Emergency!

Posted on Mon Mar 29th, 2021 @ 11:40am by Captain Luka Mahone & Lieutenant Alan Harrison & Lieutenant Veaya Zai & Lieutenant Serra V'lon & Lieutenant Colonel Shaun Bradley & Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason & Tal t'Leiya

2,824 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Frizzle
Location: Command Center Floor 8, Main Briefing Room
Timeline: MD 01 - 1813 Hrs

It was fortunate that Luka was spending most of the night in the Command Center, as being tied up with paperwork allowed him to swiftly arrange the meeting. Inwardly, he was cursing himself for allowing any civilian group, let alone young students, to adventure into the caverns. If he had time to pour over the various science scans of the area and ask a million questions before he hit the panic button, he would have.

But for now, he would have to settle for the command to bar the mines and wait for his staff to arrive.

His arms crossed over his chest as he looked out the viewport, where he could see the cavern in the distance. How could a whole group of people just disappear?

"I heard there was an emergency," Gunnar said, obviously slowing from a near run as he entered. "What's happened?"

Close behind the medical officer was the appearance of Shaun in his flight suit. He'd been in the middle of a preflight check to return to the Titania for a short stint before the ship left orbit. The Marine had been surprised to see the message pop through and a request for him to come to the Command Centre, but seeing the Captain, his face hardened. The MedO ahead of him beat him to the question on his mind as he undid the clasp around his neck and unzipped the flight suit slightly.

When the call had come in Veaya had been training with some new crew members and as of yet had not changed out of her gym clothes. She had gone off to investigate more but nothing new had come in. Shaking her head at Mahone to indicate nothing new had come in.

Serra's arrival was prompt but abrupt. She glanced around the table, identifying faces and matching them to the personnel records she had memorised. After a half-second she took up her seat in between two others and waited to see what the cause of concern was.

Alan briskly walked into the room. "I got the message, Captain. Came over as soon as I could," he said quickly, still out of breath from the sprint over from engineering. He had been reviewing the plans to reinforce additional parts of the cave system, but it seemed there were more important things to handle at the moment.

"A group of students and their chaperones who had gone on a school trip into the caverns failed to return at the appointed time." Tal suddenly seemed to burst into existence on the scene; proving mostly how good he was at having been unnoticed standing in the shadows of the command center waiting for all the other parties to arrive. "I attempted to raise them and was unable to." He paused for moment, as if debating his next revelation some; in this case of some quasi-illict lines of communication among his family. "I attempted to raise two of my daughters, who were among the students, on our private line which should have been able to cut through most interference, and was unable to as well. The group was to have returned several hours ago."

Luka gestured for everyone to gather around the table. "If a private line was unable to reach them," he started, glossing over any form of commentary on the line in question, "Then an emergency is what we should call this." His gaze met Gunnar first, before the new science officer. "... Any word from either Sofia or Payton?"

The news of the disappearance hit Gunnar like a punch in the gut. Lene and Devora were almost like family. And Sofia had gone instead of him. He shook his head. "No word from either of them." Having grown up on an island with active volcanos he asked the obvious question. "Were there any seismic readings?"

"None," Serra shook her head firmly. "No geothermal activity reported either. The scans we have show no changes to previous readings." There was a moment's breath before she added, "I was not aware that we were permitting school children access to the site. Such an activity was clearly unwise in this case."

"Everyone had given the all clear. About three times over." Luka rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We had the area combed up and down before we even let any civilians in let alone students. No chance that this is a cave-in deeper down, or a set of caverns we just haven't explored yet?"

"The latter is a possibility." Serra remarked with a raised eyebrow. "As stated, with zero seismic activity a cave-in is statistically improbable. Our scans have been hampered by some sort of dampening effect. Early indications led to the theory that this was caused by the plant life in the area."

"I think the primary issue is what are the plans to locate them and get them out?" Gunnar cut in. "If they're trapped underground without an air supply every moment counts."

Luka nodded in agreement. "It does. Which means we'll have to scramble a team well before midnight. Lieutenant Zai, I'm going to need you and the Lieutenant Colonel to work closely together on arranging a team to go into the mines and seeing if you can find any trace of the group. Coordinate with Lieutenant Harrison to make sure we have exact mappings of where that group could have gone, how far down they might have gone, and if going in to get them would cause further trouble or not. Scour everything, but do so with extreme caution."

