Parental Protection

Posted on Fri Jul 30th, 2021 @ 7:25am by Captain Luka Mahone & Lieutenant JG Robert Zažeckis & Caithlin t'Leiya & Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason & Tal t'Leiya
Edited on on Fri Jul 30th, 2021 @ 7:33am

4,547 words; about a 23 minute read

Mission: Frizzle
Location: Outside Kocoa Caverns
Timeline: MD 02 : 0429 Hrs

Luka had his hands on his hips as he overlooked the crowd of parents. The same crowd of parents he had to field at the beginning of the night, reassuring them that their children would be found.

But they were clearly not the patient bunch, and Luka was finding that one out the hard way.

"Please," he reassured, holding a hand up, "We're doing all we can to find your children, and we don't intend to stop until we find them. Until then, I must ask you all return to your homes. We will contact you the moment we find them."

It was a canned response, and one that was detected by the most forefront parent, a human man who Luka discovered was much taller than he was when he stepped forward and stared the Captain down. "It was your okay that got the teachers thinking the caves were explorable to begin with. We're here to find our kids, and we aren't leaving till we get them back."

Ah, misconception. Luka had tracked back his verification of the safety of the caves. Everyone was eager to get in and see them that the number of civilian hands that went into the initial exploration almost exceeded the number of Starfleet personnel crawling all over it. No one found anything remotely harmful in the sectioned off area, save for a pile of rocks. Trust a group of children to discover the one thing a bunch of adults with scanners overlooked.

Lt. Zažeckis stepped up next to his new Captain. His presence cut down on the height disparity but, more than that, his sheer mass could serve as a tool for intimidation at times. Not that he wanted to intimidate a scared father at a time like this, but these people were roiling and he wasn't about to let them boil over. "Sorry, sir, I'm new here. What was your child's name?"

"Her name's Charlene," came the unfettered reply. His gaze snapped to Zaz, and he looked the man up and down before blanketing his attentions. "Who the hell is this?"

The Captain didn't back down from his spot. He gestured politely to the man next to him. "This is Lieutenant Robert Zažeckis. He's our Head of Security."

The man scoffed, attentions now on the Lieutenant. "They gotta bring you down here for this? We see Marines and all you Starfleet types here, but we don't see any of our kids. Let us in."

"We are all down here for this," Zaz said, his voice quiet. So, yeah, the Marines - who have trained and drilled and experienced search and rescue missions - are here. The geologists are working their knowledge of cave systems and the surrounding rock. The medics are standing by just in case. Hell, the theoretical physicists are working with the sensor ops folks and engineers to give us the best tools to bring Charlene home to you. We all care about missing kids. We're all doing our part. Your specialty though, the one thing we can't do, is be ready when she comes up here, fresh and full of a father's love to wrap her up and comfort her and take her home and take care of Charlene when we're all done."

Back with the rest of the crowd, Tal, the principal, was doing his best to control and corral the rest of the crowd; his movements and tactics belying the security officer he had once been himself, decades ago in the RSE forces. But he was outnumbered beyond possibility, and it was by default a losing battle as the mood escalated.

Gunnar had headed toward the Captain, because while he wasn't particularly good at confrontation, he was tall enough to counter anyone using height to intimidate. However, seeing the new security chief moving in, he left it to the expert and went toward Tal. The man was also more than capable, but even a Romulan had limits and Tal had the additional weight of his daughters being among the missing.

Caithlin was an easily disregarded presence among the crowd that was quickly trending towards being more aptly described as a "mob"; with Tal present in his function as the school principal, Caithlin had joined the rest of the group as a representative among it of their family in his and her sister's stead. As the agitation increased and the group jostled her and each other back and forth in an exponentially increasing chaos, voices raised and overlapping; she had trouble not getting pulled back for a moment to earlier times, her eyes going slightly glassy and distant, seeing not what was, but a similar had-been; the floor of the post-Hobus Romulan Senate, decorum of the body before the disaster all but fallen as her colleagues or those there to petition screamed at one another; forming throngs of angry chaos that ended many times in death and destruction; that led to her nearly losing her own life several times; that despite her best efforts had culminated, within only the barest few years, in the collapse of the Empire in entirety. As she managed to pull herself to the present, her shaking hand had automatically gone for her blade under her tunic in the meantime, and she slowly pulled her arm back and let it hang ready but unarmed at her side again, taking a few subtle but gasping deep breaths and refocusing her attention on where Arnason and Tal were standing.

