Ghost Town

Posted on Sun Apr 21st, 2013 @ 2:41pm by Captain Elsie Halliwell & Chief Petty Officer Adriana Keen & Captain Alexsa Kendrick & Lieutenant Jade'n SnowDen & Lieutenant JG Marcus Augusta PHD

2,487 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Rumours, Promises, and Lies
Location: Forbidden Planet, Heading 015 from Campbell>
Timeline: Mission Day 6: 2030 hrs

ON:

The dual suns were blinding; piercing down through the cushioned clouds above to allow an uncomfortable amount of light, but not heat, through to their aching feet. This island sure was dusty and on the little beads of sweat that had started to form about her brow, brown, orange-like, dusty smears began to emerge.

Elsie and her team had been hiking for the last hour and a half, saddled only with what water rations were on board the Campbell and each laden with a standard issue, black rucksack. Her boots were were beginning to ache, but since she'd warned off resting en route, she felt less desire to complain about the rough terrain or her soles. She half figured that a group of Starfleet officers should easily manage a two hour exercise drill and as such, since time was of the essence, she didn't waver.

Suddenly breaking the silence, T'mpest's voice come through on Halliwell's combadge, "Michaels to Halliwell."

Halliwell looked to her combadge and stopped walking, slowing the others of her group down. "Halliwell here. Go head."

"Request permission to split into two teams to examine two signals."

She paused for a moment and considered the question, looking to Kendrick before replying, who just made a 'your call' expression. "I'd prefer you to stick together, Commander. If neither teams find anything of significance in our selected locales, then we'll rendezvous at the third."

"Very well. T'mpest out."

After the brief conversation with her first officer, the team continued on their path and the landscape slowly began to level off, pitted craters slowly passed them by as they walked onwards. Looking up, shielding her wisping hair out of her eyes that had started to struggle loose from its gripped ponytail, she imagined that she saw movement. Subtle and almost mirage-like. She halted.

For Kendrick, there was something eerily familiar about this planet--it's landscape, vegetation, air, gravity--like a song reminding you of an old friend. Alex shut that thought out of her head as soon as it had entered, as an image of her mother flashed across her inner vision. She had gone on a few steps in front of Halliwell before noticing that everyone had stopped on a dime. Looking back around and then where Elsie's eyes were trained, she asked, "What is it?"

Squinting, Elsie narrowed her gaze on the dark, dancing specks that occupied her horizon as she lowered her hand from her forehead. "I'm... not too sure," she staggered truthfully. "Maybe nothing."

"Ma'am, I've got movement ahead," Reo uttered has he trod up behind her. His tricorder whirred quietly as he bent down to all fours. "I really don't like this."

Adriana was in decent shape; she spent a lot of time crawling and climbing in the Jeffries Tubes, so she was used to those kinds of motions. She was still lagging at the back of the line, though. She watched her team mates warily, the Captain included. Barker's words echoed in her head. Was Halliwell borderline suicidal? Was she willing to sacrifice the crew as well? And were any of the others here Barker's 'friends;' if they were, were they watching her to see where her loyalties were?

The feeling of isolation was strange to her; Adriana was a social and outgoing person, but she didn't know- and didn't dare trust- any of this team. She chewed her lower lip. When Snowpaw- what species was he anyway? She had to wonder- spoke, she started nervously and looked around for an ambush or a storm brewing or a rockslide... She saw nothing and tried to calm herself.

"I...I've also got a life form," Reo grimaced as he tapped the tricorder's screen with a clawed digit. "Twelve o'clock about nine hundred fifty four meters out."

"Lifeform?" Kendrick asked suspiciously, almost as though she doubted the Lieutenant's ability to interpret the tricorder's readings. "There shouldn't be any life here apart from fauna and insects."

"Correction ma'am, lifeforms, two of them, small and humanoid," Reo almost whispered as he instinctively unsheathed his fore claws. "The tricorder is working perfectly, which means we've got company."

Elsie looked to Kendrick and then shot a glance to Augusta as she instinctively grabbed the protruding handle of her phaser which she had holstered during the climb. "Lieutenant?" she asked, "Hostile?"

