Ensign T’Fearne - The Engineering Prowess of a Potato
teayl.thorn
((Exterior —Tether Terminal Outskirts, Proxima Sigma IV))
T-minus 87 Hours to Impact
The hatch groaned open, releasing a rush of warm, earthy air rich with the scent of freshly disturbed soil, crushed vegetation, and the sharp tang of shattered green wood. Beneath it all, the acrid bite of burning metal and smoke stung T’Fearne’s sensitive Vulcazoid nose.
Raising the filter mask over her face, T’Fearne strode out of the shuttle.
Ahead, Chief Carpenter was already hauling gear off the shuttle—no delegation, no hesitation. She moved like someone who'd never learned to wait for help.
T’Fearne followed boots crunching into the iron-rich soil. She scanned the terrain and lifted her dark gaze from the red earth beneath her boots to the lavender sky above. The landscape before her was warm, dotted with patches of verdant green and blue and distant trees, their dark silhouettes rising from the horizon. The base of the tether and its receiving and departures terminal, nestled on the outskirts of the colony, was surrounded by what looked to be industrial buildings for shipping and storage.
T'Fearne::: eyes flicking to the combat tricorder:: Few life signs in the immediate area. Impacted debris from the Receiving Station is about 0.48 klicks to the west. After we finish setting up a perimeter, should we investigate or...?:: gesturing towards the nearby building at the base of the tether::
Syrex: Do you ::gulps:: Do you need something for your nose T’Fearne? I still have some of the stuff I gave you on the ship in my bag.
The Vulcazoid waved a hand in acknowledgement but also shook her head in denial. She needed her senses to be sharp in this foreign environment if she was to be at her best at protecting the away team.
O’Connor: Those life signs are pretty weak, if they’re humanoid.
T’Fearne::: To Alyndra:: Thanks, but it’s not that bad. :: Referring to the Biohazard Incident that contaminated their deck. Switching topic:: The inhabitants have had over 3 hours now to evacuate if they could. If they are still here, they may have simply chosen to stay.
Carpenter: Terminal's still our objective. We start there.
O’Connor: Lots of different paths we could take. Suggestions?
Syrex: I’m a doctor, not a geographer. I think we should make our way to the life signs as quickly as possible. They may be trapped, or worse.
O’Connor: Agreed, time could be essential.
T’Fearne::: Adding her voice to the discussion:: I’m sure we will help people we encounter if they need aid, but we have a priority here to investigate what happened to the station—if it was an attack or some sort of sabotage. We don’t know if anyone is in distress or simply hunkering down from the debris. :: pointing out logically:: These could also just be local fauna, the radiation is making it difficult to determine.
She didn’t want to be at cross purposes with her friend, but sometimes different divisions had different primary objectives.
oO If we don’t figure out what happened to the station, then more people could be at risk than we could possibly help here. Oo
Their discussion was ultimately a moot point as Kirsty was the officer in charge on Proxima Sigma IV, and as far as T’Fearne was concerned, her word was Prime Directive.
Carpenter: Copy. Take anything else you might need.
The green hybrid officer fidgeted slightly with his rebreather. Alyndra flapped at him to leave it alone as the Chief took the lead, shouldering the load of their equipment for the time being.
Syrex: I’d strongly recommend you keep them on, contamination is harder to heal than irradiation.
O’Connor: Noted.
The two non-security officers focused intently on their tricorders. Even though she had been the one to procure the tricorders for the mission, T’Fearne kept her gaze up, checking the dusty lavender skyline, the ever-present artificial spectre of the orbital tether looming impossibly tall in the corner of her vision as she scanned the environment for things that a tricorder couldn’t predict. It was security personnel’s job to see the trouble coming before it began and she honed in on that task. Seeing the Chief navigating their pallets of gear along their chosen path, meandering towards the tether, though she seemed engrossed in manual labour, T’Fearne caught the razor edge of the commander's attention, the woman was listening keenly.
O’Connor: Ok, I think if we go around the rubble over there ::points:: we should be able to get through the mess of debris between us and those life signs.
T’Fearne was happy to let the trained pathfinder take point with the navigational directions, but she had reservations about what they might encounter as they walked. She hadn’t had enough time to check if PS4 had any predators in this biome, and now it was to late.
T’Fearne: This could be a waste of time. It’s likely just animals trapped or hiding from danger.
