4.3 - A Treasured Recovery

[hannah]

Hannah was checking though the list of supplies packed that had just been handed to her by a young ensign when a call came though from engineering.

=/\= Bridge here =/\= she responded as she tapped her commbadge.

=/\=Think we may have a working plan...=/\= Jason said explaining his engineering teams idea to use the medical computer storing the EMH to scan the computer to find out what was wrong.

=/\= Ok, get to work on it and keep me updated on your progress =/\= Hannah responded glad that they may have come up an idea to fix the computer and may be able to stop her home from exploding. She hadn’t realised how attached she’d come to this ship and when she actually started to think of it had home. But with the threat of it destruction it brought up a lot of hidden feelings.

Hannah handed the report back to the ensign. She wished she were back as an engineer doing something to fix the problem. She felt so helpless sitting on the bridge checking though details of the evaluation, but someone needed to do it.

Time passed by slowly, as she waited for an update from engineering team. She continued to co-ordinate the evaluation and watched as the bridge crew got less and less, until the skeleton staff was left.

The time then came for the evaluation to happen. Hannah looked up at the view screen and could see the twin stars getting bigger and bigger on the screen. Then there was a number pods released into space moving toward the planet that had just come into view. She felt an air of sadness pass over her, but she masked it she needed to be strong in front of the other crewmembers.

A few minutes later all the pods had disappeared into the planet’s atmosphere. Hannah jumped as her commbadge bleeped.

=/\= Ensign Farsir to Bridge =/\=

=/\= Bridge here =/\=

=/\= We have found the cause to the computer failure, a virus =/\=

=/\= Can you remove it and get computer control back? =/\=

=/\= We are working on an anti-virus now =/\=

=/\= Understood, keeping working for as long as you can, but head for the escape pods 10 minutes before the self destruction =/\=

=/\= Yes ma’am =/\= He said and then closed the communications channel.

Hannah wondered who could of planted the virus and how they had managed to get into there system. If they had time to spare she would of asked someone to investigate, but they had worse problems at the moment, as the ship was about to self-destruct.

[Deleted]

Melain broke the awkward silence between herself and Tom by walking away, trying not to cry over a hologram, as is on cue Frek enterd. They exchanged awkward pleasentries, after all Frek was staying on board and that meant the probablity of Melain seeing him again where not exactly encouraging.

“Don’t get hurt or anything,” he said and smile uncertainly, “I won’t.”

"Just as long as you don't try and be a hero Frek. Heros are great but they don't last long." Melain replied. "Don't let Harrias or the others do anything I wouldn't let them do." she added as an after thought.

"Doctor, we've got less then 45 minutes, we need to get into the escape pods!" Rachel interupted.

"Alright, you guys go get ready I'll meet you there." Melain replied, he still needed to collect her things, she was thankful now that she did not have a pet to worry about. Pets where being evacuated, but on the plnet they still needed to be controlled.

Melain bit her lip nervously, sometimes she wished life where like a holoprogram you could pause at any moment. Trying not to think too much she leaned forward into Frek and let her impulses take control. For an unexpected kiss, it wasn't bad. Frek had his mouth open to say something, and that didn't help. Whatever he was going to say seemed to be forgotten about when Melain pulled away. "I'm.. I'm sorry." Melain apologised, realising her action had been somewhat foolish. After al, just because, in a near death moment Frek had admited feelings for her did not mean that he really felt that way, being close to death made people say stupid things.

<Tag Frek>

"Doctor, you should go collect your things, we should probably be the first to land on the planet." Rachel interupted again, Melain was certain she would hear the nurses opinion on her actions in the pod. Rachel considerd herself the ship's matchmaker and had been eagerly pushing Toledo Javell at Melain for the past half year.

Melain nodded, took one more look at Frek and headed out the door to her quarters. Fortunatly she had gone without much for the past few months so picking a few precouse belongings was not difficult. She grabbed the Clavian Danara had given her, the photo of her parents, and the small box she store her old awards in, everything else was replaceable.

Melain headed to her escape pod, passing by other crewmembers doing the same thing. "Doctor!" she heard someone call out, turning around she saw Jason Farsir, the new chief engineer she had only just met. he was waving a PaDD.

Melain listened to Jason explain what he had done, feeling increasingly grateful as he went on. Tom was as much a friend to her as Rachel and she hated the thought of lossing him, even if he always seemed to have doubts about her abilities. "I did it for the crew." he explained.

"I know. It's one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone could do for their fellow crew members," Melain replied, she took the PaDD and stuck it in her bag determined not to lose it. 'Be careful, I need to get to my escape pod." He nodded and let her go

Melain joined Rachel in their pod, it was crammed full with medical supplies. The other nurses and medics joined other pods to spread the medical training around. In a few moments a Crewman from engineering and a lab tech joined them. The Pod was then full =A=Doctor Lorre to all hands, once your pod is full launch and brace yourself for the trip=A= she took a breath =A=May the Prophet's protect you all=A= Melain enterd the launch code and through the small window could see the Nevada slowly grow smaller, she had a haunting feeling she would never see that hull again.

(4616/76732)

[fthelev]

“Well, I…uhm.” Okay, clearly this was something different and unexpected. Obviously something he hoped for, but still unexpected. Sometimes the universe could be a cool place, even when you are heading more or less not only into one star, but two.
The first moment of shock quickly subdued.
“Don’t be sorry. Really.” Frek let out a nervous laugh. “I mean…uh, whatever I said down there, on Tammeron, and perhaps I was expecting not to make it out alive…”
He stopped to search for words, the right ones. “Okay, I was definitely not expecting to come out of it alive, but even if I would be chased by a gang of Catullan flying monkeys trying to steal my sanity…” He paused again.
Right, this was not going anywhere. “…uhm, what I mean I think is, whatever the situation was, I did mean what I said.” That was better. “And still do,” he added quite unnecessarily.
Melain looked up with a smile. “Catullan flying monkeys trying to…?”
“Yes, well,” Frek suppressed a flashback of the event, “Technically they don’t steal your sanity. But they are rather annoying and can really drive a person insane.”
A frown appeared on his forehead. “If it weren’t for that I would’ve showed you.”
“I’m sure,” Melain replied.

"Doctor, you should go collect your things, we should probably be the first to land on the planet." Rachel interupted again….

Frek placed his hands on her upper arms, looked into her eyes and smiled. “I’m sure they’re in one of your databases, look it up.” He gave her a hug and a quick kiss. A deep breath filled his lunges and looked around. This would very probably be the last time he would be in this place. Come to think of it, he spend did spend quite some of it in here.
His eyes returned to Melain. “Be careful down there,” he said softly, “And don’t worry, if we can’t fix the ship I’ll be the first one to reach an escape pod with the others in my wake. They’ll have a hard time keeping up.”
“So after seeing you eating a salad you’re also going to engage in physical exercise?” Melain asked.
Frek gave her a semi-hurt look. “No of course not, but I tend to move a bit quicker when I have the chance to avoid being blown up.”
He glanced at the door. “Gotta go now. Take care, will you?” he looked around briefly in the door opening and disappeared. He took a few steps and halted, for some reason he couldn’t stop grinning, and then continued his way.

The first officer was moving from console to console checking a PADD or tricorder while working on them. She looked up to see who was entering.
“You found a way to cancel the self-destruct sequence and get helm-control back?” Stevenson asked hopefully.
Frek made his way to the portable computer he has set up. It was a spare one, usually used in repair pods. Not very powerful, but better than a tricorder. And more importantly, it was an independent device.
“Huh?” Frek looked up to the xo. “No. The chances of getting helm-control are about as big as getting a vampire to play beach-volleyball at high noon.”
Thought about it and added quite happily, “On Riga. So I guess we’re going to blow up.”
A peculiar expression appeared on Hannah’s face. He was probably still grinning stupidly. “But then why are you…?” she pointed out. Her expression changed to what could be described as a successful mix between worry and suspicion, “You didn’t hit your head on a bulkhead or something now, did you?”
Frek opened his mouth to say something, but then changed his mind. Perhaps he did hit his head on a bulkhead earlier, but there was no reason to go into that.
“I’m perfectly fine commander,” he assured her.
“Hmm, good,” she pointed at the screen where a fleet of pods was moving away from the Nevada, “Cause all medical personnel has just launched.”
Frek stared at screen filled with all the tiny dots and wondered which one Melain was on. They soon disappeared of the screen and the next batch took their place. The evacuation was in full motion now. It was amazing how quick a ship with a crew complement of seven or eight hundred could be reduced to the mere few dozen that was the skeleton crew in such a short amount of time. And even though you couldn’t see how empty ship was from the bridge you could feel it. As he stared at the dots on the screen fading, so did his grin somewhat.
But despite the harsh reality coming back to him he actually didn’t feel that bad at all.

A soft touch on the console and the computer came to life. Frek changed the parameters and entered the frequency he had isolated to transmit the data from the navigation array directly to this console. Hannah moved over and stared over his shoulder.
“Any luck?” she inquired, she still regarded him a bit strangely.
Frek rechecked the parameters and the data coming in. “We are getting something,” he said. He checked the frequency with what he had in the tricorder. Something was polluting the signal. “Something’s not right,” he muttered. He took a step aside to let Hannah have a better look. After all, she had been an engineer. And the only that was still onboard. “Look at this.”
Hannah tapped a few controls. “Interference?”
“You probably know better than me,” Frek replied, “But from what? There’s nothing in this system that can interfere with it on that frequency.”

A connection to the shuttle was easily made. “Are you sure there’s nothing out there transmitting?” Hannah verified with Ensign Loki and Steve.
The other end of the line remained silent for a moment. “We are sure, nothing but natural background noise in both the EM-spectrum and subspace. Not counting our own signals from the pods that is.”
Hannah signed off. “So what is it?”
Frek said nothing and continued working. “I’m trying to filter out the navigational information stream, as far as possible and…”
“What?” the First Officer bended towards the display.
Frek pushed himself away from the panel. What they had there was hardly complete and well hidden within the information. If they hadn’t established this link they would have never found. “Looks like bits and pieces of a code. And not something I think is ours.”
They were both thinking the same. The cause of all there trouble.
And it didn’t look good. Think cannibal and cooking pot not kind of good. Or vampire and empty blood bags.
“This is quite something,” Hannah said, “Never seen anything like this before.”
Frek raised an eyebrow, she was clearly seeing something in that code he didn’t. “Am I missing out on something?”
“It’s almost as if the virus is being programmed on the spot,” Hannah said, “That code, pieces of the virus being added, all the time. That’s why it’s continuing to grow.”

(4316/103290)

[hannah]

Frek looked at her, “What if it is being programmed on the spot?”