Marc beat the captain to the punch and drew his weapon in earnest. His normal cool composure seemed to have evaporated as he felt the cool sweat dribbling subtly over his brow.

"No energy signatures detected, ma'am but that doesn't rule out knives or projectile weapons at the moment," Reo said as all fifteen of his remaining claws unsheathed to their full three inch length. He locked his Storm cloud grey eyes on Kendrick almost willing for a moment to speak with her, this was definitely not something good.

Elsie inhaled but kept a tight, white-knuckled grip on her phaser, still undrawn and attached to her tiny waist. She looked at no one, just ahead, and then made the first step forward. "Let's move-out and head towards them."

"Suggest low and slow Elsie," Alex said as Halliwell passed her, "if there are other people on this planet, they are not indigenous, and we would appear to have no way of determining who they are, what they're doing here, or any kind of threat level."

"Agreed," Elsie added as she nodded, modifying her march.

Adriana bit her lip again. "Maybe we should be going back to the shuttle," she said very quietly. "We don't want to bite off more than we can chew."

The captain, without looking at Keen, replied just as quietly: "No, we move on."

The 'road' ahead was plain and flat aside from a few shrubs and mounds between the away team and the suspected humanoid readings. Alex stood rooted to the spot as the rest of the team passed her, feeling as if eyes were on her but not shifting her gaze. As Adriana Keen passed, Alex swore that she saw an arm briefly, broken and shimmered in the haze of the heat beating down, and then nothing. It also appeared as if no-one else saw it either, so she said nothing.


// 982 metres ahead

"What were you two thinking, get back inside now before I wring both your necks." the brunette said through clenched teeth ushering the two young boys back inside the carbon dwelling. Another coloured woman with short cropped black and curly hair approached before the brunette spoke again, "More travellers approach just like last month. They wear the same uniforms but are different than those before."

Looking back to the house, "Were the boys detected?" she asked with the calming grace of a leader.

The brunette sighed. "I don't know, it's possible for they still approach. Their path and poise are cautious."

"Why did we not see them coming?"

"We did, but their craft landed far away. The last group happened almost on top of us, the readings from the phase generator were disrupted which is why we were almost discovered last time. We didn't think that these people would be able to latch on to the same signature and if it were not for the boys, we would not have a problem--they could walk right on through and wouldn't know any different."

"Obviously our diagnostics and readings are not accurate and the field is not yet fully restored..."

"We needed time to regenerate the matrix and build the field necessary for the entire town." the brunette offered defensively.

"Apparently, time is not something that we have on our side. They will reach us in approximately four condra." The coloured leader paused--this was not the time to be discovered. "Alert the others. When they arrive, we will not have any luxury of hiding much past then." The brunette didn't move. "There was something else?"

"One of them, is one of us." She let that hang in the air a moment, and then left to round up the few other town leaders.


// The Away Team

Even thought the away team had been approaching slow and cautiously, the apparent emptiness of the plain allowed the away team to traverse the area leading up to the direction of the tricorder ghost readings in relatively short time. From the time they had first detected them to now, they had yet to pick up anything, and the scans of this area were as lifeless as the plain looked with the eye. The team paused in a flat area and scanned the surrounds with both tricorders and their own sight.

"This is definitely where the readings originated, Lieutenant?" Kendrick asked impatiently.

"I got nothing now ma'am," Reo said quietly. "But the motion scans definitely originated from here, yes."

"Could there be some kind of interference with the scans? Atmospherics, polar?"

"Negative ma'am, I've no forms of traditional jamming interference or any kind of ionic storm at the moment," Reo muttered as he closed the tricorder. "The signals simply vanished."

Suddenly, and taking everyone by surprise, an entire town materialised into view surrounding the away team, it appearing almost like a wave of holodeck projections coming on. More concerning, the town was not the only thing that was surrounding the away team, as a group of seven humanoids, indeed looking human, also came into sharp focus about three metres in every direction. Halliwell and the rest of the group were completely surrounded.

Marc spun rapidly on the spot, searching for hostiles to target, there were none. Only a split second passed before Marc regained what was left of his composure.