...cramped caves, narrow tunnels... Gunnar suppressed a claustrophobic shudder, but steeled himself. "They'll need medical on site. I..." the words caught, and he swallowed. He could not let past triggers get in the way of what needed to be done. "...I've assisted with search and rescue before."

"I got SARs on the Titania," Bradley added looking at the situation and running his hand over the coarse stubble as he thought it over. "We can deploy the Abby's as medical bases, they have pretty sophisticated medical facilities for a transport, enough to offer stabilization. Send the field medics in as well." The man's eyes flickered to the medical officer. "Might be an idea to have the Marines, as much as they may not be favoured, run that. Keep you back at the main facilities if we need further support than a field hospital can provide doc," the Marine officer added, vaguely concealing the suggestion Gunnar could be liability to search and rescue. Not that he thought the man incompetent, but her also knew emotional attachment had a way of causing issues.

Gunnar nodded, somewhat relieved at offer. "I have no objection to letting Marines run it. Some of my best friends are Marines." Dosadi Imperial Marines, but close enough. "However, I'll join you at the field hospital. I'm not a surgeon, so me staying back at the main hospital serves no useful purpose."

"I have no objections to bringing the Marines on board for this either," Alan added, "We need the best people on this, regardless of their relationship with the colonists. I think they care more about finding their family members than *who* finds them. Are we sure the dampening fields are caused by natural phenomena? I know it was before my time, but given the shuttle incident, who knows what we'll find on this planet..."

"Would not be a very good search and rescue without Marines," Veaya said with a shrug as if that was obvious.

"We have no idea what's causing it. But I do know we're going to bar entry from those caves until we find out exactly what is in there and we get these children out. Lieutenant Colonel, scramble whoever you need to. Any volunteers willing to help, do. Lieutenant V'lon," Luka turned to the new science chief. "I know this might not be the most ideal of first meetings, and we had something scheduled, but I think we'll have to delay that for the time being. I want you - or whoever you think is best - to go in and scan every little thing. Haumea isn't known for anything bizarre, but that's just it. The colony and the planet here isn't known. If something is awry, we need to know before we lose anyone else."

"Of course, Captain. I shall assemble a response team. It will require engineering specialists, medical representation and any local experts on the area. I trust I have your authority to gather whomever is required?" Serra replied.

Pulling the kneeboard PaDD from his left thigh, Shaun keyed a bit of data in and looked something over. "We might be able to help you there Lieutenant. Marine GAS travels with a limited number of bunker busters - torpedoes meant for deep ground penetration. We can pop out the warhead for a sensor and communications suite. Might get you past the interference, or at least make it easier for your people to transmit data back." The pilot leaned back against the wall. "We got four on board, so you tell us where you want them and we can drop them. Though that'll be a band-aid, get us a closer transmitter and share point, comms and sensors are liable to still be scrambled or at the very least weak."

"Just to be clear," Gunnar put in. "By 'drop' you mean 'remove the sensors and comm and hand them to the rescue team', right?"

"Uh, no," the Marine commented, keying the room's holoprojectors to show off the item in question. "This is a Bunker Buster Torpedo, we usually use them for hitting hardened ground targets. They can punch thirty-ish meters into solid ground. Normally we'd set them with timed explosives, but since they take a standard torpedo core, we can fix them with probe cores, act as communication and sensor relays. Find us a seismically stable spot and we can give you the penetration you need to get signals and sensors a little deeper in."

Uh-huh. Gunnar did not find that as reassuring as it was probably meant to be. "Question: Given that there seems to have been a cave in of some sort, but we have zero indications of seismic phenomenon, how confident can anyone be that any spot near the site is in fact seismically stable?"

"We did some brief surveys before the initial expedition and didn't find much interesting," Alan said, "Actually, wait a second, there wasn't much in the way of seismic instability, but there were some strange features we figured we'd investigate eventually." He pulled a map up on the display in the room and pointed at a few spots on the map. "Our scans couldn't reach into these areas here, here, and here. We're not sure whether they're scan shielded or our sensors just weren't powerful to reach into them, but they seemed innocuous enough to leave for later investigation. Perhaps the phenomena causing the issues with our scans somehow is causing communication issues, or even trapped the group in the caves somehow? Who knows what's actually down there?"

