Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - A Brief and Incomplete Study on How We're Still Alive
Carter Schimpff
(( Inside the Cliffs - Callis I ))
Jovenan: If we find more of them, we might come closer to interpreting them. We need to keep eyes open for them. But we can’t do that if we’re dehydrated. Take a gulp, everyone, but remember that the rations need to suffice until we find more.
Roy watched the bottles more than the people.
Who drank immediately.
Whether anyone hesitated.
If anyone was drinking like their life depended on it.
He clocked Ollie’s careful sips without comment – the pause between mouthfuls, the almost imperceptible glance in his direction, as if awaiting correction. Good. He never wanted his patients afraid of him. But fear-adjacent respect? That had its uses.
Roy took his own sip last – measured and deliberate, because doctors were terrible hypocrites, and because he tried like hell not to be one when anyone was watching.
His shoulder throbbed in quiet, traitorous agreement.
Jovenan: Are we ready to resume? We can rest for longer if needed, but that’s away from finding resources.
Bergmen: Belê ferm. Almost ready.
Bergmen: Ready.
K’Wara: As ready as we’ll be, Sir.
Bancroft: All good here, Commander.
Roy fell in behind Jovenan, K’Wara, and Bergmen as they moved out again, the cave swallowing the brief illusion of stillness as if it had never existed. Stone slid past in familiar monotony, the chemlights painting the walls in sickly greens that refused to stay still.
They didn’t have to walk long.
The tunnel split – not cleanly, not with the courtesy of symmetry, but at a slanted angle that made Roy’s sense of balance itch. One passage continued forward, stubborn and narrow. Another cut across it, sloping downward from right to left, vanishing into darkness at both ends.
Jovenan stopped in the middle of the intersection.
Roy watched her posture shift – head tilting, shoulders squaring, attention sharpening as she studied first one direction, then the other. The chemlights couldn’t quite conquer the distance, and the cave seemed content to keep its secrets just out of reach.
And then–
Jovenan: Toia majulan!
The exclamation tore out of her sharp and sudden, a sound of reflex rather than thought.
She stepped backward without looking, collided hard with someone behind her, momentum stacking dangerously as boots scraped against stone. Roy was already reaching out before his mind fully caught up – muscle memory taking the wheel.
K’Wara: ::undignified yelp::
Bergmen: Ma’am?
He caught her by the upper arms, steadying her just before gravity could make a more persuasive argument.
Bancroft: Easy, Commander. You alright?
He felt her heart racing through the contact – too fast, too loud – felt the tremor in her muscles as adrenaline burned hot and directionless. He released his grip, but kept his hands ready until he was certain she’d regained her footing.
Jovenan: Sorry. I- I thought I saw something in there. ::looks back:: It’s nothing. My mind’s… Let’s mark the way out. Any ideas which way to follow?
Roy didn’t contradict her dismissal, but he didn’t quite believe it either. People didn’t react like that to nothing. Still – fear didn’t require truth to be dangerous.
Bergmen: They looked the same, so we can try any of them, whether it leads deeper or goes back toward the mouth of the cave, depending on what we want.
K’Wara: We still need a place to rest. We’re going to be here for a while, and we won’t be able to just march on by taking breathers and drinking water. We need a safe place to make camp, and that certainly won’t be outside while this storm goes on. ::looks around:: Hopefully we can find more maps to show where their artist slept.
Bancroft: Ideally some place with a fresh water supply.
He said it lightly, but the thought sat heavy. Water wasn’t just comfort – it was time. And time, in a situation like theirs, was the only currency that mattered.
They moved again, tunnels blurring together into a repetitive, disorienting sameness. Roy focused on keeping pace even, breathing steady, attention split between the cave and the people inside it.
Then Ollie stopped.
Bergmen: Wait, look at this. Does it look natural to you? ::points at the rectangular curved sign in the wall of the tunnel from which they came::
Roy followed the line of Ollie’s finger, letting the chemlight graze the stone rather than strike it outright. The shape emerged reluctantly – a curve too smooth, too intentional, set into the wall like a scar that had healed wrong.
