AT 005B - Rojar II R01 Detailed Survey

Posted on 31 May 2013 @ 8:07am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Petty Officer 2nd Class Jessica Sandywyne
Edited on on 31 May 2013 @ 3:35pm

2,818 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: Rojar II R01 - Surface Continent
Timeline: MD 05 - 1400 hrs

[ON]

The surface of R1 simply teemed with life, both animal and plant - for a science ship, this was a treasure trove of discovery and cataloguing. Unfortunately for the XO however, he wasn't able to get quite as excited as some of his more academically inclined colleagues. Nevertheless there was a mission to be completed, and John was in charge.

Quinn was amazed at how beautiful the landscape was. This was one rare opprotunity he got to be present while doing a "boots on the ground" planetary survey, and he was loving it. Though, he knew he had to keep his wits about him. Sometimes beauty is the shroud that death hides under. He looked to the Petty Officer. "Hey, Sandywyne. Keep your eyes opened, and watch where you step."

"My feet won't even touch the ground," Jessica was rather bemused at all this. Her life had been split between rural fields and ships held together with dreams and welding tape. The former was terribly dull and the latter was far to exciting, this moon didn't hold that much charm for her. Sooner or later someone was going to be eaten by a tree or swallowed by the earth and there was nothing that would really change that.

"Let's just make sure nothing goes wrong this time...start sweeping the initial area."

John reholstered his phaser and instead drew his tricorder, flipping open the instrument panel and beginning a preliminary scan of the area. He was no scientist, but had a good enough understanding of planetary science to allow the readings in front of him to at least make some degree of sense.

Amynta nodded as she looked at her work, checking for the biosignatures. "So far, it looks like we don't have the creature anywhere close," she commented, looking over at Holliday before taking a breath. "But if I understand correctly, it is fast. I'll keep up the scan."

"How close is close?" Jessica kept her hands in her pockets as she walked, looking at the bushes with occasional glances to the carpet of fluffy grass they were walking on. "A few meters, a few miles?"

"Set tricorder alarms to sound if one of those things gets within twenty metres - let's not take the risk."

John replied, tapping a few commands into his tricorder as he did so to trigger an audible alert even if the tricorder was safely stowed into it's pouch. Satisfied he had completed his work, the XO switched back to active scanning mode and began taking analyses of the atmosphere.

"Nothing toxic that I can detect - looks like this place has never seen advanced civilisation at all - no sign of manufacturing or other atmospheric contamination. It's a real Eden. With teeth."

"Be sure to watch out for talking snakes everyone," Jessica looked up at one of the trees, "And apples of worldly knowledge." She was a biochemist more than a nurse and there might be a few things here that might be fun. Maybe she could finally solve the problem of atomic elastic.

Amynta looked at her, arching an eyebrow. "I always preferred the idea of Lucifer myself. Perhaps I read too much Milton when at the Academy," she said and put in the alert. She did not like how heavy her body felt her. And quite frankly, she didn't like looking at nature either. "Let us hope this is a garden of Eden and we don't find ourselves in a lake of fire instead..."

"I hear ya on that one, L.T." remarked the COB while keeping his phaser rifle out and the thumb on the safety. "Though, it is nice, not like the farm in Utah back on Earth, but nice."

Quinn continued to march the perimeter of the group, to be sure nothing got in. then he heard a squishing noise under his left boot. "Found something, Boss." Quinn lifted his boot from the ground as a small, and now flattened slug-like creature appeared in his boot print. "Oops."

With a roll of her eyes Jessica took out her tricorder and scanned the ex-slug. Catching on some of the chemicals were released she looked up at Quinn, "You might want to back away." From under leaves and bushes several more small slugs were starting to appear, slivering towards Quinn.

"Damn." he whispered. "What, were those things coming after me for stepping on one of their buddies, Sandywyne?" Quinn quickly moved back a couple of steps. "Ugly things."

"Pheromones," She answered bluntly, "They also can secret acid. They appear to be swarming the same way bees do. Not that fast though, try not to let them touch you." He had stepped on their buddy, fully within their rights to try to eat Quinn.

"Charming. This place gets better and better," Amynta said with a shake of her head. "I detest bugs."

"Slugs aren't bugs," If it wasn't for the acid in their mucus Jessica would have been quite happy to pick up one of the greenish brown creatures at wave one in the older woman's face. They were generally fairly useful, as long as they weren't eating your crops.

