Not As Advertised

Posted on Sat Nov 22nd, 2014 @ 3:43pm by Captain Tim Williams & Lieutenant Commander Horatio Hawke & Lieutenant Commander Ciaran McIntyre

Episode: Orphans
Location: USS Highlander - Transporter Room
Timeline: MD30 0920hrs

Tim walked into the transporter room just as Hawke and McIntyre materialised on the pad, along with the security team that had accompanied Mac through the woodland. He had been listening in on the comm channel during what he could only really think of as the 'event' down on the surface, but the distance meant that he was very scarce on details - not that he really expected Hawke and Mac to have much more. From what he had heard, nobody had gotten a clear view of whatever creature had caused the death of the two colonists that had been beamed directly to medical for an autopsy.

"Welcome back aboard gents. Now what happened down there?"

Mac spread his arms wide and shrugged his shoulders. "There was something in the forest which killed one of the colonists. We gave chase but didn't manage to catch it."

He dusted off the front of his uniform and noted that the cuffs of his trousers were caked in mud. "Whatever it was, it didn't seem to be running away from us- at least not until we got close."

Hawke followed Mac down off the transporter pad feeling a sudden surge of anger now that he was back aboard the ship. "Captain, somebody at FTCA really dropped the ball on this one," he said. "They should have picked up on any large predators that would pose a threat to the colony."

"There shouldn't have been any animals down there; predator or prey." The captain was equally livid at the fact that they had gone down and begun building a colony on a planet with such a dangerous animal down there. "The logs of the monitoring satellites don't show any anomalies in the terraforming process; as far as the logs go, everything went perfectly to plan. There shouldn't have been anything but vegetation down there."

McIntyre gave the suggestion a moment. "There's no way a monitor could have missed that. Is there a chance the logs have been tampered with?"

"It's definitely a possibility," Tim agreed. "We'll get Leon and Ethan checking that possibility out. The problem we have now though are the sensors. We picked up nothing on the surface other than the away teams and the colonists. And our tricorders didn't pick up any animal life at all on our initial survey. Did either of you manage to get anything while you were down there?"

"I saw something when I was out on an initial scout with the Doctor." Mac replied, recalling the fact that they had all agreed they must have been seeing things in the sun. "I didn't get a good look- I was sure I had imagined it."

"We had something similar," Tim said, nodding now that he recalled it. "I could have sworn I heard something rustle some leaves, but the tricorder reported nothing; no life signs, heat signatures, or any of the other usual signs of a life form. Something about their biology must mask them from scans." The captain reached up and ran his two hands down his face, giving him a few extra seconds to think. "Get some more security teams down there to form a secure perimeter around the colony sight - I want everyone to be within eyesight of at least two others. Pull the rest of our personnel back aboard the ship - the colonists too. Construction is on hold until we can make that place safe." Some of the larger fabrications they had put down there weren't easy to remove or replace, but if need be Tim knew that they could settle the colonists on another continent if these creatures proved to be isolated to the initial site.

"Aye aye, sir," Hawke said, nodding at the captain's decision. This situation was well outside his training as a pilot, but he knew it was the kind of thing a commanding officer needed to deal with. He was pleased when the captain's course of action sounded very similar to what his first instinct told him.

Not stopping to be pleased with his instinct, the XO turned to McIntyre, "Mac, you round up some more of your security guys then bring them back down to the site." He turned back to the captain, "Sir, with your permission, I'll go back down now and start coordinating the evacuation of the colonists and our non-security personnel."

"Got it." Mac replied simply, choosing to internalise his concerns about finding volunteers to go down to a planet to find something they couldn't detect on scanners and could barely see. He tapped his combadge on the way out of the transporter room. "McIntyre to Armoury. Prepare expeditionary equipment for Alpha through Delta teams."

"Go ahead," Tim said in response to Hawke's request. "I'll go check in on Mason and Aleint-Um to see if they've found anything in their autopsy yet. Keep everyone down there in contact at all times from this moment on."

"Aye, Captain," Hawke said, before quickly turning and heading back up onto the transporter pad.

"This is not how our first cruise together was supposed to turn out," Tim muttered as he made his way out of the transporter room.