Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - Things That Go Hoot in the Night
Carter Schimpff
(( Campsite, Inside the Cliffs – Callis I ))
Bancroft: ::glancing between the two sections:: What if these aren’t separate? What if the figures are referencing the writing – or vice versa? Like… a code. Or a puzzle.
K’Wara: Codes or puzzles usually mean secrets. You think our cavedweller was trying to make sure they weren’t easily understood? ::to Olliver:: You done with the noisemaker?
Roy glanced up at K’Wara’s voice, momentarily pulled from the carvings. He hadn’t heard the operations officer approach – not from distraction so much as fatigue finally beginning to blunt an edge he’d been carrying all day.
Bergmen: Just a second, Lieutenant, almost done.
Bergmen’s hands moved with efficiency, the last adjustments made quickly before he straightened. The work spoke for itself, and Roy gave Ollie a deferential nod.
Bergmen: Done.
K’Wara: All right. Give us 10 minutes, and we’ll have the two tunnels over there safeguarded.
Jovenan: Good. Once that’s done, I think we can sleep. No need to exhaust ourselves further.
K’Wara: Roger that. ::to Olliver:: Come on. Let's get this done.
Roy watched K’Wara and Bergmen disappear back toward the tunnels, the soft clack of scavenged materials – he refused to think of them in any other terms – fading with them.
Jovenan: If only the skeleton crew on the Karnack had included a linguist or an archaeologist… ::pause:: I think they made these for someone else’s use but their own. Carving something in stone takes a lot of effort, and I would imagine they would have found easier methods to share information between themselves but this. An instruction, as you suggested, to someone who got here, or maybe the last effort to record the events that led them to this cave, perhaps?
Up close, the groupings were clearer – symbols and figures arranged with a kind of quiet discipline. The figures weren’t static – there was momentum in them. Direction. He traced the air near one grouping without touching the stone, brow furrowing.
Bancroft: ::quietly:: If this was meant for someone else, that might explain the redundancy. Clarity, you know? ::pointing to some pictograms:: What does it look to you like those figures are doing? Dancing?
Jovenan: Throwing something. Or running. Escaping? ::looks back:: What’s that behind them?
Bancroft: ::stifling a yawn:: A lizard? No – wrong dimensions. Quadrupedal, though. Long tail. ::a pause:: Whatever it is, it doesn’t look friendly.
Whatever clarity the carvings might offer, it wasn’t going to come tonight – not without rest. He let the wall have its silence and stepped back.
Jovenan: When the two get back here, I want you to take the first watch. Bergmen takes the last one. That way you and he get the most uninterrupted sleep. Does that sound good?
Did it sound good?
No, not particularly. He’d much prefer for Commander Jovenan to be the one to get uninterrupted sleep. He’d served under her in enough stressful situations to know that she could hold it together as well as anyone and better than most.
All the same, the subtle signs of stress and exhaustion on her face and in her posture were unmistakable.
Of any of the four of them, he judged it was Jovenan who they most needed to be fully rested and of sound mind and judgement. As the most senior doctor present, he could technically order her to get rest… maybe. He wasn’t actually sure how that bit of medical jurisprudence really worked.
In any case, he judged that the cons to doing so significantly outweighed the pros.
Better to just smile, take the gift she was giving him, and say yes ma’am. Save putting his foot down for something that would truly make a difference.
(OOC: I’m going to leave a ‘K’Wara/Bergmen: Responses?’ tag here to allow space for them to continue their mini-scene as desired without having to backsim.)
K’Wara/Bergmen: Responses?
Bancroft: ::tight lipped:: Aye ma’am, thank you.
Some time later, he heard footsteps which soon resolved in the firelight into the forms of Lieutenant K’Wara and Lieutenant JG Bergmen.
Bancroft: ::turning to greet them:: Welcome back. Y’all get the bone alarms all set, then?
K’Wara/Begmen: Response
Bancroft: Per the Commander, I’ll be taking first watch. We’ve had a long day, and we’re not going to accomplish much more tonight. ::stretching:: Time for some shut eye.
K’Wara/Begmen/Jovenan: Response
The usual rustle of bedding down – boots shifting, fabric whispering, a muted cough – faded until there was nothing left but the steady, distant thunder of the waterfall and the low, living crackle of the fire. The flames had settled into a dependable rhythm now, their light pooling warmly against the stone before retreating again.
Roy sat where he could see the cloth-draped tunnel mouths and the fire both, his back straight despite the ache that persisted in his shoulder. He rested his hands loosely on his knees, the survival knife a familiar talisman at his side.
They had all been lucky.
Obscenely so.
