Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - Tumbleweeds
Carter Schimpff
(( The Afalqi Project, Hangar 1659 – Meranuge IV ))
Roy keyed a brief sequence into his tricorder, then brought it into alignment with the others – its signal widening, settling into the same resonant sweep Cole and Munro were already pushing through the space.
Bancroft: I’m locked, Commander. You getting anything?
Munro: The signal is still active, for now. 50 metres, I've slowed down the signal rate to be more precise.
Cole: I’m getting an echo. Weak, buried, and very much not accidental.
Bancroft: ::hopeful surprise:: Really? Well, that’s the first bit of good news–
The sound reached him before the motion did – a low, mechanical whir that carried just enough weight to suggest it had not been designed for subtlety. Roy’s attention lifted instinctively, tracking it upward to the gantry that had once held the Afalqi in place.
For a moment, the gantry seemed content to remain where it was.
Then it began to move.
Not laterally – but down. Slow at first, deliberate in a way that implied intention rather than malfunction. Then, faster. Still downward.
Toward them.
Munro: Stop! Stop the -
Alarms tore through the hangar, overlapping in a discordant chorus that refused to settle on a single key. It reminded him – unhelpfully – of the time the church choir celebrated the lead soprano’s birthday the night before a Sunday service and attempted a hymn the next morning on nothing but collective regret and severe dehydration.
Cole: Everybody clear the drop zone!
Munro: Everyone stay out of the safety perimeter watch out for the stabilising cables!
Bancroft: ::shouting over the noise:: Some sort of automation maybe?
Cole: Not unless somebody taught it timing. Back up and watch the mechanism—if this thing is tied to the signal, we need to know what moved first.
Bancroft: ::exasperated:: Watch– I haven’t stopped watching it. ::dryly:: It’s still moving, by the way.
Munro: I'm trying to override now.
Cole: Somebody didn’t just steal the Afalqi. They built insurance into the scene.
From the platform above, Imril’s voice filtered downward.
Imril: [Expletive redacted] ::Shouting to be heard:: The security footage is deleting itself! I’ll explain later! Typing now!
The gantry’s descent smoothed into something far more dangerous than chaos: a steady course straight for the platform occupied by Imril and Tarsan. Metal shrieked as it came, loud enough to swallow the alarms whole. Its path was no longer in question.
Munro: Get off the platform!
Imril: That’s an order, Ensign! Move! I’ll be right behind you!
Imril shouting was unusual enough to register even now. Roy’s attention snapped from the mechanism to the platform.
Oh lord… the new guy.
First few minutes of his first mission, and he was one minute twist of fate away from becoming all but a statistic.
Not even a chance to get a proper airlocking.
Roy lurched – half a step forward, instinct already reaching for a solution that didn’t exist. The distance was wrong. The timing worse. Going for Tarsan would only add one more body to the problem, nothing more.
Instead, he redirected towards Natasha, shouting in her ear over the calamity. There was only one question that mattered: could the situation be changed, or were they committed to riding it out?
Bancroft: Is there no way to stop this?
Cole/Tarsan: Response
With a horrendous and almighty screech, the gantry drove through the platform, not with a single impact, but with sustained force – weight and momentum doing catastrophic, irreversible work. Supports failed in sequence. Railings tore loose. Fragments of the platform broke free and dropped to the deck below.
Munro: Lieutenant! Move!
Bancroft: This way!
Cole/Tarsan: Response
Munro’s voice cut through the noise – different this time than before. Not her usual command shout. Something closer to it breaking.
Roy didn’t look at her. Both eyes were locked on the platform.
The gantry had committed. Not falling – driving. Slow enough to watch, fast enough to terrify. Every contact point along the structure failed in turn, metal folding with a drawn-out, tearing grind that one felt as much as heard.
Imril was still up there.
The calculation came and went in a single pass. Distance. Angle. Time to failure. No viable intercept.
That left one outcome: Imril had to move, or no one was getting to him in time.
He moved.
Roy saw it the moment it happened – the shift from hesitation to action. Imril broke for the ladder, what remained of it.
Good. That was good.
