Phase One; Lure it Out
Posted on Fri Jul 18th, 2025 @ 8:27pm by Captain Min Seong & Lieutenant Commander Lylja Tigerlilly & Lieutenant Commander Sofia Nikedoros & Lieutenant Alan Harrison & Lieutenant JG Elyssa Kala'myr & Caithlin t'Leiya & Shea Voran II & Lieutenant Colonel Shaun Bradley
2,683 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Terrorpin
Location: Triage Location #2, 5 Klicks East of Haumea
Timeline: Up in the air, after all current posts
Despite the emergency scramble, Min had managed to obtain a small pile of pre-packaged snacks and bottles of water. It was what was piled in the middle of the small table that they all sat around.
Shea's Jeep roared up, pulling a trailer with several cases covered by a tarp. Killing the engine she hopped out, nodding to a nearby Marine who pointed the Marshal to the tent where the meeting was taking place. She slipped in silently, giving only a nod to the Captain and crossing her arms to listen.
"I will keep this as brief as possible, but I decided that one or two people cannot make this decision alone." Min had taken a bottle of water, but was fiddling with it between her hands. "Especially with what kind of danger this would prove to be to the colony regardless of what we do. So, here are our options."
She straightened up, flipping out a small device that immediately streamed an image of the great big creature above. "According to reports, this creature is not going to simply go away, and once the Bray facility runs out of juice - which I have been informed by Jason will not do so any time soon - will likely turn its sights on other forms of power. So, even if we find a way to turn off the facility's back up power supply, we may still be in a bind. I am not certain how much time we have before it returns, either. A creature like this emitting this sort of energy? It could be an hour, it could be many days. By that point, I want a solution."
Lylja, sitting at an angle in her chair so that her tail could swing free. "Could we use a set of dispersion fields to block its ability to sense power sources? That way we could use a broadcasting power unit to lure it away from the populated areas. That would buy us time to analyze the creature."
"Like a decoy?" Alan inquired, "That's possible, but it would be best if we set something like that up far away from everyone. However, for the amount of power that would require, there isn't much in the way of infrastructure outside of the populated areas of the colony."
This was where Sofia was torn on whether to be sad or grateful that the chief engineer she'd known during her last kaiju incident wasn't here. Burnie would undoubtedly has cooked up a huge - and potentially very explosive - feast to be set up for the beast. "Then perhaps we should also consider reducing the colony's energy signature to absolute minimum. That way such a decoy would be much more enticing."
"We can certainly cut down our power usage to a minimum, but we'll need to get the civilians onboard to make it work," Alan replied.
"I'll see what I can do to persuade people," Sofia replied. "Though I'm afraid it may lead some of them to push for eliminating the poor creature."
"It will, but despite that, whatever decision we make here we will stick to unless circumstances deem it necessary to go another direction." Min's gaze narrowed and her solemn voice suddenly had an edge. "I personally do not want to kill this creature. There is a likely chance that it has very little idea who or what we are, and is simply trying to survive. I want to know if it is something natural, or if our existence has suddenly created an issue within the ecosystem of the area. Nevermind that we have no idea what will happen if we just... kill it - assuming we can. But, as I am one of many, I open the floor to all of you. Our options are kill it, contain it, or leave it."
"It may indeed be simply attempting to survive; but I would point out that in that same vein, so are we." Caithlin minutely shrugged her eyebrows, filing 'don't judge the creature for its actions but judge yourself for similar' as some bizarre quirk of human ethics. "The unknowns of the danger of doing so, however, is a point of concern, yes. The question then becomes, do we have an option with less unknown risks to attempt first."
Elyssa had grabbed herself some water even though she was not particularly thirsty at the moment, she felt this could be a long discussion, the snacks also looked tempting to the young Bajoran.
"It is your right as our commanding officer to make this decision." She said fairly bluntly, "But a quorum of voices might give us the best chance of a practical resolution." She looked at her own pad, at the calculations relating to the energy signatures, to tests conducted on small scale emitters and finally a test on the beast itself via drone. "The creature seems to lack higher intelligence, therefore it must lack malice. It is not our enemy, only our problem." She agreed wholeheartedly with the captain that they could not simply kill it, it would be a monstrous decision and if she was honest, she felt that Starfleet might look at them quite badly if they did follow that course.
