Evading Clawed Monsters
Posted on Thu Sep 30th, 2021 @ 6:20am by Captain Luka Mahone & Lieutenant Alan Harrison & Lieutenant Serra V'lon & Lieutenant Colonel Shaun Bradley & Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason
2,476 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Frizzle
Location: Kocoa Caverns, Internal
Timeline: MD 02 : 0619 Hrs
The damp, cold cave was nothing compared to what the school group had gone through in the past hour or so. Not that the young Andorian child was really paying much attention to the passage of time while they were all running from blind claw monsters, but that's what one of the teachers said.
Zorre was the one who managed to find their way through the labyrinth of creepy crawly insect-like creatures and out of wherever that was. All it took was a realization that maybe the insects knew where they were going. All further in.
And then there was the big room with the tree, and then they flashed back to darkness, in a room that did not have crawly-insect-walls or lights. Luckily, they all had their flashlights on them.
It was Zorre who volunteered, bravely he thought, to wiggle himself through the small hole they had found and see what he could see, on the promise that he would run right back at the first sign of trouble. He crept forward, flashlight out in front of him, hand on the wall so he could find his way back.
Of course, the young child wouldn't get far before he had a series of lights shining back in his face. Despite his promise, he froze, eyes wide and small stalks alert.
Gunnar's eyes had been glued to his medical tricorder since arriving after the first reports of life signs suddenly appearing within the caverns. While it was the most efficient way he could search, focusing on the tricorder also kept him from thinking too much about the claustrophobic feeling since actually entering the cavern. So his cry of 'Over here!' had been doubly exultant when one of those life signs had moved near the surface.
Now he knelt down, checking the class list against the scan. Only one matched the physiology he was reading. "It's okay, Zorre. We've been searching for you," he said, holding out a hand to the child.
Alan rushed to Gunnar's side, scanning the cave walls around them. His structural teams were fairly sure that the area they were in was stable, but with all the strange happenings, a voice in the back of his mind told him that things could change at any moment.
The young boy's wide-eyed stare turned teary-eyed as he shakily took the hand offered. His hesitation washed away when he caught sight of the familiar Starfleet commbadge. Within the next instant, he was babbling out incoherencies and pointing behind him.
"It's all right, you're safe," Gunnar said, lifting the boy out and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Take a breath," he said gently, inhaling and exhaling slowly himself as if in illustration. "Can you tell us where the others are?"
"I-it's-they're-they're-they're!" Zorre sniffed big, before letting his thought out. "They're back there! Behind the big wall!"
"Did you all crawl through this hole to get back there?" Alan asked with a weak smile. He had to ask, but he doubted that the adults could make it through from the size of the opening.
Serra had moved forward quickly, her eyebrow raised in a perplexed expression of both doubt and confusion over where this small Andorian had come from. "My tricorder is registering life signs," she explained, motioning past the boy. "Most illogical - there is a great deal of interference, yet it should not have prevented us from detecting them before."
The fireteam of Marines that had joined the group had been looking around the space themselves, climbing rope and various gear strapped to them as they inspected the walls themselves. The lead of the group, a Lance Corporal Aaron van der Velde looked past the Vulcan science officer, bringing the wrist mounted tricorder up to get a reading. Unlike a standard Starfleet one, it was meant for tracking only life signs, usually in combat. He studied the readings, before one of the Privates in his group opined "Maybe they weren't there before." It was a jarhead response, from an Infantryman through and through, but it wasn't a bad theory.
"Ma'am, we are getting a whole lot of fuzz- er- interference. Something out there is scattering our life sign system. Similar to old reading from Marines who fought in the Dominion War. We can't make heads or tails of it," the Lance Corporal said. "I'm getting scattering in the delta band, which is even weirder. We see this in test simulations of a Romulan facility attack. Anything beyond where those life signs are might as well be cloaked."
He was sure that was accurate and it was disturbing in its own, but Gunnar cringed inwardly at the analogy. Just what we need after that near riot, he thought, Rumors this there's a secret Romulan base down there that's abducting children...
"If there's cloaking, it doesn't mean it's the Romulans. Maybe someone is using their tech?" Alan suggested. They hadn't the faintest clue what or who was cloaked, so he moved his free hand closer to his phaser just in case.
The Land Corporal sighed. Jumpy Fleeties... he groaned internally. "No sir, I don't mean an actual cloak, there are plenty of natural phenomenons that give off the same effect - the Romulans just really liked building their bases into them. Certain types of iron deposits, some natural minerals, a subspace phenomenon. Though, I'd put the phase away, some of them are... unstable." He stepped forward toward Gunnar, and bent down on a knee to the child. "Zorre," he started, pulling a Marine ration bar from a pouch on his vest. The things were coated in chocolate, and if you weren't paying attention you could easily eat the whole thing before you realized you'd consumed a days worth of calories. "How many of your friends are back there? Are your teachers with them still?" His voice was low and calm, the trained ease with which a Marine who had deployed to humanitarian crisis could play on. The Private from before joined as well, pulling a canteen as well. Chocolate or not, the bars went down like sand if you chewed too much.
As Zorre took and unwrapped the offered by, he nodded. "They're through that wall," he repeated, a little more calm now that there were adults who looked like they could help. They seemed to want to help too. He took a bite of the bar and looked back toward the wall as he chewed. "We got split up from the scientists and uh... I don't remember their names, but they had knives! And they were very prepared." He nodded adamantly. "Very very prepared. But almost everyone else is with us! And our teachers! I don't think they liked that I was the smallest and could get through the hole..."
The nearest private walked to the wall and gave it a few hard raps with his knuckles. "Shit's solid," he commented, earning him a dirty look from the Lance Corporal.