"Same difference to me," Amynta said and smiled, to show that it was all pretty good natured from her side.

Quinn ran his boot against the ground in an attempt to remove any lingering acid. "They stink too."

"Don't stand on them then," Jessica stood up, "We discovered something fun at least." Quinn eating slugs at least was fun to her. "Shall we go this way?" Pointing south, away from the slugs she indicated towards a series of small trees in the distance. The grove looked almost like one from back home.

"Let's not end up declaring war on a native species after only being here a short while shall we now Mr Quinn?"

John replied with a grin, taking the opportunity to tease the oldest member of Galileo's human crew before turning to look around him once again.

"Get what readings we can of those....slugs...and transmit your data back to Galileo - I'm sure there are people up there who would love to study it in more detail."

"Then why don't we just take some?" Jessica looked over at the commander. She hadn't done this whole away mission thing before but if they wanted to study these things, either lab-coats came here or slugs to them.

Amynta looked at Jessica for a long moment, before swallowing. "Okay, you get to carry it..." she said and gave a shiver.

Jessica gave her the same look she'd have given if she'd just been told the sky was brown, "Transporting them to the ship, it would be cruel to carry them around."

"Regulations are regulations. No foreign substances or life forms are to be transported aboard a Federation Starship without adequate isolation protocols being in place - these things could be dangerous...or eat metal....or antimatter...get a transport container beamed down then send these things straight to the labs with a forcefield around it."

John replied. It was unlikely that these little creatures would be able to pose a danger to an interstellar vessel featuring some of the most advanced technology in the quadrant, but there was no way he intended to take the risk and go down in Starfleet archives as the first XO to lose his ship to a slug.

Amynta looked at him before nodding, taking a breath. "And if it accidentally gets vaporized on the way over, it's no skin of my nose..." she said lightly, almost innocently.

"If one accidentally ends up in your quarters it'll be no skin off mine," Jessica tapped on her combadge, "Transporter room, could you please beam down a small specimen container with isolated life support, and a pair of soft faced tongs." Standing up for a moment Jessica looked around and smiled, bug collecting wasn't a bad way to spend the day. Certainly safer than trying to wrangle a T-rex. Once the small box appeared she selected three of the slugs and slid them into the box, "Transporter room, please send the box to a secure compartment in the biology lab."

Amynta looked at Jessica, arching an eyebrow at the woman. "I should be grateful that you specified the lab...rather than my quarters," she said, lightly, holding her eyes with ease.

Quinn chuckled at the friendly exchange. "If you want to see someone scream like a banshee, put it in Senior Chief Willis' rack. He hates....." Quinn suddenly went quiet as he looked at his tricorder. "Something is moving up ahead. It looks like a...." Markum walked a little closer until he quickly jumped back as a large barbed thorn was driven into the ground where he was just standing. "Shit, that is a big plant."

"A technical term I assume there Mr Quinn?" John replied with his hand immediately moving to his phaser almost on instinct. He had already seen what the wildlife of this planet was capable of, and if the fauna could take down one of their own, the flora must have been just as capable of defending itself.

"That, doesn't belong here," Jessica cocked an eyebrow, "You're trillions of miles from home," Dumus lisum Trabica or Striking Bramble, normally found in the jungles of Leos II. It had been a while she had slides on her research of fun ways to die, "Hold still, if you have to move, do so with irregular strides." From what she remembered it had a organ filled with water that responded to vibration in the ground nearby, allowing it to kill creatures and let them decay into the ground around it.

Quinn looked over his shoulder with a wrinkled forehead. "Now you tell me, thanks."

John was a little perplexed why a plant organism would be on a planet so far from it's place of origin - there was nothing to indicate that this plant had been brought here by a previous civilisation - but at the moment there was nothing else to explain how this apparently alien plant had found it's way to the surface and flourished.

"So....how did it get here? I can only imagine that it was brought here by someone?"

"Given the right conditions seeds can be maintained indefinitely, all it might take is one seed on a boot," In the age of transporters it was far less likely but they hadn't been around that long. If she was right then there had been other visitors to this planet, but that was outside of what she knew, "You bridge people know more about that right?"

"I've but a boot in a few places," remarked Quinn and he continued to hold his current position. "but now we have to consider that this place may be home to someone, or something else with Warp capability. And if so, I hope they are friendlier than the wildlife and shrubbery."

"Agreed - if there is indeed something else here however, they're very good at avoiding detection. There's nothing on my tricorder and Galileo's sensors picked up nothing either."

