Rescue or Recovery, Away Team Part 3
Posted on Mon Jun 30th, 2025 @ 10:01pm by Lieutenant JG T'lenn & Commander Maxun Spello & Lieutenant Commander Nash Winters & Lieutenant Xalanth & Lieutenant Daynah Ral & Lieutenant Alexandra Blackstone & Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Edited on on Mon Jun 30th, 2025 @ 10:02pm
1,550 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Gone, Without Ever Knowing the Way
Location: TE 3X031, Class L Moon in Typhon Expanse
Timeline: MD 06: After Part 2
"Human, I think," Xalanth added as they locked the bulkhead door in place before he moved his helmet down the dark corridor. A smashed body was on the floor wearing the tattered remains of a mulshed uniform. " Xalanth, to away team, we have a dead body here. I guess they were killed on impact. "
Alex stooped to inspect the body a little more closely. It showed signs of severe burns and several bones were shattered or protruding. “Yeah; that seems a good guess to me.” She looked at her tricorder and then glanced down a nearly collapsed hallway. “The lifesigns are down there… we will have to be careful”
“I think we’ll be fine for quite a while. Structural integrity is stable for now. Just watch for falling debris and the like. Xalanth, do you think we should split up to reconnoiter? Danger is minimal,” Nash said.
"Good idea, but i want a radio check every five minutes," the lizard said, indicating he'd take a passage to the right.
Alex nodded before heading toward the passage she had indicated but paused just before entering it. She pulled the last 4 stasis generators from her med kit and handed one to each of the others. “These ones aren’t interfaced like ours. Put them on any survivors you find and notify me immediately.”
“Thanks, Doc. Will do,” Nash said as he headed toward a dark corridor.
He scanned as he walked, picking up faint life signs that fluctuated on his tricorder. “Damn, can’t get a clear reading,” he said to himself. “First it shows affirmative for humanoid life, then fades in and out.” Nash activated his communicator.
“Nash to Ral. Daynah, I’m reading life signs but can’t get a fix. I boosted the signal but the readings fluctuate. Anything you can do from up there? There are survivors down here, and we need help locating them. Nash out.”
"Yes Commander. The Astrea's sensors can make short work of that standby..." Dayanah tapped in numerous commands. The ship began to search for human life signs. She filtered out the away team and zeroed in. Daynah almost had them and then a deposit of serillium blocked the reading. No matter a short recalibration of the sensors and she had them again. "...Commander Winters I have the location of the survivors. Sending the coordinates to you now. Keep this channel open and I can give updates as needed."
“Nice work, Lieutenant. Standing by for the coordinates. I’ll keep the frequency open. Please notify transporter room. There may be emergency beam outs necessary. Nash out.”
Daynah sent word down to the transporter room to stand by for transport of survivors. "Aye sir!" She replied over the comm channel before it closed. There was a slight twinge in the pit of her stomach. Things seemed to be going to easy she thought.
“Send those coordinates to me as well, Lieutenant Ral. I am deep in the central tunnel of this wreckage.” Alex was fighting the same issue with her scans; they would give positive results one second and then go blank and lose signal completely the next. “If my calculations are correct… I am beneath the remainder of the Away Team. I’ve found a couple of doors but they are sealed.”
* * *
Aziza could hear voices--indistinct and muffled, as if they were underwater. She wanted so desperately to cry-out but her throat was dry and raw. Each time she tried to say something, no sound came--only a squeaky rasp that seemed brittle and broken.
She was on her side, cheek pressed against the scorched deck plating. Greer was in front of her. His beautiful blue eyes were open, unfocused, and fixed on a point beyond her. The pool of blood around his motionless form told her everything she needed to know: He was gone.
She didn't know how long she'd been like this but she knew the pain in her back was not a good sign. It seemed to radiate from just below her shoulder blades moving outward. Not good, she thought. Her legs felt distant. Spinal. No. Fuck not good--this was super-bad.
There they were again--the voices. She opened her mouth to speak but only a strangled gurgle erupted when she forced air through her cracked lips. Nothing. She needed to get the attention of whomever was in the corridor. But how?
Back at the Shuttle
As he felt his presence would be better served back in the shuttle, keeping an ear open to the various members of the away team, Maxun had returned to the craft and was sitting in the co-pilot's seat, as he kept both communications open and transporter locks on the entire team. Hearing that a body had been found, he started to get an uneasy feeling that they were starting to run out of time. "Spello to away team, don't venture off too far alone. The deeper you go in the wreck, the less clear your transporter signals become. Let's see how much more you can learn, and start making your way back to the shuttle in twenty minutes. How do you copy?"
Nash was the first to respond. “Acknowledged, Commander. We have survivors here. Trying to make heads or tails of the life signs we’re seeing. People are still alive here, Max. We can’t just leave them.”
Alex echoed Nash’s answer. “I count at least two survivors in here that I can pick up regularly, Commander. I second that we can’t in good conscience abandon them. They may be able to tell us what happened here.”
Maxun nodded as he listened to the reports, then replied, "Understood. Do what you dan to secure the survivors, so long as you do not endanger your own lives." He worked his controls, keeping an eye on both the team, the crashed ship, and the active lava flow in the ground beneath them all. "Sensors are showing that the ground crust could give way at any moment. Do what you can in there, then get out, understood?"
"Aye, sir." The response from Alex was slightly strained with exertion as she maneuvered through the wreck.
“Understood, Commander,” Nash concurred.
Xalanth let out a sigh as he stepped over another body. His suit autopulled their ID from their identification chip. Ensign T'Var, only been in the fleet for eight months. What a waste. His metal boots sent echoes around the wreck, yet he heard no reply.
Pausing, he remembered back to the lessons his mothers had taught him back upon the desert plains of his homeworld. Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing, doing nothing but listen for the slightest....
He heard the gurgling, faint, but close. Someone was still alive. Checking his scanner, he cursed, something was interfering with it. Slowing his breathing again, he closed his eyes, going into predator mode, listening for nothing but the faintest of sounds.
Closer, closer, close.....
He opened his eyes. The noise was coming from inside the room whose door he was standing outside. Reaching out he began to pull the door open.
* * *
She was slipping again.
Everything felt disjointed, as if her mind was a column of unaligned data blocks. Fragments would surface--her mother's voice humming a Berber lullaby, a misaligned target readout in tactical simulation, Greer's hand squeezing hers before beaming down--but the present time would not stick. She couldn't remember why they were here, what happened to the ship or even why it seemed to hot. Her brain kept skipping and rewinding. Nothing made sense.
The rasping breath came again, involuntary and sharp. She hated the sound. Hated the weakness of it. Hated that she couldn't lift her head or move her legs. The blood at her temple had gone tacky now. That meant time had passed. Enough time for someone to find her. And enough time for Greer to die.
Suddenly, there was a sound. Like metal shifting. Not the creaks of a hull under stress, but of someone physically forcing metal against metal. There was a presence just beyond the edge of her blurred vision. Her instincts seized the moment before her mind could. She reached back into her training, into language. But all that came was a fluttering numbness behind her sternum and one solitary thought: someone has found us.
~tbc~
Commander Maxun Spello
First Officer
USS Astrea
Lt. Commander Nash Winters
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant Alexandra Blackstone
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant Xalanth
Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant Daynah Ral
Chief Operations Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant J.G. Jean-Baptist Dorsainvil (as survivors)
Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea
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