Lieutenant (JG) Thea Kairis - Tending Away From Entropy
Quinn Reynolds
((Moss Fields, Gateside Dimension))
Sat atop the rocky outcropping conjured purely by the power of thought, Thea reached to rub her forehead, only for her fingers to thump against her helmet before she dropped her hand back to her side. The sight below was grotesque and strange in ways she barely had words for, but her stomach remained placid. Perhaps it was just too strange for nausea. Once again, she wasn't entirely sure if that was good or bad in the long run, but in the moment she was grateful.
Kairis: If this place wasn't so hostile, the exobotanists would have field day.
Sevo: Best they'll have to settle for will be scans. ::She tapped her tricorder.::
zh'Tisav: ::Her eyes shifted toward the Tyrellian.:: Who're you kidding, they'd still enjoy it.
Thea exhaled a soft laugh, acknowledging the point with a nod. Beneath them, the hunt appeared to have reached its conclusion. The herd animals — plants? planimals? — had mostly escaped, with a few caught by the predators who had emerged from the forest. Once they had eaten their fill, and unsuccessfully tried to reach the Starfleet officers for dessert, they slipped off back toward the treeline. And so there the three women were, perched above the sap and fungal carcasses at the foot of the outcropping.
Sevo: Any…uh…any way we can get down from here?
zh'Tisav: So now you don't want the rocks...
Sevo: Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Kairis: It was.
She smiled, a little crookedly. There had been nowhere else to run, and even if there had been, no guarantee they could have reached it in time. Not to mention the fact that the predators had tried to climb the outcropping. If the Starfleet trio had only been huddled behind a boulder, the attempts to catch them could have ended very differently.
Sevo: Well, we're tethered together. Maybe we can lower each other down one at a time. Unless you guys want to give a go at thinking these rocks away.
zh'Tisav: That would work for the first two, whomever is left last would have to climb down unassisted. And I think we got lucky the first time; try thinking them away and we might spawn a volcano instead...
Thea murmured her agreement. Somehow, wishing the rocks away seemed like a much more difficult task than summoning them. It was like taking a piece of equipment apart; it was always easier to strip it down than it was to put everything back in its correct place. And she didn't want to think about what the equivalent of missing screw or misaligned component would be in this context.
Kairis: It sounds like you have some thoughts on the order we should try it, sir.
zh'Tisav: Let me go last. Andorian physiology is better able to survive a fall if I slip.
Sevo: Just because you *can* doesn’t mean you have to. Surely there’s a better way.
zh'Tisav: Well, I don't plan on falling, it's just in case.
The conversation briefly reminded Thea of Rix, and the time he told her that the other mission specialist on the ship had the peculiar hobby of climbing tall rocks for fun. Each to their own, she'd laughed. Now it seemed like a very sensible hobby with immense practical use. She remained where she was while zh'Tisav and Sevo scouted around the edges of the boulder, not wanting to get in their way and accidentally relegate someone's descent to whatever passed for gravity in that place.
zh'Tisav: Here, there's more rocks on this side. We can do it in two stages: to that boulder midway, and then to the ground. Hopefully, there'll still be ground when we get there.
Sevo moved first, shifting to the edge of the boulder and cautiously peering down. Thea didn't crowd, still not wanting to get underfoot, and aware that she had little expertise to offer in the situation.
Sevo: Looks like it’ll work, if we’re careful.
Kairis: Mm.
Careful was definitely how Thea intended to approach this particular challenge. Though the Andorian had suggested going last, at Sevo's direction she ended up going first. She was taller and perhaps the most likely out of the three to have some applicable experience; if she could find a manageable route down, she could help guide both Thea and the Trill next.
Then it was Sevo, who eased herself over the edge and dropped the short distance to the ledge below. Once she was down, Thea followed — after briefly muting her comms so no one could hear the soft huffs and mumbles of a Tyrellian whose only real climbing experience was scaling fences she was not supposed to, with a certain Bajoran many years ago.
Sevo: Right, one more step to go.
Kairis: ::She briefly unmuted.:: I don't know whether I admire or fear people who do this for fun.
zh’Tisav: Response
The descent continued, a series of carefully selected falls that sometimes jarred but didn't bruise or break. Moss cushioned the last drop, and as Thea took a step backward, the ground swallowed the outcropping almost as quickly as it had created it. The carcasses were gone too, and she wondered if the ground had swallowed them up while they were climbing down, or if the rules of decomposition were very different to their own.
Sevo: That’s interesting. You think whatever was controlling it knew we needed to get down, and kept the boulders up?
Kairis: I don't know. ::She stared at the ground, the moss swelling up like water to cover the bare patch where the boulders had been.:: Maybe it's another response to our thoughts. We're done with it, so it vanishes?
zh’Tisav: Response
Sevo: Right, with that excitement over, we need to find the “highway” again. Everyone, bring out your tricorders!
The Tyrellian paused, doing a small turn in place while taking care not to tangle herself in the tether. The distant landscape had shifted once again, and it looked like a red, glittering sea on the horizon. But for all the excitement, their immediate surroundings had barely changed. The forest was exactly where it had been before the stampede. The furrow in the ground still snaked away from them.
Kairis: We should double-check, but I think it's where we last saw it? ::She gestured.:: The forest hasn't moved, and I can still see the depression in the ground that marked the main vine trunk.
Sevo / zh'Tisav: Response
Kairis: That's a good thing, right? It means our theory was right, the closer we are to the trunk, the more fixed the surroundings are. ::She tilted her head in thought.:: Maybe that's why the boulders disappeared. Everything on the main line wants to return to its base state.
Sevo / zh'Tisav: Response
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Engineer (Damage Control)
USS Gorkon
simmed by
Commanding Officer
USS Gorkon
T238401QR0