“It could be being transmitted along that inference we picked up,” Hannah said.

Hannah reopened the communications channel with the shuttle.

“Scan the background radiation for any slight ir……”

Hannah stopped. She had noticed something about the newly generated code.

“Commander?” Steve said over the communications signal.

“Head for the planet,” Hannah ordered, “The virus is being sent though our communications channel.”

Hannah then abruptly cut the communications channel, hoping that they would make it to the planet before the virus took over their systems as well.

“They must be watching us,” Hannah said out loud.

“Do you think they have a ship close?” Frek asked.

“Not necessary, they could just have broken into our sensor system and transmitting the data back and too,” Hannah said. Then a thought crossed her mind, they probably know about the escape pods and knew that we were escaping our destruction.

Hannah promptly brought up the bit of the coding for the destruction sequence and noticed more coding being added there. Frek looked at the code as well and noticed the same thing Hannah did. They both looked at each other with fear in their eyes.

She tapped her commbadge.

=/\= All crew evaluate the ship =/\= she called down it.

Then her and Frek rushed of the bridge followed by the other bridge crew heading to the nearest escape pod. They arrived only moments later they piled into the pod. The pods were crammed even with only a quarter of the supplies loaded. They hadn’t had a chance to finish loading the pods; they had planned on having an extra thirty minutes to finish packing.

Hannah checked everyone was in and then entered the ejection sequence. The pod shot out of the tube and into space. She looked out the window to see the other pods moving next to them.

Then there was flash of light and the shuttle shock violently, she strained her neck backwards to see pieces of burning medal from the Nevada flying away from the point of explosion.

[fthelev]

It was amazing how cramped those escape pods were. And perhaps the more amazing knowing that they expected people to survive in these things for two weeks. At least that was what the designers claimed was possible. Clearly they hadn’t spent any time in one of those things themselves. Even knowing that Federation rescue vessels would probably be able pick them up within some substantial time, it didn’t help much to ease the claustrophobic feeling. They had just ejected from the ship, but he could feel it already. It was almost as if one big hand grabbed him and was squeezing him. Could be some reminiscent from Tammeron, those cells. Needles to say, not the most comfortably sensation to experience.

The little and simple instruments in the pod kept updating its occupants with the latest information. And they kept changing fast. The information that is, not the occupants. That would probably be a rather bad thing.
“Mr Thelev, status.” The First Officer was short and direct to the point. Then again, this was not the moment to start a nice conversation about all the grand-children their parents so desperately wanted to have.
Frek checked the sensor data provided by the little screen in front of him. “Distance still increasing. The Nevada should go…”
For some reason he found it hard to say, and there was this nasty thing in his throat he had trouble swallow away.
Frek cleared his throat. “Should go up in about fifteen seconds.”
In his mind he counted back the seconds. “We should be in a safe range,” he added.
“Good,” Hannah, commander Stevenson responded. She sounded direct and very professional. Perhaps her way to conceal her feelings about the eminent destruction of their ship.

It is quite amazing how long fifteen seconds can last. What was it? Fifteen minutes. More perhaps? Whatever it was, it felt like an eternity. Either way, for them it was an eternity.
And when it went, it went with a bang. Almost as if the dark night that was the space around them was turned into an instant bright day. And that was just the start.

Frek looked alarmed as his hand flew over the controls, and to no avail. Basically, there were no controls left to control.
“Commander,” he said, his voice hastened, “I think we have a problem.”
A problem would be a squad of Jem’Hadar in a bad mood loose in a children’s playground.
He took a deep breath. “And a serious one.”
“What?” Hannah snapped. Their ship just exploded a few seconds ago. Normally that would qualify as a problem. Not to mention a serious one.
Lights went off in the escape pod. And more importantly, expect for some emergency illumination, they didn’t come back online. As did the rest of the instruments.
“Frek!” Hannah said in a demanding voice.
But the Andorian shook his head despairingly. “We’ve lost everything. Main navigation, life support…”
A field ration floated by. “…and artificial gravity,” Frek added quite superfluously.
“What the…” Hannah exclaimed, “The virus?”
Some worry shimmered in her voice.
Frek shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He tried the one or two systems still operational.
The Nevada had been on a direct course leading between the twin stars of the system. Somehow they had always assumed that it was a failsafe in case they would be able to disable the self-destruct, so that the ship would be torn apart and destroyed anyway. Apparently it had one more catch.

Frek read the data on the display. “The explosion,” he said, “The ship exploded almost in the coronas of the stars. Seemingly it caused a major solar flare.”
“And it…?” She already knew the answer, but she just wanted to hear it.
Frek nodded. “It fried every unshielded circuit in the system probably,” he said gloomily.
You would definitely have a better time reading obituaries than reading that display. Miraculously it still worked.
“Communications, phasers,” Frek lifted his hands from the controls in a desperate gesture, “Basically everything we need to alert Starfleet, contact each other and well,” he didn’t know where to continue, “Well, everything.”
To say Hannah wasn’t very pleased with the information was the same as saying Earth wasn’t very keen on the Borg attempt to invade. Which meant not very pleased at all.

“Can we still make it to the planet?” Hannah inquired.
Frek nodded once again. This more positively. “I still have basic manual control over the thrusters,” he said, “It’ll be a rough ride, but we’ll make it safely.”
He thought about it for a moment and made an educated guess. “As will the others,” his expression changed, “Unfortunately, there is no saying in where we’ll land.”
“We’ll be spread around all over the place,” Hannah immediately realised.
“It’s a safe assumption,” Frek replied, “The pods first to leave, and already in the atmosphere probably reach the remote area we picked out…”
“But for the rest of us…” Hannah partly finished the sentence, but there was no need to. They both, and the other three people in the pod, knew what that meant. And what it meant was not good. Like chocolate ice-cream without chocolate or Jell-‘O-Magic jelly without peach flavour, so you have nothing you can savour. Pods usually launched in batches, so pods launched at the same time would likely land in proximity to each other, but finding the other groups could still prove to be something of a struggle. And not only that, how would they be able to remain undetected with all of their main equipment, the things they always took for granted, out of service?

(5254/104228)

[Deleted]

Melain fidgeted with her small bag, she was worrying about whether or not they would reach the planet, whether or not not the other pods would reach the planet, if anyone would be injured or even killed, if they would be able to find each other, set up a camp, stay hidden from any locals, whether or not the Nevada would self destruct, whether or not the rest of the crew would be able to abandon ship. In fact she was so busy worrying she did not even realise Rachel was talking to her until the Nurse grabbed her by the arm.

“So, tell me what is happening between you and Commander Thelev?” Rachel asked. “It’s a long trip and a small pod so you can’t escape from me.”

Melain looked around. The two other crewmembers in the pod where Grome, the Bolian engineer who came in three months ago with funny orange patches on his skin, and Crewman Sutton the human lab assistant who’d helped her with some samples in the past. Neither where individuals she could expect to keep a secret, but both where heavily involved in a discussion about why the other had not brought a pack of ‘playing cards’ in their carry on.

Melain sighed and realised she had better tell Rachel something or she’d come up with her own story “People.... open up when they think they are about to die. On Tammeron we came close to death a couple of times. He admitted he... liked me. I was not sure I felt the same way and I’m still not, but... it felt like the right thing to do and to be honest I’m becoming a little fonder of him.” Melain admitted. “It’s funny, I told myself that if we where rescued I’d take some time away from his... antics, and now I’m going to have that time and I really wish I didn’t.”

“While opposite do attract, as the old saying goes. I still have my money on you and Javell though, he’s smart enough for you.” Rachel explained.

“Frek’s not stupid, he’s just awkward.” Melain defended. “You are not one to talk about relationships, you’ve had a thing for Tanet since I came aboard and have never made a single move.”

“Tanet Neval.” Grome confirmed, revealing he’d been eavesdropping on their entire conversation. Melain nodded. “I’ll have to tell him when we reach the surface, he’s been complaining for awhile about the lack of interest he;s received from any of the female crew.”

“Oh please don’t, the doctor’s wrong, I just like to tease him...” Rachel begged, Melain did not have to be a telepath to know Rachel did not really mean it.

At least, she realised, the crew (or at least most of it) was still together. A ship could always be replaced, a crew as connected as the Nevada’s was not easily found. She hopped that Star Fleet Command would realise that and not reassign all of them instead of replacing the ship. ‘It looks like we are nearing the planet.” she commented, looking out the window. She could some of the other pods along side theirs. They had arranged for the pods to land in the Northern hemisphere in an area that they hopped was uninhabited. The problem was the planet was mainly one land mass, so an isolated island was not an option. This area had mountains on either side which hopefully would grant them the same cover as an ocean. This also made the landing somewhat difficult. Melain braced for the decent into the planet’s atmosphere. She could not tear herself away from looking out the window no matter how much she tried, where they coming in too fast, too steep?

She wondered what type of people where on the surface, and imagined for a moment she saw a village. The planet came closer, her imagined village was replaced by a cloud, then.... No. “Crewman Sutton, do you see that?” she asked.

“See what doctor?” the young women asked, peering out her own window.

“It looks like....a sea of brightly coloured tents.” Melain tried to explain.

“I.. yes there it is. I’ve seen these in some of my brother’s medieval holonovals, its an army camp. I think this culture must be in that era of it’s development. Fascinating.” Linda Sutton exclaimed.

“Do you think they see us?” Melain asked, yes the tents where fascinating, and she was familiar with the medieval age. It was a time of warfare, brutality and.... superstition.

“They’d have sentries posted, the pods should look like a meteor shower, but they wouldn’t know anything about those. What are they doing so far north?”

“I haven’t the faintest clue, but I think we need to avoid contact with them at....” Melain was interrupted as the pod came in for a rough landing. Around her the containers of medical supplies clattered around the small cramped pod. They settled ito heaps on the floor and for a moment Melain though they had stopped, then the pod gave another jerk and they where off again. Finally they came to a rest and Melain peaked out the window once again, her view was blocked by a large tree trunk. “Right, here’s our stop everyone out.” she ordered, trying to sound a little more optimistic then she felt.

As she stepped out of the pod she could hear other pods landing just out of sight. “We’ll meet...” she looked around the field trying to find a reasonably prominent feature. “That large bush.” she shrugged, there where several bushes in the field, but this one towered above the others. “Spread out and tell the others to empty their pods and spread the same message.” Rachel, Linda and Grome nodded and headed in three separate directions. Melain grabbed her medkit, her own bag and the nonessential crew rooster for a role call. First thing first was to find Lieutenant Talla and Major Johnson, she did not like the idea of them staying on one place for long, that army was a bad omen in her mind.

