Nature Hike

Posted on Jun 14, 2014 @ 12:24am by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Jun 14, 2014 @ 12:27am

Mission: All Our Yesterdays

 = Nature Hike =
(cont’d from “Something Rotten”)

 

LOCATION: K-60-Alpha-Twelve

SCENE: Crash Site

STARDATE: [2.14] 0612.1250

 

 As soon as he stepped out of the ship, Jake could feel the difference. The air outside seemed *thicker* somehow… it wasn’t the right way to describe it, exactly, but it was the best Jake could do. He took in a few shallow breaths, and they seemed to fill his lungs. He cautiously exhaled, then inhaled again… it was strange, not exactly unpleasant, but something about it seemed off.

 

 “You guys feeling that?” Russ BaShen asked as he stepped out of the shuttle behind Jake. “The air feels strange.”

 

 “This moon has a highly oxygenated atmosphere,” Kane said. He was bringing up the rear, and Jake immediately notice the mask the captain was wearing around his face. Jake recognized it as a rebreather, and noted that Kane had two more in his hands. “Take these.”

 

 Jake and Russ each took one of the devices and put them on. Jake tried another few breaths, and was satisfied that the machine was working.

 

 “Be careful,” Kane said. “There were only six of these among the NILE’s provisions. They should be enough to get us there and back, but if they get damaged or depleted, we don’t have a lot in reserve.”

 

 “I’ll be careful,” Jake said.

 

 “Watch for signs of oxygen toxicity,” Kane continued. “Euphoria, vertigo, nausea, ringing in the ears…”

 

 Neither Jake or Russ needed the complete list. Though starships used a more advance atmospheric processor to better simulate the atmospheric conditions of a habitable planet, those systems could malfunction just like any other. That’s why part of every Starfleet officer’s training included working in an oxygen-enriched environment, where they learned to resist the effects of oxygen toxicity and complete the work without losing consciousness. It was not Jake’s favorite part of training, but now, as he stood on the surface of this moon surrounded by air that might eventually kill him, he was glad he went through it.

 

 “Which way, Mr. BaShen?” Kane asked.

 

 “This way,” Russ said, and started off. Kane and Jake followed.

 

The foliage that surrounded seemed all at once alien and familiar. Tall trees stretched high into the sky. They didn’t seem to have leaves, but rather petals, as if they were giant flowers dotted all over with pollen spores and seed pods. Smaller shrubs and bushes dotted the landscape, not too different from plants Jake remembered from EARTH. Jake reached out to touch one, and was surprised when the bush actually seemed to shy away from him, leaning back and beginning to emit a low, sinister buzzing sound. Jake quickly withdrew his hand, and the shrub seemed to settle again, the buzzing fading away.

 

 “Commander,” Kane said, turning back to look at him with a frown that Jake could hear in his tone, even if he couldn’t see it through the rebreather. “Don’t touch anything.”

 

 “Right,” Jake nodded.

 

 “These plants are weird,” Russ said, coming up beside Jake to look at the strange bush. It was colored with such a vivid green that it almost seemed to leech the color out of the area around it, providing a contrast unlike any that Jake could remember seeing before.

 

 “I think they’re alive,” Jake said.

 

“All plants are alive, Jake.”

 

“Yeah, but I think they’re *alive* alive,” Jake said. To demonstrate, he reached out, and once again the bush seemed to lean away, its branches actually bowing backward to avoid his touch. And, on cue, the buzzing began again. Jake withdrew his hand, and again the bush snapped back to its original position and went quiet.

 

 “Okay, that’s weird,” Russ said. He tried it himself, and got the same reaction.

 

“Gentlemen,” Kane said. Jake and Russ turned, and Kane was standing with his arms folded, staring at them. “As fascinating as the flora of this world may be, might I remind you it’s not the reason we’re out here?”

 

 “Sorry boss,” Russ said. He and Jake caught up to Kane, and the three of them continued on their path, with Russ occasionally consulting his tricorder to make sure they were still moving in the correct direction.