Through the commotion, Luka had found himself a nearby rock to climb atop. He was not about to have whatever he was about to say lost through the whole crowd. Nothing was going to make matters worse than a mob-style passing of the words.

"May I have your attention please!" He called out, hands cupped over his mouth. When the crowd started to die down, Luka took the lulled moment. "We have put our best people on making sure your children are extracted safely, and we will not rest until we have found them. I must please ask that you return to your homes and-"

"We want our children!" came the shout from within the crowd. The shout that started a chorus of other, similarly-minded shouts and cries from the rest of the parents. A few of them started to move forward, but Luka held his ground.

"- I understand that the waiting is difficult, as these are your loved ones that are in this situation. We will relay answers once we have them, and deliver your children back to you as soon as we can. But we cannot do that if-"

Luka wasn't sure where it came from, but, as he dodged the object flying at his head, he could feel the crowd's aura shift. They weren't waiting any longer.

As the crowd seemed to boil over all at once, like a chemical reaction, Tal knew his time was up. Less than a second later, the first of the other parents, a tall Andorian, swung at him. The shen's fist didn't connect as he caught her and managed to throw her back towards the thaan behind her, no doubt one of her child's other parents. This didn't buy him anything more than one less hit though; a human man's fist connecting with the side of his shoulder, and barely missing another one from a different angle.

Caithlin was doing her best to remain present in the moment, but it was becoming even harder as the situation escalated. Unfortunately, she also knew he was unlikely to get away with stabbing half of the crowd; most of them were likely unarmed, and unless someone drew on her, Federation law was unlikely to consider it reasonable self-defense; somehow failing to grasp how dangerous even an 'unarmed' mob could be when attacking en masse...Perhaps because they didn't have that many instances of it in their more recent history. At least two layers of the gathered colonists now separated her from Tal; but the crowd had split in such a way to leave her nearer to Arnason, who unfortunately had marked himself in their minds as "one of the authorities" with his earlier move to visibly support her brother-in-law. So far, Caithlin herself was invisible among them; jostled in the fray, but discounted by the chaos as one of their own.

A hulking man struck a sudden, hard blow at Gunnar; an equally hulking man near him - perhaps his brother; or his husband? - wasting no time in a follow-on; and Caithlin's careful thoughts of legal niceties or attempts to focus herself on the here and now vanished: Her body moved automatically, striking a return blow at the first man hard enough to make him fall back into those behind him, her leg striking out simultaneously to do similar to his companion, both men out for the count and taking a few more of those close to them down for a moment as well, like bowling pins; in the moment of time bought, a flash of mirror-polished metal and a clear defensive stance, to the front of Gunnar, against the rest of the crowd, lips peeled back slightly like a predator baring her teeth.

Gunnar had just lifted his hands to make an appeal for calm when a fist hit his jaw hard enough to make him momentarily see stars, but it wasn't the physical force that threw him. It was disorientating, but... the sudden impact, the taste of blood in his in mouth... in an instant he was in a close room, the next blows coming from Gronza, Karg, Fleck... Stay Up! Don't cry out. Don't show fear. Stand. And. Take. It...

But then something shifted, and an eternally long moment later he blinked and found himself back in the present, Caithlin in a guard stance in front of him. His own pulse still racing with reaction, he could hardly miss the signs in her. Helvitis He'd bet whatever trauma had her on the edge of triggered did not reinforce the idea that not striking back was the best option...

Expelling a slow breath, he recentered. "Thank you, Ms. t'Leiya. I am quite recovered now," he said in the calmest tone possible. "In the interest of keeping your law license, it might be best to put away the knife."

