Distractions By A Lake

Posted on Wed Apr 15th, 2020 @ 8:04pm by Lieutenant Darru & Lieutenant Aurelius Davis & Lieutenant Min Seong & Ensign Victoria Jemison
Edited on on Fri Apr 17th, 2020 @ 1:23pm

Mission: Mission 2 - Fallout
Location: Unknown Planet
Timeline: Day 8, Month 1, Year 0 06:30
2152 words - 4.3 OF Standard Post Measure

Darru frowned at what was beneath his feel there are a good amount of fungi on this planet, most of them had little to no colour, but they had the strongest scent of all organisms other than the humans around him, most of which were horrible. He offered a glance across the pool that they had replenished their stores from before looking back at the team. The Vulcan could not help but wonder what had created it seeing it was manufactured but they had more pressing matters of finding the Executive Officer and starting the journey home. “So which direction are we heading?” He asked the woman stood next to him for confirmation.

Looking at her scanner, Victoria pointed toward the search vector they had been assigned. "That way," she stated, nervous about her first away mission where danger was a present feeling. Being in Starfleet, she had trained in the use of phase pistols but she was an engineer. "Just beyond the treeline," she added for consideration.

Darcy followed along wondering why she'd volunteered for this. Then she remembered that if it had been her she'd want everyone to come looking for her. She didn't know Sloan well, only seen him here and there on the ship but he was important because he was a crew member and way out here all crew members had to stick together.

Ben found the smell almost unbearable, but he kept moving, following the others. His phase pistol was in his right hand and a scanner in his left.
He kept moving towards the coordinates that Jemison had on her scanner.

"Okay," Victoria paused as he scanner chirped slightly. "We've reached our search area," she called to the group. Her pistol was still on her hip, Officer training taught her to not look like a threat unless she was threatened.

Livingston looked at his scanner. "Do we fan out, or stay together.?" He looked at Darru because he was leading the search.

"Considering what happened last time a split up occurred, maybe it is prudent we simply stick together." Min did not remove the gaze from her tricorder, making slight adjustments every time she came up with another negative scan. "Lieutenant, I have the Commander's biometrics from his last medical visit. The only thing that would prevent me from eventually locating him is something interfering with any of our ground based scans..." She trailed off, frowning at the tricorder.

Darru looked at the Doctor and raised an eyebrow at her comment. It was a prudent comment and he agreed with it but maybe she should have waited for him who was being asked to speak but that was neither here nor there. It was commented on now. "Well, it is a good thing we agree on this matter Doctor." The Vulcan commented before thinking on it. "And I guessing from trailing off there is some type of interference?"

"I'm getting it too," Victoria nodded. Pointing to her scanner, she added not meaning to interrupt, "This entire area is a sensor dead zone." She pointed to a bush, "I can get readings on local objects but nothing past a few meters."

"Which was not what I was going to point out," Min stated plainly. "I expected our search radius was going to lessen for q number of reasons, but we should be able to locate a single human biometric if we're close enough. I was more concerned we were going to run into some of the native wildlife."

"There isn't much danger to that," Victoria replied, still looking at the bush. Smiling like an excited cadet who just discovered something useful, she added, "I have set my scanner to see a three meter radius. Unless we start running we should be safe. I can calibrate yours if you'd like."

Darcy was only half listening to the others as she walked along. A trickle of unease ran down her back. This place gave her the creeps and she would happily be gone from here as soon as possible, once they'd found the commander of course. Her scanner beeped and she paused looking down at it. "Guys," she said trying to keep her voice calm.

Ben, who was closest to Darcy, walked over. "Spot something?" He looked at the scanner in her hand. Ben put his pistol back in the holster and started snapping his fingers to get the attention of the others. When someone looked at him, he waved them over.

"I'm picking something up. Human life signs, well sort of. It keeps fluctuating." Darcy replied, tapping the device as if it were malfunctioning.

"Has to be the commander," said Ben. "We should go and take a look."

"No, it's gone," Darcy said, nearly stamping her foot in frustration and wanting to whack the tricorder against something. "What is wrong with this planet? I feel like it's teasing us."

Darru smirked in a way that only a Vulcan could. "Planets have been known to do that." He admitted. He had seen many planets compared to the Humans but unlike the majority of his species, he found Human's interesting and delightful to watch.

Did she actually hear a Vulcan joke? Darcy stared at him, forgetting all about what her readings had told her. She was tempted to start scanning Darru just in case.

"What was the direction of those readings? Just because they aren't there now, doesn't mean we might not find some more evidence to work on." Ben looked at the others.

Darcy shrugged, "Well it's completely gone now. Perhaps it will come back, I guess we just keep moving the way we were moving."

Ben looked in the direction the scanner indicated. "Then we should keep moving...we have to find him."

Darru frowned at the confusion or just non-plussed nature of the group he had been assigned. He stopped as he noticed something on the floor beside them, he crouched and picked up a spanner of all things. "Well, this is out of ordinary." He commented.

Ben walked over to see what the lieutenant found. "What did you find, lieutenant?"

