[BACKSIM] Ensign T’Fearne: Personal Log - Slightly AWOL [Part 1]
Teayl Thorn
((OOC: A not-so-brief recap of what T’Fearne has been up to for a couple of weeks, explaining her absence from the ship while I’ve been LOA. Timey-whimey stuff applied liberally. TLDR - T’Fearne went back to PSIV early to help with investigating the aftermath of the train and station sabotage, followed a lead into the mountains and lost comm contact for a couple of days.))
((Recap))
The past few weeks had been...eventful.
After a harrowing chase across lightyears, the Soliton Express decoupled at warp, tumbling railcar segments threatening to rain down on a planet's gravity. The Ronin and its complement of shuttles worked furiously to catch and stabilise the tumbling segments. Once the soliton wave was clear, the Ronin destroyed it with specially configured torpedoes, lighting space with tangerine and cobalt explosions as the wave destabilised.
Working from an auxiliary station on the bridge, T’Fearne had her first real taste of crisis from the bridge. While Helm and Tactical wrestled with trajectory and timing, she reprogrammed one of the torpedoes, recalibrating it to target and neutralise the rogue soliton wave.
The celebration barely had time to spark before it was snuffed out.
The ship rocked from an internal explosion in sickbay. The captain was critically injured. Everyone in sickbay was working to save lives, triaging critical passengers and injured Ronin crew. Reports came in that the captured terrorist Emzai may have been responsible for the detonation. The security department kept working long after the end of the duty shift.
So did T’Fearne.
Running on her Vulcanoid stamina, the security officer hadn’t slept in 72 hours but was only now beginning to feel the coils of fatigue settle around her thoughts. More reports came in from Proxima Sigma IV, gratitude for the rescue mixed with alarming news. Special Investigator Tarek, who had been appointed to lead the colony’s investigation into the attack, had vanished under suspicious circumstances, possibly abducted by the same terrorist cell he was hunting, possibly killed.
T’Fearne didn’t hesitate. Chief Carpenter was likely still planetside, possibly alone. Weary but focused, she volunteered to redeploy to the surface and assist. But when she arrived, she received an update that Kirsty was unavailable, “effective immediately,” and despite her curiosity and slight concern, she applied her full concentration to the situation at hand. The local investigators seemed under-staffed as she pitched in to help, and soon was up to her pointy ears in digital forensics, piecing together sensor glitches, combing through traffic data, and searching for any trace of the missing investigator.
Conflicting telemetry and fragmented sensor readings suggested a suspicious vessel either fleeing the Proxima Sigma system or possibly returning to vanish into the dense, ancient forest of a remote mountain range. She reported the vessel leaving the system back to the Ronin and determined to look into the mountain location herself.
The terrain was inhospitable, dense primeval forest, in a region the locals referred to as the Skelter Range, where heavy magnetic ore in the rocks disrupted scans, and lingering radioactive dust from the station turned atmospheric readings to static. No shuttle or drones could track or land easily.
That left the old-fashioned on-foot option.
(( Somewhere in the Skelter Mountain Range, Proxima Sigma IV))
She packed light, slinging a survival kit over one shoulder and a phaser pistol on her thigh. On foot, doing a passable job of tracking through the denser forest up a mountainside, her only viable option at the time. In hindsight, she wished she’d waited for a shuttle drop and to join a team. The deeper she trekked into the forest, the more she regretted her decision to come alone.
oO Alyndra must be wearing off on me. Oo
Nightfall flowed over the sky like a velvet blanket. T’Fearne made camp where she could, sending updates to The Ronin the first few days, but as she neared the target location, magnetic interference increased. She lost contact with the ship. Faced with the choice to return or press forward, she chose forward. The target location was close.
Now, after days off-grid, she stood at the base of a cliff.
The last obstacle to getting to the target location was a drastic shift in elevation. Wind-carved and ancient, the clif’s surface offering limited footholds. Above her lay the co-ordinates she sought. Slinging away anything non-essential and with her limited experience at rock climbing, T’Fearne began the ascent. She assumed that there would be a ledge or rocky outcropping to rest on, but so far the cliff had been wind-worn, leaving barely more than hand or footholds.
Her fingertips began aching, forearms, shoulder and thigh muscles trembling, but her heart was steady. Each meter gained was hard-earned, every breath thinner than the last. But still, she climbed on.
oO Sometimes, the only way forward... is up. Oo
((End of Recap))
[No Tags / TBC with Tags in Part 2]
((OOC: AWOL - abbreviation for absent without official leave, but without intent to desert.))
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Security Officer
USS Ronin - NCC-34523
R240107T14