PO2 Lohkina: World Beneath

[Tony Colella]

(( Runabout Sower, High Orbit Around Argratha ))

After Lohkina had closed the channel with Lieutenant Woolheater, of Lieutenant Commander T'Korva's surface team, she looked to the two officers, who in turn turned back to her.

Lohkina: There we go. Commander T'Korva's team is going to check out the anomalous transporter site. (beat) Now, then, next crisis?

She smiled, if only slightly, to show that she was joking. Kind of.

Sh’shelor: Let us hope not.

And O'Reilly didn't respond at all. Right. Not a big "let's have fun while we're on mission" pair. Not that Lohkina was all fun and games, obviously. She'd squashed O'Reilly's initiative pretty thoroughly earlier, for one. But all work and no play made Lohkina into a screaming loony, which she unfortunately knew through extended experience.

Sh’shelor: O’Reilly, adjust position so we can get clear scans of that area in the desert. Let us see what they show.

O’Reilly: On it. (working helm)

Sh’shelor: Crewman Lohkina, check in with anyone who has not yet. O’Reilly, initiate scans. Let us see if we can see.

She could do that, certainly. The other senior teams, helmed by Nilsen, Nis, and, most recently, Greaves, hadn't yet checked in. Greaves and his team had only left the Butler shortly before it departed, same as the Sower, but Lohkina would've felt better if they had ears on the other two. She sent a quick message to any active tricorders, PADDs, or other display devices belonging to crew on those two teams:

Away teams from runabout Sower. Be advised that Butler has left orbit and we are point of contact for support and supply. Requesting status updates.

That wasn't too invasive, and if they were busy, they could ignore the request until they weren't. But more importantly, they knew that they couldn't immediately call on the Butler in the event of an emergency.

Meanwhile, O'Reilly had piloted the runabout as Sh'shelor had ordered, and was now running scans of the planet below.

O’Reilly: Passive scans aren’t showing much, there’s some type of interference in that region (beat) I’m working on it.

Lohkina: Might as well go to active scans. I can't imagine that anyone down below doesn't know we're here.

Although that "we" was in the general -- the Butler and Starfleet's presence at Argratha -- and not the specific -- the Sower in orbit overhead. Even so, Lohkina didn't think they'd forfeit the entire game with some active scans.

Sh’shelor: Response

O’Reilly: What if we use a good old optical array, aka our eyes? (beat) Sorry (waving his hands in front of him) I mean, a good old telescope? The interference seems to be blocking our scanners, but visually, it’s a clear sky day down there, why can’t we just take a look?

That was, to Lohkina's delight, a fabulous idea. 

Lohkina: Coming right up. I'm shunting a variable magnification to the cockpit viewports. Zoom controls should be coming up on your consoles now.

Not that either of them couldn't have done that for themselves -- it wasn't exactly warp engineering -- but Lohkina was more than used to cutting to the chase for officers and other senior personnel so that they could jump from thought to thought to thought with little delay.

Sh’shelor: Response 

O’Reilly: Well, see, the ones I’m thinking of didn’t rely on electrical sensors, but rather just bending and magnifying light.

Lohkina: Quaint! (a grin) These are more advanced, but if you want an old-fashioned looking-glass or what have you, the replicator should function just fine.

Meanwhile, Lohkina was happy to use all the technology at her disposal and then some. Her nostalgia had been left firmly behind on Benzar, when she and the other operations personnel had needed to make due with less than nothing. Which wasn't to say she was completely without nostalgia, far from it. But in this case, and in most cases, she was happy to find the technological solution.

Sh’shelor: Response

O'Reilly punched them into autopilot as he went to replicate his little handheld scope. She proceeded with her visual inspection via the magnified view that she pulled up on her console, and then threw a quick grid over the entire desert region. There was a lot of geographic noise, though she skimmed through quickly for anything unusual or obviously out of place, not including any infrastructure that seemed to match the dominant Argrathi styles. 

Lohkina: Nothing really jumps out at me. How about you, Lieutenant? Or you, Lieutenant?

Since O'Reilly now had his telescope ready.

Sh’shelor/O'Reilly: Responses

Meanwhile, Lohkina checked to see if the away teams had responded yet. They weren't on a clock by any means, and as she'd thought in reference to Woolheater and T'Korva's team, they had no need to check in regularly -- but she'd rather that they did. However, her attention was drawn back to the magnified view by the lieutenants a few moments later.

Lohkina: Oh? (beat) Pulling up grid 573 by 39 now. 

Sh’shelor/O'Reilly: Responses

Lohkina: What do you see?

Sh’shelor/O'Reilly: Responses

Tags! and TBC!

--

Petty Officer Second Class (PO2) Lohkina

Diplomatic Aide

USS Octavia E. Butler

V238208LV0

she/her/hers (this character)