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warp_corinthCosette glanced down at her PADD and began to speak, her voice too soft and too sweet, though matched the mission at hand. "So, as you've been briefed, according to biological scans, we should be able to find a handful of plants here that seem to have the same genetic makeup as the plants we'd otherwise find on Earth: Aloe vera, Centella asiatica, Paullinia cupana, and Hypericum perforatum. I've--"
"Calendula maritima, too." Bahorel cut in, startling Cosette, who blinked up at his interjection. In brief explanation, a little gruffly, "That particular species has been extinct on Earth for a handful of centuries now, so it won't be in the database, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of it around here as is."
Cosette nodded, though it was nearly more a disconcerted quiver in confusion than it was any inclination of the head. Bahorel continued, unperturbed, to the rest of the retrieval crew. "If anyone finds it, grab me or Fauchelevent. Don't fuck around with it; Joly'll find good use for it (so long as no one's allergic), and the last thing you want on this lost-in-space adventure is to upset your CMO." His gruffness gave way to a slightly sentimental touch, though, a slightly softer tone. "And even if he can't, at least we'll be able to take some home with us; if it's managed to last out here, maybe we'll be able to reintroduce the strain on Earth."
"Good to know that the lieutenant has his priorities in check!" Bossuet murmured to the person nearest him.
With a nod of approval to continue from Bahorel, Cosette picked up where she'd left off, eyes set on her team. "All of the aforementioned plants and what they should look and scan like have been uploaded to your tricorders. We shall disperse as discussed earlier, and meet back here in 0300 hours. Are there any questions?"
"Calendula maritima, too." Bahorel cut in, startling Cosette, who blinked up at his interjection. In brief explanation, a little gruffly, "That particular species has been extinct on Earth for a handful of centuries now, so it won't be in the database, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of it around here as is."
Cosette nodded, though it was nearly more a disconcerted quiver in confusion than it was any inclination of the head. Bahorel continued, unperturbed, to the rest of the retrieval crew. "If anyone finds it, grab me or Fauchelevent. Don't fuck around with it; Joly'll find good use for it (so long as no one's allergic), and the last thing you want on this lost-in-space adventure is to upset your CMO." His gruffness gave way to a slightly sentimental touch, though, a slightly softer tone. "And even if he can't, at least we'll be able to take some home with us; if it's managed to last out here, maybe we'll be able to reintroduce the strain on Earth."
"Good to know that the lieutenant has his priorities in check!" Bossuet murmured to the person nearest him.
With a nod of approval to continue from Bahorel, Cosette picked up where she'd left off, eyes set on her team. "All of the aforementioned plants and what they should look and scan like have been uploaded to your tricorders. We shall disperse as discussed earlier, and meet back here in 0300 hours. Are there any questions?"
no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 08:29 am (UTC)In fact, it didn't take much longer before they finished collecting their samples and began to scan about for other potentially useful flora. Cosette discovered a few strains of what seemed to be edible fungi, and directed Ensign Lesgle to inform the Commander while she gathered a plot's worth as a potential addition to their food sources. They would never know just how long they'd be out here, after all, and in the case that it turned out to be inedible, at least Lt. Gagnier would have an opportunity to study the saprotroph -- and how it could possibly survive in what seemed to be such a warm-weather environment...
Félicien's message read as follows:
Ever the obscure twenty-nth century pop culture geek, that one. He smirked up at Cosette when she finally stood and gestured him to follow her a little deeper into the forest again.
---------
Quickly snapping the last compartment closed, Bahorel awaited Feuilly's return for pickup. A quick scan would still indicate no hostile life signs, no large bugs of any nature, and no strange temperature patterns in his immediate surroundings, either.
But when the small scrapes still gracing his face and knuckles from the anomaly began to burn, Bahorel frowned. That ... shouldn't make any sense, considering those had more or less healed and scabbed over by now, merely being superficial wounds. Nevertheless, he lifted an arm to wipe his brow free of sweat (it was warm enough to warrant it despite such a short sprint, after all), but the back of his hand came away dry, and his fresh-skinned knuckles only burned harder.
A deeper frown. He had had the good judgment to at least keep the filtered breathing device in his mouth through his sprint here, but this could be a problem... Running his tricorder to identify the composition of the air surrounding him, Bahorel then whipped out his PADD and typed quickly to Combeferre:
And if his Commander would insist that he beam back aboard immediately?
