[sb118-gorkon] Ensign Ethan Espinoza - Rumble in the Jungle (Part 1)
Ethan Espinoza
((Tanglewoods, Gateside Dimension))
The abrupt reshaping of the woods left the Ensign utterly bewildered, his gaze whipping across the newly formed thickets and thorny spirals in a frantic search for familiarity. In reality, all they needed to do was keep striding on, but even the smallest shift in stance or footing had probably erased their previous heading. The forest had stolen their bearings entirely, leaving them disoriented and with no meaningful way to retrace the path they’d carved only moments before.
Finch: I don’t think leaving any pebbles on the ground will do us much good, after that. It almost felt organic, didn’t it? Like an animal getting into a more comfortable position.
Neathler: What’s weird, as roots and other things disappeared, it left us alone and unharmed.
The Chief Engineer surveyed her tricorder, and the Chief of Security looked deep in thought. He couldn’t entirely blame her. Everything they’d witnessed of the vines and flora so far had been relatively passive toward them, despite evidence suggesting otherwise. Had the researchers indulged in an experiment that roused the plants’ ire? It seemed curious that they had gone without a struggle. The vines, puppeteering a poor soul, had even gone so far as to provide them with context, though through a mouth that was not its own.
Finch: Have we detected anything different? Anything gleaned from our passive scans?
Neathler: Only that our scans are useless. Unless we truly walked in circles.
Ethan adjusted his tricorder in his palm, letting the mapping display stabilise. The data mirrored what the others were seeing, though he struggled to accept it. Their route had felt straightforward enough, with a few sidesteps around brambles, a minor detour here and there, but nothing dramatic. Yet the map insisted they’d drifted wildly off course, as if the forest had been quietly nudging them sideways with every step in a complete circle.
Espinoza: This surely ain’t possible. I know we can hardly make heads from tails in here, but it didn’t seem like we looped at all.
Finch: Were they moving on their own, or were they triggered by our mech suit? It seemed to happen at the same time, didn't it?
The mechanised suit’s head swivelled with a slow, deliberate wobble that carried an unintentionally comedic flair. Pure coincidence, no doubt, but the accusatory manner of it wrestled an unexpected laugh from Ethan’s throat. In a place like, he was grateful for any scrap of humour he could get.
Neathler: Difficult to tell, why didn’t it happen earlier if it was the suit?
Espinoza: Maybe it regarded the suit as a threat. A little kick or stomp from us won’t have the same force behind it as that. A little like a turtle or crab duckin’ into its shell.
Neathler: Unless…
His hazel eyes trailed curiously after the Lt. Commander. If she had noticed something, it was completely lost on him. He was surprised she’d even identified the vine the suit had tripped over, but the tread marks indented into its fleshy surface set it apart from the rest. His lips parted, and he almost warned her against prodding the vines any further in case they reconfigured again or, worse, perceived them as a threat this time. But nothing happened. No shift beneath their feet. Nothing at all.
Neathler: Nothing here but vines and moss.
Neathler: Does anyone spot something they didn’t see before?
The Ensign pursed his lips and let out a frustrated huff as he pivoted in place. Under normal circumstances, his sharp instincts and knack for reading subtle shifts - the same talents that had secured him a top‑tier flight percentile - would have guided him without hesitation. But here, surrounded by a forest that rewrote itself, those instincts failed him completely. Whatever rules they thought governed the flora no longer held true. Or, at the very least, didn't hold true to these.
They, Starfleet, had been summoned here for a reason. It was their duty to prevent this infestation from spreading any further. And worse still, if they didn’t identify the cause and the trigger behind this curious mechanism that had flipped their route on its head, they might find themselves trapped. There was no real option but to theorise and understand.
Espinoza: Everythin’ looks different from before, ‘cept that one vine. I don’t see anythin’ particularly stand-out.
Everyone else was focused, analysing, contributing, and he needed to do the same. He paced in a slow, deliberate circle, eyes sweeping over the tangled vines, the uneven thickets, the warped trunks jutting at odd angles. Nothing stood out. Panic began to coil tight in his stomach again. Then, blessedly, the Chief Engineer - who had been uncharacteristically quiet, deep in thought - finally broke it with a remark.
TBC