“Doctor! Ensign Wicken is injured, she got banged up in the landing!” Melain heard a voice yell, the body broke through the woods soon after, it was, of all people, Tanet Neval. He was holding up the human medic. She was bleeding from the forehead but was still conscious.

“Put her here, and see if there is anyone else who needs my attention, get Rachel to come here I’ll need her help” Melain ordered. Tanet placed the Ensign down and Melain began what she was certain would eventually resemble a continuos stream of minor injuries. She wished she had Tom with her, he was very good at this sort of thing. She pulled out a medical tricorder and waved it over the Ensign's bleeding head. The screen was blank, she hit it hard with her palm, it wa still blank. She swore in Bajoran and pulled out a microsuture, it did not even turn on. Cursing again she ripped off a piece of her uniform and wrapped the Ensign's head.

“Did anyone else see that?” a nearby crewmembers called out, pointing up to the sky.

“What!?” Melain asked, panicking.

A cool minding Vulcan ensign raised his hand above his brow and squinted “It would appear that the Nevada has self destructed. Although from this distance with this light I cannot say for certain, however given the ships trajectory at the time of our departure and the time of self destruct I would say that such a conclusion is logical.” He reported this with such a lack of emotion Melain was tempted to strap him down for a lobotomy, of course he was a Vulcan.

The entire field went silent, and Melain was pretty certain they where all thinking the same thing: did they make it out.

“You there, send out a distress call using the shuttles, see if you can loop them together to mke the call stronger.” a stong commanding voice called out to a group of engineers who had started to explore their survival kits. It was Lani Talla, he was limping slightly.

“We tried.” one of the engineers explained. “But there’s too much interferance or something. T’vek thinks it’s because of a storm heading this way. The Nevada would have sent out a beacon anyway.”

“The Nevada was in no condition to do any such thing, did you not think to report this issue as soon as it arose?!” Lieutnant Talla seemed upset but his voice remained cool.

“No sir, sorry sir.” the young Engineer replied.

“We may have a bigger problem Lieutenant, I saw a local army camped just on the othr ide of those mountains on my way down. They would have seen us come in, and none of my equipment will work.” Melain explained gestutring to Wicken's bandaged head. 'I know some traditional medicine, but nothing that will take care of anything severe."

Lani sighed. “Where is Cyle, we need to get some strategy going here?"

(6054/78170)

[davidramsey]

David was more than a little throttled ... he was incensed. Finally, after all these years he'd finally managed to get himself on board a Starfleet vessel ... just to see it explode a few hours later. He was just sitting there in the middle of the pod surrounded by two Petty Officers and a cook with a look of pure indignance and foolish self pity etched into his face. He'd spent perhaps two minutes on board the Nevada. His pack, which had never been unpacked, was unceremoniously stuffed under his seat and was starting to make sitting so grumpily very unpleasant. He'd stepped out of the shuttle bay just to be sent to an escape pod. Now it was gone ... the ship of his dreams ... gone ... Oh, what a mess this was!
'That's it ... I'm bad luck!' he thought to himself, 'It's about time I owned up to it.'

He grimaced again, but finally looked up at his pod mates. They were all nearing tears and suddenly all thoughts for himself evaporated. That was their home, it was their great source of pride ... not just the object of his ambition. He felt bad for them, but the last thing they needed was pity, a thought that had never done anything but kill positive thinking. He was the ranking officer and it would be his job to keep them together until they could rejoin with the others.

'Should be simple,' he thought to himself, 'After all, it's on auto-pilot ...'

Then suddenly he saw a bright flash outside the main hatch and all the systems went down. The officer at the controls turned to him with a look of pure panic in her eyes. Her system was down and they had no way of navigating or even attempting to land where they were expected. He swallowed audibly, but quickly cleared his throat and pasted a positive look unto his face.

"It's ok, Petty Officer, can you land this thing?" he said calmly.

She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head 'no' then nodding 'yes' and then her frail sense of self fractured before his very eyes.

"Sir, I don't know, sir," she said with in a quivering voice.

David eased himself forward next to her and the other young petty officer who was sitting dumbfounded staring at his dead controls. David took her hand and placed it on the manual thruster controls.

"Take a deep breath," he said as the pod began to veer under the pressure of her hand, "Be calm, Petty Officer ... Siever, was it?"

She nodded an affirmative and David forced a smile to his face in an attempt to calm her a bit more.

"Ok, Siever, you know how to do this, it's nothing new," he continued, "So, steady yourself ... and take us down. You are the only one here that can."

She looked at him fearfully and he smiled, almost as though this was literally just a walk in the park. She used her tactical compass and aligned them for entry into the atmosphere. It was a bumpy ride and David tried not to notice the cook vomiting behind him as his own stomach lurched into his throat. The heat shield started to give way which led to the pod suddenly turning into a raging inferno without the flames.

"We are coming in shallow!" Petty Officer Siever said, the panic starting to creep back into her voice, "I think one of the thrusters is not burning as well as it should be, might be a power problem! Check the power conduit back there and I'll try to even us out."

David wasted no time poking his way around the ill cook to find and open the mees panel that led to the conduit in question. The relays were melted together. He didn't have time to assess the real damage so he quickly rerouted the power through an undamaged system and yanked the fried portion out so quick he nearly took out the rest of the circuitry. He grabbed up one of the spare segments and quickly installed it. He rerouted the power back through the thruster and turned back to Siever.

"There, try it now," he said mopping the fop sweat from his face.

She didn't reply, but as he moved back into position next to her he could see that his efforts had proved successful and the young NCO was navigating her way through the lower tropopause as they careened toward a dark, emerald green valley that would have looked pleasant ... had they not been about to crash into the rocky hillside.

"Brace for impact!" Siever said as the other petty officer and the cook both whimpered simultaneously. David clamped his eyes shut, grabbed the center console, and held on for dear life. He heard Siever scream, but that was the last thing he remembered inside the pod.

Some time later he was awakened by some strange sound. He looked around him, dazed and saw Siever and his other two pod mates lying next to a great cave opening. Apparently, they had managed to escape the pod and find their way to suitable shelter; however, for the life of him, David couldn't remember how. It was raining outside the cave and as he hobbled his way toward the opening he was utterly taken by the sheer beauty that fanned out before him. The twin stars that had been poised to rip the Nevada to pieces were now setting over a luscious landscape full of extravagant greens, oranges, yellows, and violets of varying shades. The hillside was littered with strange, beautiful blue flowers that made it look like a wave on the Terran sea. David partly fell and partly sat down next to the sleeping cook and stared out across the lovely scene as the feeling of sheer terror started to tingle its way up his spine.

"Oh, what am I gonna do now?" he said out loud as a slight inclination toward tears crept over him. He bowed his head and tried to think of something, anything other than the task at hand.

[hannah]

Hannah sat back in the pod, letting Frek navigate them towards the planet. She could see a couple of pods moving ahead of them and had directed Frek to follow there paths hoping that they would all land close to each other and could meet up easily. Her mind began to drift thinking of her destroyed home, the other crewmembers that had stayed behind with them and she hoped they had all made it to an escape pod.

There was a shudder as the pod entered into the atmosphere. Frek moved his fingers quickly trying to manage there decent. Hannah watched as colours of the atmosphere replaced the blackness of space. She could feel the heat beginning to build up in the pod. Hannah knew they were coming in to fast even before Frek announced it.

“Trying to use the thrusters to slow our decent,” Frek informed her moving his fingers franticly across the controls.

“It’s not working we are still coming in to fast,” Frek shouted. Hannah looked out of the window they had just made it though the top layer of atmosphere and she could see the forest below.

“Where are we going to land?” asked one of the crewmembers pointing to the large forest below.

Hannah searched over the landscape for a break in the trees, a field, something. Then she noticed it, she knew it wasn’t ideal but it would have to do.

“There,” she said pointing, “Commander Thelev aim for that lake.”

Frek didn’t look happy with the idea but did as he was ordered. They needed something to slow there decent and water was better than trees. Hannah watched as they descended to towards the body of water.

“Brace for impact,” Frek shouted. The escape pod hit the water and bounced with a slap in the same way as a person doing a belly flop did. It hit the water again less than a second later bouncing of in the same way. After a couple more bounces, the pod sank down in the water and rose back up and floating on the surface.

“Is everyone all right?” she asked looking at her fellow officers.

“Yes I am,” Frek said sounding surprised. The other officers nodded.

“My feet are wet,” Frek complained a few moments later. Hannah looked down and could see the water slowly rising at the bottom of the escape pod. She looked out the window again and noticed that they were slowly sinking.

Hannah started to grab the stuff from the back of the escape pod and handed a bag of emergency equipment to each of the officers. She took of her uniform jacket and then she slung an emergency pack over her shoulder.

“Can everyone swim?” she asked as she took of her boots.

[Harrias Jira]

Standing in the airlock between the Nevada proper and the small escape pod that had been packed to the limits, Jira looked back into the ship. He couldn’t see much; bulkheads and metal, grated floor decking weren’t the most emotion invoking articles, but he still felt a surge of nausea pass through his body. He gagged slightly but shook it off violently. The ship was shuddering lightly, perhaps a build up to the fireworks that were going to ensue. He tapped his commbadge.

=/\= Jira to all crew. =/\= He wasn’t sure what to say: there were no books telling him what to do in this circumstance, no real simulations that had truly covered it. =/\= Is anyone still on board? =/\=

He waited a few seconds, and took the lack of response as an indicator that everyone had managed to escape. He started to spin, his back almost symbolically turned to the ship. The ship, his command, his family’s home, his baby, his beauty. The ship that had seen him through some of the hardest times, and given him some of the happiest. His shoulders rotated again, back towards the ship. He couldn’t leave her.. he just couldn’t.

His commbadge chirped. And again. =/\= Captain, get the hell out of there, she’s going to blow in under 15 seconds! =/\= Steve’s voice ripped through the void, stunning the trill into instinctive action. His upper torso dropped as he dived towards the shuttle, his shoulders rolling in preparation for the blow as he hit the floor. His head tucked in, and his arms moved in below it, coiled back in readiness to push him back to his feet within the small pod.

He barely felt the landing when it happened, though some part of his subconscious noted that it was a hard landing. Once on his feet within the pod, he wasted no time in hitting the short combination that would throw the pod away from his ship at dangerous speeds. As they did so, he was thrown to the side of the cubicle; the pod’s minimal inertial dampeners not managing to do anything more than vaguely soften the blow as he was flung towards the planets surface. As his head swam, he barely noticed the second shaking of the pod that the explosion of the Nevada caused; indeed his brain had completely cut itself off, overloaded with physical and emotional pain.

