Is There Anyone at Home (Away Team 1) - Part 2

Posted on Mon Nov 30, 2015 @ 8:53pm by Commander Caleb Ryan & Lieutenant JG Rhe'la Daughter of the Forty-ninth House & Lieutenant JG Leonora Dell

1,425 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Pangaea (Wrap up)
Location: Pangea Primary Survey Site (Abandoned Settlement)
Timeline: MD 4/1200

OLD:


Caleb nodded. “Be careful,” he said. “Call if ya need assistance. Check in every twenty.” He took the transponder and clipped it to his belt.

NEW:

There was a coughing sound, a flash of light, and then a whine that started high pitched and rose. There was a moment where it achieved the perfect pitch for freezing blood, and then the nails on a blackboard sound passed above the pitch for humanoid hearing.

"We have power!" Dell announced as she stood in front of the two microfission generators. "Who wants it first?"

“Very good,” Caleb said, wiping sweat from his brow. He had removed his tunic and rolled up his sleeves, the undershirt stained with sweat from his work putting the shelters together. “The lab is set up, so if we get power to it we can start transitioning the equipment inside; maybe set it up, if we have time.”

"Sure. Pass me that cable and I'll get right on that." Dell waved at the empty gravcart, not taking her eyes of the readings on her tricorder.

Caleb grabbed up the length of cable and slung it over his tightly muscled shoulder, carrying it over to Lenora. “Initial survey readings showed the ruins of the castle town down below the bluff,” he commented. “This is getting set up quickly, we might have some time to go explorin’ down there.” He put the cable down at Dell’s feet and stretched, rocking a bit on the balls of his feet to work the muscles of his bum leg. The pain was manageable today, but he might feel it tonight, or in the morning. “Wonder if there’s anythin’ below the castle,” he mused, eying the tower.

"If it’s all the same to you, sir, I'd rather not get in any enclosed spaces on an unknown alien planet. But I can handle everything here. If you want to explore, don't wait for me."

“No worries. We can have some other team head down. We can check out the town, if you’d rather. Maybe after lunch. Get down under the trees, maybe it will be cooler.”

"I will never understand humanoids’ need to be cool. It's a bit humid for my liking, but this planet is pretty nice, temperature wise," Rhe'la remarked, calibrating the amplifier. She would do it again once they hauled everything up the tower, but she had always been a 'measure twice, cut once' type of girl.

Caleb chuckled. “Some of us overheat,” he told the lizard woman with a smile. “Ah do okay in the heat. It gets that way in Texas. But the humidity is what kills,” he said, loading up the last piece on the grav-sled. “This load’s ready to go up,” he said.

"What are you doing?"

The question was asked by a little girl who was perched on a branch in one of the trees. From her skin tone and the point of her ears she might have been a Vulcan, but the petal-like dress that flowed down to her bare feet and the iridescent wings on her back suggested otherwise.

Caleb spun, his hand going to the phaser at his hip until he saw the little girl. “Hello,” he said, a bit warily. “And who are you?” he asked. “We didn’t think anyone was around here.”

"I'm not here exactly, I can't really explain it." She pushed forward and floated feather-like to the ground. The girl approached the sled and appeared to be about to touch it, but her hand appeared to go right through it. "Do you see what I mean? This doesn't exist where I am, so I can't touch it, or you. Are you from the space station?"

Narrowing her eyes, Rhe'la kept a hand close to her phaser. Clearly whacking the child with her pike wouldn't do any good, but a modulated phaser beam might be able to disrupt...whatever it was. "You...know about the station? There doesn't seem to be any technology on this planet that could detect it," she asked cautiously.

The girl turned and peered at the creature. She was a bit like the little reptiles that skittered over the rocks on Cariel III, but much, much bigger. "I like lizards," she said. "I lived there until I came to live here. Can you let my mummy know I'm okay?"

As the realization hit her, Rhe'la's jaw dropped. As a result, she stared at the ethereal child with her snout agape for several seconds. Finally she turned and looked up at Caleb. "Umm... Commander, I know I'm new here, but could she be who I'm thinking she is?"

Caleb was just as much in shock. He dropped his phaser into his holster and pulled out his tricorder, scanning the girl. He handed the device to Rhe’la to keep scanning and dropped down to a knee in front of the child.

“Eviess?” he asked. “It’s Caleb. Commander Ryan. We only met briefly. How are ya here, pumpkin?” he asked with surprise. “Your mother is worried sick over ya.” He reached out to touch the girl’s face, but his hand just went through her and he pulled it back.

She appeared distracted, looking off to the left. Eviess giggled then looked back. "Sprites are so silly! They're telling me it’s you who doesn't exist, not me. They might be right, I don't know. I think you do, just they can't see you."

Looking from Eviess to the tricorder and back again, Rhe'la struggled to come up with words to describe the readings she was getting. "Commander," she whispered, "I'm picking up some low level chroniton and tachyon readings. Wherever the child is, it isn't here. She may be some sort of holographic projection, but I'm not able to discern where the power source or emitter may be."

"I'm here," Eviess said, "on the planet, just not here. The Queen said..." she paused as though remembering a message, "...it was restored to both places. She wants mummy to have it."

“To have the planet?” Caleb asked. “Well, they’ll be discussing that soon enough,” he admitted. “I think she would rather have you, though. “How are ya? Is there a way we can…help?” Caleb was at a loss. Science was always his wife’s territory. Caleb hoped Rhe’la would be able to get some good sensor readings that could help them return this little girl to her mother.

Eviess nodded. Who wanted a stupid old planet anyway? "I can do everything I ever wanted to," she said. "It’s fun."

Caleb frowned. “What about your mother?” he asked. “Don’t you miss her?” Doing whatever they wanted tended to lead to very bad children. They needed boundaries and discipline.

"She's always busy anyway." Eviess looked away again, a look of puzzlement on her face. "Tell mummy what I said. I've got to go."

Eviess didn't disappear exactly. She sprang to her feet, and as she skipped away she grew dimmer and faded to nothing.

“Wait!” Caleb called, but the girl was already gone. He stared at the empty air where she had faded away and sighed, wiping his hand over his mouth in consternation. “She still loves ya,” he said quietly, knowing a bit how the captain must feel.

Straightening, Caleb looked back at the rest of the crew. “Tell me we got some good readin’s?”

In a remarkably Human gesture of confusion, the diminutive Zarnac engineer stared at the readings on the tricorder and scratched the top of her head. "I have...readings. I couldn't even begin to guess if they're 'good' or not because I have no idea what I'm looking at. And without some more information, I don't even know what a baseline would be.

"Frankly, Commander, I haven't been this stumped since the first time I had to realign a dilithium assembly. I'm going to need the science department to go over this once we get back." The poor reptilian looked completely out of her element.

"I'm afraid I'm going to make it worse, Commander." Dell held out her own tricorder, silently in use since the whole conversation had started. "I didn't get anything at all. Molecular dispersion, biomass readings, light, and temperature. If anyone was there, they should have all changed. She was there." She nodded at the ensign’s tricorder and the irrefutable proof that something happened. "And yet, she wasn't."


To be continued ...


Lt. Cmdr. Caleb Ryan
Chief of Tactical/Security

Eviess
NPC by Louise

 

RSS Feed