John had to marvel at the plant, having survived in such an alien environment and managed to prosper - something that more animalistic creatures found much harder to do without support.

"I assume this isn't something you'd like to have on the Galileo?"

"I'd love it, but I don't think anyone else would," Jessica smiled, "If there are others, it might have been here for a very long time. The traveller could have been here any time in the last ten thousand years. Or you know, a magic space worm hole or something like that."

"Or just some amazing technology," Amynta said quietly, shaking her head weakly.

Quinn took a couple odd steps to back away, keeping his phaser rifle trained on the angry shrub. "Well, that was...fun. What's next? Stones that throw themselves at us?" he joked...sort of."

"Take any readings you want, then we'll leave it well alone. I don't want anyone going back with puncture wounds - the Captain would have me strung up."

The XO kept his own weapon trained on the plant as well, targetting the water filled sac at the base of the body just in case he needed to stop this thing in a hurry.

"Okay," Jessica only had a medical tricorder but even that was something, "Maybe you just shouldn't do anything Quinn?" After all he had caused both of their fun little problems so far.

"I can always tie him to a tree somewhere..." Amynta added in, and it was impossible to see if she was joking or being deadly serious...until she gave a small smile and arched an eyebrow at Quinn.

"Then if the tree turns around to be just as deadly as this thing tries to be we really will have a problem on our hands."

John laughed, before turning towards the rest of the away team. Whilst this one plant might have been interesting, they still had a job to do and this simply wasn't going to be enough to keep the scientists left aboard Galileo entertained for long.

"Let's not take too long - there's a lot of planet and not a lot of us to cover it."

"Then let us go, younder," Jessica pointed towards the same clump of trees, "Or we could start digging straight down." Where ever they walked they were sure to find something sooner or later.

"Yeah." answered Quinn. "'ll just stay back a few paces and let someone else play bait for the prey."

Jonathan eventually lowered his phaser, only to replace it in his hand with his tricorder. Setting the bandwidth as wide as he could, the XO waited a moment as the electronic instruments held within the tiny device took a note of everything that surrounded him.

"I'm reading movement towards that outcropping...nothing large enough to be humanoid...worth a look I think though?"

"Then onward," Jessica started to walk, taking in some of the distant clouds. Smiling at the one that looked like a slice of cake, fighting a snake.

Quinn took the rear of the group and shrugged his shoulders slightly. "This place keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"Like Alice in Wonderland..." Amynta said quietly, with a frown as she shook her head. "And it went so well for her..."

Quinn continued following behind the group when his prosthetic arm began to smolder and the hand clenched the handle of the phaser rifle and squeezed it until the entire handle crunched out of shape, then fell to the ground. Quinn looked down then to his smoldering arm. "And the day just keeps getting better. I better get back up to the ship, Commander. This arm is getting hot. Damn hot!"

"Let me have a look," Jessica was hardly an engineer but this was technically medical. At the very least she would be able to deactivate the arm and if need be, remove it. Approaching him she grabbed the clasp on his jacket and started to tug.

"No - we don't have the resources down here Miss Sandywyne." John replied, instinctively leaping into his more command-orientated voice and an aggressive slap to his ever present commbadge.

=^=Holliday to Galileo - lock onto Mr Quinn's signature and beam him to Sickbay - medical emergency. =^=

With a moment's delay, the Galileo transporter chief responded by dematerialising the aged Starfleet non-com into nothingness, hopefully on his way to receive the correct treatment.

"Let's hope that was just a malfunction....everyone else ready to move?"

She was hardly going to operate on him here, she was also actually better qualified than anyone else here to make a diagnosis. She also wasn't in command, though she didn't really like the the way she was ordered not to do her job. They had brought her along as a nurse after all hadn't they, so it was just for scrapes and boo-boos then? Looking fairly sceptical at Holiday Jessica answered, "I guess."

John could tell from her tone of voice that the young nurse had been a little annoyed that he had bypassed her in order to return Quinn to the ship. Sadly his problem struck Holliday as more of an engineering problem than a medical one - and without Peers or another member of that team present, John simply didn't want to take the chance.

"Let's get moving - there's a lot of planet, and not a lot of daylight left." John replied, taking the first few steps towards what would likely be a very long mission indeed.

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Kiri Cho
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Amynta Markos
Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

Master Chief Petty Officer Markum Quinn
COB
USS Galileo

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