia.

This was her claim, anyway, though she'd been pretty soundly out to it when the rapid jostling from her bunkmate had roused her. By that point, there was some light outside, though it was pale and insipid and not especially aided by the faint mist that hung around the treeline. The handful of personnel who had drawn the short-straw and were already awake had been more impressed by the prospect of coffee-substitute and it had only been once Madi had struggled into her boots and traipsed after her enthusiastic friend that she realised Mercy's insistence that 'early morning is the best part of the day!' did not include rousing the attention of anyone else to enjoy it with them. Just a little peek, the older woman had promised. It was all Madi could do to keep pace with her.

“It’s fine! Don’t worry. Lexi knows what direction we went in and I passed this way with the doctor looking for medicinals yesterday so if they need us they know where they will find us. Besides, we won’t go too far, there was a clump of chocolate-berry shrubs near here so we can gather a few on the way and then focus on other species we might find useful. I want to find something that helps reduce synaptic feedback and seizures, but painkillers would be useful too right?”

Mercy’s cheeks were already flushed from the exercise and she had a large capacity rucksack on her back filled with sample canisters. She grinned every time she looked over to Madi, her joy radiated from her. She was typically a morning person anyway but the fresh air seemed to have made her even more insufferably so. “We’ll just take a quick look, I promise. We’ll be back at camp before the rest are even done with their coffee-ish.” Mercy had taken to calling the coffee substitute coffee-ish because it was like but not the same.

In a slightly irritating re-enactment of yesterday's folly, Madi's response was delayed by the need to untangle her boot from the persistent nettle that seemed to dominate the grassier areas. Prickles and thorns were undoubtedly an evolutionary prerogative but the sticky residue it left behind, whilst already cleared by Mercy during earlier encounters as 'safe', tended to make traveling through the long blades additionally challenging. By the time she caught up, Madi was pink-cheeked from exertion and the slightest hint of frustration.

"Wouldn't processing anything for medicinal purposes take specialised equipment?" If there was one thing about exploring with Mercy, it was at least educational. Nothing had quite highlighted Madi's lack of natural talent for her current delegated field like listening to the other woman reel off all the possibilities in a single tuber.

"Well it depends what we find really." Mercy smiled and tilted her head as she peered at an interesting looking moss on the tree, taking a moment to scan it before shrugging and moving on. "And how we plan to administer it to the system. People were simply boiling willow bark into a tisane for centuries on earth. Or take the recreational use of THC in the 20th and 21st Century, if you wanted to ingest it you have to heat the plant to release the oil so it can be absorbed by the body, but smoking it required very little processing. Now I'm not suggesting we all spark up on painkillers, but there might be very simple ways of processing any plants we find so that we can make use of naturally occurring chemicals. The challenge is more likely to be in measuring the dosage, which is why the salicin in willow was eventually synthesised into aspirin. But there are other ways, like incorporating witchazel into emulsifiers such as oils or fats. If our ancient ancestors could figure it out with a few pots and pans and a fireplace, I am sure between our two labs and sickbay, we can easily make use of anything interesting we find. Besides the interesting thing is sometimes plants want to be used. Not in like a sentient way of course. But having qualities that appeal to other species is a key factor in successful evolution for many types of flora."

Mercy stopped in her little verbal ramble to look Madi over. "I mean just think about it, the species that lived here could have even cultivated some of these plants, found them useful in someway and then when the people... well whatever happened to the people, when they were gone, the plants just continued to flourish. We could be looking at parts of some overgrown public park!" Mercy huffed a laugh. "You okay to continue? What I wanted to show you is just up ahead." Sometimes Mercy's long winded verbal dumps were a blessing in disguise, and this time it gave Madi a moment to catch her breath.

If Madi's eyes had glazed over at any point, it's doubtful that anyone would have blamed her. However, despite her slight hesitancy, there was something infectious about Mercy's enthusiasm and the optimism that accompanied it. Thus far, her friend had been a huge support and there wasn't really any reason to doubt Mercy's confidence. The explanation sounded knowledgeable at least, and since she'd been able to follow about 75% of it, Madi decided to quit questioning the decision to be wandering about so early and simply nodded in response to Mercy's question.

As they moved forward towards the denser foliage and, beyond it, the encroaching treeline, Madi upwards to squint at the early morning efforts of the planet's singular sun. "I hope they let everyone come down to stretch their legs," she eventually said. "Kiyara would probably say they don't need the time away from work but I think they'd like this better than Relia. Finn too."

Mercy nodded looked up at the sky, then continued the hike with a grin. "Yeah... it's good to feel the natural gravity in ones bones every now and again." Mercy then smiled and pointed to a stone structure she had seen before. "The Captain seemed happy to let people request to come down if they want to so why not send a message back to the ship and ask Kiyara? Oh we're here! Look!" Mercy grabbed Madi by the hand and tugged her along a little faster. Excited for her friend to be able to look at what she had picked up on some of her scans earlier. "That's what I wanted you to take a look at! See if you can flex those old archaeology and xeno-anthropology muscles." The structure itself had been worn by weather and time and was covered in vines, but even from a distance it would be clear it was too regular, too straight to be anything other than artificially created. Underneath their feet soft jungle floor gave way to cracked paving tiles, bits of green shooting up from between the gaps, life finding a way to push through wherever it could. It was like the planet was trying to reclaim itself.