So it was that he awoke later; he wasn’t sure how much later, in his pod which was making all sorts of warning noises at him. He groggily made a few typed requests of the computer, but wasn’t in control of his thoughts enough to understand the answers it gave him. His brain finally clicked into gear as the altimeter flashed and made itself bigger in the corner of the screen. He moved to program the computer to adjust the landing trajectory, but before he could do so, the screen went blank. He frowned, his mind again threatening to leave him alone in this time of need. It seemed like the events of the past couple of hours were replaying themselves again.

He took a couple of deep breaths and looked at the small joystick that had mechanically flung itself out of the panelling when the screen had gone dead. This was going to be fun… not. Admittedly he could think of few things more exciting than flying a paraglider down a narrow gorge, each twist threatening to end his life, but for some reason this didn’t give him the same edge: a life-pod just didn’t have the same appeal. Nevertheless, he fought with the controls for the next few minutes, all his concentration going into the slight (or not so slight) changes he made in the small vessels descent. It turned out that in addition to not enjoying such flying, he was also rather poor at it; the pod smashed heavily into the ground and for the second time in a matter of minutes, knocked him out.

When he came around he found himself lying uncomfortably in the life pod. His feet were somewhere above his head, propped up on some of the cargo that had accompanied the trill on the rough journey down. One of his arms was undoubtedly broken, twisted unnaturally beneath him. He took a few seconds to repeat every curse that he knew. It didn’t help. He used his abdominal muscles to slowly lift his body up, sliding his legs sideways off the cargo. With his good arm he tapped at the door control for a few seconds before remembering that the electronics had cut out. With a grunt he instead pulled and twisted the maglock that manually opened the door. A faint hiss sounded as the hydraulics operated and let the door drop open in a controlled manner that would stop it getting damaged. He laughed; a bit late for that!

Stepping out of the shuttle, Harrias squinted as the bright sunshine assaulted his eyes. Low ozone levels obviously; he wondered whether some sun lotion would have been a good addition to the medical pack in the lifepod. He raised his left arm (the good one) and shielded his eyes with one hand as he surveyed the area. It was mostly low bracken, running away into trees near the horizon in three directions. In the other it cut off a lot earlier and was replaced by a mixture of red and blue tents. Tents. He cursed again. The re-warp civilisation. He had come down far too close for them not to notice him. But then, maybe… He looked towards it again and didn’t see any sign of movement.

Frowning, he stepped back into the pod and extricated a small array of explosives and set them up around the pod. He then took a few minutes to remove anything that he could carry, and that might come in useful. It turned out that of the two conditions, the first was the most problematic, as everything seemed to be useful. Finally, when he had a small pack prepared and stowed a short distance away, he set the charges; the timer set at its miserly maximum of twenty seconds.

He took the distance at a sprint, making sure that he was going to be far enough away from the pod to avoid injury. His mind counted down, the numbers seeming to roll far quicker than the terrain before him, the bracken catching around his ankles and threatening to send him sprawling to the floor. When the count dropped to three, he was within reach of the khaki pack, and dropped carefully to the ground, trying to avoid using his left arm.

The explosion ripped across the land, the heat enveloping him and causing him to cough heavily for a few seconds. The blast had been designed to push all the shrapnel inwards, to be caught in the fire that would ensue. It was an detonation designed to remove all trace of the pod. As he pushed himself back onto his knees he heard angry and confused voices yabbering from the direction of the tents, and while he swung the pack onto his back he saw a small group of aliens emerge and start towards the fire, their attention completely concentrated on it, allowing him to head towards the trees in relative safety.

[davidramsey]

David sat huddled near the opening of the cave for roughly an hour. The temperature was dropping rapidly and he opened his tunic and slid down along the wall, trying to keep his legs somewhat warm. It was beautiful watching the dual stars setting off in the distance and David sat enraptured as the chill evening air flowed around him. He was nearing panic again as he thought of just what would be required of him when the morning dawned. He shifted his position and closed his eyes.
Suddenly, he thought of his mother, she wouldn't know anything yet of course, no one would ... but still her reaction filled his mind and he dreaded the thought. He tried to think of something else and a memory from his childhood came to him.

He was small, maybe six, and he'd fallen out of a maple tree while trying to rescue his model starship. He was in his mother's hospital and she was there with him. She sang to him as she often did back then. He began singing softly along with her. It was a song he imagined that all Starfleet mothers sang to their children.

"I'm sailing away;
set an open course for the virgin sea;
I've got to be free;
free to face the life that's ahead of me;

On board, I'm the captain, so climb aboard;
We'll search for tomorrow on every shore;
And I'll try, oh Lord, I'll try ... to carry on;

I look to the sea;
reflections in the waves spark my memory;
Some happy, some sad;
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had;
We live happily forever, so the story goes."

David opened his eyes and looked back at his pod mates and cringed.


"But somehow we missed out on the pot of gold;
But we'll try best that we can to carry on;

A gathering of angels appeared above my head;
They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said;
They said come sail away, come sail away;
Come sail away with me, lads;
Come sail away, come sail away;
Come sail away with me."***

David turned back toward the sky and saw ribbons of fire streaking across the horizon. It was beautiful and throughly awe inspiring.

"Looks like comets or a meteor shower ...," David heard Siever say behind him.

"... Or escape pods!" David said excitedly.

He lept up and ran back into the cave looking for something. The tricorders were useless due to the EM wave that had disabled the pod itself. He grabbed up every rock he could find and rubbed it on the walls. Finally, he found something that seemed to be granite and he ran back to the front of the cave. He put up his thumb and lined it up with the horizon and the point at which the flaming tales of the pods were disappearing. He scribbled down his guesses and estimations onto the floor of the cave. If his assumptions were correct the other crew members were about 130 to 150 kilometers off from the landing site.


"I thought that they were angels, but much to my surprise;
We climbed aboard their starship and headed for the skies!" he continued singing with a smile.

They were by no means saved, but at least now they had a heading and hope. He turned back to Siever and kissed her.
She stared at him dumbfounded and smiled sheepishly.

"Tomorrow, we set off away from the rising sun. I don't know how long it'll take us to get there or if we can get there, but it's somewhere," David said happily.



(OOC: *** "Sail Away" by Styx
Anyone actually wanting to hear the song can IM me on MSN and I'd be happy to send it to you.)

[steve]

=^=Well there’s a bit of good news at least.=^= He said dourly. =^=I’m afraid we haven’t had as much in the way of success. For now I want you to pull back from the atmosphere and keep an eye out for any activity. We’ll let you know how things are going on this end and will report in every fifteen minutes. Jira out.=^=
=^= Understood =^= Lex replied
Steve sat in the seat next to Lex in the runabout flying his ship, his baby. It had been given to him as a present and if there was a chance they were going to have to leave the Nevada there was a no where he felt safer than his runabout.
"Good work ensign" Steve said turning towards her. They had both got off to a bad start, well that was a bit of an understatement. They got off to very bad start but with everything going on Steve felt he would let it go, saving the ship was his first thought, bit*hing with a fellow officer was not one of them.
"Thanks, from here we wont be able to get detailed enough scans of the surface to give the ship anymore details but I guess at the moment we are the ships eyes and ears."
Steve nodded "Yes we will hold position here until we get anymore orders, we may have to help with the evacuation. Do your best to get anymore information from the planet."
Lex sat there pressing buttons and working away.

They were both startled by the sound of a transmission.
“Scan the background radiation for any slight ir……”
Hannah stopped. She had noticed something about the newly generated code.
“Commander?” Steve said over the communications signal.
“Head for the planet,” Hannah ordered, “The virus is being sent though our communications channel.”
Hannah then abruptly cut the communications channel, hoping that they would make it to the planet before the virus took over their systems as well.

Steve turned his head to lex looking at her for a second
"Setting course for the planet. Start scanning for any signs of communication or anything that could be transmitting to the Nevada."
Lex didn't reply but Steve didn't need her to, her finger were working at almost the speed off light across the panel. What ever problems Steve had with her as a person he could not fault her work so far.
"Commander"
"Yes" Steve replied
"I have something, I am picking up a faint transmission from the planet surface. It is very weak, I wont be able to pin point it until we get into the lower atmosphere."
The run about followed the trail trying to reach the source before the Nevada was destroyed.
"Anything more?" Steve called out as they entered orbit before heading down.
"I am picking up a number of lifesigns both from our people and from the people from this planet. They have landed very close to the locals but we can deal with that when we have sorted this problem out."
"I am taking us down keep on monitoring that signal"
The runabout entered the atmosphere and headed for the problem. All of a sudden one of the panels infront of Steve went dead "We are being hacked" he called out, they are taking over our systems.
"Computer block any incoming transmissions" Steve ordered but there was no response from the computer.
"Its too late, they saw us coming."
"We need to land this craft and shut down all systems before they gain full control." Lex suggested
"Agreed" Steve replied "Do we still have sensors?"
"No they have gone offline"
"Well I still have thrusters, do you remember the location of our people you located earlier? Maybe I can put us down somewhere near them."
Lex paused for a moment and the spat out a set of coordinates that she remember to be the location of the Nevada crew and Steve changed direction and headed for it.
"Download all information into a tricorder about this transmission and we can see what we can do about it when we meet up with the others."
Lex worked away getting what was still under their control into the tricorder as Steve sorted out getting the ship down in one.
"I see what looks like a number of escape pods in a clearing up ahead. I am going to put us down there."

Steve managed to settle the shuttle down with no big problems
"We made it" Lex commented
"Yes but we still have a problem, it seems that there is still code flooding into our systems"
"We knew that might happen, shut everything down."
"Yes and when we re start the craft everything will be intact... well aslong as we find the source of the transmission and shut it off at the source."
With that they both started and finished a full systems shut down and the whole of the craft when dark.
"Pick up what you can and lets go and find the Doctor and the rest of the crew."

[fthelev]

“Can everyone swim?” she asked as she took of her boots.

Frek stared at the Commander as she put her now bare feet in the rising level of water.
“You know,” Frek said with thought, “Aren’t these things supposed to float?”
Someone climbed past his seat and opened the emergency hatch on the topside, or at least the still dry side, of the escape pod. A whiff of air came blowing in. It had a distinct smell, something that neither of them could really identify, but on the other hand was strangely familiar. You what that is like. When you know what something means, or what something is, but you can’t describe it or find the correct word that matches it.
“We must have sprung a leak,” that particular someone said very wisely.
It was the rather obvious. Either that or someone had made critical error while designing the pods.
“Did you know that on Andoria most of the surface water is always frozen?” Frek said for no reason in particular.
Hannah Stevenson stopped with what she was doing and turned around. “Does that mean you can’t swim commander?”
Frek looked up, deserting his contemplations. “Huh?” He stared at the dark water of the lake. It looked very unappealing.
“Yes I can swim,” he answered the question reluctantly. Okay, perhaps he was stalling for time a bit. “It looks rather wet though.”
“Yes, that’s one the main properties of water,” Hannah confirmed and shoved his part of the gear in his arms. She looked down at his feet. “It goes easier with boots off.”
“Yeah,” Frek nodded and stared out of the window. “But if it’s all the same to you I rather keep them on.”

