Sea & Sky: Underway
Posted on 10 Apr 2023 @ 4:30pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Chief Deputy Marshal: Ridge Steiner - FMS & Lieutenant Commander Cesar De La Fuente Ph.D. & Lieutenant Ethan Gunnarsen & Uanika
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Korix, Tiss'Kot
Timeline: MD09 ~0450- ~0505
2024 words - 4 OF Standard Post Measure
The two Korinn delegates swam out ahead of the team as the suited away team members slogged their way back towards the parked shuttle in the big atrium. None of them spoke, and with the light dimmed, their head lamps made foggy beams through the huge abandoned space. The space that had seemed so inspiring when they had entered now carried a deep feeling of dread. Calliope was eager to get to the shuttle and not as interested in sight seeing as they had been earlier. She set a slightly higher buoyancy so she could touch off with her toes and get longer strides.
= Commander = Lieutenant Gunnarsen’s voice came over the comm. = The team needs to return to base pronto. We’ve got a storm moving in and this reef is going to be ground zero in the next twelve minutes. =
“Copy that. We’re already enroute.” The sanctuary of Tis’Kot itself was probably more than able to withstand storms as it had for centuries, but if they didn’t head out soon, they’d be grounded here until it passed. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another, she thought as she took another soaring stride. “Get the engines… nevermind, we’re in sight. Looks like you’re already pumping plasma. Be informed, we’re bringing two guests aboard. Zahn out.”
Steiner heard the news over his helmet speakers like the rest. A poisoned planet, suffering under these damnable Pyrryx; a revolt in progress between fractions of the inhabitants, who just expected Starfleet to join in; somewhere on the surface allegedly a group of Federation prisoners, no comms with the Pathfinder and now a hurricane! “This is just getting better and better,” he muttered to himself.
How does this end well? He thought. If there really were members of a lost ship’s crew they would need to find them. But since the leader Korinn had been so evasive he had a dark suspicion it might have been a ruse to try and drag them into the fight. Perhaps these two coming with them would answer some questions and he could get a sense of the truth of the matter..
Once everyone was lined up inside of the rear compartment of the Arrow, Calliope motioned for the Marine closest to the ramp to seal the door and get the water pumped back and the air properly up to pressure. “Go ahead Gunny.”
Johannes made one last check that everyone was in and ready, and then pressed the control on the wall. He was ready to get out of the water and more importantly, into a more defensibly position. He might not have been the best at ship to ship warfare, but he knew the Starfleet geeks were more than up to the task. Just being here, and out of the water, was a tactical gain.
As the water drained away Steiner cracked the seal on his helmet, pushed the visor up and breathed in and out deeply. It was a little strange seeing the two Korinn with their own water-filled masks on. Their eyes flicking around the interior of the Arrow. Must be even stranger for them he mused, brave too. Then the cynical investigator within him wondered briefly if while they were still taking everything in they might let something slip about this crew they claimed was captive. He was a seasoned interviewer but with no experience on questioning their species as he had no idea on their capability for truthfulness. Could non-aquatic people really have survived here as slave labor for years and still be alive? Or had there been some at one time, since dead and they were now being resurrected to get the Federation involved in this revolt? He needed answers and fast..
“Doctor,” Calliope said as she got her helmet off, “Take our delegation to the Operations Room and help them strap in and secure their belongings. Please keep them company for the ride.” With her keen interest in the Korinn, Doctor Wagner seemed like the best accompaniment to the delegates besides De La Fuente, but Calliope needed him in the co-pilot chair, so the decision was simple.
While Wagner showed the Korinn the way back to the other compartment, Steiner moved over to Zahn as they removed their suits. “Commander, I’d like permission to ask those two about these USS Sunrise crew” he asked her quietly. “To be open with you, I’m concerned it could be they are just making them up to drag us into their revolt…”
Calliope took a full breath in and a full exhale, pulling off her sweaty diving hood and shaking out her hair to try to avoid the closed in sensation and give herself a moment to think. She dropped her voice. “You can’t come off like you're grilling them, Ridge.” He’d scared her a little during their talk with Taco the Great, pressing them about the revolution. “You’re asking them a favor.”
He nodded “I got it, talk nice, think mean” and gave her a wry grin “Humble little old tapople me won’t ruffle any feather- fins!”
“Okay. See what they can tell us before you worry if it’s a ruse or not. I don’t think they’re playing us, but I trust you to parse it.”
He gave her a reassuring nod and removed the rest of the suit, taking the time to get his thoughts settled and to focus on how he was going to get the information he needed. Interviewing was a skill and right now the time constraint was against any kind of detailed questioning plan, he would keep it conversational, friendly and succinct.