No major fractures. No deep lacerations. No huge burns, no crush injuries, no acute infections. Nothing that had required more than clean hands, pressure, and reassurance. Nothing that had forced him to improvise medicine with nothing but will and optimism.
His thoughts, uninvited, began to wander.
A bad cut, he thought. Something jagged. Stone did that – tore instead of slicing. He pictured blood slicking his hands, the way it always felt warmer than it should, the way it refused to stop when you needed it to. Infection would follow if he couldn’t sterilize it properly. Cave bacteria. Unknown flora. No antibiotics. No sterilization beyond water and hope.
And if it were worse? A puncture? A bite? Claws?
He imagined trying to place old-fashioned sutures by firelight, hands shaking not from fear but fatigue. Imagined watching someone’s breathing go shallow, knowing exactly why, knowing exactly what should be done – and having none of it available.
Failure sat at the center of those thoughts like a patient he couldn’t look in the face.
Roy inhaled slowly through his nose, then let the breath out just as carefully. He grounded himself in the present: the heat of the fire on his face, the rough texture of stone beneath his boots, the solid fact that everyone was breathing and whole.
For now.
How much time had passed since he’d sat down – minutes, hours? He had no way of knowing.
It certainly felt like hours.
And that was when he heard it.
It wasn’t loud, or close, but it was a sound that didn’t belong to water or fire or settling stone.
A low, hollow hoot echoed faintly through the tunnels, distant enough that he could have pretended it was wind.
It was followed by another noise, wetter this time. A dragging scrape. Then a rhythmic, deliberate tearing sound.
Roy’s spine straightened by a fraction.
He held still, listening past the roar of the waterfall, letting his ears do the job of a tricorder.
The sound repeated – measured, unhurried.
Something was feeding.
He rose slowly, careful not to let his shadow leap across the cavern walls, and moved with soft footsteps toward the edge of the firelight. The cloth barrier ahead stirred slightly, not from contact but from displaced air beyond it.
Another hoot. Closer now.
Through a narrow gap where the cloth hadn’t quite sealed against the stone, Roy caught a glimpse of movement: a hunched, heavy shape crouched over something smaller. Multiple pale points glimmered briefly, then vanished as the creature lowered its head.
There was a wet snap, a shudder, and silence from whatever unfortunate black mass lay on the ground before the creature.
Roy swallowed, his mouth suddenly very dry.
Whatever it was, it fed efficiently. Confidently. Unafraid.
He did not reach for his knife. There was no sense in doing so – the creature was either unaware of him or didn’t consider him a threat, and he was in no position to convince it otherwise.
Silently, he crept back toward the fire, his mind already working through the problem, turning it over slowly, examining every edge.
If he woke everyone, there would be sound. Movement. A half-dozen small, unnecessary risks introduced all at once. If the creature was sensitive to noise or vibration, it might investigate. And if it did, there would be nowhere to go. They couldn’t run blind into the other tunnel, not with exhaustion already pressing in at the edges and the very real possibility that more of those creatures were out there.
But if he didn’t wake someone…
The thought settled uncomfortably in his chest.
He imagined the bone alarms snapping to life without warning. Imagined the others waking to chaos instead of choice. Imagined explaining, afterward – if any of them were still alive – that he had known. He had seen it. And he’d decided, alone, to hold that knowledge.
That part stuck.
Roy exhaled slowly and rubbed a hand across his face, the grit of the day still clinging to his skin. The Academy had taught him many things, but one lesson rose above the rest: if you weren’t in command, you didn’t get to choose whether to act. Delay was never neutral, and silence could be deadly.
He glanced over at the tents.
Commander Jovenan needed rest. That hadn’t changed. She also needed information – but not at the cost of being shaken awake for something that, for the moment, remained contained.
This was exactly why chains had multiple links in them.
Roy’s gaze shifted to one of the other shelters. Lieutenant K’Wara was next up for watch duty.
He moved carefully, placing each step where the stone wouldn’t betray him, until he reached the edge of K’Wara’s shelter. He knelt and gently shook the toe of their boot.
Bancroft: ::whispering:: Lieutenant. ::a pause:: Lieutenant K’Wara.
He waited, counting their breaths, giving them the time to surface properly rather than dragging them awake. When they stirred, he raised a single finger to his lips, firelight catching the edge of his expression – serious, but contained.
Bancroft: ::hoarse whisper:: It’s not quite time for your watch yet, Lieutenant… ::a beat:: but we may have a problem.
He went on to explain what he’d seen – what was currently happening meters away from them – in stiff, hushed tones.
K’Wara: Response
Jovenan/Bergmen: Response?
TAG/TBC!
===
Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1