 

 The men continued on for half an hour, mostly in silence. The world around them had an eerie stillness, occasionally broken by the faraway cry of what might have been a bird, though the shrill, shrieking sound also reminded Jake of the calls of a Terran coyote. The giant tree-flowers surrounded them, creating a forest so thick that occasionally it was hard for them to see the sky. Sometimes, one of them would step too close to a bush or shrub, and the plant would lean away and begin its low warning buzz until they passed. More than once Jake wondered exactly what it was the plant was warning them about, though he had no intention of sticking his hand inside one to find out.

 

 Moving around was starting to get tiring, too. The higher-than-normal gravity almost made it feel like swimming, as if each motion had to cut its way through a thick miasma of excess gravity, enriched atmosphere, and an almost oppressive silence. Jake was starting to breath heavier with exertion, and realized exactly how fortunate they were to have the rebreathers. Moving around like this without some kind of atmospheric filtration probably would have left them all dead after an hour.

 

 Eventually, the quiet started to get to Jake, so he decided to fill it with conversation.

 

 “You have any idea what we’re looking for?” he asked, coming up beside Russ

 

“Didn’t get a good enough look,” Russ said. “Something metal, I think. Maybe the escape pods from the CENTURY.”

 “We better hope that’s what it is,” Jake said. “Without spare parts, the NILE isn’t going anywhere soon.”

 

“You’ll think of something,” Russ said. His sentiment was more optimistic than his tone, though Jake thought that might have just been the fatigue talking.

 

 “I’ve already thought of a dozen things,” Jake shrugged. “Unfortunately, they all require a new aft nacelle on our runabout.”

 

 “Let’s say we can’t get the NILE back in the air,” Kane said. “What else do you have?”

 

“Well… if we can get some power restored on the runabout, there’s a chance I can get the transporters working again,” Jake said. “Assuming the DISCOVERY has its shields up- and *that’s* assuming it hasn’t just left the system altogether- the only place we could beam to is the CENTURY.”

 

 “Okay,” Russ nodded. “I’ve heard worse options.”

 

“Trouble with *that* is the CENTURY has no power,” Jake said. “No atmosphere, no environmental controls. We’d freeze to death in minutes without environment suits.”

 

 “Anyone ever tell you you’re a bit of a downer?” Kane cut in, glancing back at the two officers.

 

Jake laughed. “Actually, most of the time people like me.”

 

“Guess that’s why the marines didn’t just shoot you,” Russ said.

 

“My charming personality,” said Jake. “I think I might have even gotten through to Major Christmas-Tree up there, for all the good it did us.”

 

 “You mean Major Thytos,” Kane said. “You spoke to her?”

 

“She’s the one who locked me up,” said Jake. “Before she left me, I showed her a recording of Stonn hitting me with that Vulcan neck-thing. I guess I can’t be sure, but it seemed to rattle her.”

 

 “She still followed her orders,” Kane said. His tone was cold. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s the enemy.”

 

“Look, I’m not saying she isn’t partially responsible for all of this,” Jake said, gesturing at the foliage around him. “Getting us marooned here, getting Calvari killed...”

 

 Kane stopped. He turned to look at Jake, and his eyes suggested very strongly that Jake should change the subject.

 

 “I’m just saying, maybe not everything is so cut and dry,” Jake said.

 

“It certainly seemed that way for the Essentialists,” Kane said, and tromped off through the brush again, ignoring the angry buzz from the surrounding foliage.

 

----------------------------------------------

 

 TIME INDEX: An hour later

 

 The flower forest stretched endlessly on, and Jake had depleted his supply of awe and wonder. Now he was just tired; struggling against the high gravity, trekking through the rough terrain, and the fact that he’d now gone over 24 hours without sleep (not counting the short nap that Stonn had forced him to take) had left Jake starting to feel worn out. That was dangerous- fatigue meant loss of focus, it meant you’d start to miss things. Jake would have given just about anything for a single cup of coffee just then.