There was no response for a long stretch; but the universe seemed to have at least blessed them with the nearest few members of the mob being either afraid enough of a Romulan with a weapon to avoid striking again immediately, or perhaps hesitant to strike Caithlin, seemingly one of their own, versus those they saw as associated with the disappearance of their children. With a deep shaking breath of her own though, finally, Caithlin stowed her blade. The nearest of the crowd - those that had seen the weapon - seemed to remain a bit deterred; but this didn't extend to more than a few, and soon the throng showed signs of advancing once more; a large rock narrowly missed colliding with their heads, and Caithlin reached into the folds in her tunic again, this time coming out with a small phaser, subtly shaking hands setting it carefully to "stun" while she retained the presence to, raising her voice while it into a firmness it clearly wasn't naturally prone to at the moment. "Everyone stay back. I won't ask again."

Zaz might have made some progress in de-escalating the one man he was talking to but, as chaos erupted from every other quarter, he brushed his palm over his phaser, ensuring that it was securely locked in his holster and not ripe for plucking by the hands of the crowd. This wasn't some band of toughs looking for trouble, but they were scared and desperate. One tall, gangly man lunged past Charlene's father, making a beeline for the Captain. It was easy enough to put a hand on his chest and redirect his momentum, knocking him onto his side and tripping several others at the front of the crowd, but that just eroded what little restraint was keeping them in place.

A squat woman in roughspun working clothes charged straight over the man he'd knocked down, trampling him, eyes on Mahone. Zaz delivered a jab directly to her face, stunning her and, with the crack of her nose, spinning a few nearby heads. "Better their attention be on me than him," he thought as someone barrelled into him, forcing him back half a step.

"Captain," he shouted over his shoulder. "I have Security Team 3 on stand-by with riot gear. I'd hate to provoke the crowd but it might be time to bring them in."

"Ri-riot-what?" Luka sputtered, eyes wide. But his surprise would be brushed aside when the sight of the scene unfolding dawned on him. Provocation would have led to more of an escalation past this crowd of angry parents. There was already going to be hell raised from what little had transpired.

Instead of immediately responding, Luka looked about, until his eyes rested upon one of the announcement comms that sat in the dash of a nearby transport. He went to retrieve said item, only to hop on the rock again and turn the button on.

"MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!" Utilizing a tone of voice he associated with angry training officers and loud children, Luka spoke through the comm to get the crowd's attention. It took a few moments to get the crowd to (at least temporarily) settle. When they did, the tone of his voice grew stern, but level. "We are all here together for the same goal, to find the missing group of children. May we please have your cooperation in this matter? They are your children, yes? We are putting our best people on the matter of your children. All we ask is that you please allow us to do the best job we can. Which means I must once again ask for you to return to your homes, or find methods of help that will still allow us to do everything we can do to bring your children to you safe and sound. When we do that, then I'll hear each and every one of you out on the matter. May we please have the space to do our jobs and safely retrieve your children from these caves?"

He could hear the rumble of the crowd start up again, and something deep in him sparked him to respond before it could really get going, voice hardening as it wafted over the air on the announcement comm. "We are doing absolutely no good throwing punches and accusations while there are innocent lives on the line. I would much rather utilize my people toward extracting them out swiftly and safely. We can designate a waiting area for you all to gather, so either myself or a contact can come find you when your children are out of the mines and medically cleared for release, but I insist you remain there or at your homes while we continue our search."

Luka surveyed the crowd for a response, eyes resting upon Charlene's father. "I will not ask again."

Near Caithlin and Arnason, meanwhile, Tal stumbled out of the fray for a moment, much the worse for wear from when the two had seen him last; one eye rapidly swelling shut and green blood down his face from a split lip; bruising around his neck, and one arm and shoulder off kilter and hanging unused, dislocated. He was attempting without much success to get distance from the crowd enough to likely draw his own weapon; probably less confident of trying to use it in the heart of the tightly packed scrum with his still-functional off hand. A few of the crowd seemed to object to the attempt to disengage, and two fell almost bonelessly to the ground with a pair of quick stun shots from Caithlin's phaser, covering the rest with a expression both fire and ice and a frightening intensity of focus--and "intensity", period--that no human could produce under any circumstances. "I said." Her voice matched her expression almost perfectly in it's iron threat and assurance of harm to those who chose to cross her. "That I would not ask again." Tal immediately took up a position with Caithlin when he reached them; drawing a similar weapon and covering an opposite side of the crowd. A few more of the throng attempted to move forward to make their displeasure known, but regardless of number or tactics they, too, were soon unconscious on the dirt.

