LtCmdr Jovenan – I let you vote only because then I can blame you if this turns out to be a bad idea
Jovenan
((Campsite, Waterfall Cave, Callis I))
Jovenan: Good morning! Did you sleep well?
The greeting wasn’t much more than an attempt to bring some normalcy to their life inside the cliffs. She doubted any single one of them slept well. The decision to split up the day to shifts with a pair had helped, at least Jovenan. The eight hours of uninterrupted sleep – or at least rest, if not sleep – was something valuable in these conditions, but more so she had found security in standing guard with someone else. On the first days, guarding while others slept, she had become so afraid of everything in the cave, every shadow, every sound, even every droplet falling from the waterfall, that she had woken up the next person to take the guard duty much too early. The push to split the shifts and to construct the water clock had originated in part from that guilt. And when she had gone to sleep, she had had to cry herself to sleep. She still did that. She missed Vitor. Her other friends and colleagues too. The three fellow survivors had become much closer to her after the days spent there, but she would have so much more wanted to fall asleep to his hugs and kisses…
It was better to not think about him. Think about any of it. They were surviving. That was all that mattered now. And they were surviving just fine. Bergmen shrugged and washed his grubby face. See, fine.
Bergmen: Not a marine bunk grade hard as I ordered, so expect four stars in my review, Commander.
Bancroft: Generous. I’d have expected a formal complaint.
Jovenan flashed a smile and began to distribute the food from the pack she had been heating for them. They tried to eat together, so that there was no uncertainty about the rationing and so that they felt a little bit more of that state of normalcy and camaraderie. Families ate together – the loving ones, on Rubicun at least, or they ought to do so – and for a while, they had to be like a family to each other.
Jovenan: This’ll be the last pack of the brown mush, by the way. All there’s left is the yellow mush.
K’Wara: Damn. That’s my favorite one too…
Bergmen: Don’t worry, boss, they are almost the same. Just instead of the artificial sweet aftertaste on your tongue, they are a little sour. ::turns to Bancroft and point spoon at him:: Change in taste will help, do you agree, doctor?
Bancroft: ::distractedly:: Oh, yes. Absolutely. Variety is… ::searching for and failing to find the aphorism:: … important.
Them joking around never failed to make Jovenan feel relieved. Although not always a sure sign, people who stopped trying to find humour in tough situation were the ones to look after. So far, they had all managed to held themselves together, with few incidents. She couldn’t tell which one of them was the worst off. They all looked a little famished and dirty but not yet overly so. Bancroft was the one of them that looked the most like he had been surviving in a cave for days, with his beard, but that wasn’t a sign of anything in itself. In matter of fact, if his beard somehow disappeared, she would have been concerned.
Wonder if Vitor had a beard now… No, don’t think of him again. Keep living in the present.
Jovenan: The yellow mush looks a bit like chicken soup without the soup to me. Maybe they’ve tried to make it taste like it too. ::looks at brown mush:: Still haven’t been able to figure out what this is supposed to be.
K’Wara: Don’t underestimate the desperate mind. Close your eyes and plug your nose, you can almost pretend it’s chocolate.
Oh no, don’t say chocolate! Now Jovenan wanted chocolate so bad! Molten chocolate, profiteroles, the privacy, smiles, laughter, nervousness… She missed it all so much. Looking at the brown mush, she felt herself so hollow. If it weren’t for the voices around her, she would have given in to the feeling of slipping out of the caves and being somewhere else, at some other time. Her fellow survivors were a life jacket that dragged her back to the surface.
Bergmen: ::between bites:: So, what’s the plan for today?
Bancroft: ::pointing his spoon at the tunnels:: Whatever keeps us fed without getting killed in the process. ::chewing:: s’my vote, anyway.
Jovenan: Are there any such directions?
K’Wara: I vote we continue trying to figure out where that waterfall’s coming from. Staying near water is our best bet, and who knows, there may be what passes for fish at the other end of it.
Vote? We’re voting now? Those little wanna-be mutineers again. Despite realising that she should have continued to enforce her authority as the superior officer, Jovenan merely shrugged at them voting for their course of action. There weren’t really anyone to report them to. Did laws apply if they were unenforceable? Well, yes, but also… never mind.
Bergmen: Or the garden. I would give an arm and a leg for an apple.
Bancroft: An apple, huh? That desperate to get rid of me?
Jovenan chuckled a little but resumed with the topic of continuing their exploration.
Jovenan: The waterfall might not come from anywhere. Anywhere we could go to, I mean. It might be seeping through porous rock or from the groundwater at elevated level. ::pause:: Or it could be a river that dives into a cave. Something might grow along it. Worth having a look.
Bergmen stood up from the campfire and looked around. Eating the last of her mush, Jovenan adjusted how she sat on the hard platform. Walking around the campsite was not enough for her, and her legs were feeling weak from the lack of exercise. She wasn’t going to be turning any of the tunnels for a running track, though.
Bergmen: Do you think they will return?
There was no need to clarify what the they were. Although the team had not seen the predators since the first night, they were probably somewhere in there anyway. The question was, if they were across the tunnels or waiting for the team behind the corner.
Bancroft: ::shrugging:: We’ve stopped being convenient. ::rubbing his face:: Oughta buy us some time, at least.
Jovenan: Yeah. They’ve probably gone to hunt something else. I doubt they survive too many days without food either…
K’Wara: Worrying about isn’t going to help any, that’s for sure. We know it’s out there, and we know what it doesn’t like. Let’s work from that.
Bergmen: So up to stream we go today. So in five, here, ready to go?
