A Sticky Situation

Posted on Sun Jan 31, 2021 @ 10:45am by Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Edited on on Sun Jan 31, 2021 @ 11:15am

746 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Si vis pacem, para bellum
Location: Up the Beanstalk
Timeline: MD -03

ON

It took Alanna several minutes to catch her breath. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken after her fall. The ground below her was solid. Even though all she could see right now were clouds, the ground felt more like hard-packed earth.

She slowly sat up, listening with both her ears and her senses for anyone nearby. Until she could prove otherwise, she had to assume that anyone up here was hostile.

Her body ached, but as she stood and stretched, she began to feel better. She’d have several colorful bruises, but those she could live with.

She turned a full circle, looking for any signs of life—or anything, for that matter. Clouds billowed around her like a thick fog, obscuring everything. She pulled out her tricorder, but it wasn’t working. More than that, it didn’t even have power. It was completely dead. She clipped it back to her belt and tried the combadge in her earrings. That, too, failed. As her anti-grav boots. “Great. I’m on my own.”

Maybe not. When she and Jason were both on the station, or on the planet, she could feel him in the back of her mind. Not his thoughts, but she knew what mood he was in and his general location. She reached out to him now. She was technically still on Pangaea, and Jason’s beach home wasn’t out of range. But even that failed. She felt nothing. No hum of background noise. No sense of any life at all. Everything was totally silent.

Alanna wrapped her arms around her stomach. ”Jason?” He’d heard her before, on the alternate Risa when she was locked in Sovok’s office. Surely she could reach him now? But try as she might, there was nothing but silence like a thick blanket of snow covering everything.

“I can’t stay here,” she said to hear her own voice. “I can’t just sit and wait for someone to find me—if they find me.” There was no telling if anyone would climb the beanstalk, or if there would still be a beanstalk. Or even if they’d come out in the same place she did.

She heard a high-pitched whistle that seemed to echo around her. She dropped to her knees with only a small gasp pf pain and listened.

It came again, this time as more of a trill. She still didn’t sense anyone, but she began to hear movement coming from somewhere to her left.

It made an odd, tapping/sliding sound as it approached. Alana poked her head up and saw an odd creature that seemed to resemble something like a walking phasmid. Like someone had made a creature out of sticks with a leafy mop for hair. It didn’t bend as much as fold as it moved toward her.

She ducked back under the cloud, hoping it wouldn’t see her. It paused, turning its head this way and that, then moved on.

As it passed, she noted that it was a good twelve feet tall. She was fascinated by how it moved. Part of her wanted to follow it and find out where it went and if it was sentient. The rest of her wanted to stay hidden and find a way back to Pangaea.

Maybe she could follow it a short way to see if there were others of its kind and if they had a way down. She again poked her head above the clouds to see where it was going.

There was another sharp whistle and the creature turned. First, its body turned her way, then the feet followed.

She dropped back to the ground, but it again came toward her. Dumb move, Alanna, she said to herself.

She heard several clicks and another whistle, then something closer to her height appeared through the clouds. This did resemble a stick insect. It poked what looked like its face at her and made a series of clicking noises.

They were answered by a series of whistles, then the stick creature stood over her. Its long, stick-like arms grabbed her and hauled her up, holding her in front of it as it turned back the way it came, clicking for the smaller creature who came after.

Well, she thought, if nothing else, she’d find out where they came from.

____
OFF

Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer and Intrepid Beanstalk Climber
DS5

 

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