Roy adjusted immediately, stepping back and to the side, clearing the projected fall path as the platform began to cant under the load.
Munro: Move!
Roy didn’t wait to interpret the order and didn’t bother with a shouted reply. Adding his voice now would only complicate an already tenuous situation.
Cole/Tarsan: Response
The platform didn’t drop cleanly. It rolled, twisted as it went, the remaining supports giving out in uneven sequence. The impact hit a fraction of a second later – deep, concussive, the kind that traveled through the deck before the sound fully resolved.
Roy’s attention was already past it.
Imril. Tarsan. Cole. Munro.
Down. Clear of the collapse. Visibly unhurt.
No obvious deformity. No compromised stance.
Good.
Munro stood up and marched hotly toward Imril, casting quick glances at the other officers as she did.
Munro: :: angry :: What was that?! You could've been killed :: to all of them :: It's not heroic to end up dead, get that fantasy out of your head now. All you get is your name on a list you don't want to be on :: to Imril :: I hope that data was worth it.
Roy’s eyes widened ever so slightly. Like most junior officers, he was no stranger to a good old fashioned dressing down, but this didn’t strike him as the Commander’s usual brand of reprimand.
Munro: :: harsher than usual :: Roy, check them over.
He locked eyes with his First Officer for a moment longer than was strictly required to convey his understanding of her order.
Are you alright?
Bancroft: ::brief pause:: Right away, Commander.
Her missive given, she took several steps away from the group of officers and tapped her combadge.
He briefly surveyed the other three – no blood, no odd stances suggesting blunt injuries, nobody wandering off aimlessly in the wrong direction.
Bancroft: ::lightly:: Alright, are any of you dead? Barring that, any complaints? ::holding a finger up at Nat:: physical complaints.
He didn’t need a tricorder to tell him what he could see and hear perfectly well, but he flipped his open all the same, performing a cursory scan on all three of them.
Imril/Cole/Tarsan: Response
Munro: =/\= Commander Munro to Captain MacKenzie=/\=
MacKenzie: =/\= Response =/\=
Munro: =/\= The hangar’s been destroyed, while we were trying to locate a jamming device we appear to have triggered some kind of booby trap. I think it would be safe to assume that there may be other traps =/\=
MacKenzie/Any: =/\= Response =/\=
Munro: =/\= Everyone seems okay, Roy is checking them over now. I might have the location of the jamming device and :: pauses and looks at Imril :: Lt. Imril retrieved some information from the hangar files =/\=
MacKenzie/Any: =/\= Response =/\=
Munro: =/\= Understood, Captain. Munro out. =/\=
Her conversation with the Captain concluded, Commander Munro stepped back toward the group, her attention settling on Roy with a look that asked a question without committing to one in particular. Confirmation, perhaps. Or reassurance. Possibly both.
She had steadied herself – anyone could see that. The line of her posture was clean, her voice when she’d last spoken controlled. But the body tends to keep its own ledger. The set of her mouth was precise, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her breathing ran just a fraction ahead of where it ought to be – barely noticeable unless you were looking for it, and he was.
It wasn’t fear or loss of control. It was strain – and, he strongly suspected, over something not immediately related to what had taken place here.
Roy considered pulling her aside briefly and checking in.
He dismissed the idea just as quickly.
Out here, in front of her team, that act would put her in a position she couldn’t possibly accept. She would deny anything was amiss – not because it was untrue, but because she didn’t have the option of letting it be true in front of them. Authority required a certain continuity. You didn’t fracture it mid-operation if you could help it.
So he left it alone.
Instead, he gave her something she could use.
A quick gesture toward the others – Imril, Tarsan, Cole – followed by a short, efficient thumbs-up: they’re all fine.
Message delivered, he turned back to his medkit, reseating the tools in the case with the same economy of motion.
Munro: Let's take a breath :: beat :: Imril, take Cole and head over to the hangar administration building, let them know what's happened here. They'll need to send a crew. Try and find out what might be in those files. Remember the Da'al are not our enemies but someone left that trap.
Bancroft: The question in my mind is, was that meant for anyone who might come poking around? Or specifically for us?
