Ensign Jocelyn Marshall - Where's the Grass?
Jo Marshall
(( Shuttlebay, USS Galaxy ))
Sevo: Go ahead. Everyone make sure your boots are at maximum. Once the bulkhead is open, any atmosphere will quickly rush past us, taking us along with it if we’re not careful.
:: Jo nodded, swallowing thickly. The thought of whatever was in there, atmosphere or not, intertwining with theirs left her stomach feeling ten decks below her feet.::
Marshall: Understood.
Roscia: Good to go. Sirs.
:: As the corridor bent, a closed and sealed emergency bulkhead stood before them, barring the way toward the power signal. One thing Starfleet was good at was building doors to seal in, or seal out, threats to life support. Operations did that automatically for some parts of the ship, especially those that would prove hazardous to the continued mission of the vessel. Some parts, and people, were just expendable to the computer. It didn’t rationalise it.::
Sevo: Alright. Roscia, see what you can do; there should be a manual pump in the wall over there.
:: Their Security Officer moved to the side of the door, locating the pump that would free the seal.::
Roscia: Yes sir.
Sevo: Ensign, brace yourself. The atmosphere’s expulsion will be violent.
:: Jo gripped the railing that ran around the centre of the walls, sealing her magnetic boot locks in place on the deck and finally breathing slowly to stop her heart from racing.::
Marshall: Ready.
Sevo: Do it.
Roscia: Right.
:: Opening the panel, Roscia pulled the handle down, releasing the doors immediately. With an almighty whoosh of air as the atmosphere, or what was left of it, exited the room into the vacuum of space that occupied the rest of the vessel. The force of it knocked the door loudly against the bulkhead, sending tremors through the walls.::
Roscia: That wasn't too bad.
:: They bathed in light as they entered through the doors. The dark blonde blinked, shielding her eyes momentarily from the light until they were used to it again. Her tricorder registered the objects on the floor that didn’t move with the pressure. Jo looked a little closer and saw the fixings on the bottom of the feet - bolted, crudely and not by professional tools. They were random, in strange positions, not where they would have been originally.::
:: A long rectangular box beeped incessantly for their attention, the control panel on the chrome flashing in different coloured lights that weren’t the Starfleet norm for a control display. Her tricorder picked it up, registering a power signal generating from it, but not the larger one that had grabbed their attention in the first place. The first to speak was the Security Officer, sounding confused, her voice crackling over the communications array in her suit and made the Operations Officer jump with its harshness.::
Rosica: Someone put this stuff here.
Sevo: Response
Marshall: Just in case, eyes up, weapons ready.
Roscia: Aye, Aye.
:: Jo gripped the rifle to her chest, her finger hovering over the trigger guard. They continued to move down the corridor, moving beyond the rectangular coffin structure to find more objects, randomly situated on the deck. Like an obstacle course for really small people. The Ops officer recognised them, some of them supply crates modulated to look like console tables.::
:: At least booby trapping with disrupter snares was easy. Possibly lose a limb. With this, they didn’t know where the threat was going to come from and that scared Jo a lot more than she thought it would have. Her stomach was thankful she’d had breakfast, in case it needed something to throw up.::
:: A few more doorways were closed at the end of the corridor, and a larger emergency bulkhead preventing them from going any further.::
Roscia: This area is secure. Don't know what is on the other side however.
:: She pointed to the other bulkhead. In the light it looked even more foreboding than the previous one had done in the dark.::
Marshall: Shall we try and open it?
Sevo: Response
:: The sound of a distant beeping rang out through Jo’s suit, sounding like it was coming from the room they had previously been in. She consulted the tricorder, but found no trace of a sound on it’s scanners. It wasn’t picking anything up. She frowned, looking up to the others, a confused look crossing her face.::
Marshall: Do you hear that?
Sevo/Roscia: Response?
:: A loud and echoing crash rang out through the room, reverberating the ceiling and walls, tremoring the floor. It sounded eerily like the emergency doors they had come through before, only this time they were slamming shut instead of opening.::
Sevo/Roscia: Response?
:: Then, darkness. The lights flickered off momentarily, and when they came back on they were stood in the centre of a darkened forest.::
Sevo/Roscia: Response?
::Thick trails of moss climbing up trees and canopied treetops hung up above. It was humid and wet, Jo could feel it through her suit, the heat soaking through onto her skin from the EVA suit. It was like the mountains forests on her home planet, with thick oxygen hanging in the air. Her skin was itching, sweating and clammy, and she needed to scratch every inch of her arm.::
:: She needed to get out of the suit. It needed to come off. She needed to breathe.::
Sevo/Roscia: Response?
Marshall: No, I need to get out of it… there’s oxygen…
Sevo/Roscia: Response?
:: Her gloved hands started to fumble with the clasps on the side of her helmet, finding it difficult to get her hands underneath the mechanism to pull out the lock. The rifle was in the way. She dropped the weapon to the ground, hearing the clattering sound it made instead of the soft and wet thud she would have expected to hear if it had been grass.::
:: She stopped pawing at the helmet and looked up to the others, breathing raggedly.::
Sevo/Roscia: Response?
Marshall: What the frick is happening? Where’s the grass?
Sevo/Roscia: Response?
Ensign Jocelyn Marshall
Operations Officer
USS Gorkon
G239304JM0