Carpenter: Everyone stay alert. I don't wanna lose time backtrackin'.
Syrex: Is there anything major you think we should avoid? I’m no combat-ologist.
O’Connor: The only major obstacle I see is that it looks like we may need to crawl under some piled material a couple hundred feet beyond that large pile ::points again:: It’ll be tight but manageable.
T’Fearne had landed the Sojourn as close to the Tether Terminal as seemed safe, but the radiation hazards they kept detecting had forced a circuitous route, and they were still making their way towards the building. The helm’s officer gestured to what looked to be a collapsed industrial structure with a large metallic twisted spear, still slightly sizzling. Scans confirmed it was a piece of the damaged station above.
T’Fearne: I’m detecting transparent aluminium and tritanium alloy. It’s another fallen piece of the station that destroyed this building. We should investigate it and record the data for further analysis.
Carpenter: We'll deal with that when we get there. ::she grunts a bit:: she says playin' like she's livestock in The Oregon Trail…
Syrex: Looks tight.
The quartet continued further away from the shuttle towards the debris and potentially some life signs with Kirsty and Alyndra in the lead. T’Fearne went next, and a moment later, O’Connor followed.
O’Connor: I guess I’ll bring up the rear then.
T’Fearne::: calling back over her shoulder:: We can swap if you prefer, but I did your job on the way here. You can be rear security escort for a while:: venturing a smile at the other hybrid officer:: unless you are weary from watching me pilot the shuttle?
Carpenter: Keep up, Ell Tee!
Kirsty yelled back at them from the head of the procession, and Alyndra turned and grinned, waving at them. That lit a small fire under the security officer as she turned with her gear secure and strode quickly to keep close to her team, trusting the Lieutenant to guard the rear.
T’Fearne::: Calling ahead:: I’m right behind you.
O’Connor/Carpenter: RESPONSE
As she approached, T’Fearne thought that the Trill seemed to be slightly more excited than usual.
Syrex: Does anyone here have any engineering prowess?
T’Fearne::: Slight wince:: An instructor at the Academy in Security Systems Programming once told me I had the engineering instinct of a common Earth root vegetable.
O’Connor/Carpenter: RESPONSE
Syrex: So, I want to pair my eyeball to my tricorder to see it’s scans whilst walking. Hands-free per se. I can do it with the ship’s terminals, I should be able to do it with this, right?
T’Fearne was momentarily startled out of her surveillance of the environment, and she stared at the Doctor. That was a brilliant idea and she had come to expect these moments where a feather of lightning seemed to rest upon Alyndra’s brow. The agent of chaos was in fine form this stardate. T’Fearne swallowed her mirth, barely letting a smirk escape as she shook her head in admiration.
O’Connor/Carpenter: RESPONSE
Syrex: With the radiation, I want to be the first to know of anything harmful. Streaming to my eyeball is about as fast as I can get. You know?
T’Fearne: That could be very useful. :: Glancing carefully at Alyndra’s augment:: Would that drain the battery faster? Constantly connecting to the tricorder and streaming a hazard overlay, I imagine, would take up more processing power. No?
Syrex/O’Connor/Carpenter: RESPONSE
T’Fearne: I’m no engineer, and these combat tricorders have complex encryption to prevent someone from doing exactly what you are suggesting for nefarious purposes, spying on away teams through their scan data. :: brows knotting together:: If I or, more likely, the Chief can give a high enough security code for the devices to accept your implant on their network, then you could at least access the data. I’m not sure what that would look like to you, though. There is also the risk that the system could think you were an intruder and rigorously defend itself. :: deadpan:: It would be…very unfortunate if it mistook you for malware and fried your brain through your implant.
Syrex/O’Connor/Carpenter: RESPONSE
Just then the Tricorder in the Vulcazoids hand gave a near-silent haptic alert. There was an accompanying sound, but the frequency was very low, possibly out of hearing of the others. The tricorder identified an increased radiation zone.
T’Fearne: I’m detecting a radiation spike ahead between us and what looks to be the main ingress to the Terminal. The readings don’t look too bad. Should we continue through it and Doctor Syrex can fix our DNA after the mission or do we have time to find a way around it?
She framed the area with a gesture and looked around to see if their devices synced the hazard on their devices.
Syrex/O’Connor/Carpenter: RESPONSE
[Tags, You're it! / TBC]
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Security Officer
USS Ronin - NCC-34523
R240107T14