Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - In Which Going into the Cave is, Regrettably, the Correct Choice
Carter Schimpff
(( A Windswept Plateau - Callis I ))
Bancroft: Medically, Commander, we can move. But we need to be careful and deliberate. ::a beat, honest:: Nobody here is cleared for a marathon today.
Roy let his hand drop once the words were out. He didn’t need to underline them. Everyone here understood what no marathons meant – understood it in the way you understood gravity after your first hard fall.
Jovenan: I can survive a few days without my running practice. ::looks at each of them:: Do you think you’d be able to carry our stuff for a few kilometres?
The corner of his mustache twitched upward at the first part of Jovenan’s response. The second narrowed his focus. ‘Our stuff’ wasn’t a quantifiable number. Neither was ‘a few kilometers.’
Twenty kilos per person was manageable. Thirty, in their current physical condition – particularly Bergmen – bordered on negligent. Distance carried the same problem: five klicks and twenty were not the same thing, no matter how conversationally they were presented.
And yet, he knew the answer had already been decided. Not by Commander Jovenan, but by circumstance. Shelter wasn’t optional. Waiting wasn’t safer. Whatever the math became, it would be done in motion, under weather that was rapidly shifting to unforgiving.
Bergmen: I don’t see any other option, ma’am, so yes.
K’Wara: The bags enclosed won’t be big enough for one big trip, so we’ll need to get creative.
Bancroft: ::to Jovenan:: If we keep the loads reasonable and don’t pretend three klicks is the same as ten, then yes. I’d like Ollie kept to the equivalent weight of a standard field pack, though. ::looking around to the others:: The rest of us can take a bit more – but keep in mind that calories and drinking water may soon become a luxury.
He left his own limits unspoken, but he felt them every time he shifted his shoulder. The muscle answered immediately – deep, hot, and persistent – the kind of injury that didn’t fail all at once, but degraded steadily with use.
Carrying anything was going to make it worse. There was no version of this where it didn’t. He didn’t consider mentioning it. Doctors made terrible patients, yes – but more than that, there was no intervention to offer, no fix to be had. Telling them would only redistribute the problem, shifting more weight onto Jovenan and K’Wara and burning through calories and water they couldn’t afford to lose.
Pain was an acceptable cost. Increased consumption wasn’t. If they were going to make it through the next thirty-six hours, he’d have to carry his share.
Jovenan: Empty the medkits, engineering kits and such of non-working equipment. We can use them for carrying other things, like the rations. Take as much you think you’re able to carry without exhausting yourselves. We can probably come back here eventually, but let’s assume it won’t happen until the morning.
Roy moved with the others, methodical and unhurried, letting Commander Jovenan’s instructions set the tempo. He stripped the medkits first, tossing anything that relied on power back into the escape pod without ceremony.
He prioritized what didn’t need electrons to function: bandage materials, sealant patches, and vials of pharmaceuticals – though he still had no clear plan on how he’d dose or administer them without a hypospray. Rations followed, then water, and finally a seven-inch field knife.
He fashioned a crude pack from scavenged straps and cases, careful to distribute the weight so that it would pull harder on his good shoulder than his bad.
Bergmen: What if we are not able to return? Shouldn’t we at least make improvised sleds or something? Salvage as much as possible now, when we have a chance?
K’Wara: I agree with Olliver; we at least need to make sure to bring anything perishable, but I do think we’re working on a time limit here. ::points to the horizon:: On any other planet, darkening skies indicate the weather turning worse.
Roy’s eyes followed Lieutenant K’Wara’s gesture. The horizon was already changing.
What had been a vast, luminous wash of magenta was darkening unevenly, bruising rather than dimming – as though the sky itself were being pressed from beneath by something both immense and impatient.
Bands of color layered over one another: violet sinking into indigo, indigo bleeding toward black, not in the familiar gradient of an Earth storm, but in slow, deliberate seams, like tectonic plates sliding past one another.
The wind hadn’t risen yet, which somehow made it worse. The air felt charged and expectant. The metallic tang he’d tasted when the escape pod hatch first opened had intensified, prickling at the back of his throat and setting his teeth on edge.
Whatever was coming looked – there wasn’t another word for it – inevitable.
Bancroft: Ollie’s not wrong, but neither is Lieutenant K’Wara. Hypothermia and dehydration will kill us faster than running out of tools, and whatever’s coming in with that sky isn’t going to give us a ton of extra time to debate it.
Jovenan: Empty the medkits, engineering kits and such of non-working equipment. We can use them for carrying other things, like the rations. Take as much you think you’re able to carry without exhausting yourselves. We can probably come back here eventually, but let’s assume it won’t happen until the morning.
Bergmen: On it, ma’am.
Bancroft: Hydration will be key. As we’re collecting gear, keep in mind a minimum of three liters of water per person. If we can’t make it back here tomorrow, that’ll give us about 36 hours to find a new freshwater source.
As they worked, Roy watched Ollie from the corner of his eye as the Gideon filled his improvised pack – careful lifts, deliberate weight shifts, no bravado.
Good.
Satisfied with his own loadout, Roy shouldered his pack, a brief grimace crossing his face as he cinched the straps tight.
Moments later, the four wayward souls stood assembled once more. It was time to move.
Jovenan: There’s probably a cave in that cliff. ::looks up, then back down, drags foot on the ground:: Help me draw an arrow. Then I think we’re ready to get moving.
Bergmen: ::looking around:: At least we don't suffer from a lack of stone to make one…
K’Wara: I’ll get the pod sealed back up, at least temporarily. Don’t want any unwelcome guests.