Without his badge, there was no way for Bahorel to contact anyone on-board, let alone get beamed up for treatment, so he hoped to high hell that nothing had happened to Combeferre or the others.
In the meanwhile, he detached the full containers from his belt and set it in the center of the clearing before making his way through the tall grass around him; he'd need to find the source of the pollen, in case the symptoms got worse and required more knowledge of its properties. Besides, nothing was coming up with a ping for his cherished Calendula, so it wouldn't hurt to start looking a little earlier than his rendezvous with Feuilly, now that he'd realized Combeferre could relate his location to the Vulcan by proxy.
Problem solving...! Bahorel grinned as he set out to search for the offending plant.
{{ ACRONYMS || OB: On Board. | LOC: Location (coordinates). | BD: Beam Down. | SVP: S'il Vous Plaît. | MR6: Merci. }}
no subject
Date: 2014-08-16 03:56 pm (UTC)A sigh through his breather, and he flipped to the communications square.
To Bossuet:
Jon Snow? I'm nearly there. Only send emergency communications, light on time.
Reminded, before sliding the screen over to reveal Bahorel's message.
Expression dimming, his body tensed as he fired off a quicker reply:
Beam to medical, Crewman M. in beaming bay prepared for-
Ah. And then the second ping arrived.
Snorting through his nose with a groan, he deleted the last, and relayed a message to Feuilly and Montparnasse instead, copying from Bahorel's:
Lt. B at -25.35445, -9.48384. Beam Lt. F + Badge to locale. Lt. F to take Calendula IF within a one-minute range of location. Lt. B to be beamed directly to sickbay.
Then, to Bahorel:
Wait there. Run scans for Calendula. If within a one-minute range of pickup, Lt. F will arrange. You are being beamed to SB.
To Bossuet, and Cosette, then:
Pickup whatever you have and request immediate beam-back. Now. If you are missing a strain of anything, LMK. I will complete pickup.
To hell with it that Bossuet was the security, here. He wasn't seeing another friend harmed in this luckless adventure so far. Not still steeped in the bounds of week one.
Then, lastly, he thought he might send a message to Alexis, to keep him informed of what was happening on the ground, and abreast of Combeferre's decisive orders. ...No. On better thought, to Jehan. (No one could blame him for choosing to communicate directly to the Communications Officer on board, after all.)
J. Within 2Min, should have all aboard. I will take-
He paused to check his watch.
-6 extra. Please have an escort for team to medical for scans after the drop-off in agricultural. All flora should be contained, so as not to infect other plant-life aboard; possible spore and/or insect infestation. -C.
All right, then. Six minutes to gather his target, and whatever else the others had been unable to collect on the short surface mission. He'd make up for the low harvest in replicator rations, where he could produce at least three healthy copies of each plant if he decided he did not particularly need an officer's dinner for the next four weeks. Considering the amount of pressure he felt himself under, fasting seemed inevitable. So, then.
Come out, come out, wherever you are, Centella.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-20 06:39 am (UTC)At least, Félicien would wryly hope that that was the case; it would be just his luck that this was all a simulation, all being projected in their minds while they slept, only dreaming that they were launching into Real Space, on a Real Starship, on a Fake Mission, just to see how the cadets would react when presented with a life-and-death situation.
That, in turn, would explain why there were no cameras on board -- at least, to their knowledge, anyway. A handful of cadets had joked about it in the mess hall one day, and a paranoid Engineering cadet had adamantly insisted there weren't any, having checked during two of his off-hour shifts in lieu of sleep. Félicien would remember it clearly, because the kid from Engineering had caused quite a scene when he broke out into panicked tears, as no one else seemed to be concerned by the thought that they might never get home; what is wrong with you people?!, and needed to be ushered out by a friend. An awkward silence had descended across the room, where they'd all been trying to keep their heads up, their spirits lifted, using their Captain's encouraging speech from the announcement earlier that day to help them maintain their upward trajectory.
But he digressed.
Bossuet watched as Cosette began to gather a different set of plants, handed her his empty containers when she gestured for them, and secured her full ones to his waist. Typing back to Rene:
When Rene replied so swiftly, he frowned a little and read the message. He managed to grab Cosette's attention and pointed at his PADD.