At least she has it on stun... Gunnar thought gratefully, appalled though he was to see Tal's condition. He shook his head again at the general clueless idiocy of the crowd as he came around to scan Tal's shoulder. He had to give the man credit - taking that kind of abuse without tearing attackers limb from limb was remarkable restraint for a Romulan. The assessment was doubled a moment later when his own normally cool temper slipped when he tried to step around to treat the injury and some of the crowd tried to take advantage.

"Are you insane?!" Gunnar yelled, whirling around to face them. "Back. Off." The command was meant to come across as 'for your own safety', but while it carried that, the temper he only rarely felt flare put an edge of threat on it.

A variety of the crowd had originally been given pause by Caithlin; but a few of those who had not seemingly were by Gunnar…Perhaps those who knew his reputation for an even temper and nonviolent behavior and more rattled by this unexpected turn than by what they might have seen as more expected behavior by the Romulans.

“Maybe the principal would like to explain to us why the first month he’s on the job he plans a trip that put all our kids at risk?” A man in the crowd snarled back. “And yeah yeah sure his are there too.” The man’s voice was almost a verbal sneer by now. “But I doubt he cares as much as we do, since he probably also abandoned them in first grade for a week and a half to survive or die, too. So just because they’re willing to risk their young maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions for ours then!” It was fairly clear exactly what and who he meant by “them”; a statement the man was extending beyond just Tal or Caithlin personally.

If Gunnar had felt an uncharacteristic spark of anger before, now he was appalled - taken aback by the not even thinly veiled xenophobia in that. Moreover it was an not only an insult to vulcanoids, but insulting to a few dozen other species as well. In particular T'Ango's, which made it strike him as rather personal as well. "That is completely unfair," he stated evenly, stepping between the man and the pair of Romulans (because the man was an ass but stupidity and prejudice wouldn't justify for homicide here). "Many cultures have coming of age tests, often involving survival skills."

"Then those people are just as bad as them," the man spat, moving forward and glaring defiantly up at him.

He was about to counter that Dosadi had a survival test for their young and he'd rarely met a species that valued their offspring more, but with the man's face right in front him, Gunnar's eyes widened in recognition. Then narrowed. "Really? Because if I recall correctly you refused to take the virus last winter seriously until your kids were so sick they needed emergency transport."

"You're comparing me to them?!"

The fist didn't take Gunnar by surprise this time. Before he'd expected to be able to make people see reason, but that presumption was gone now - along with some measure of his normally even temper. So when the swing came at him, he stepped in with a half turn, catching the arm with one forearm and the man's chest and neck with the other. Continuing the turn, he redirected the man's momentum and slid one foot back to catch the man's leg and sweep him down in a nearly textbook Aikido throw. Tempting as it was to let him land hard, Gunnar caught his wrist and pulled up to prevent it, then braced the arm in case he needed to go to a submission hold. "It would be best if we could discuss this like civilized people," he stated tightly.

Through gritted teeth, Zaz cursed at the sound of phaser fire, watching bodies fall to the ground. Some of the crowd did seem cowed - or perhaps shocked momentarily - it was hard to say. Others just moved away from the immediate threat, surging one way and another. He unfastened his own weapon. It would hardly be the first time he'd shot someone but, if it came to it, it would be the first time he was shooting at civilians who were supposed to be on his side. As the current loudest voice in the crowd made it clear that divisions here were not merely Starfleet vs Civilians, Zaz backed toward the Captain, scanning carefully for any sign of weapons that might not be on "their" side, whoever "they" might be right now. It was strange to consider it a relief that the medic was tangling physically with one of the rioters but at least the shooting seemed to have subsided. "We're waiting this out then Captain? You see this ending well?"