Looking over the Vulcan's shoulder, Victoria added, "Is that what I think it is?" The Engineer brought up her scanner and nodded, "That looks like a hydraulic calibrator, it could help explain why only this section of the planet is able to sustain life. Whoever they are, it looks like they've been terraforming the planet."

Darru rose to his feet looking at the thing in his hands properly. He had assumed it was a simple old fashioned spanner but as he wiped the dirt off it was revealed to be something a lot more interesting. "Definitely not what I thought it was Ensign." The scientist murmured looking around. "Very crudely if they have been terraforming." He said trying to focus all the different ideas around him.

"Fascinating, in a creepy sort of way," Darcy answered, maybe no one had asked her, but all she wanted to do was find Sloan and get out of this place. It had outworn its welcome.

Distracted from the Sloan search, Victoria replied, "It certainly is. While beyond our capabilities, it would explain why the rest of the planet is barren and why the habitability drops as we move away from the algae pond. So many implications." Her voice sounded excited, almost as though she were an explorer who found something extraordinary on her trek.

Ben looked at the sky. "I think we got about 5 hours of sunlight left....we should continue our search for the commander."

Darru looked at the sky had they been there so long. "I do not like this despite how interesting it is," Darru said as he started to walk towards the pool of water looking around for something. The water was still there but the algae around it were was not as fruitful as it had been previously. "So question if you terraformed a planet so far from anything else why would you do it?" He asked the group.

"Temporary lodgings if you wanted to explore the area?" Darcy said as more of a question than answer. "A place to stop and get some food?" it then dawned on her, she hoped they weren't the food.

"Even we have protein replicators," Victoria started. "A society that can terraform a planet should be able to do better than just protein." Looking at the algae, she held up her scanner to get a better idea of it's makeup. "Lieutenant, look," she said as she showed her scanner to Darru. Her face showed an odd expression.

The young engineer then nodded to the algae and then generally gestured to indicate the other plants around them. "Something isn't right. This algae does not match the DNA of the rest of the plants. Even on Earth, DNA should be within a large percentage match with almost all species."

Darru took the device and looked it over for what the engineer was seeing. "It means that this," He pointed at the algae as he spoke. "Was brought here. This does not belong here and was designed specifically to be here." A lot of facts were starting to fit together. This place had been created purposely on a planet that it did not belong on.

That was definitely odd, Darcy agreed. And it didn't make any sense to her. "What do you think it means?" She asked him, raising her head slightly to catch his eye. She could see the wheels turning there.

"Okay, we're on a planet that's been terraformed for a reason. But we can't do anything about that, can we? We need to go find the commander." Livingston said.

"It means that we just raided their farmland," Victoria spoke up. Looking to Darru, she followed with, "Is it any wonder why they kidnapped the Commander?" She knew that it was too late to reconvert the mass of protein back into algae, they were at least a century away from that technology.

"Not in the slightest." This was a curveball if he had ever seen one using the human term as reference. This was a perfect explanation for what was going on, "And we cannot change it back either. It is impossible." Darru knew no one that had the technology. "Just because we cannot do anything doesn't mean we cannot learn from it all. You are looking at farmland that has been lost by a species. Think about that. They have lost food just like we lost food."

"If they're competent enough to engineer the food, perhaps they're intelligent enough to reason with," Min pointed out in suggestion. There was much to be gleaned from their actions here, she had to agree, but there was an odd feeling she had about this ordeal. "... But if they're not here to reason with, then..."

"Oh don't say that," Darcy practically moaned. "It's just speculation anyway. Yes, we did take their food, yes, they took our Commander but there could be lots of reasons for that. Didn't Davis say he was injured? Perhaps they are just healing him for us. They could still be friendly, no one's fired shots at us or attempted to take anyone else."

Livingston spoke up. "Respectfully, we're wasting time. The commander could be seriously hurt. We have to keep going to find him. If he's been held prisoner, we will free him. If they attack us, we fight back. There is no other choice."

Having set her gear to be a bit more sensitive to signals and communications, Victoria's comm unit chirped. "Jemison here, what's your status?" she asked, shooting a look to Darru that told him that he should hear this.

On the other end was Ensign Martinez from the other group. "We have him. Get back to the ship, things are about to get pretty hot down here," he called out from his end. His words were punctuated by the zips and impact sounds of accelerated mass projectile weapons as well as the louder blast from phase pistols.

Darru, if he had been any other officer in charge he would and smiled or sounded relieved that the Executive Officer had been found but only a short sharp order of move came out of his mouth. He stood up to shoot back and offer cover if it was needed. But for now as they loved it was quiet despite the noises on the comms from the other team. Their mission was completed so there was no need to hang around investigating. They had a reason and needed to get that reason to there commanding officers.

OFF:

Lieutenant Darru
Science Officer
NX-05 Atlantis
(PNPC Leroux)

Ensign Victoria Jemison
Engineering Officer
NX-05 Atlantis
(PNPC Sloan)

Ensign Darcy Blair
Science Officer
NX- 05 Atlantis

Ensign Ben Livingston
Helm Officer
NX-05 Atlantis

Lieutenant Min Seong
Medical Officer
NX-05 Atlantis