Bancroft: Good point. We may not be the only scavengers out here.
Bergmen: Does anyone know the length of planetary rotation for this rock? How much daylight do you think we have?
Ollie stepped forward to take point, earning a scowl from Roy directed squarely between his shoulder blades. It gave Roy a clear view of him – and also the greatest chance to watch him find bad footing, unfamiliar fauna, or anything else that might turn a mild concussion into something worse.
He’d said his peace. Harping now would only make his medical advice easier to not hear in the future.
Instead, he answered Bergmen’s question about daylight.
Bancroft: Not a clue. Commander? Any planetary science tricks you have up your sleeve that might help?
Jovenan: Response
K’Wara: I think the storm is our most immediate concern... We don’t know what a good thunderstorm looks like on this planet, so best if we’re well in shelter by the time it gets here.
Roy didn’t argue the point, but his thoughts snagged on the word thunderstorm. It was a convenient label – familiar, comforting, and possibly useless. He had no idea if Callis I even supported the kind of atmospheric convection that produced thunder as he understood it.
Plasma storms were a possibility. Electromagnetic discharges, too. Or perhaps something as-yet entirely undiscovered.
How exciting.
Whatever was coming, Roy suspected it wouldn’t be polite enough to follow a familiar script.
Bergmen: At least the visibility is good, hm? (beat) And we will see anything coming in advance.
K’Wara: The Karnack’s database didn’t say anything about any civilizations in the Callis system, and there were no entries in the Flight Risk Index for this area of space... ::grumbles with exertion:: Which must mean the Maelstrom isn’t always this volatile to passing vessels.
Bancroft: ::dryly:: In retrospect, maybe I should have bought one of those Ferengi lottery entries.
Jovenan/Bergmen: Response
K’Wara: Could mean it’s a temporary danger. Other Ships coming into the system may not be affected like the Karnack was.
Bancroft: A newer ship – or, at least, one not already prepared for the scrapyard – might also be a bit more robust against the effects of the Maelstrom.
Roy left it at that. Hope was a tool as vital as food or water, and he was careful not to blunt it unnecessarily. He didn’t voice the rest of the thought: that even if a ship did come looking for them, and even if it handled the Maelstrom more gracefully than the Karnack ever could, getting sensors to punch through that much noise and interference and still resolve lifesigns on the surface was a long shot at best.
Some truths helped people survive. Others only made the waiting harder.
Jovenan/Bergmen: Response
As they drew closer, the cliff face resolved itself into something far more unsettling than a simple wall of stone. It rose abruptly from the ground, sheer and pockmarked, its surface riddled with openings that seemed less eroded than hollowed, as if the rock had been eaten away from the inside in some places.
The apertures varied wildly in size – some barely large enough for a child to crawl through, others yawning wide enough to swallow a small shuttlecraft – and none of them shared a consistent shape. Some were smooth and rounded, others sharp-edged and torn, as though whatever had made them hadn’t always agreed on the method.
As the wind strengthened, it drove dust and grit up the cliff face and through the holes, and the air filled with a low, shifting sound: not quite a howl, not quite a whistle, but something layered discordant, like an immense, broken instrument being played without intent.
Beehive was the closest analogy his mind offered, though it felt wrong in a way that mattered. Beehives implied order.
K’Wara: This is... ::looks around with curiosity:: Are those natural? There’s so many of them.
Bancroft: And the sound they make… it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard.
He adjusted the straps of his pack, his shoulder making its opinions on the matter quite clear.
Jovenan/Bergmen/K’Wara: Response
The wind strengthened as they neared the mouth of one of the largest openings. It was no longer a steady push at their backs but a restless, searching thing that tugged insistently at loose fabric and worked its way into seams and breath.
Grit skittered around them in thin sheets, drawn toward the cliff face as if by invitation, and the sound changed with it – threading through stone and hollow like a vast, unintentional pipe organ.
Roy felt the fine hairs along the back of his neck rise in unison. The storm was close now. He withdrew a chemlight from his pack, cracked it, and shook it to life.
Bancroft: Anyone else feel that? Air pressure’s shifting. Whatever’s coming, it’s very close now.
Jovenan/Bergmen/K’Wara: Response
The first step inside changed everything. The light dropped away not all at once, but unevenly, fractured by the irregular mouth of the opening so that shadows layered over one another instead of settling. The glow of chemlight spilled forward in a sickly arc that refused to travel straight – pooling in hollows, skittering across jagged stone, leaving entire sections of the cavern untouched.
The wind followed them in, narrowing as it went, losing speed but gaining voice as it threaded through unseen channels in the rock and returned as a low, resonant moan that vibrated faintly in his chest.
The chemlight flickered as his hand shifted – not something he’d ever experienced a chemlight do before – and for a moment the shadows seemed to rearrange themselves in response.
As though they were alive.
Then the sound came.
It didn’t resemble a howl or a cry so much as an intrusion, rising from deep within the cavern system as if the stone itself were giving voice to something it had kept long buried. The noise carried no single pitch, no recognizable cadence – only a layered dissonance that slid across frequencies human hearing simply wasn’t built to parse.
The echoes didn’t repeat it so much as distort it, each reflection warping the call further until the cavern seemed filled with overlapping fragments of the same impossible utterance. It pressed into the chest, into the teeth, into the space behind the eyes.
Bancroft: ::softly:: That… wasn’t the wind, was it?
Jovenan/Bergmen/K’Wara: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1