Lt Jovenan – Garden of Death

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Jovenan

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Apr 10, 2024, 12:55:02 PMApr 10

to USS Artemis-A – StarBase 118 Star Trek PBEM RPG

((Shuttle Kerynitis, en route to Bajor))

Bajor was steadily growing larger behind the viewport of the shuttle as the autopilot flew them closer to their destination. Jovenan had laid out the background and the scenario for their exercise, and they had had even their first question by Crewman Renirs, even though cryptic in presentation. It was time to turn to assigning specific tasks to individuals.

Jovenan: You will be working in pairs. Savel and Chevalier, your task is to take ground samples and analyse them in situ. Try to take as many readings as you can, but each sample have to be taken at least 250 metres from each other.

Savel: Very well, Lieutenant.

Chevalier: So, Mr. Savel. Would you like to use a game of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock to determine who will lead our research team?

Jovenan wasn’t sure if selecting a leader for a pair was strictly necessary in such a small-scale situation, but she wasn’t stopping the two from doing that either if they so chose. Instead, she turned to the other two trainees.

Jovenan: Gnai, Renirs, you will be investigating the quality of the water in the local river. It’s a tributary to a larger river, where elevated levels of the toxins have been detected. It’s possible there’s a leaking toxin canister somewhere, so investigate any anomalies you might find.

Gnai: Aye, sir!

Renirs: K.

Jovenan had good reasons to assign the pairs like this, although she began to second-guess herself if it had been better to pair people by their energy and enthusiasm instead. Every trainee was different from each other, for certain. She kept going with the presentation she needed to complete before they’d land.

Jovenan: I’ll be monitoring your progress. I’ll try to spend time with both pairs, but if you need me, you can contact me at any time ::points at combadge:: Questions?

Renirs: Do we, like, carry the water with us or do we just let it go free after checking it’s okay?

After Renirs’ previous, cryptic yet surprisingly important question, Jovenan wanted to give the Crewman the benefit of the doubt and assume she had a good reasoning behind asking it. Unconsciously scowling, it took Jovenan a while before the understood what the Crewman had asked.

Jovenan: What? Um… Oh! No, you don’t have to take the samples back to the shuttle. In a real research experiment we might have done that, but it isn’t needed in this exercise. Good, any other questions?

((Rakantha Province, Bajor))

It didn’t take them long to find the coordinates Jovenan had given to Savel piloting the shuttle. The decontaminated, farmed fields in the distance were green, yet the terrain below them as they descended was yellow and brown. As they got closer, Jovenan could pick up the river she had ordered Gnai and Renirs to investigate, while the ground opened up wide and mostly bare all around them for Savel and Chevalier to study.

Renirs: Not the prettiest gardens they’ve got there, huh?

Savel: Unfortunately not.

Chevalier: What can one living being inflict upon another? It's horrible to see…

Jovenan shook her head. She had never seen a person do evil onto another before leaving her homeworld, and after years of living offworld, the cruelty made her feel sick. And still, it also reminded her of her own planet. There were no detailed records from the Chaotic times, when the Edo still engaged in crimes and in wars, but Jovenan believed that the sight ahead of them was what Rubicun must have been like in the last days of the last war.

The shuttle landed, and they could each breath their lungs full of pure planet air. Granted, their stay in space hadn’t been as long as it had been in the past, with the previous, unexpected mission taking place partly on planetside… although, given that it was technically decades ago, and they may have technically died on that trip, Jovenan wasn’t sure if it counted.

The Crewman stretched as soon as she left the shuttle and before approaching Gnai, her study partner. Jovenan wondered if she had a bad back or some similar problem.

Renirs: So, hi, yeah. ::pause:: That’s a pretty awesome suit. Does it have any guns?

Gnai: Hello Crewman Renirs. Thank you. No, this suit is not made for combat. In fact, combat is preferably avoided...

Renirs: Response?

While Gnai and the peculiar Crewman were introducing themselves (sort of) to each other, the other pair, already familiar, were ready to depart.

Savel: ::to Jaseb:: I believe that I am ready to go, if you are as well. ::to Jovenan:: Unless you have an objection, we'll begin Lieutenant.

Chevalier: ::puts the breather on his mouth:: Agree, sir. Ready to leave.

Jovenan nodded.

Jovenan: Of course. Choose a place where you wish to begin and map yourself a route. I’d recommend trying different types of terrains for varied results. Go ahead, I’ll join you in a moment to see how you’re progressing.

Savel and Chevalier left with the instructions they were given. Jovenan looked back at them for a while before turning to Gnai and Renirs, who seemed to be ready to depart onto their assignment as well.

Gnai: Are you ready, Crewman Renirs? ::pointing to the nearest bend in the river:: Perhaps that would make a decent starting point to trace the toxins.

Renirs: Response

Jovenan waved at the pair as they, too, left the landing point towards the small river they had seen from the air. After they had got further away from her and started their work, Jovenan found herself alone standing by the landed shuttle. Activating the PADD on her hand, she opened the locator view; the shuttle could detect each trainee’s location with ease for as long as their combadge kept sending a signal.

She picked up her own tricorder and run a scan, hovering the device over the ground. The results, fairly quick and preliminary, revealed what she had read from local reports and what her earlier look into the area from the orbit had shown; broken down proteins, decayed biomatter, and even some remaining photosystem and 5-enolpyruvylshikimate 3-phosphate synthase inhibitors. She shook her head.

She placed the tricorder back onto her belt and looked at the PADD again. Both teams were on work. Deciding to give them a bit of time to try their own way before rushing into instructing them, Jovenan waited by the shuttle a little longer. Jovenan wanted to give them some space before inspecting their work for two reasons. One was that they should have a chance to test their skills without someone straight away telling what to do, and only if they struggled, she’d give direct pointers.

The other reason was a more selfish one. She hadn’t had a chance to go running in the nature for so long. For someone who was from a culture in which running from place to place was the norm, the running track on the Artemis was a poor substitute for the natural ground.

For a few minutes longer, she observed the teams from the map before she’d either be called for assistance or she’d pick either teams by random and sprint into look how they were doing.

((OOC: No new tags from me in this one. Jovenan will join either pair in the next sim.))