She slid her data into the collective pool, she had argued for a dampening field to try and reduce its metabolism and put it to sleep, her experiments mostly bore out her theory but it was still just a theory.
"Sounds like it's just an animal." Shea cut in. "That's both good and bad. If we give it an alternate food source, it may decide to become a permanent problem. But there's also the alternative; most animals can be easily convinced it's too much trouble to stay in an area. Inadequate food sources, increase in predators... in the end they would move on in search of better and easier living conditions."
"That is what I was hoping to accomplish with the dispersion fields," said Lylja. "We use an emergency power generator and pull a little of the shielding to let it broadcast its output. We can tune what it is broadcasting, if we can find an energy band it finds attractive and draw the creature away."
"Luring it away is the best option," Lieutenant Colonel Bradley cut in, stepping forward holding one of the water bottles and studying the data quickly as he approached. "Now that we have our recon data coming in, our xenobiologist believes it's storing all this energy inside itself, kind of like how camel humps store fats. Whatever this process is, it's slow but has a radiological element to it. Which means we probably need to remove killing it from the list of options."
"The fact that it is storing this energy inside it also raises another interesting question." Added Lt Kala'myr. Interesting was a choice word about her next statement. "We know nothing about the reproductive capacity, there are several in my department who theorise that this energy hoarding could be the precursor to asexual reproduction. Which then begs the question, is luring it to a new and permanent power source only going to tip that scale?" There something of a smirk on her face, part of the science head wanted to allow that trained of thought to continue, just because it would be quite something to see and study.
"If we can lure it away," says Lylja, "once it gets to where we want it, we can regulate the energy output to the minimum to keep it nearby. That would give us a chance to observe and study it under more controlled conditions."
Shea shook her head, walking to the hologram and scowling at it. "Not what I meant, Commander. I was referring to doing the opposite." Pointing to Elyssa; "The Lieutenant is right. If there are sufficient food sources, it will feel safe to reproduce. We don't want that."
She paused, before glancing at Caithlin; "Can that thing it's feeding on be shut down safely?"
"Uncertain. My sister would know, however." One of Caithlin's fingers played across the screen that suddenly popped up from a bracelet on one wrist, sending the inquiry in question. "Regardless however, if we cannot safely kill it and we cannot safely maintain it away from the colony without risking its reproduction, then the question would become can we, perhaps, remove it from the planet - perhaps a tractor lock from a ship in orbit; or some other means of transport elsewhere if we are able to somehow force it into dormancy first? That may be the only way, given the other limitations, to ensure long-term safety."
"If it eats energy, anything like a tractor would only feed it," Sofia cautioned. She wasn't a scientist, but the principle seemed fairly simple to her: anything that was in some sense directed energy should be not directed at a creature that fed on energy. "The same might be true of a transporter. If it could be sufficiently sedated, a large enough cargo ship might be able to move it. Though loading it aboard could prove a challenge, especially if it's in the process of reproducing."
Abrams shook her head. "I don't particularly subscribe to the asexual reproduction theory. This is a terrapin, not a tribble. Moreover, there's no evidence that anything this large, let alone multiples of them, are a natural part of this ecosystem. So either it's a normal native that has mutated due to exposure to something, likely something we introduced, or it has lain dormant for a very long time. If the latter, then given the early reports of something like an egg, I suggest we examine the site it came from, because most reptiles do not lay only single eggs."
Shaun leans forward, looking at the projected image and scratching at his chin. "It's weird to see this kind of mega fauna without a suitable food supply nearby. Think of the Earth moose. They subsist off a pretty notable diet, and that's only thirteen hundred pounds, not thirteen hundred tons," he said as he pondered the egg theory. He paused, like something clicked. "There are natural hotsprings near by, right?"
Looking at Sofia, Elyssa was quick to correct the assumption that a tractor beam would feed it. "Gravitons are very different to say, infra-red. Most biological systems are very particular about the kind of energy they can interact with. For example, chrolophyllic photosynthesis only occurs in a very narrow wavelength range. And species 1836 cannot reproduce unless exposed to a very specific energy particle emitted by their moon." She said in a very fact of the matter way.