Jovenan thought for a moment. It was a better plan than anything they had done during the last few days. Although they still had the yellow mush, they would have taken a bigger risk by assuming that Starfleet was coming before it had been exhausted. Sure, the Artemis might have been there in the orbit right now, or the Berlin or Chesapeake or Ronin or Eagle or the entire fleet for what she knew, but it was also possible that there were no one there and they would just starve to death. Maybe they visited already but left without reaching the surface or finding her team specifically, thinking no one would have survived the crash. It was the time to start taking risks.
Bancroft: ::sucking his teeth:: Yeah, I’ll… ::clearing throat:: I’ll get my medkit ready.
Jovenan: Okay. Let’s do that. We should move light, but get everything we need in case we find something or not. And see if we still have any lights with us. I won’t be wandering in a pitch black tunnel.
K’Wara: ::smiles:: Yes Sir.
They took a few minutes to get dressed for exploring the tunnels and getting equipment they might have needed there. Jovenan felt useless having none of the scientific tools to prepare – no tricorder, not even a compass or a sample kit. She packed with her water canisters, and also some food and a blanket, in case they didn’t make it back to the campsite before they got hungry, sleepy, cold or injured, or in case they lost their way back there or get trapped. It was not a scenario she wanted to consider, but it was still something to prepare for.
Bergmen: Bergmen ready!
Bancroft: … ready.
K’Wara: Defenses prepped and Spelunking kit packed.
Jovenan: Good. I think we’re ready to leave then.
Bancroft: Super. Let’s go find ourselves something that isn’t mush. ::beat:: Not that I don't love your mush, Commander.
K’Wara: I’d settle for more mush, so long as we get more.
Jovenan pressed her palm against her chest, pretending to be insulted by Bancroft’s words.
Jovenan: Sounds like you volunteered for the cooking duties hereafter, Doc… No, never mind. I don’t want to risk you gloating about your culinary skills just because we found something better than the mush.
Vitor would have made something incredible from the mush alone, she was sure of that. A small smile forced itself to her lips. No matter how she tried not to think of him, her mind kept finding an excuse to return to him. Focus on the reality!
Bergmen: Response
Bancroft: ::lightly:: Hey, rule of the day from your friendly neighborhood doctor – nobody bleed more than once each. Anything past that we all start donating pieces of uniform.
K’Wara: Shipwreck chic? I like it.
Jovenan: ::looking down at her skant uniform, then others:: People with sleeves, you’re the first to donate.
Bergmen: Response
They circled around the pool. Jovenan pressed her lips to a line. Small strips of the tarpaulin the predator had ripped on the first night had caught up to the rocks, pushed up by the water now that the tunnels had been flooded. She hoped that the creature had the sense to keep away from them, but she also wondered, if she had been the creature, would she have abandoned four large and easy meals all that easily? It was not a line of thinking she wanted to delve too much into.
Bancroft: What do y’all reckon the odds are of finding a tree… or bush, I’m not picky… that grows tuna melts?
K’Wara didn’t stop to respond but continued to lead them further into the dark tunnels. They were once again surrounded by the hues of their last chemlights colouring the rocks sickly green. The tunnel split in two.
K’Wara: We know so little of the flora of Callis I, your guess is as good as mine. ::verifies the marks:: The right-hand one is the one that leads upwards after a while, so that’s likely the best option.
Jovenan: The tunnels seem to be rather serpentine, but without evidence of the contrary, it seems like our best bet.
Bergmen/Bancroft: Response
K’Wara: Yeah, well, between the banshee winds and the echoes from the waterfall, our sense of hearing is basically useless.
K’Wara was correct, although with the darkness surrounding them from all sides, they didn’t have many senses to rely on either. Although Jovenan didn’t remember from the top of her head if the species of her fellow survivors had a better or worse sense of smell than her, she didn’t trust any of them to detect the predators from the scent alone.
Jovenan: The waterfall’s sounds should get muffled as we get further away. But if you do hear water rushing in the distance still after a while, it might be a sign we’re close to where the water enters the tunnels.
Bergmen/Bancroft: Response
K’Wara: How much light do we have left?
Jovenan left the question to the operation officer. She would have been so much happier had they been able to craft torches instead of relying on the chemlight near its breaking point. Sure, fire wasn’t all that reliable either, but the colour and the flickering unnerved her too much to ever want to see one of those things again.
Bergmen/Bancroft: Response
Jovenan: Hopefully the sun shines deep into the tunnel then. ::pause:: Assuming it’s daytime outside to begin with. Let’s keep moving.
Bergmen/Bancroft/K’Wara: Response
They resumed their journey deeper into the tunnels – or not deeper, if their guess about this particular tunnel leading towards the surface was in any way correct. Jovenan lost her sense of distance fairly quickly, but judging by the roar of the waterfall echoing behind them, they hadn’t made it all that far when she saw the chemlight illuminate a rock face ahead. At first, she thought the tunnel took a sharp bend to either right or left, until the light showed that both walls were solid. Had they already found a dead end? Why would… how… ugh. It seemed like they needed to turn back, until she realised there was no ceiling to be seen.
They wanted to go towards the surface. The tunnel had delivered. It continued after taking a turn upwards, not quite 90 degrees but still too steep to carry on by just walking.
Jovenan: Uh oh. ::touches the floor:: It’s moist too. Too slippery.
Bergmen/Bancroft/K’Wara: Response
Jovenan: Anyone know anything about rock climbing? We have rope, right? So if one of us gets up, the rest of us could pull themselves up with it. Otherwise we need to find another route.
Bergmen/Bancroft/K’Wara: Response
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Lieutenant Commander Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11