Imril/Cole/Tarsan: Response
Munro: Tarsan and Bancroft, let's go find that device.
Munro’s directive landed cleanly, and Roy was already moving by the time the last word settled, falling in behind the Commander. He glanced over his shoulder at Gavrin, a flicker of a smile – more reassurance than amusement – across his face.
Bancroft: ::to Tarsan:: If things go really well, you won’t learn why they call me ‘Doc Crashcart’.
Behind them, a section of ruined gantry finally surrendered to gravity, tearing loose and slamming into the hangar floor with a sharp, echoing clang.
Imril/Cole/Tarsan: Response
(( Short Walk Later – Exterior Afalqi Project Complex – Meranuge IV ))
The moment they exited the structure, heat hit him like a physical wall that left him momentarily breathless.
Roy had read the brief on the climate prior to this mission. He’d understood it, even… in the way one understands numbers on a page, anyway. That turned out to be a very different thing from standing in it. Living aboard a starship, where temperature was maintained as a polite, invisible agreement, had left him well-practiced in comfort and with very little practical experience of extremes like this.
Sweat began to bead almost immediately along his temples. Meanwhile, Munro’s tricorder trilled merrily, as though it was not only unbothered but indeed thriving in this inferno.
Munro: Not long now. Be cautious.
Tricorder in one hand, Roy let the other hang at his side, loose in a way that might read as casual if someone didn’t look twice. The hand stayed open, unremarkable – but it never drifted far from the grip of the phaser at his hip. Not resting on it. Not telegraphing anything. Just… close enough that, if the moment turned, there would be no delay between decision and action.
He hadn’t done that a year ago.
A year ago, he hadn’t carried a phaser at all.
Cadet-cum-Ensign Bancroft had stepped onto Galaris IV – an active war zone – with a medkit, a smile, and a very clear understanding of what it meant to be a doctor: you do not harm. You preserve life. You do not make exceptions simply because the circumstances are inconvenient or dangerous. The rule was clean. The application, he had assumed, would be too.
The universe had not agreed.
He had experienced what happened when you arrived with only half the tools required to survive the situation in front of you. He had seen how quickly ‘do no harm’ became a question of to whom, and at what expense – and how little time the moment allowed you to answer it.
He had seen good people – himself among them – caught flat-footed because they were waiting for the situation to resolve itself into something ethically comfortable.
It rarely did.
Roy still believed in the oath. That hadn’t changed.
What had changed was his understanding of what it cost to uphold it blindly – and what reality sometimes required.
So the phaser stayed at his side, and his hand stayed near it. No hesitation. No internal negotiation. If it came to that, he would use it, and he would not need to justify the decision to himself before or after.
Bancroft: Two hundred meters ahead on the… ::scowling at his tricorder:: right.
He looked up, aligning his sightline with the readout.
Nothing obvious. A cluster of large storage crates. Two, maybe three tanks venting something slow and pale into the heat – cryogenic, by the look of it. And a perimeter fence, tall and uninterrupted, its pneumatic gate standing wide open.
Tarsan/Munro: Response
The question pulled his attention sideways, and he realized – late – that he’d narrowed his focus more than he should have.
Not ideal.
Alex would be furious... Which is exactly why I won’t be recounting this particular story to her.
Bancroft: That’s a great point. Where is everyone?
His free hand drifted a centimeter closer to the grip of his phaser, though the rest of his body remained outwardly relaxed. He wasn’t one who was normally given to ‘getting a bad feeling about things,’ but he couldn’t seem to argue away that something about this felt decidedly wrong.
Tarsan/Munro: Response
A flicker of movement broke the stillness just beyond one of the storage tanks – precisely where their tricorders had been directing them.
Roy’s focus sharpened again, the rest of the scene falling away in quiet degrees as he fixed on that point and waited to see it resolve into something more than suggestion.
His hand moved without conscious instruction, his palm settling against the grip of his phaser, though his fingers didn’t curl around the grip – yet. There was no need to escalate the moment before it declared what it was.
Bancroft: ::softly:: Eyes up.
Tarsan/Munro: Response
TAG/TBC!
===
Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1