Elsie instinctively halted and held both arms splayed to protect the gaggle of her crew who were grouped behind her. Her right hand twitched as she momentarily played with the idea re-drawing her phaser but then decided against it. She couldn't reach it in time for it to be effective anyway. Was this an ambush? A cloaked, premeditated device to capture her and her crew? She drew in a breath and lowered her arms a little. "We don't mean you any harm. I'm Captain Elsie Halliwell of the Federation starship Ranger. We're just explorers."

The coloured woman raised her chin, almost amused that this person's, this intruder's thought that would be able to do any harm to the village or its inhabitants, a few more of which had exited the surrounding buildings and homes to look on those that would interrupt their tranquil lives. She smiled benevolently, "I doubt we were in any real danger Captain Halliwell, but your arrival and discovery complicates matters." She paused and stepped forward. "You're with the others, you wear the same uniforms, carry the same equipment," noting Lieutenant Augusta in particular, along with the others' phasers, "and weapons. Why are you here?"

Elsie followed the woman's gaze and gave a short, sharp nod to the team to disarm themselves and holster their phasers. She nervously looked about the the small, narrow doors of houses began to creak as the slightly opened, revealing spying eyes.

Marc grudgingly followed the order but not without placing himself next to the CO out of caution.

"As I said, we're explorers," she began, her eyes flickering about from person to person but addressing the coloured woman. "Something's happening to my crew; to us. A shift in personalities and allegiances within our own communities. So much so that 'the others', as you call them, have perished. Ripped apart from within. And the trail leads back to here. To this planet. And to you."

"Surely you're not blaming us for this." The surrounding party leader said.

Elsie paused a second but continued otherwise unperturbed and in total honesty. "We've come to help ourselves. To see what has caused this catastrophe. And to stop it from harming us."

Reo stayed low to the ground partially growling defensively, partially whimpering in confusion. How did I not scent these guys he thought to him self as he took a protective step towards Halliwell. He kept his long wicked sharp claws unsheathed, something just didn't feel right about this place.

"I see." The town's leader stepped forward minutely. "Now the step has been travelled, the end of the journey already looms." she added solemnly.

Adriana's gaze flew from person to person all around the circle that surrounded them. A whole town? How had the sensors not detected this? And how the hell had they walked right into the middle without seeing- or even running into- anything? She shifted nervously to turn and look for an escape route.

That last line caught the grave attention of Kendrick. Now it seemed like not only the planet had some air of uncommon familiarity, but these people did as well, their mannerisms, their speech, "Who are you?"

"I am called Riesha, and my town and it's people bear you no harm. There is no need for apprehension, or to search for alternate exits." Riesha said stealing a look to Adriana Keen. "We are not explorers, we're not interested in others' plights, for others, we don't even exist. We're squatters, I guess. We survive here in secret and in hiding. We are Emarryn."

Kendrick heart missed a beat, missed several beats as her mind replayed the last sentence over again. Her people were scattered, and a colony of Emarryn's was virtually unheard of, and now they stood, encircled between one.

Elsie shot a look to Kendrick and then circled her gaze back around to Riesha. Speaking quietly but retaining her gaze on the other woman, Elsie said, "Alexsa?" as her own mind tried to make sense of the developing situation.

For a few long seconds, nothing was exchanged between anyone apart from looks, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, Alex Kendrick was at a loss for words. Heck, the last Emarryn she'd seen had been the charred remains of her sister when she was sixteen, and now she was surrounded by an entire colony large enough to house a couple of thousand people.

Riesha looked directly into the eyes of Kendrick. "Aroi da set'u?"

The words were less than familiar, but she understood them--her mother having taught her the basics of syntax and grammar before she had died, her father continuing on after. "Mey. Aroia meyr nedra." Alex said softly before moistening her lips as she rounded up close to talk to Halliwell, her back to Riesha. "Elsie, we're not in danger here. In fact I think that this is probably one of the safest places we could be." she said before turning back to the colony matriarch.

"As I said captain, you've already started down the path to damnation. Lucky for you, it's a path well travelled. I'm sure you have many questions." Riesha said as she walked off toward a single story building near the centre of the town, obviously expecting people to follow her.

 

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