"What do you think? It's different to some of the other structures we've seen in the city so far huh?"

The sudden change in pace had taken Madi a moment to adjust to. As much as she had tried, since her recovery, to maintain fitness, it was rapidly becoming obvious that she lacked some serious conditioning under normal atmospheric conditions and wasn't so much breathless from the brief burst of speed as she was light-headed. Once again, at least, Mercy had provided ample excuse to stand and regather composure, this time throwing in a distraction that more than accounted for Madi's stunned silence.

A certain amount of self-analysis recently had brought up old inner-conflict surrounding her professional aspiration. Whist she had eventually allowed herself to be dragged down the family path of using the military and burgeoning space programs to create pathways, there was no hiding from the fact that her aspirations regarding the alien cultures she studied had at least started out fairly conservative. Cataloguing and archiving allowed for admiration from afar and didn't require a degree in swashbuckling to ensure success. There had always been the thrill of possibility behind experiencing things first-hand but she had expected that to be a very strategic, controlled aspect of her career.

In short, she had not expected to be standing on an utterly alien planet, staring at the remains of what seemed to be a monument of some kind.

It was anyone's guess, of course, since they still had relatively little by way of direct reference to draw on. The positioning away from the other structures could have been for a number of reasons, it was more the elaborate stonework and crumbling remains of what appeared to be statues of some sort that aroused suspicion. Madi allowed her eyes to wander upwards, trying to pick where the architecture was amongst the bramble, and furrowed her brow in thought.

"It's way more decorative for a start."

Mercy nodded and began to circle the structure. “Yes it is, and it’s set away from the other buildings, not so far as to be difficult to get to, but far enough that it seems to have been given space and significance. I thought maybe while we look for more plants we might want to bring back, we could have a look around and see if we can work out what it all means.” Mercy looked from the structure then back to Madi.

Mercy then brandished her scanner like it was some sort of magical weapon and waggled her eyebrows. “We could even see if there are any cool artefacts or carvings? Could make our own archaeology section in the ships improvised library?” She then took a step back and gestured to the monument. “Could even call it the Madelyn Museum of Alien artefacts!” She had been searching for a way to cheer Madi up a little, break her out of her funk, she hoped a little buddy time doing nerdy science stuff might be just the ticket.

As odd as it seemed, the faint twinge of sadness Madelyn felt as she gazed up at the crumbling masonry was the first time she'd really connected with the idea that this was once a thriving community. There was a certain amount of desensitisation , she supposed, to amassing a great deal of knowledge about ancient civilisations without necessarily developing any sense of the individuals who once populated it. Communities became numbers, statistics, and whilst notable figures rose in prominence enough to warrant specific study, the everyday person was little more than an historical eye-blink. It was a sobering thought and though Madi was sensitive enough to have occasionally lost herself in introspection of the inevitability of extinction, she'd never been this close to the palpable remains of a species she knew absolutely nothing about. Mercy's excitement was well-meaning but seemed to have gone entirely over her friend's head, as Madi was more focused on scanning the fretwork with her eyes than her device.

"They spent more time on this than their other structures," she theorised, tentatively reaching out a hand to brush aside loose lichen. "All the other buildings have been practical, functional and intended to be durable but this is the first thing we've seen where they've invested resources on purely aesthetic choices."

Mercy came to stand beside Madi and looked up at the structure, then back at the shape of the city she could just see the crumbling spires for in the distance. “It’s higher up too.” Mercy pointed out to Madi. One of the reasons the hike here had been a little harder is that they had been on a gentle incline most of the way.

“So we have a monument, highly decorated, and separate from the city but not so far it could be couldn’t be visited. People took time to build it and time out of their daily lives to come here.” Mercy continued to scan with her device. “It looks like there are a series of chambers beneath us too.how extraordinary.” Mercy made a surprise noise and tapped her foot on the stone tiles. It sounded solid enough, despite the image her little hand held scanner presented them with. The scanner then beeped again.

“Oh now this is interesting, it looks like the stone isn’t native to this region so they must have invested resources to bring it from further afield.” Mercy gave Madi. Sheepish grin then.

“Ah but I should let you do the early analysis, this is your area of expertise after. And I, I have some plants to be scanning and testing. I was sure I spotted a possible analgesic here somewhere.” Mercy was just about to move away and leave Madi to her somber moment of study when a crack rang out. Mercy looked around thinking perhaps it could be the sound of someone stepping on a branch in the nearby jungle. However before she could comment the ground disappeared from underneath them. Ancient stone tiles finally giving under the weight of the two women. There is a moment, a brief flash of panic where Mercy tried to reach for Madi, to push her out of the way or protect her somehow but all Madi would see is Mercy reaching and then they were both falling. Mercy’s stomach lurched and a parade of regrets flashed before her eyes as they began to plummet down into the darkness.