Luka had surpassed his blank expression as he looked out among the crowd. Conversation had always gotten Haumea far. Even in anger, everyone was willing to at least talk about what was going on. But even he had to admit when to throw in the towel.

"No phasers," the Captain stated to Zaz plainly. The sight of any sort of projectile in Starfleet hands might have escalated the situation, and he was not about to make enough hubbub to have Bradley overhear. "Disarm, try to keep violence to a minimum. I don't want any more injuries than we need here."

There were few good tools for controlling a crowd once it can no longer control itself, but it was still exasperating to have what blunt instruments are available stripped away. Still, Zaz re-secured his phaser and stood bare-handed facing them. Some of the people who had surged away from the phaser fire earlier were shouting and waving fists at the Captain, too close for comfort. The one who drew the security chief's eye though was standing mostly still. Staring hard. Thinking hard. Hand in his pocket.

Zaz approached from the side, the man's tunnel vision kept him from even noticing. Just as Zaz reached him, he pulled his hand free, charging toward the Captain. Zaz grabbed his wrist, squeezing hard, hard enough that he heard a crack while guiding the wrist upward. "No, you won't be doing that today."

It was easy enough to take the knife into his other hand, but then a woman on his other side pointed at him and screamed. "He has a knife!"

Luka held the announcement comm up once more. He did not wait for the crowd to quiet themselves this time. "You have all been asked multiple times to stand down and either wait in an area we arrange or return to your homes. Whatever disputes you are having now will wait for us to find all of your children." He only paused for the briefest of moments to steel himself for the conflict he knew would unfold.

"You will all have ten seconds to stand down or we will be forced to utilize more assertive measures."

Caithlin eyed the crowd with a nervous but appraising, calculated glance, and the rest of the lay of things. At the moment, they mostly seemed to be focused elsewhere, having abandoned Arnason and his pinned opponent in favor of focusing on Luka, and she locked eyes for a moment with Tal, then moved forward slightly, putting herself in Arnason's line of sight to the side. "Let's go."

"He's not going anywhere!" the man in Gunnar's hold snarled, glaring at Tal. Caithlin sighed, then raised her weapon.

"Ms. t'Leiya," Gunnar injected quickly. "There's no call to shoot him."

With a slight shrug she lowered the phaser, then bent and struck the man with a hard but measured blow upside the head. Rising again she jerked her chin hard to one side, away from the mob, looking at Arnason. "Come on."

"That's not what I meant..." Gunnar bent to check the man. Knocked out, but otherwise undamaged. "Believe it or not, I was trying to save to your life here," he muttered before hoisting the man over his shoulder to deposit him somewhere he wouldn't get trampled if things went anymore wrong. With that done, he hurried to catch up since he was overall much more concerned with Tal's injuries and getting him safely away from anyone inclined to cause more.

Caithlin, for her part, seemed to be concerned with withdrawing from proximity to the mob, period; both to avoid further danger from it, and now just as pressingly, to avoid being potentially caught up in any response taken against it. A good distance away she spotted a stack of equipment crates and a few tables with drinks and other supplies on it; a support setup for the searchers. Good: It probably had first aid gear, and looked like a position it would be easier to either defend or withdraw further from; and she possibly resembled a herding breed as she led Arnason and Tal towards the area as quickly as possible.


The crowd seemed to fracture. Some of those right around the Captain continued to shout. One made another charge toward him which Zaz easily caught, pinning the man's hand behind him and turning him around with a firm suggestion to, "Go Home!" all around could hear. Farther back some of the rabble-rousers seemed to argue with each other. About what they could accomplish here and now or over their feelings about things they'd heard said in a crowd they were part of. Some took seats in a huff. Some did start to leave.

As more security personnel flocked to the scene, Luka could feel the tension in his jaw. While he couldn't blame any of the parents involved for what was occurring, their actions were likely more childish than their actual children were. But mentioning that would have caused a worse riot.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the young yeoman who had been dutifully waiting for him to complete his work, as always. He jumped from the rock, gesturing her over. "Davna, please tell me you have good news..."

The Orion's expression lit up. "Well, Sir..."

 

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