LTCmdr. Quentin Collins - A Short Drop and A Sudden Stop
Justin Partridge
Collins: GET DOWN!
Quentin Collins swept both of the officer's in his eyelines in his mawkishly long arms and hit the ground with a heavy thump. Though he knew that his body and spindly limbs would not protect them completely, he couldn't help himself. His sister used to say he was selfless to a fault, always blundering into situations before he had his full bearings because he knew someone was in trouble.
It nearly got him killed back in Collinsport, and was likely to be a hundred times more dangerous out here, but that's just who Quentin was. Always ready to be hurt if it meant that someone else was spared the pain. Someday that bill was going to come due, but that wasn't going to keep him from doing what he thought was right. After the noise and heat had subsided, he turned his eyes toward the sky again, trying to take stock of everyone as he kept his eyes somewhat affixed to the arcing energy that followed the ship's last flight path.
Collins: Damn odd...
Wilde: ::Coughing:: Is everyone alright?
Collins: Sound off! ::he called over the wind and hissing dust::
A few coughs and sputters later, the voices of his peers started to call out.
R’Ariel: What IS happening here, I heard that crash... no, I mean I "HEARD" that crash.
DeBarres: Still here.::Dryly. She got out her tricorder and looked to find the bigger parts of the ship.::
Collins: I think the air here might be more charged than I thought...which means we have a lot more work to do...
Wilde: Sir, is it possible there are survivors in that wreckage?
Quentin frowned, scrambling to his feet. The prognosis...didn't look good. With a ship that small and a landing that hard...but he shook the darkness from his head. There was no sense assuming the worst when they could find out just as quickly.
Drawing Skeets and unfolding him, the readout was...somewhat garbled. The air around them was positively saturated with energy of all stripe. Neutrinos, even more electron heaviness, and all manner of errant energy signals. But the one thing he could determine (thanks to Skeet's highly attuned and refitted palladium core nodes)...whatever souls were on that ship has perished in the crash.
Quentin felt his frown deepen and raw feelings well into his heart.
oO Such a waste...Oo
Collins: I fear no, Leftenant. Small crafts like that...It's always a crapshoot, but the readings are all over the place so we can't really be sure...
DeBarres: Whatever that was it has charged the local area. Sensor readings are blanketed by the energy discharge. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long to dissipate.::Looking at the screen.::
Wilde: Did you manage to link your tricorder with Atlas, R’Ariel?
R’Ariel: Afraid not. Can't seem to get through this interference.
Quentin checked Skeets' readings again and found the assessment proven. Whatever the Sheliak beam had awakened on the planet's surface and atmosphere was still playing havoc with their sensors. The direction of the energy seemed to be localized on the other side of the "Shipyard", but to try to cover that ground on foot was going to be absolute folly. He turned back to his team, anxious to know where their heads were at.
Collins: Options?
Wilde: Commander, this area is not safe anymore. I suggest we move the shuttle and then check the wreckage for survivors. Considering the nature of that energy discharge, I wouldn’t recommend any evacuating ships use this area to take-off.
DeBarres: It looks like about 2 kilometers to the crash site. We are going to be caught in the open sooner or later. I suggest we go now. We might get some sensor readings as we get closer. But I agree I think we need to keep everyone grounded.
He whirled his eyes toward the Counselor, his irises questioning before his voice. She seemed to pick up on the inference as she spoke before he could.
Collins: Steady on, Counselor. Messers Wilde and DeBarres are right. We can't stay here. There is no telling when the Sheliak will fire again and we still have these ongoing energy fluctuations to deal with...
R’Ariel: RESPONSE
Wilde: RESPONSE
DeBarres: We need to go now. I still think we have to go while we can..::Forcefully, highlighting her point and the urgency of the matter.::
R'Ariel: RESPONSE
Collins: You are ALL right. On me.
Wilde: RESPONSE
As he started back toward the shuttle, he slapped his commbadge.
Collins: =/\=Mister Covingyon, if you can hear me, we are coming to you. Once we take a quick pass for stragglers, we will be with you presently. Hang tight there...and I REALLY hope I am not just talking to myself here...=/\=
Unwilling to wait for the answer, he broke into a slight run, the rest of the team falling in beside him. After a few minutes, they had piled back into the shuttle and Quentin rushed them through a quickened pre-flight check. Most of the sensors were on the fritz, just like the tricorders, but flight control and the engines were still operational. Their first real break today.
((Interior. Shuttlecraft 1.))
But as they started to rise, the real damage of the Sheliak's weapon became known to them. As they gained altitude a mighty scorch mark, perfectly rounded and blackened into the surface of the planet spread out below them. It was...terrifying and saddening all at the same time. Quentin tried to find the words to describe it, but his tongue failed him for the first time in years. All he felt was more pain and a yawning sense of loss for the planet's already tempestuous ecology.
Collins: I am going to bring us around, hold fast, team.