Sure, he knew what would happen if he would take them off. Surely it happened to most people. You all know how that goes. You see this nice little pond on this beautiful idyllic spot. Of course, you don’t know the place, but hey? What harm can there be in taking a nice refreshing dive? And before you know it you are in the middle of the water when something starts nibbling at your toes. Not unlike zombies do with brains. And then, well, by the time he got to the shore and his feet back on dry land his toes were swollen to twice their original size. It’s certainly no laughing matter, not for him anyway, when you can’t normally walk for the subsequent two weeks without some sincere discomfort.

Not something that necessarily needed to be repeated Frek thought as he swam alongside the others, shoes still on. Behind them the pod filled with water until its density became greater than that off the water and it lost the last of its buoyancy. As water surged in through the open hatch and it gave one last nasty sounding gurgle before it disappeared under the smooth surface of this dank tarn. Or perhaps one of his comrades floating about swallowed a mouthful of the water. That could cause worms.

When they had left the pod they had set course for the nearest shore, a not entirely illogical decision. And basically it didn’t really matter which way they swam anyway. It was not that the one direction was more favourable than the other. As far as they could determine anyway. The suns were already setting when they crashed and by the time they reached the shore the twilight had entered its final stages, and the stars started to take over the skies.
Wet and cold they crawled out of the water. The first not entirely uncommon in such a situation.
With a thud the packs they had been carrying landed on the beach. Immediately followed by four slightly more heavier thuds as the officer unanimously decided to follow its example and plumped down on the beach.
Still panting as a result of their little exercise in the lake they now stared over it. Not saying much. Better said, they didn’t say a thing at all. It was only know, now all the excitement was over and they had time to think that the situation really dawned on them. Well, Frek couldn’t speak for the others, but it least it did on him.
He sniffed and ran a hand under his nose and stared up at the sky. With them being one of the last ones to leave there was not a trace of other pods entering the atmosphere of this planet. He shivered as a gust of wind came blowing from over the water. Down here it was just a breeze. High up in the atmosphere it would be a lot stronger. Enough to push a pod well out its course.
The ship, his home for the last eighteen months. Gone. It was frustrating not knowing where the rest of the crew had landed. If they ever did. If his friends made it. And he was particularly worried about that one pod. Hoping that Melain had landed safely and was alright.
They only said goodbye a few hours ago, but it could have been days. And who could tell when they would see each other again, if ever. He simply wished she was here.
His gaze dropped from the alien sky. The night had almost completed its subtle entrance and it was hard to distinguish any detail of the world surrounding them. The lake itself was unwrinkled, almost in an eerie way and embraces by the tall trees that formed the forest. At several points high barren peaks made themselves visible, rising above the tree line in the distance. The beach they were sitting upon themselves was rocky, covered with either very crude sand or small crumbled rocks.

“We need to set up a camp for the night and make a fire to dry our clothes and stay warm,” Hannah finally said.
One of the crewmen who introduced himself as Al’Azif looked over his shoulder towards the dark woods. “We should be able to find some timber there.”
Hannah nodded. “We should move more towards the inland,” she said. Her eyes pointed towards some huge boulders that marked the beginning of the forest.
“Those will keep us out of the wind,” she said. “Let’s go.”

As a shelter it served their purpose perfectly. With the rocks in one side and the trees on the other they would be well shielded against any wind from all directions. Not to mention it would keep them out sight as well.
Frek took out one of the chemical illumination tubes from the survival kit and put it to work. With a soft glow it lighted what would be their camp for at least the night. He put his bag down and suspiciously inspected the soil that formed the ground. Hannah observed it for a moment with a raised eyebrow. “Something wrong Mr Thelev?” she finally asked.
Frek lifted his head with an arduous expression on his face. “Just checking,” he said. “Really, you don’t want to camp on top of a nest of openly hostile fire-ants.”
“Fire-ants sir?” Al’Azif asked curiously as he dropped an armload of small timber.
“Yeah, you know,” Frek said, “Small insects, common on most planets, with a tendency to colonize your pants and sleeping bag.”
Hannah had turned away towards the wood and coughed.
“They sting or bite,” Frek added as an afterthought, “Most unpleasant. You better check for them.”
“Uh…yes sir.”
He looked at the timber. “We need some bigger logs if we want to keep it going all night. I’ll see if I can find some.”
“I’ll help you,” Hannah said and turned to the others and gave them their orders. “You two set up our camp.”
And added grinningly with a quick glance to Frek, “And make sure to get rid of all those nasty fire-ants.”

With the trees all around him it suddenly seemed as if everything had gone quiet. Normally you would expect to hear the sound of nightlife, but except for the occasional breeze translated by the trees into a soft whisper it was quiet. He stared over the shoulder towards the camp. They had made sure to keep it within eyesight. This was not the place to go wondering off alone and get lost.
Something cracked.
“You heard that?” Hannah said, suddenly not moving.
There it was again.
“Yeah,” Frek whispered back.
They both dropped to a crouch. It could be anything. Perhaps it was only the local version of a soft and furry little rabbit hopping about. But for all they knew the local version of a fluffy rabbit could also be two metres high with a thing for fresh alien flesh and a craving for blood.
Frek’s hand found a wrist thick branch and tightened his grip around it. This time there was not only sound, but also movement. Something was clearly moving. They could both see it know. It was unmistakably a biped. It was stooped over a bit. A primate? It erected itself and seemed to be scanning in the area, then it stooped again. Could it be hunting?
For only a second it moved through a ray of light cast down by a moon that had chose to come out of hiding and take its place in the sky after a longs days’ wait.
“You saw that?” Hannah asked.
“Whatever it is,” Frek deemed, “It’s quite ugly. I’m sure of it.”
The creature continued and stood still again. When it started moving again it was slowly and deliberate. And in the wrong way.
Slowly it was stalking towards their camp. That could definitely not be a good thing.
“You think it wants to attack and eat us?” Frek put forward.
“Huh?” Hannah said, “I don’t know, but I don’t like what I see.”
She quickly assessed the situation. “If we go that way we’ll reach the camp before that thing does. We could jump it before it gets there and see what it wants.”

They started to move quickly. Careful not to make any sounds and keeping out of sight. All they could do now was waiting. From behind a bush they watched the creature approach, its features were hidden by the night, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be very pretty.
As it came closer Hannah and Frek ducked away behind the bush, not daring to look in fear it would spot them. They would have to rely on their ears. Wait until it passed and then jump it.
It must be close. Even now it was careful not to step on any twigs its footsteps on the soil were clearly audible.
They stopped.
The two officers held their breath. Did it know they were there? Did it like human brains and Andorian intestines? Then it moved again.
Hannah touched his arm and raised three fingers. Frek nodded, he got it. His mouth was dry and he could feel his heart doing some serious overwork.
Hannah raised a finger. One. Another one. Two. Frek closed his eyes and silently took a deep breath. He opened his eyes. Three.
With a loud roar they jumped up from behind the bush. It took them only one step to reach the vile creature and before it could even turn around they were already on its back. With the element of surprise in their favour they quickly worked it against the ground. Violently it tried to wrestle itself free and even managed to throw off the two officers. But only for a moment though. Frek jumped right back on it and managed to force the torso of this nasty primate to the ground, while Hannah took care of its legs. They had it pinned down!
“What’s going on?” Al’Azif inquired who had come rushing towards the sudden explosion of sounds.
“I think we got the [word deleted],” Frek grasped looking up to Al’Azif who was holding a chemical illumination tube. “Come on; let’s see what’ve got here. Must be ugly as hell.”
Al’Azif took a few steps closer and raised the tube to shed some light on the situation.
With a wild grin Frek looked down to his victim. Some cold and angry green-grey eyes stared back up, causing the grin to disappear immediately.
“Commander Thelev, what the hell do you think you are doing?” With a voice that was not only upset, but that could shatter Borg cube with ease, it was not pleased to say the least.
“Heh. Uhm…Captain?”

[7319/106293]

[Deleted]

Cyle sat near the front of his escape pod, which had somehow managed to land gently enough that everything still opened properly. "Grab your supplies, we need to move, now" Cyle said, more harsh then he needed to. When the three marines who were with him grabbed what they could, Cyle set the explosives and turned to leave. They had managed to get away from the blast very quickly, and headed towards where they had last spotted falling escape pods.

In a matter of minutes, the day had left and night took over. Cyle and his men had found one other pod of marines, and then headed towards the next one. Cyle stood on top a small hill, over looking a series of other hills, which rested on top of a small valley, in which rested a army camp. Cyle could see the small fires from exploded escape pods, "Split up, , Lt. James, head to the left find the other escape pod and mmeet up back up here, keep them safe" James nodded as he broke off from Cyle's group, and started towards Steve's pod, while Cyle walked towards Lorre's.

Cyle exploded into a quick jog, hurrying to get to the escape pod before the scouts he had spotted reached Lorre's small group. He knew he would have been heard if anyone was listening, but his marines and him knew it would better to be heard and save the group, then not be heard and get captured. With a soft leap he hopped over a small boulder, to see himself cornered by a phaser, "whoa, stand down, its me Cyle said, and he looked into the faces of the crew of the Nevada.

<tag Lorre>

James slowly walked towards the escape pod, at least what he thought was the pod, he wasnt sure excatly were it had landed, and was kinda going of a limb. "lt." one of the younger marines called out, pointing down from a large rock, James walked over to it and saw the pod. His marines and he slowly crawled down from the rocky ledge, he wasnt sure if anyone was still in it, but he figured it was worth a shot. grabbing a rather large stick, he held it over his head as he rounded the view to the front of the pod.

<tag Steve>

[Deleted]

=A= Lorre to Major Johnson=A= Melain commed the Marine. She waited, there was no answer.

"No use Doctor, the badges won't work, neither will our tricorders at any distance further then a meter." The cheeky Engineers informed her from where they where continuing to organise their supplies.

“And you didn’t think of mentioning this, or make any attempt to get around it?” Melain asked, she was in disbelief about these crewmember’s behavior, especially that of the Vulcan T’vek.

