Breckenridge: Welcome to Obsidian
Posted on 07 Dec 2022 @ 8:12pm by Lieutenant Commander Maurice Rubens & Master Chief Petty Officer Callan McNeil CallSign: FishSmoke & Ensign Izatti Sitio
Edited on on 06 Feb 2024 @ 10:27pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: OC, Itonian Bajada & Kalara
Timeline: M3 D09. 0820 Hrs
2748 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure
“Let’s go!” Rice called to Izatti as he rushed past her desk, a simple brown satchel looped over his shoulder and a thin scarf with an intricate brown, black, and white geometrics designs swaying from his opposite hand. She shot up from her desk chair, picked up her own bag, and followed him out of the large room filled with white cubicles, the vast majority empty.
Neither of them wore uniforms, so as they melted into a crowd of civilians heading to the lifts at the core of the Environmental ring, they all but disappeared. No one even seemed to notice that both wore clothes bettered suited for a desert: he in a ribbed green cotton shirt, mostly hidden beneath a tan canvas jacket, with dark brown pants shoved into a pair of calf-high boots; she in a light green jacket, blue shirt, and khaki pants pulled over the tops of her boots.
The only indication they were connected with Starfleet was the comm badge pinned to their respective jackets.
“Sir, I just want to say thank you for including me,” Izatti said. When he told her they were heading down to the planet, she’d been barely able to sleep from the excitement.
“No need,” he told the translator, “I take who I need with me and you need to get down there so you can hear the dialects. Eventually, you’ll have to make sure we all know at least the main Obsidian tongue.”
Izatti nodded and adjusted her jacket. It felt odd to have only just arrived at her first posting and thrust back into civilian attire. “Sir, can I ask about the clothes?”
Rice looked at her in confusion and then back down at his own clothes, and laughed. “I’ve only been back in uniform for a few weeks. Forgot what I was wearing!” A grin danced along his lips a moment longer, before he answered. “Everything in diplomacy is language, not just the words coming out of our mouths. Clothes, food, showing up early, right on time, or late – or even not showing up at all. It speaks. To some on the planet uniforms might say, ‘I represent the people who can drop a load of Marines on your head in an instant.’”
“To the refugees it could also mean, ‘Trust us. We’re here to help,’” Izatti said and then her eyes widened. “I mean, not that I would question your expertise.”
He smiled again, this time warmly, “Not at all. Even experts need to be questioned from time to time. Don’t ever feel like you need to hold back. Plus, you’re not wrong about the uniform, but right now I would prefer people forgot I was in Starfleet.”
"That's all of them Fish" Stevens informed McNeil as she guided the final group of refugees aboard. There had been one family who had been in medical when their refugee group was taken down to the El Aurian settlement three days ago. They had been cleared for travel last night and now they could join the rest of their companions.
McNeil was completing his pre-flight walk around. Satisfied with the Arrow's exterior he glanced around the hanger, one other Arrow, Two was just leaving, they were running a pediatric clinic at an Oasis all day. He returned a wave from the crew as it lifted off.
Four was grounded, getting a dodgy thruster overhauled and Three was on Rapid Response for the next twenty-four hours. The crew were lounging around in deckchairs by their ship.
"Don't work too hard Tadpole" He called to the ship's pilot, Chief Toni Reynolds.
"We'll try not too" She laughed back, enjoying the peace before they got called out to who-knew-what emergency.
McNeil was about to board his craft and then noticed a couple of Starfleet personnel entering, guided by one of the maintenance techs.
"Hey Fish!" The woman called to him "Got room for two more?"
"Sure" He acknowledged and walked over. The newcomers were both in civilian clothes. The male looked like a Trill, the other a Human female.
"This is Master Chief McNeil" the tech introduced him. "Lead pilot for our Search and Rescue flight. Chief, this is Commander Rubens, our new Chief Diplomatic Officer, and Ensign Sitio, they need a ride down to Itonian Bajada"
"Good morning, Sir, Ma'am" McNeil replied, nodding to the Commander and then the Ensign respectfully. "We're just about to depart, so come on aboard"
“Thank you, Master Chief,” Rice replied following Fish into the craft’s hatch.
"Have you been down to Obsidian before?" McNeil asked
“No. Haven’t been on the station but a couple of days. We’re trying to get a handle on the refugee situation and the local politics and…well, the list goes on. Have you spent much time on planet?”
"We've been here about three months, we're down there three or four times a week." McNeil explained "Thankfully not many eeS and aRe Ops, so we've been working with the locals quite a bit; Hearts and minds, showing the flag, caring-sharing Federation stuff.