As he spoke, he then so acted, swinging the now mid-air shuttle up and around slightly giving them a better view of the Hole and of the scattered debris field from the crashed mining vessel. The Sheliak ship still hung menacingly in the skies above the planet but it still seemed eerily still. Quentin didn't like it. He didn't like any of it. But this was the hand he was dealt and they would have to play it any way they could.
Quentin was about to try and undergo any sort of scan they had when...several smallish flashing lights from the surface caught his eye. Quentin's eyebrow cocked and he was about to speak when...TING TING TING!
oO ARMS FIRE?! Oo
The bolts flashed impotently across the deflectors, but it looked like more were incoming!
DeBarres: RESPONSE
Collins: I see them, HANG ON!
Doing his best impression of Chloe Waters, he banked the shuttle hard to port, almost throwing himself from his own seat with the effort and the sudden hard g-forces throwing them to the right. More of the light balls were whizzing passed them, but with each new volley more and more bolts seemed to fly into the air and their way. Quentin kept trying to suss out the make and model of the weapons but he couldn't place the flash signatures and with their sensors busted, they wouldn't be able to conclusively.
More hard noises and hollow thumps peppered the exterior of the shuttle and alarms started to ring. Quentin whirled a panicked eye toward his display. The day was getting worse and worse.
Collins: Left nacelle damaged and venting, I am going to have to put her down.
Wilde: RESPONSE
Collins: Cross your fingers. It might help.
He felt himself losing control of the shuttle and with the loss of control came the loss of their slight altitude. Pointing their nose drunkenly at the grouping of the attackers, he tried to keep them as level as possible as they fell...
down....
down...
down...
Collins: BRACE!
As he shouted, the shuttle THAWAMED! hard against the ground, skipping slightly over the ground, sending chunks of alien earth and sparse grass flying with the new scar they had just cut into the ground. Quentin locked his elbows hard on the control console, keeping him steady for the brunt of the crash, but the shuttle itself wasn't flying them anywhere anymore. Maybe Quentin was too hasty thinking they had caught even a slight break. He turned a weary eye toward the rest of his team.
Collins: Everyone okay?
Wilde/R'Ariel/DeBarres: RESPONSE
Collins: Best news I've had all day. I am going to take a look outside, but, LISTEN...
He took a heavy beat with a somber look on his face.
Collins:...not a WORD of this to Mister Waters, yes?
He tried to give a wry smile, working feeling back into his arms and hands as he opened the port door slightly...he didn't see their attackers, but the dust was still very heavy, providing cover both ways. He turned back to his crew and was about to call them forward when massive, heavy hands clapped around his shoulders and HURLED him backward!
Quentin hit the ground and rolled slightly, banging and thrumming his limbs, knees, and elbows against the ground violently. As he wallowed to his belly he finally saw his attackers. The one who had just thrown him like so much trash into the ground was a massive Saurian, dressed in tattered but deliberate robes. At least two more seemed to be scrambling toward the shuttle. The Saurian threw his massive hands up and around his back, attempting to bring his weapon (a long, but heavily modified slug-thrower, which explained how they were able to bypass their deflectors) to bare on him.
Moving shockingly fast into a prone, kneeling firing stance (oO Thank the maker and Artinus Serinus.Oo), Quentin drew his own phaser and took aim. But the Saurian seemed ready for this eventuality and slashed violently instead of firing, hammering the barrel hard against Quentin's hand, sending his primary weapon skidding to the ground. Not allowing him a moment to recover, Quentin rose to his feet and broke into a hard and fast run. The Saurian reacted by raising the slugger aloft like a mighty battle axe of yore, but Quentin's wiry frame (and the Saurian's decision for a "power hit") won the moment as he drove his own knee into the Saurian's barreled chest. With the strike they both tumbled hard to the ground, Quentin slightly on top of the embarrassingly large creature and sprawling once more into the dirt and sharpish grass of the ground.
Snapping his head up, he could see the rest of the Saurian's party. They were trying to get into the shuttle! Quentin could hear the distant sounds of a struggle but he couldn't see his team yet. He HAD to get to them. He HAD to defend them. He drew his rapier and clicked it active with a smooth FA-ZAM!
Collins: DON'T YOU TOUCH THEM! ::He screamed, pointing the blade with a flat, deadly assured hand.::
He took one running step...then another...and then his knee exploded in pain, knocking him hard to the ground again and sending his weapon clattering to the dust. He rolled heavily onto his back and saw the dominating frame of the Saurian, almost blotting out the sun as he loomed over him with a...rictus like smile on his cracked and dusty face.
Collins: D-don't...touch them!
Saurian: No touch. No pain. Not anymore. Rejoice! We bring you to Father.
With that the impossibly large Saurian raised the butt of his thrower and brought it down on Quentin's face.
Both shattering his glasses and exploding his world into darkness.
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER
QUENTIN COLLINS III
FIRST OFFICER
U.S.S. ARROW NCC-69829
ID: E239512QC0
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F.N.S. CONTRIBUTOR]]