“Well, we assumed you’d find out and give us our orders.” The young human male shrugged.

“This is why we need to insure the rank structure is maintained.” Talla sighed. “Since their commander is not with us they feel they can get away with slacking off. Who is in charge of them?”

“I believe T’fat is, I haven’t seen her yet.” Melain replied. “All three of you, get up and go search the nearby woods for survivors... That’s an order!” The trio scrambled to their feet and rushed off. Melain felt rather proud of herself.

"Doctor, Lieutenant!" A young Rigellian Tactical crewmember called out as he ran their way. "Ensign Trel sent me, she spotted a large group of armed locals headed our way from her post." He reported. Ensign Trel was a dependable Tiburonian whome Melain had heard about from Danara when the Cardassian was the CTSO. He had a knack for spotting things others looked over. "Armed, how many?"

"She's not sure, they are kicking up a lot of dust so chances are a lot." The Rigellian. "They must have spotted our pods."

"I was hoping they'd be too frightend to check them out, apparently they are a couragouse people. Go, see if you can find Major Cyle and tell him to meet me hear. Lani, can you tell everyone to group at the bush now, we need to take role call and get out of here."

The Martian Lieutenant nodded, and headed off. The Rigellian was already booking it to the woods.
As soon as everyone was assembled Melain seperated them into ten groups according to positon. She copied her list of crewmembers onto four other PaDDs and handed one to Lani, another to Lieutenant T’Fat, one to Ensign Jenkins (the Opps assistant), and the fourth to Rubor (the assitant Science officer). Lani took navigation and Tactical, T’Fat took Engineering, Jenkins took Opps, Rubor took Science and Melain took Medical. In less then Ten minutes they determined that at least four pods had gone down and where not accounted for. Cyle Johnson’s, David Ramsey’s (who was the new Opps officer) Toledo Javels and one who’s highest officer was an Ensign (fresh out of the Academy) as well as the Nevada’s chef and barber. Two individuals the crew wanted back.

“Doctor!” the cheeky Engineer (whome Melain learned was names Nathan Wright) interupted. “A Runabout.”

Sure enough, Steve’s runabout was headed their way at speeds Melain was certain where not safe. “Get back, everyone!” she orderd, helplessly watching the small ship decend muraculously, it made a decent landing further down the clearing. Melain was going to head over when Nathan made another exclaimation, this time pointing wildly to the trees. “Scouts!” he exclaimed

Three tactical officers quickly drew their phasers, and the entire clearing held it’s breath. Out of the woods tumbled a group of sorry looking Marines, Cyle in the lead. "whoa, stand down, its me” he assured them, the tactical officer’s lowerd their weapons, and a stream of relieved laughter rippled through the group.

“Thank th Prophet’s Cyle, that leaves three pods to worry about now.” Melain exclaimed. “We need to act fast, those locals wil be closing in soon.”

“I suggest that the bulk of us head for those mountains, it is unlikely they will pursue us there.” Talla pointed out a series of peaks towering above the forest. “The rest, perhaps ten, will destroy the remaining pods and search out the missing ones.”

Melain nodded. “Cyle, take your team, I’ll take mine. Steve and Ensign Loki will come with us. Talla, T’Fat, Rubor and Jenkins, you led the rest there and we’ll meet up with you...” she could not think of a meeting place off the top of her head she looked around and saw a small river cutting its way through the nearby trees. “Follow that river untill you are well within the range, we’ll follow it back up in two days.” she decided.

Lieutenant Talla nodded, and herded up the rest of the group who gatherd up the survival kits and medical supplies and headed out in the direction of the mountains. ‘Wait!” Melain called to a couple of her medics who where shouldering what now looked like the entire contents of sickbay. “Leave the cosmetic surgery kit, we might run into these locals.” Ensign Wicken nodded and handed off the bag, Melain shoulderd it and headed towards Steve’s shuttle. He had clammerd out and Ensign Loki was emerging

“You made it, I was getting worried, can we send a distress call with that?” Melain asked

<Tag Steve>

(6898/79014)

[Harrias Jira]

As he dashed through the forest, Harrias was aware that he wasn’t running in an entirely straight line; indeed as he tended to let trees slide by his left side (perhaps subconsciously trying to protect that side of his body with an injury), he suspected that he would be bearing in a slight arc to the right. Whichever direction that was. Once he had been running for long enough to lose anyone that might have spotted him, he stopped and glanced around.

From what he had seen when the pod had been coming down, he knew that he was in the northern hemisphere. The gravity felt slightly heavier than earth’s, more like that on trill, which comforted him slightly. As he walked forwards, slower now, he heard the twigs cracking lightly underneath his feet. For a few steps he tried to step more lightly, to avoid the twigs, but he soon realised this was an exercise of futility, and gave up.

Something cracked.
“You heard that?” Hannah said, suddenly not moving.
There it was again.
“Yeah,” Frek whispered back.

Jira froze as he heard something. He couldn’t identify what it was; some kind of wildlife perhaps. He doubled over slightly and surveyed the floor, looking for tracks of any kind. There seemed to be some, but he was no tracker, he couldn’t tell what had made them or how long ago, or even if it was simply a coincidental pattern made by the wind. He shook his head in frustration and looked up again, looking for some clue as to which direction he should head. He had noticed when he entered the forest that the local fungus life was growing primarily on the front left side of each tree. So from now, he should pass each tree with the fungus at that angle, which should ensure that he travel in a straight line. But just in case, he should mark the nearest tree, to ensure that if he came here again he’d at least know that he was lost.

He bent down and pulled a knife from his boot and took a small step forwards to put a small cross on the tree in front of him. From the base of the tree he also plucked a couple of berries that had fallen from the vine that enwrapped it. He looked at them dubiously, but threw them back to the floor, deciding the risk wasn’t worth it; not yet anyway.

For only a second it moved through a ray of light cast down by a moon that had chose to come out of hiding and take its place in the sky after a longs days’ wait.
“You saw that?” Hannah asked.
“Whatever it is,” Frek deemed, “It’s quite ugly. I’m sure of it.”

The trill slowly turned until the fungus looked to be at the same angle as when he had first entered, and then strode confidently in the direction he hoped would lead him further away from the native’s camp. He just had to hope that the camp didn’t circle around the forest. His mind paused for a second, worried and slightly confused, but then he realised that he couldn’t account for every eventuality, and this was the most logical course of action.

Slowly it was stalking towards their camp. That could definitely not be a good thing.
“You think it wants to attack and eat us?” Frek put forward.
“Huh?” Hannah said, “I don’t know, but I don’t like what I see.”
She quickly assessed the situation. “If we go that way we’ll reach the camp before that thing does. We could jump it before it gets there and see what it wants.”

As he walked, he saw that the forest was thinning out, and beneath his feet the twigs were similarly shrinking in number. He took more care over his footsteps once more, his paranoia over the possibility of the camp extending this far taking over from rational thought. With his mind concentrating on his feet, and staying alert for the possible danger of walking straight into the arms of some local he realised that he had turned slightly off the path he had been aiming for. He stopped to reassess his bearings, but then decided that this close to the edge, he may as well head straight out, rather than in a direction that might take slightly longer to escape the treeline.

He had only taken a couple more steps when he heard a terrible noise from just beside and behind him. His mind had already switched to a subconscious level when they creatures, natives, monsters had started tearing at his back. Inevitably he was thrown to the floor, unable to resist the combined efforts of two of these things. His arm seared with pain as is landed uselessly on the ground with the rest of him. Using the pain as both incentive and adrenaline, he bucked violently, dislodging his attackers for a couple of seconds, but soon they were upon him again, and efficiently pinned him to the floor.

“What’s going on?” Al’Azif inquired who had come rushing towards the sudden explosion of sounds.
“I think we got the [word deleted],” Frek grasped looking up to Al’Azif who was holding a chemical illumination tube. “Come on; let’s see what’ve got here. Must be ugly as hell.”
Al’Azif took a few steps closer and raised the tube to shed some light on the situation.
With a wild grin Frek looked down to his victim. Some cold and angry green-grey eyes stared back up, causing the grin to disappear immediately.
“Commander Thelev, what the hell do you think you are doing?” With a voice that was not only upset, but that could shatter Borg cube with ease, it was not pleased to say the least.
“Heh. Uhm…Captain?”
“Yes: Captain.” He growled at the attacker that turned out not to be local or creature, but instead only monster. “Now.. get.. the frell.. off of me!”

In a confused frenzy his torso and legs were freed again, and he rose back to a seated position and looked about. Just in front of him, a small camp had been set up next to a lake. The pods weren’t in sight, so either they had hiked here, or blown their pods as he had. Or, judging by the still damp clothing the officers were wearing, they had landed in the lake itself. He shook his head slightly, and then looked up at his first officer who had gone slightly red with embarrassment on realisation of who they had captured.
“You got any more advanced medical equipment than the plasters I had? I seem to have broken my arm. Some of us didn’t have a trained navigation officer to land us perfectly.” His comment was tinged with sarcasm, but Frek didn’t seem to react to it, instead he sat passively as Al’Azif brought a medium sized medical kit across from their camp.

As he was being patched up, Harrias told them about the native’s encampment on the other side of the forest, detailing it as much as he could.

[Deleted]

“Thank the Prophet’s Cyle, that leaves three pods to worry about now.” Melain exclaimed. “We need to act fast, those locals wil be closing in soon.”

"i think you miss counted, i found a pod of marines, and they should be with Steve shortly" Cyle said as he shook hands with the tactical officers. "We need to move now, the locals will be here within minutes"

“I suggest that the bulk of us head for those mountains, it is unlikely they will pursue us there.” Talla pointed out a series of peaks towering above the forest. “The rest, perhaps ten, will destroy the remaining pods and search out the missing ones.”

Melain nodded. “Cyle, take your team, I’ll take mine. Steve and Ensign Loki will come with us. Talla, T’Fat, Rubor and Jenkins, you led the rest there and we’ll meet up with you...” she could not think of a meeting place off the top of her head she looked around and saw a small river cutting its way through the nearby trees. “Follow that river untill you are well within the range, we’ll follow it back up in two days.” she decided.

Lieutenant Talla nodded, and herded up the rest of the group who gatherd up the survival kits and medical supplies and headed out in the direction of the mountains. ‘Wait!” Melain called to a couple of her medics who where shouldering what now looked like the entire contents of sickbay. “Leave the cosmetic surgery kit, we might run into these locals.” Ensign Wicken nodded and handed off the bag, Melain shoulderd it and headed towards Steve’s shuttle. He had clammerd out and Ensign Loki was emerging

“You made it, I was getting worried, can we send a distress call with that?” Melain asked

Cyle looked up, to sadly see that Steve and the others were not in the company of James and his men. "Sir, did any of my marines meet up with you?" He asked Steve with a concerned voice.