Who knows what's actually down there... Gunnar managed not to facepalm, but only narrowly. "I'm a medical officer, not an engineer, but given the ...uncertainty... let me reiterate my strong objection to dropping anything even resembling a missile near a site where children are trapped underground." A definite edge was starting to come through in the normally mild-mannered man's voice.

"Considering two of the children in question are mine; I think I may safely speak for the parents on this matter when I concur with that position. Until and unless structural stability is known, it would be foolhardy." Tal's tone seemed calm on the surface, but there was a carefully calculated, subtle biting edge to it; a threat that didn't so much announce itself to you obviously so much as whisper its way into your heart.

"I would concur with this assessment. Our knowledge of the situation is far too limited to make any kind of assumption as to the safety of the civilian element. Thorough analysis of the data would be a more effective means of establishing a solution," Serra responded, agreeing firmly with the Romulan.

Luka's shoulders rose and fell with his anxious sigh. They could talk about this all night long before anything happened, or he could Captain up and make a damn call. He didn't wait for everyone to finish, instead cutting through words with an eerie calm tone. "I believe we have all the information we need for the moment."

He looked between those gathered, giving one final assessment of the plan in his head before continuing, "The plan continues as we have it. Lieutenant Zai, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley, work together and scramble yourselves a team to get into the mines. Lieutenant Arnason, make sure they have all the medical support they need. Lieutenants V'lon and Harrison, we need to do scans of the surface level as well as anything deeper, both for structural integrity of the caves as well as life signs. We don't know where we're looking if we don't start looking." After a beat, his eyes narrowed. "And no firepower, explosives, or destructive force until we can guarantee we won't cause a cave in. Lieutenant Harrison, I'm also counting on you to work with security and the marines to make sure we have the whole place sectioned off. I don't want any soul going in there unless it's part of one of our search and rescue teams. I want everyone to keep me appraised of exactly what's happening and, if more resources are needed, what I can do to help you access them. I don't think I need to iterate the importance of the situation. Our number one priority is to find this group and get them out."

"Principal t'Leiya and I will coordinate civilian efforts and try to reassure that we're doing what we can. Once we have a better scope of the situation and where to start looking, we can add more bodies to our search. And I'm sure there are a number of parents who are going to want words with Starfleet personally."

He cast Tal a guilty, apologetic look. "That I will definitely take on my own."

"That may be for the best." Tal's tone had an edge of worry to it, as the parent of two of the children in question; but also a perplexed note. "Each of them signed permission for their child's participation in the venture; I fail to see why they would blame the fleet. It is well known there has been only limited surveys of the caverns; that was part of why it was viewed as an ideal science project for the older students; to add to the survey knowledge." After all his decades now in the Federation, he still occasionally ran into things which confused him--Did humans think that they could somehow make life without risk, for their offspring? Or that they should? Or that fault must be at hand if their young were allowed to encounter danger of any kind? "I suspect I would...Not be best at navigating the cultural nuance of the situation."

"I'll have the Albatrosses wrapped up in medical and on the ground in the next hour," the Lieutenant Colonel said with a nod. "We have emergency climbing gear, but we'll need time to circulate it properly, and to make sure we have gear set up for the caves. Once they're ready, they're all yours Lieutenant," he said, nodding to Zai. "I am useless as a foot solider, but I can strap a sensor pod to my fighter, at least help with the scans," he added.

Veaya nodded. "Appreciate it, Sir." She commented looking up from her PADD where she was already organising who she would be grabbing to assist from her end.

Alan nodded at Serra, realizing that he had not yet met the new science chief. It seemed every week there was a new senior officer on the colony and he hadn't kept up with the changes recently. "I'll get my best people over to science right away," he said. In reality, they were his only people, but most of them at least seemed competent.

An experienced climber who had once belayed down a dormant volcano shaft, Gunnar hoped security knew what they were doing - not that he was going to volunteer himself unless there was no other choice. The days when he had found exploring underground at all enjoyable were long over. "I'll inform the hospital and met you at the site within the hour."

Luka scooted himself from his seat, expression grim. "The sooner we find the students and their chaperones, the better. You're all dismissed."

 

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