It was quite baffling where this thing came from and how it might reproduce, larger creatures had significantly longer reproductive cycles than smaller ones, but could a species have lay dormant for long enough to not leave any notable evidence even of is existence. "We really need to know if there is an extensive population of these things on the planet. If there are hundreds more buried in the surface, dealing with this one might be irrelevant"
"Yes," Abrams agreed, albeit torn between scientific curiosity and fear. She knew she was the one who should go. "Scans haven't shown anything, but there are limits to ground-penetrating sensors, especially from flyovers. Let me gather equipment and I can be on site in ten minutes."
"While I do not disagree that the potential of more creatures of this magnitude would make it a moot point, our concern should remain on the immediate threat to the safety of our colonists." Min paused, brow furrowing. "I believe if we lure it away and give it something else to concern itself with, it will give us time to not only find a more permanent solution, but allow for a trip underground. I was told there was a big enough hole for a proper team to go down there." Min had already spoken to the distressed turnip farmer who she had to leave earlier in order to make this meeting. "Which means we are in agreement."
She stood. "Lieutenant Tigerlily, the dispersion field would be good, but we already have the modified Breen dampening field. I am putting you on finding a way to utilize the geothermal power supply of the hot springs the Colonel mentioned in order to channel it toward a location that will be suitable for it to rest. I would recommend taking Lieutenant Mackenzie and finding somewhere for us to place it so we can safely contain the creature. Obviously, this needs to be far enough away from the community to not be a problem. Finding something that is similar to its own ecosystem may also help keep the creature... cozy. You may want to loop in Lieutenant Abrams to assist in locating the right location as well.
Which does remind me, Lieutenant Abrams; I do hope we have access to that sedative. I do not want to utilize it, but I refuse to take chances on the matter. Lieutenant Jai, I want you on standby to administer it if necessary. Lieutenant Colonel, he will need a team of your experts to make sure he can do so safely if it comes to pass that is a necessity.
Lieutenant Harrison, I want you in charge of shutting down the power source that creature is going for. However, if that creature gets too close, your priority is the safety of your people as well. If we have to find a way to cut it remotely, we will utilize it.
In the meanwhile, Lieutenant Kala'myr, please make use of every scan you can access to determine exactly which energy source we are going to need to mimic in order to get this creature's attention.
Commander Nikedoros, I am grateful you have volunteered to assist with our civilian efforts. I will not only offer whatever supplies you, Ms. Voran, and Ms. t'Leiya will need, but also the help of Davna in lieu of myself.
Lieutenant Colonel, it is you and your team I want in charge of modifying the blueprints of the dampener we have in order to find a way to place an effective - and hopefully harmless - pen around the creature. As much as I want the creature to be able to live free, we have to figure out how it got to be the way it is first and see if we can even reverse the process, and if not, where to put it so it is comfortable and does not feel so inclined to return.
As for myself, I will return to the Command Center and evacuate the people there. We will have a coordinating base set up further out, but I am not putting another soul in danger for longer than needed.
Are there any questions?"
Lylja looked up from her datapad. "Lieutenant Harrison and I already had a couple of mobile power generators in the works. They are entirely autonomous, so it will not be risking anyone's life to use them as lures. If tactical can spare me three or four field deflector arrays, I should be able to have the dispersion fields up and running within three hours, possible much less if I can get help realigning the arrays."
"That was not the directive," Min stated firmly. "Your idea is not a bad one, Lieutenant, but as there is already a plan that will rely on a natural power source, we will be utilizing that plan instead."
"I'll start working on that sedative as a back-up," Abrams said.
"Leave the civilian side to us," Sofia replied with a nod to Voran to Caithlin.
"Couple of trucks, some muscle, and a space to put everyone." Shea shrugged. "Not the first time I've set up an emergency Camp."
"I'll get right on the power cuts," Alan replied with a nod, "Hopefully there's not too much resistance on the civilian side."
"Good." Min did not stand, staring at the holographic images flickering in front of her. "Then you are all dismissed. Keep me appraised of every step."
RSS FeedCredits | Privacy Policy