<tag Steve>

"this is not good, I'll be back. I'll take care of the runabout and meet up with you back up the river. my other three marines will stay with you" He hurried off to the sounds of someone call ing his name. 'I'm not leaving my marines behind' Cyle thought to himself as he ran. In a matter of minute he had made it to the runabout, only to see the bodies of three marines. "Lt. what happened, where's James?" He asked as he kneeled down to a barely breathing young officer. "Major.......they......took James.....ambushed.....James captured....killed others....took one....with us." The marine smiled up at Cyle as he slowly let out his last breath. Cyle looked with sorrow on his face, the dead local lay on the ground, with the other two marines near him. Cyle bent down and picked up a sword, and saw a spear that the local had killed a marine with, slowly Cyle lifted the spear out of the marine moved into the runabout. Quickly setting explosives, he placed the bodies of the marines and the local in the runabout.

The sound of the explosion rang out through the night, and Cyle was sure the locals, as well as the others from the Nevada heard, and maybe saw it. He walked back towards the other pod, and slowly came into view, a spear on his back, and a sword in his hand. "They took James, and killed the others"

[jasonfarsir]

OOC: I gotta tell ya I'm not sure what to put on here but since I said I'll post one last time before I move here I am. It may not come close to being the best one I've done but it'll do...I hope

IC: Jason Walked out of the Podd with some of the equipment that with him and his engineering crew. He was walking back to get more when one of them started to look up at the sky where to two stars in the system were. He looked at the same direction in time see the Navada explode. "She sure was a good ship" he said grabbing more to take outside.

"That she was," one of the other engineers replied.

A few minutes after everything was taking out an Jason set the detination devised. He made sure everything was clear from the where the explosion would go out to. Taking a few seconds to make sure everyone was in a safe distance he set them off. Thiss has been a long day he thought sitting down on one of the boxes with supplies. He pulled out a tricorder to scan for the others part crew. He gave it a wierd look when it show scans up to only a meter away. He looked over at his team. "Give me another tricorder,"

"what's wrong with that one," a woman officer asked

"it only reads up to a meter,"

"We'll take a look at it later" Getting into one of the supply boxes she grabbed a tricorder and over to Jason "here," He opened it looked for a few seconds then closed it handing it back at her sighing. "that one's not working either?" Jason shook his nodded. "That odd,"

Jason walked over to where the other tricorders were, took out two of them. Sat back down next to box it they were in. Opened up both of them. put in a few commands, than with out closing them threw them. Doing this three or four more times the only thing he could say was "What could cause all the tricorders to be messing up?"

After a few minutes of dicusion they came to the conclusing it was a EM pulse from one of the stars due to the Navada's destruction. What a way to make a bad situation worse Jason thought as he saw a podd came into view moving like it was almost out of control. On officer comment that they saw a lake no more then three kilometer's in the direction the podd had been headed toward. Deciding it might be a good idea to hook up with them instead of just staying here, Jason ordered everyone to walked there.

It was night by the time they came to the lake. Several meters away was a fire and some of the crew. Before the other podd crew got worried Jason let them know it was him and his team. Jason expalined about the equptment no functioning. Jira confirmed what Jason's team thought. It was a solar flare that cause it. Eveyone else explained what happened to the podd when the flare took out the systems.

"so who manually flew the podd," Jason asked. Everyone looked at Frek. Joking Jason replied "looks like you need some practice on your navigation skills"

<tag rest of team/group A>

[steve]

Off: Cyle, I am just gonna re write your part a little, you can not blow up the runabout, I wrote it into the story that I save it and do not want it destroyed. Thanks

On:

“You made it, I was getting worried, can we send a distress call with that?” Melain asked
Steve looked at her for a moment "No we cant, the person that got control of the Nevada also started on the runabout when he/she spotted us heading towards the source of the transmission."
"So there is nothing we can do?" She asked
"Well, not really, not unless we find the source of the transmission and stop it and by the way people are running around it looks like we may have a bigger problem?"

Lorre explained the what was going on and Steve listened closely

"Doctor before all the teams leave we have a tricorder here" Steve looked at Lex to hand it over "We downloaded everything we could on the transmission before the ship landed, only problem is the tricorder has gone dead, maybe you have someone here that can take a look at it. The distress beacon in the runabout maybe our only way to get a message back to Star Fleet."
Lorre nodded and took it off the young officer "Thank you"
"Sir, did any of my marines meet up with you?" Cyle asked Steve with a concerned voice.
Steve turned to marine "No we didn't, we didn't use the escape pods, we used my Runabout to get here."
"This is not good, I'll be back. I'll take care of the runabout and meet up with you back up the river. my other three marines will stay with you" He hurried off to the sounds of someone calling his name. 'I'm not leaving my marines behind' Cyle thought to himself as he ran
Steve ran after Cyle and caught up with him about 20 meters away from the Doctor "Major" Steve called out but he didn't stop so Steve grabbed his arm and slowed him down. Cyle stopped and look it straight in the eye, for a moment Steve thought he was going to hit him and raised his guard
"Major, under no circumstance are you to destroy that runabout."
"But we need to hide any trace of how we...."
"Major this isn't up for discussion, its an order and you will follow it"
Steve could see that the Major was getting a little annoyed but Steve didn't really care but decided to let him get on with what he was doing "Good luck in finding your men" and with that Steve headed back over to the doctor.

As Steve reached the doctor she had a puzzled look on her face "What was that all about Steve?"
"Nothing, everything is sorted... What's the plan?"

<Tag Lorre>

[Deleted]

Melain looked up at the taller human whose command she was once under, it felt odd, she was now in charge of him. "I'm not going to leave Cyle's marines, Lieutenant Ramsey, Toledo Javel or any of the others behind, but I'm not about to make everyone wait here in the open while we go find them. I'm going to take Rachel and a few engineers, Cyle can take him men, you and Loki can also come. We will find the lost crewmembers, rescue them, destroy their pods and meet up with everyone else up river. I have one concern Commander."

"What's that?" Steve asked.

"If we are not to destroy your runabout, how will it avoid being detected by the locals?” Melain asked, she could understand his unwillingness to destroy the small vessel, but such a ship was not easily moved.

<Tag Steve>

“all right then. T’Vek, Nathan, your with me. Rachel, grab a field kit before the others leave the clearing.” Melain called out. The two engineers, the soft intelligent T’Vek and the foolish Nathan stopped walking towards the mountains with the others. Melain was certain she heard Nathan make a rude comment under his breath, but shrugged it off. She was getting her revenge in many ways for his thoughtlessness and hopefully a rescue mission would make him smarten up.

Cyle and his remaining men ran about detonating the last of the pods. If the locals had not heard the Star Fleet personnel before, they certainly could hear that. Melain was feeling the press of time, how far and how fast could a fully armed troupe of aliens travel? As Cyle piled the bodies of his dead marines and the body of the local alien into the last pod Melain rushed over. “Stop.” she insisted.

Cyle looked up, “We checked Doctor, they are dead.” Melain thought she saw a hint of emotion in the tough young human’s eye, but didn’t feel it was a good idea to bring attention to it. Cyle gained respect by being a stone wall of courage and bravery, but he had every right to be upset regarding the death of those in his command. To be honest, Melain was a little choked up looking at the lifeless Marines herself, she had a haunting feeling they would not be the only one’s she’d be shedding tears over.
Melain nodded. “I knew you would have, but the local...” Melain paused. “I want a good look at his physiology, we are going to want to blend in a bit.” Cyle nodded, and backed away from the loan scout.

Melain flipped the body over with as much decency as she could muster. Thankfully the wound that had killed him was clean, so the features of his face where in perfect shape. He appeared almost human apart from a high brow line and two ridge running from the centre of his brow to the edge of each eyebrow. These alteration would be simple, in fact Melain was fairly certain they could be achieved without the use of her electronic instruments. “Praise the Prophets, this won’t be as difficult as I thought.” She breathed a sigh of relief and stood up. “Did he have any weapons?” she asked.

“These.” Cyle replied, gesturing to a long sword, a short curved dagger and a bow with a quiver.

“Our phaser, we should not use them, in fact I’m not even sure they are going to work. If you can use any of those, take them.” there was a pause, any skill with such weapons would be from either a hobby or a holodeck scenario. “Hand me the bow and quiver, I had a decent shot three years back.”

Cyle handed Melain the bow and quiver, she tested the string, the bow was slightly longer then the one she’d used. She slung them over her back hoping she would not need to use them.

<Tag Others>

“Cyle, you look about his size, throw on his clothes and you can scout out more outfits if we need them.” Melain ordered, as soon as the alien’s back was bare Melain could see something her initial examination had missed, a series of complex ridges, almost like knots, coursed down the alien’s spinal cord, whatever species this was, they had strong backs. “That, is going to be tricky.” She did not have enough Dermatiraelian plastiscine to make that work, of course the team’s clothes would cover that area so it wold not be an issue. “Let’s make this fast, the other pods could not have landed too far.” She looked back to see the rest of the team had already gone out of view, Lani and T’Fat would take good care of them, but she still felt a pang of worry.

(7694/79810)

[davidramsey]

David awoke from a very light sleep at the back of the cave surrounded by all they had managed to salvage from the pod before they disposed of it. He peeked over the mound of now rather useless technological gadgets and noticed one of his pod mates, the other Petty Officer, Rykan, playing with a piece of circuitry and ... a rock. He was also playing with various scraps of metal and now seemed rather annoyed.

"Rykan, what are you doing?" David asked groggily.

"I am trying to use this magnetic substance I found in the back of the cave to re-polarize these circuits," the young man replied without looking up from what he was doing.

"What good would that do? You don't the power for any of these things, even if you could get the circuits working again," David said stretching his sore muscles and looking around for their food rations.

"Actually, if I can get these circuits operational again I can turn the sensory plates from the tricorders into solar panels. If that works, I could turn each of them into rechargeable batteries ... of a sort," he replied lifting the circuit into the air with a smile, "besides, the translator circuits can be 'plugged' into your lower cerebellum for personal use. It would be painful without sedation, but it could be done. Then the circuit could be powered by your brain itself."

David turned and stared at the guy, completely astonished.

Rykan looked up and smiled.

"I'm an engineer ... and a former attendant of the medical school on Betazed," he said plainly, still smiling sheepishly.

"Well ...," David said as he ran his hand over his face, "that is wonderful news."

He noticed that both Siever and the cook, a Mister Hollum, were both absent.

"Where is everyone?" he asked as Rykan cracked open one of the medical tricorders.