"Lieutenants," the Marine said, standing to dust off his knees. "How solid is that wall? Or how thick?" While the groups had, so far, been able to safely bore to this depth he wasn't sure what the actual remaining strength of the wall would be, and if there were people on the immediate other side it would be far more concerning to try and carve through unexpectedly. Brains, not brawn, was going to push this through.
A leaden feeling had hit Gunnar when he heard the girls - there was no one else who could fit that description - weren't with the group down there. But there was a patient in front of him. That's where his focus had to be. "You did well," he assured Zorre, running a medscanner over him. "You seem to be in pretty good shape despite it all - mostly just a bit dehydrated." Reaching into his pack, he produced a flask of water and handed it to the boy. "How is everyone else? Are any of them hurt?"
After taking a giant gulp of water from the flask, Zorre shook his head. "The monsters just scared us. That's how we got split up. They came to chase us, and all of a sudden we were all running! But I don't think anyone got hurt."
It was van der Velde's turn to stiffen, as he looked back to the collection of Privates that had come with him. Monsters was a pretty wild term, one that your average Marine applied rarely. Kids loved that word though, and it could mean anything. A bat in the dark was scary, but there were always things that were bigger than the bats. Things were whispered into comms pieces, and chatter passed through the headsets of the Marines quickly. Still not concerned enough to draw weapons, but caution was now advised. In the distance the Lance Corporal knew that there was a sudden movement of a large beast as secondary teams were prepped to move into the caves after them. A fire team alone was never ideal.
Monsters? Gunnar knew well enough that kids might see all sorts of things as monsters, especially while trapped in a dark cavern, but he doubted Ielene would scare easily and knew Sofia would keep a cool head. So either these monsters were something serious or the people he knew best had become separated from the rest because they hadn't panicked and run. He sincerely hoped it was the latter and the monsters were giant beetles or at worst rodents or an unusual size. "Can you describe the monsters?"
The canteen was almost dropped in Zorre's excitement. His voice echoed through the caverns as he made sweeping gestures that were bigger than what the search party might have hoped for. "They were THIIIIIIIS big and they had BIIIIIIG CLAWS for hands and no eyes, but their heads were glowing green and and and-" he took a breath, "They had angry chompers, sharp like pencils and they made noises like this!" To demonstrate, the boy hunched over and started in on a growl, before letting out a shrill scream, running back and forth and mimicking the noises of the monsters he heard before finding himself dizzy and plopping down on the ground. "But I haven't seen any since we touched the glowy crystal."
"Glowy crystal? Could you tell us more about this crystal, Zorre?" Alan asked, kneeling near Gunnar and offering a smile to the terrified child. He put his his canteen on the ground next to Gunnar in case Zorre needed more water.
Zorre nodded adamantly. "It was green and it was the brightest thing in the room. Or the cave. I dunno. We were still running. But the crystal! Tak touched the first one, and that's what got the walls moving and the mean old creatures chasing us. Then he touched the second one and we all ended up behind there!" He paused for a breath. "But it was green and it wasn't all that big. It's really hard to miss. But when Tak saw it first. And second."
"Did you end up behind this wall all of a sudden after he touched the second creature? Like you were somewhere else and then you were there?" Alan asked Zorre. It sounded like perhaps the group may have been moved by a transporter or some similar tech.
Gunnar craned forward as he listened for the answer, praying (albeit to a deity he didn't quite believe in) that it was some sort of transporter, because anything like the Key from his last posting with Chaplain could be so much worse... But the important thing was finding everyone and getting them out. "If it was hard to miss, we should be able to find it with some direction and work out what it is and how to use it."
"The walls stopped moving and we were behind there." Zorre pointed out matter of factly, gesturing toward the area he came from. "The crystal is still in there! I think it's still glowing too."
He hated to say it, because it meant going further into the caverns and he could already practically feel the tons of rock overhead, but if no one else was going to state the obvious... "We need to get a message down to the group before they worry about Zorre and do something foolish, like touching that crystal again," Gunnar said. "And find a way to get them out," he cocked a brow at the engineer and marine, "preferably without blowing the cavern ceiling down on them, or us."
"I don't think we can send him back, but maybe we could send a small probe or something with a message attached to let them know that we're working to rescue that and that Zorre is safe?" Alan suggested, looking at the opening that Zorre had emerged from just a few minutes ago. His engineering training had him thinking of how to jury rig a makeshift "messenger probe" if nobody had thought to bring one.
There seemed to be no immediate response from the others, which surprised Gunnar since he was sure T'Ango would have been carrying at least one of the biomimetic 'insect' drones that Dosadi Marines favored. But if no one else had a small messenger drone, there was always the old way of doing things. Unlatching the small PaDD from his wrist, he pulled out his climbing cord and clipped it to the end. "About how far down are they, Zorre?"
This resulted in the young Andorian child's eyes widening. And he thought real hard. "... It didn't take me long to crawl out of the hole," he said with a nod. "Maybe a couple of minutes?"
"Good. Then this should be more than enough rope," Gunnar said, tapping a message into the miniPaDD: 'Zorre made it through. He is safe and we are working on how to get to you. Please provide status. Tug rope twice to send back.'
Alan liked Gunnar's ingenuity. Maybe he would have to keep him in mind in case another engineering emergency came up.
As the rope was lowered down into the hole, Zorre scooched himself closer, holding one of the various canteens he had been given. He wasn't sure how much he was going to be able to help out, but he could wait with whatever water he had not already consumed.
The group would not have to wait long for their answer, as the rope attached to the PaDD was tugged upon only a few seconds afterwards. Once it was pulled up and the PaDD turned around, the message was brief, but gave the answers the team would have needed.
'No serious injury, all safe. Missing five. Unsure how to locate them.'
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