We've setup a visiting clinic system, we go out to some of the oasis and villages. Our Crew Rescue Medics are certified Nursing Practitioners, do some vaccinations, general health and wellbeing. We're working on a list for a monthly cataract surgery. The sun wrecks eyes here, real quick. Wrecks a lot of other systems too. Can't be too careful down there, the planet will kill you just as quickly as some of the local critters!
As for politics, that is pretty much confined to Kalara. There is a Council of Chieftains in charge, but they seem to squabble with each other most of the time. When they are not involved in the local graft and corruption.
Outside of the city, the desert tribes are a little more simple. They are generally distrustful of outsiders and off-wrolders in particular. Some will come around with a bit of work, hence the well digging and clinics. Others are outright hostile, we've been driven off with spears and rocks a couple of time.
There are a few off-world merchants who have managed to trade with some of the deep-desert tribes but it's early days for us.
Then permeating the entire society is the local religion. The Divine One and the Fiery One, good and evil basically. There plenty of religious zealots and rabble rousers who will stir things up given half a chance.
As off-worlders we all start off as being regarded as servants of fire due to our technology. Thats a big issue for most of them. When we're on the ground, we tend to keep that as low profile as we can, helps get us in the door if we go back to medical basics and use as little technical equipment as we can get away with. That and show some respect for their customs and traditions..."
McNeil shrugged "You're gonna find this place intersting I'm thinking sir"
The craft was back to its regular SAR layout, with the Bio-Bed and medical module reinstalled, which reduced the seating capacity, but with only six refugees aboard, there was plenty of room. Leading the way McNeil called to his Paramedics, "Chief Stevens, find a couple more seats, Commander Ruben and Ensign Sitio need a ride. Chief Lonj find them some hats, shades and sunscreen"
"Right here sir" Stevens called them forward, showing them to a couple of seats opposite the Romulan family of Grandmother, parents and three children.
The couple nodded politely to the arriving Starfleet officers. One of the younger children nudged her brother and whispered. "He's a Trill! He has a huge jumbo mollusk in his tummy!"
The boy looked Ruben over skeptically "He does not!"
"He does too!" His sister insisted "And it makes him really smart!"
"That's icky! How does it get in there?
"He has to swallow it, whole!"
"Ewww!"
"Yes! And it's all slimy! Then when he dies, they cut the jumbo mollusk out and it moves on to somebody else and they have to swallow it too! Right there over his dead body!"
"Ewww! Noooo!"
The girl nodded solemnly and crossed her arms "Yep"
“The mollusk isn’t just for Trills. It can attach itself to other species, too. So, maybe the spots came after I at a mollusk,” Rice spoke up, a mischievous glint in his eye. He gestured to his rounded, but clearly pointed ears. “I mean, I might be an unlucky Vulcan who was forced to consume it. Wait a second! Aren’t Vulcans and Romulans related?” He leaned toward them and assumed a very serious tone, “Would you like some spots, too?”
The girl recoiled with a muffled cry but her little brother looked thoughtful. "Ohhh, spots would be cool!"
Rice laughed at her horrified shriek and her brother's excitement. “I hope I did not scare you too much," he said in the main Rhiannsu dialect, "They’re not 'mollusks,' but 'symbiotes' and there are very few. They only attach themselves to the best and brightest Trills. I am not one of those! Besides I am only mostly Trill. I am also part Vulcan,” he said, indicating his ears. “And part Human.”
The children's parents looked over and smiled. Although their Grandmother looked less pleased and muttered something to her son. "You should not let the children talk with the halfbreed It is wrong to give them ideas that it is acceptable for Romulans to mix our race with other species!"
"Please excuse my mother sir" The man said apologetically "She is of an older generation and those attitudes are still too common in the Empire. Such beliefs are part of the reason we came to resettle in the Federation."
“It’s nothing,” Rice waved it off and gave the old Romulan woman a smile that she returned with a haughty scowl. She’d have to do better than ‘half-breed.’ He’d heard worse from the Free State Romulans diplomats he contended with while on Vvalti.
Lonj arrived, the Bajoran Medic handed Ruben and his assistant a pair of wide-brimmed boonie hats, sunglasses and a tube each of sunscreen.
"These will work sir, ma'am. Although the local gear is better if you're out in the sun for more than an hour or two. We're actually going to stop by the souk in Kalara later, pick up some desert robes for ourselves"
Rice nodded his thanks, “I don’t think our business will take us too long in Itonian Bajada, so we might tag along with you to Kalara. There's some people there I'd like to talk too.”