Calliope broke off down the hall and started setting up in the captain’s chair. She was keenly aware that her high tension and the opening of her sweaty suit was going to start saturating the air. So she quietly set the circulation fans higher and locked the vent filtering setting— commander’s prerogative on the environmental controls. Maybe it would take the edge off for the guys. “We’re all accounted for, Mr. Gunnersen. Take us out.”
Cesar took his station quickly, making one last scan of the surrounding area as politely as he could for his own research, particularly focused on the statues. He was already uploading the feed from his EVA suit. This was exactly the kind of research he loved and might even be able to incorporate it into his more recent educational endeavors. Well, the one he’d been working on a few years now at least.
“Right, Commander.” Flicking controls across the board, Ethan began the extrication process from the reef, maneuvering into a controlled spiral to go with the oncoming currents rather than fight into them before he had the necessary propulsion. Glancing over at De La Fuente, he nodded to the external sensors. “You see that surge just off to the side? That is a Hurricane and from the looks of it, we get to fly right through it on our way out of here.”
“I’ll plot the most reasonable route through the ruins, hopefully we can clear the water before the currents get too rough from the storm,” De La Fuente answered, already working on his sensors to show Gunnarsen what he suggested. Of course, it was just a suggestion, had he been manning the controls he would have just led them to where the Korin probe had launched and hunkered down. His piloting skills were only just qualifiable. It was actually the single thing holding him back from his Commander’s examination. That and the fact that he was truly happy where he was.
“Reasonable may not cut it,” Ethan felt an all too familiar flicker of discomfort and shoved it aside. “We’re on borrowed time, so just find the most direct with the least obstacles and I can work from there...”
Suit stowed and as the Arrow began it’s ascent, Steiner made his way aft to the Operations compartment, on the way he ducked into the security alcove and grabbed a PaDD, flipped it on and linked it to the sensor maps they had made of the planet and the island on the way in. They were not of particularly high definition due to the mineral refractions but it was at least a start.
“Hello,” he greeted the two Korinn, giving them a friendly hand wave. “I’m Ridge Steiner, I wonder if you could show me where these Sunrise people are so we can try and find them?”
Uanika whistled to T’orpeo who clicked at her three times. This was the one who’d questioned the Grand Crest, Uanika had said. The tadpole. He was even more unimpressive without his suit on. T’orpeo agreed. “We don’t know exactly,” she said after their exchange. “All our information about them came from the Irix in captivity.”
"Huh, ok.. And you said there used to be many of them? More than forty, but now there are just four? Two adults and pups? You mean children?”
“Children. Yes,” T’orpeo responded.
He held out the PaDD, with the screen showing an aerial view of the island.”Could you show me where they might be? You can move the map around by touching the screen,” he held it out for one of them to take.
“The island isn’t so big that it would take more than a scan of a map to find anything of size,” T’orpeo chuffed suspiciously, “What is this air-breather up to?”
Uanika hooted and clicked back at her older assistant, “Let’s just answer the questions as best we can,” she returned. Taking the screen, she said to Steiner, “We don’t know exactly. But we were told they settled to the south on the higher dunes.”
“Do you know their names?” he asked. That would be something they could check against the Sunrise’s manifest if it was in the Arrow’s data banks.
The two Korinn looked at each other and lifted their hands to their shoulders. “No. That information never seemed that relevant,” Uanika said.
“Are there any of these - did you call them Z’ala? - there? Guards? With weapons? ”
“The Z’ala stay close to their lagoons,” T’orpeo said. “And where would the Sunrisers go? There’s only one island on the planet.”
As Uanika was scanning the island. It took her mere seconds before she handed the PADD back to Steiner.
Steiner looked. It was zoomed in on the coastline, there were dunes and there was some sort of dwelling place, a scattered group of huts or shacks, in a kind of half circle with a bigger building in the middle, nearby was a stream and another round sort of structure, the ground had an odd pattern by it. Some of the buildings were tumbled down and collapsed. It was hard to tell but they definitely looked to be of a different design to the more solidly constructed buildings a little way off by that big tower and industrial area. Certainly they were large enough for a group of Humanoids to live in. But were any still there? He wondered.
“Thanks, anything else you can tell me to help find them?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to the island and T’orpeo…”
“I was once there before the Pyrryx. There were these…err,” he clicked and whistled at Uanika, who touched her shoulders again. T’orpeo chuffed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know the word. There were interesting things to study, but nothing of value to finding someone. None of the mines or camps existed then. It was an empty island of dunes.”
“Okay” Steiner nodded “I’ll leave you with Doctor Wagner”