 

 “Do you know how much farther?” Kane asked.

 

“I’m just estimating,” Russ said. “But we should be a little more than halfway there.”

 

 “Anything on the tricorder yet?”

 

“Nothing that looks like Starfleet tech,” said Russ. “There’s a lot of trace deposits of metals and minerals in the soil, they’re creating a lot of interference.  Once we get closer, I’ll have a better idea of what it is we’re looking for.”

 

 “I’m hoping it’s a replicator station,” Jake said. “I’m gonna summon me up some black coffee, maybe some sandwiches, and we can have ourselves a nice picnic-”

 

 “Commander,” Kane said.

 

“Sorry, captain, just engaging in a bit of wishful thinking.”

 

“Commander,” Kane said again, more urgently. Jake looked up, and saw that Kane had stopped in place, his eyes fixed on a line of tree a few meters ahead of their position. Jake and Russ both went quiet and Kane slowly raised his hands and pointed.

 

 There, among the trees and bushes, Jake thought he could see something moving. Jake could hear the sound of rustling leaves, the low warning buzz of the native plant life. As he listened, the buzz seemed to crescendo into a high squeal that was abruptly cut off, and then there came a steady crunching sound.

 

 “What is it?” Russ whispered.

 

“Flora, meet fauna,” Jake whispered back.

 

As they watched, a large figure pushed its way through the bushes. It was tall, easily 9 or 10 feet, and thickly built. Jake could see large muscles rippling underneath leathery green skin. It seemed to be bipedal, with legs that seemed squat and stubby in relation to the long, muscled  arms. It’s skin was bumpy and hairless, and it had a small, thick tail that curled up behind it. Its head was nearly featureless except for what looked like a ring of beady, spiderlike eyes, two small slits where its nose should have been, and a wide mouth into which it kept stuffing handfuls of foliage to chew loudly like some kind of terrifying cow. It reminded Jake of some kind of hideous cross between a gorilla and a dinosaur, and though it was probably less than 50 feet away from them, Jake was glad that the creature did not appear to have noticed them yet.

 

 “Uh…” Russ said.

 “Let’s back off,” Kane said quietly. “Try to go around.”

 

The three officers began to step silently backward, doing their best to move slowly so as not to attract the creature’s attention. For its part, the creature seemed content to continue eating, uprooting whole bushes and cramming them into its mouth, seemingly oblivious to their warning buzz or the oddly unsettling shriek they seemed to make when they were torn out of the ground. It chewed each bush with its mouth open, not noticing or caring about the bits that fell out as it did, and when it swallowed one mouthful it would go back immediately for a second one. At the rate it was eating, Jake wondered that the whole forest around them wasn’t totally depleted.

 

 “Easy does it,” Kane said. “Let’s get back behind this tree line, and we’ll see if we can-”

 

 Just then one of them (Jake never did find out which) must have stepped too close to one of the shrubs. The plant’s warning buzz seemed to cut through the silence like a blade, and the creature looked immediately in their direction. Its nostril-slits seemed to flare once, then the creature suddenly bellowed loudly at them. It dropped the bush it was holding and fell forward onto its arms, going down on all fours, and seemed to thump the ground a few times in warning. Jake, Kane, and Russ were frozen in place, staring at the beast, not wanting to trigger some kind of primitive chase-reflex by turning tail and running off into the woods.

 

 The creature didn’t seem satisfied by their stillness. It let out another echoing roar, and then began to tromp through the trees after them, moving at surprising speed on all four of its legs, its squat little tail waving behind it for balance.

 

 Jake, Kane, and Russ turned and ran.

 

====================================================

 NRPG: So now we’re being chased by a gorilla-cow-dinosaur. Does it eat people, or is it protecting its territory? Will we get separated? And remember, our rebreathers won’t last forever, and that’s assuming they don’t get broken in the chase…

 

 Shawn Putnam

    a.k.a.

Jake Crichton, Commander

 Chief Engineer Officer

 USS DISCOVERY