Izatti looked at the boonie hat with trepidation. Although not a vain person, she never liked hats and wished she had a headscarf. Sighing, she hurriedly began gathering her hair into a low ponytail that could easily fit under the hat’s brim. As she was quickly rubbing the sunscreen into her pours, she turned to comment on the smell to Commander Rubens and stopped. The long scarf he’d been carrying was looped around his neck and head, and he was adjusting a coil of it over his nose and mouth before plopping that hat on.
“Is that Cardassian?” she asked, finally recognizing the geometric pattern.
Rice nodded to her, “They wove a natural radiation and dust barrier into the fabric. Centuries of drought and then the Dominion War left parts of Cardassia Prime very inhospitable to life.”
She wanted to ask more, but one of the crew stepped through the hatch and closed it behind them. Izatti settled back, trying to settle the butterflies stirring in her stomach. Her first away mission was about to begin.
Up front McNeil settled himself into the pilot's seat, strapping in as his copilot completed her checklist.
"Good to go Fish" She confirmed "Radiation is still disrupting travel over the Taragi-Shar, plotted our previous course East of it. Meteorologist reported a sand-storm coming out for the Southern polar region. A big one, but won't be rolling until this afternoon"
"Copy that. Take us out Jingles" he replied and pulled up the cabin intercom "Ok folks, we're about to depart. Flight will take about twenty-five minutes, we'll drop into orbit, circle in around the Taragi-Shar mountains, should get a good view of those out of the starboard windows and level out for a descent into Itonian Bajada. There is a sand-storm coming that way, but we will be in and out before it arrives. Current temperature down there is One Hundred and Two Fahrenheit and humidity is... zero. Sit back and enjoy the ride"
Dropping through the atmosphere and lining up on the descent vector McNeil could see the gathering polar sand-storm out of the cockpit viewport. The desert seemed to have leapt up into the sky and become a dark brown boiling cauldron. At first it was below them and clearly visible but as they dropped altitude the storm receded until it was just a brown haze on the far horizon.
He nodded to Bell and said with a grin "Yeah we don't want to be around when that arrives, just had her detailed and waxed!"
Gaining clearance from the settlement tower they landed and rolled out across the pan, a long strip of hard packed sand and mud. There were two buildings, a couple of small cargo craft were parked near the solitary hanger building at the far end. McNeil taxied off to the side, bringing the Arrow as close to the tall natural rock wall that hid the settlement as he could, coming to stop some fifty meters from the entrance tunnel.
"Shut her down Jingles" he clambered out of his seat. "I'll go show our PAX the way"
Coming back into the cabin he found Stevens and Lonj helping the family get ready to disembark.
He went up to Rubens and Sitio "Welcome to Obsidian, Sir, Ma'am. You'll get the full experience once we open the hatch, come with me"
He led the way aft, tapped the control panel, unlocked and opened the port hatch. Instantly the heat and dust blew in through the open hatch, like opening a furnace door.
He clambered out and waited for them to join him on the packed mud strip. He pointed to the recess cut back in the rock cliff and the modern doors set within it. "The settlement is in a valley on the other side of this hill. It's about a five-minute walk through the tunnel there. Do you have people expecting you?"
The heat was unlike anything Rice had felt before; there’d been deserts on Earth and Cardassia, of course, he’d even visited those. This was something else entirely. He quickly put on his sunglasses and hat, and readjusted the scarf covering his mouth and nose, before exiting the craft and joining McNeil on the landing strip, Sitio close behind.
“The liaison told us that someone would meet us at the entrance,” he said and looked at the Romulan family exiting the hatch. The heat’s impact on them was noticeable: the grandmother swayed for a moment before she righted herself. “Sitio and I can help them up to the settlement if you need to head out, Chief.”
"Thanks sir" McNeil nodded "We've nothing else scheduled, we'll be waiting for you when you're done" He checked his chronometer. It was just before nine in the morning "There is a sand storming coming in though. We have three and a half, maybe four hours before it hits. We need to be gear-up before then, or we'll be stuck until it blows through tonight"
Beyond the tunnel portal doors slid open, a couple of Romulan's came forward waving in welcome to the family. A Starfleet yeoman in diplomatic purple was with them.
"Commander Rubens?" she asked " Good morning, sir, come with me please I'll take you to meet Lieutenant Kororushi, he's with the colony leaders"
With the refugees disembarked and the diplomats off to their meeting
McNeil rejoined his crew, shut the hatch against the sun and heat and settled into wait