"Siever decided that doing a little scouting would be a good idea, they should be back soon," he replied turning around and grabbing a metal container and handed it to David, "They already found a fresh water source, which was great since most of our reserves evaporated during our descent."

"Wow," David said taking the container, "I missed a lot, didn't I?"

Rykan just smiled and returned to working on the tricorder.

At about that moment, Siever and Hollum returned rather excited.

"Oh, it's good to see you up, Lieutenant," Siever said with a smile, "I guess Rykan filled you in on the water situation and his work with the circuitry. I didn't want to wake you, so I took it upon myself to scout around. I hope you don't mind, I know that the chain of command is still important even though the ship is gone ... "

David raised his hand to stop her going on, "It's more than fine, Siever, it's necessary and I am more than grateful to be marooned with three crew members with initiative. No, if something needs to be done, don't wait for someone to order it ... do it. That's a standing order for all of you," he said standing and trying to work the kinks out of his back, "So, what does the terrain look like around here? Any trails leading toward the probable landing site?"

"One, but it looks rough. We returned to the spring this morning to get as much water as possible since ... well, who knows when we'll come across another source of water and it may be even harder going as we head down through the gully on the far end of our little valley here,"she said putting down the five or six former ration containers that were now supposedly full of water, "We didn't dare go much farther than that, in case we weren't able to find our way back.

"But after the gully, it looks like mostly forests and grasslands which should be easily traversed. I think it will take us more than a few days to get anywhere near where we think everyone else is though," she continued, now looking a little downtrodden again.

David smiled at her and patted her on the back.

"It's ok, Siever, we've got a plan, we've got a path, and we've got each other ... things are going to work out," he said as they strolled out into the bright two dimensional sunshine. He pointed in the general area in which they'd seen the pods the night before. He motioned up toward a curious star that was a bright pinpoint of light opposite to the two suns, "We just plot a course for that star and keep walking until we eventually have a starship to take us there."

[hannah]

Hannah felt a hand on her shoulder and voice in her ear. She opened her eyes to see Sarah Johnson one of the engineer’s from Jason pod standing over her.

“It’s your turn to take the watch,” she said. Hannah stood up wrapping the blanket around to cover her bare body and headed over to the fire that had now simmered down a bit from earlier that night. She grabbed her now dry clothes of the stick they were slung over, over the fire and moved over to the privacy of the brushes to get dressed.

When she returned she handed the blanket to Sarah, who settled down on the floor in her previous Hannah’s previous spot to get a bit more sleep before sunrise. Hannah looked down at the other officers, who looked peaceful sleeping under there emergency blankets.

Hannah took up a position at the perimeter of the camp staring though the forest for any signs of company. She couldn’t see much just the dark shadows of the trees under the moonlight. She looked up at the sky and the stars looking for any kind of rescue vessel that had come to take off them from this planet. But she knew no-one was coming, they probably hadn’t even realised they were missing yet and even when they did there would several stars systems to search on there root back from Tammeron and they would each contain a number of planets, moons and asteroids.

The sky began to brighten up as the two suns rose to indicate that the day would soon be upon them. The sunrise was beautiful with no city lights to block it out like she was use to on Earth. And she stared up at it watching as the sky turned red then blue. When the suns look there places high up in the sky, she woke the other officers.

Three quarters of an hour passed as the officer changed back into their uniforms, packed away the blankets and ate the standard breakfast ration. What she wouldn’t give for a home cooked breakfast; even a replicated breakfast was better than these rations. But that’s all they had and she had to eat for the long walk that was going to ensue searching for the remainder of pods from this group and trying to find the large group that had left the ship in the first evacuation.

[Deleted]

"Should we worry about those latter, or now?" Cyle said, motioning towards the knots on the back of the local. <tag Lorre> "Well, we need to move and fast, We saw a scouting party on our way down here the first time, and they weren't that far away."

Cyle stood ready, wearing the clothes of the alien, and having his facial features already changed, he wasnt sure how he felt about the whole thing. He looked around at the remaing marines under his command, all of whom had the surgery and were awaiting orders.

OOC writers block, to much stuff going on at home right now

[Deleted]

"Should we worry about those latter, or now?" Cyle said, motioning towards the knots on the back of the local. "Well, we need to move and fast, We saw a scouting party on our way down here the first time, and they weren't that far away."

Melain looked up and down at the doctored marines, the prosthetics would not last long, and she doubted that without some source of energy she would be able to make them last longer. ‘We’ll have to worry about the backs later, I’m not going to be able to do that without power. As for the scouts...” she ponderd their approach. “You and your men keep an eye on them, and let us know if they get close, I’d like to avoid conflict, but our rescues may place us in their path.”

“Where should we begin?” Cyle asked, he looked very... primal, decked out in the alien’s clothes with the new face, but he held himself well and the scouts armour looked good on him.

“I saw some of the pods land further south then expected, the lost pods may have strayed further then that.” Melain decided. “We’ll travel south, since comm badges are down, don’t stray too far.”

Melain lead the way, part of her wanted to split the team up and have Steve lead a rescue expadition to the North, but without any form of communication that plan was justing begging for trouble.

They found too empty pods, and quickly set charges to destroy them, Melain wonderd if they would ever find all the abandoned pods. Maybe they should have chosen another place to meet, escape pods where designed to join together and like that the crew could survive for several weeks, but he idea of floating in space like that appealed to no one.

“Doctor!” Melain heard one of the Marines yell from the foliage to the left. She followed the sound of his voice and found him, gesturing down a steep slope. “A pod, I don’t think it’s been abandoned.”

Melain picked her way down the bank, the pod seemed to have slid and tumbled down the hill and landed, exit down, in the gully. She knocked on the side, it gafve a hollow reponse. Several moments later it knocked back. “see if you can push it back so they can get out, Rachel, get some bandages ready, we’ll need them.”
It took all of Cyle’s marines, Ensign Loki, Commander Steve and Melain to force the pod back upright. The door had been smashed in, but they managed to pry it open. Out tumbled the Nevada’s Cook, Barber, a nervouse wreck of a Trill Yeomen, a Human Ensign with a bleeding forhead and a Bolian Lab tech.

“Crewman Lowden is dead.” The Yeomen reported, her voice shook. “We... none of us where very good pilots.” Rachel usherd her aside and looked after her wound while the Barber excused himself a moment to throw up in the nearby bushes.

Melain ventured inside the shuttle, sure enough a young human male with heavy damage to his left side and head lay lifeless. Melain said a quick prayer before retreating outside once more. “Get what you can for food and necessities, then destroy the pod and body.” She directed Cyle, she would have liked to give Lowden a proper burial as was earth tradition, but doing that meant risking the locals from stumbling on it, and that was not a good thing.

Once the pod survivors had been properly bandaged up, and the pod destroyed the rescue team continued on their way. They had two more pods to find, and it was growing dark.

The two suns began to sink one by one behind the mountain range, and as the forest darkened Melain was more intune to the noises around them. The wildlife of the planet was plentiful, mainly smal rodents, but the team had passed a large six clawed track they estimated had been left behind by a large feline like creature. After that they kept their eyes wide open. Just as It seemed as though the chances of them finding the last two pods was lost, a loud crack echoed through the woods followed by several smaller ones. Cyle and his men raised the weapons they had found and proceded carefully toward the noise. The investigation led the team into a small lit clearing, what they found was a gruesome sight.

The noise they had heard was the crackling of a fire that had been lit on several yellow and purple tents arranged in a circle. The flames danced across the wreckage and along a series of bodies. The team was swift to put the fire out before it could spread much further.

“Look, arrows, and a broken blade.” One of the Marines reported.
“Another body here, no wait two, this one is dressed differently then the others.” Rachel added. “That makes ten, most are so badly burned I can’t even tell they are humanoid.”

Melain fought back the need to gague, fortunatly none of the burned remains wore Star Fleet Uniforms. “Some sort of a fight, I think we might be in the middle of some sort of war.”

“That would be a logical assumption, most species at this stage of their developement are in conflict with themselves.” T’Vek agreed.

“All the more reason to keep moving, see if you can find food, water and more weapons.” Steve directed, Melain was grateful to have him around, he had experiance in leadership, she did not. Unfortunatly none of the clothes where in any state to be worn, so all but Cyle still wore their StarFleet tunics.

[davidramsey]

David stopped for a moment, bent double as they finally cleared the huge gash in the terrain that Siever had so easily referred to as a "gully". He gasped for a moment and once again cursed himself for not excercising much, much more than he had. He thrust his fist into his chest and stood up straight. Rykan was still fiddling with his translator circuit. His attempt to fully convert the tricorder sensor strips had succeeded, but he was unable to reactivate the tricorders or make contact with any other crewmembers; however, his attempts to rewire a combadge with the translator circuit seemed to be going well. He was now attempting to wire up a little piece of a sensor to power the little machine. He seemed to be rather frustrated.

"Having some trouble, Rykan?" David asked wiping the sweat out of his eyes.

"Yes, this is delicate work, but we can't stop long enough and carrying all stuff on my back makes it difficult to focus," he said plainly not even considering David's rank.

David smiled for a moment and shifted his pack.

"Well, you're right ... we can't stop," David replied grabbing up Rykan's pack, "But I can take care of this for you. Just try not to fall of the ridge as we make our way toward this 'easily traversed grassland' I've heard so much about."

Rykan smiled gratefully as he took up his scalpel-like tool and began again on his little project.

They rested for a few more moments before they began again on their upward siege of the high backed ridge. David sighed under the weight of the his doubled burden, but he said nothing and moved past Siever. He hauled himself over the ledge and helped Hollum and Rykan up after him with Siever now taking up the rear.

***************

Within the next two hours they'd walked at least twelve kilometers when Rykan suddenly started yelling. David threw his packs down and turned around quickly with a panic stricken look on his face.

"What?! What's wrong?!" David yelled as he saw Rykan jumping up and down in place.

"I did it! It works!" the young engineer replied still bouncing about emphatically.

"Ok, ok, that's great, but did you have to give me a heart attack to tell me?" David said grasping his chest.

[Deleted]

Cyle walked around the smoking tents, the marines standing with the rest, or digging holes to bury the bodies. The few weapons that were in good shape had been picked up and distributed around the group. Cyle stopped on the edge of a hill, overlooking a rather marvilous sight, as the suns set they cast a orange-yellow glow across the land, Cyle stared hopelessly as he looked at the landscape, trees and mountain sides illuminated by the setting suns.

He turned back when he heard his name called, "were moving out" someone said as he got back to the group. "I'll take front, stay near each other, i dont want to lose anyone out here in the dark"