K’Wara: Nothing about this place looks natural anymore. ::felinoid irises vibrating:: I’m staring holes into the walls at this point.
Bancroft: That’s usually the point where my instincts stop trusting anything I see and start expecting the headache I’m about to get.
Jovenan: Response
Ollie had already moved, scanning the opposite entrance, attention drawn upward like something had tugged on it.
Bergmen: ::points to the star on the parallel entrance:: That one I saw before, and I didn’t feel it right even before. Not that way…
K’Wara: Are stars ominous symbols to Gideon?
Bancroft: Sometimes stars mean hope. Sometimes they mean home. And sometimes they mean ‘hey, I really like drawing stars.’
Bergmen/Jovenan: Response
K’Wara: Well, if you don’t want us to go that way, then let’s go another. What we have to do doesn’t change. Find more maps, learn more symbols and hopefully, find an abandoned campsite of some sort. ::to Jovenan:: If we get that lucky.
Bancroft: ::dryly:: Luck’s overrated. I’ll settle for ‘less immediately lethal’ right now.
Bergmen/Jovenan: Response
They had almost settled into motion again when Roy felt it – not a sound at first, but an absence.
The wind had been there so long it had faded into the background, a constant low presence his mind had politely stopped interrogating.
K’Wara: Wait... Do you hear-
The wind screamed.
What had been a mournful whistle became a banshee, the cave transforming into a throat that howled with sudden violence. Roy barely had time to react before the force slammed into them, ripping at clothing, yanking chemlights sideways, stealing breath straight from his lungs.
He flattened himself instinctively against the wall, stone biting cold through fabric, fingers clawing for purchase.
This wasn’t random.
This was directional.
The wind was moving through the cave – not into it.
That meant something ahead was letting it out.
Bancroft: ::shouting over the wind:: This way!
Bergmen/Jovenan/K’Wara: Response
He staggered forward, fighting the pressure, chemlight whipping wildly on its lanyard. The wind shoved at his back, urging him onward with far too much enthusiasm, boots skidding on stone slick with moisture he hadn’t noticed before.
Time distorted – distance became a guess, perception warped by noise and motion and the constant demand to stay upright.
Then–
The force lessened.
Not enough to be comforting. Just enough to be wrong.
They rounded the next bend–
–and Roy understood why.
The roar in his ears wasn’t the wind.
It was water.
A massive waterfall thundered ahead of them, hidden just beyond the curve of stone, its voice so overwhelming it had masqueraded as the storm itself.
And for the first time since entering the cave, Roy felt something dangerously close to relief.
Bancroft: ::claps once, projecting over the roar:: This might be good news, but nobody drink yet. Give me a minute to be sure it’s actually water and not something that dissolves kidneys on contact.
oO As sure as I can be without a tricorder, anyway. Oo
Bergmen/Jovenan/K’Wara: Response
He let it run over his fingers first, cold and insistent, watching how it broke across skin that had learned to notice when something wasn’t right. No sting. No numbness. No immediate rebellion from his nerves.
He caught some in a folded bandage and studied it in the chemlight’s glow, eyes narrowing at what wasn’t there as much as what was. No discoloration. No residue. The fabric didn’t stiffen or soften in a way that made his stomach tighten.
Still.
He waited.
When nothing happened, he exhaled slowly and reached for one of the pharmaceutical vials from his bag – not with hope, but with calculation. A drop, no more, mixed into the cap of his water bottle along with some of the liquid from the waterfall. He watched how the fluid behaved like a man reading a pulse.
oO Alright. Not immediately hostile. Oo
That wasn’t the same thing as friendly.
Roy finally cupped a small amount in his hand and touched it to his lips without swallowing, tasting caution before committing to trust. Only then did he take the smallest possible sip and wait again, counting heartbeats like they meant something – which, in a cave like this, they very much did.
Bancroft: ::half shrug:: Unless the three of you are a particularly vivid hallucination, by the powers vested in me by Starfleet Medical, I hereby pronounce this fluid both ‘water’ and ‘safe to drink.’
Bergmen/Jovenan/K’Wara: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1