Cosette nodded and straightened up, read Rene's message, and shot back a quick response while Bossuet sent one to Montparnasse:
She nodded in Bossuet's direction when she saw the message had sent, who only shook his head with a bit of a shrug.
At the confused look she returned to him, he simply removed his breather and tapped his badge. "Ensign Lesgle to Transport Room; have you received my message? Requesting immediate beam-up for myself and Fauchelevent." And popping his breather back in before awaiting the response.
Cosette's brow furrowed further as the lack of response staggered on; she, too, would pull out her breather, to try her badge in turn. "Montparnasse, do you read?"
Still, silence.
The thrill of a time limit would be enough to spur Bahorel forward, that he'd set his sights to coordinates that prioritized this mystery plant. His job came first, before his own personal wishes; in that, Bossuet would be wrong about his priorities. The safety of his crew was by far always going to be Bahorel's primary objective, even if it was at his own expense, that he'd send away his equals and his superiors back onboard just as quickly as he would his subordinates if he feared for their wellbeing.
He hoped that Bossuet was doing him proud in the meanwhile, and ensuring Cosette and Rene's safety. The cadet was a bit of a jokester and was often hardpressed to take things seriously, but when push came to shove, Bahorel knew the man to be coolheaded and rational despite being under duress, and would trust him to complete his mission and take the two back to the ship safely.
The density of pollen in the air seemed to indicate that Bahorel was getting close to the plant in question, but it increased so dramatically that simply breathing through the filter became difficult, as well, to say nothing about the searing pain that tore at his non-wounds.
Rounding the corner would bring to view a massive organism, debated as being plant or plantlike creature as it pulsed and belched pollen as though it were sentient, though scans would indicate the latter was highly unlikely. That ... was certainly not something that would be able to be beamed back, nope. Luckily, it seemed as though the pain remained restricted to recently healed wounds, that neither eyes nor the spaces around his fingernails or any other such crevice seemed to be affected by it; regardless, Bahorel would be swift about opening up an empty canister and capturing a thick cloudful of the pollen before re-securing it to his hip. At least the larger sample, untainted by his skin's oils, might be usable.
Bahorel scanned the organism to save its specs in his PADD's local database for future study, and then sprinted away from the plant as quickly as he could, in a direction that might possibly yield his second quarry.
Directing the following PADD messages to Combeferre and to Feuilly, with a pause between each new one:
And in case something were to happen to him, at least they'd have something to work with if the others'd ingested the pollen in trace amounts, as well.
However, as he would not have received affirmation of Feuilly's beamdown and/or a request for new coordinates, Bahorel assumed that Feuilly would not receive the message; not having a badge still made it impossible for his PADD to transmit all the way back to the Corinth, so he'd take matters into his own hands for now and continue the search until Combeferre could provide him with further instructions.
"Ground Team, do you read?" Lucien called again, addressing all three badges in use, to no effect. His eyes narrowed as he punched in several commands and received no blips on his screen; communications had suddenly gone down with the away team, and scanners weren't even picking up their badge signatures anymore. They were, however, picking up their life signs, that he could at least spot where all four of them were on the small planet. There were small miracles after all.
A quick glance at the clock: three and a quarter minutes left to go -- and negative fourteen seconds and counting for him to rectify whatever it was that had caused the sudden blackout.
"Transport Room to Bridge; I've lost contact with the ground team. I'm looking now for possible causes. Stand by." He narrowed the communications stream to the head of Engineering next. "Lt. Feuilly, beaming you back to Transport Bay on your mark; there's some sort of interference coming from the planet's surface preventing beam-up. Requesting assistance at your earliest convenience."
Suddenly, a flickered return of the northernmost blip. Lucien's voice was urgent and swift, businesslike and with none of the lazy disrespect from earlier; he couldn't afford to miss this chance in case communication cut again. "Commander, do you read? I've lost badge contact with Ensign Lesgle and Crewman Fauchelevent but still have them on scanners. They look to be moving north toward you..." He hesitated for a second as he watched the two blips move -- and move swiftly in Combeferre's direction. Frowning. "And at a running pace, too. ... Checking scans now."
Lucien glanced back over at another display console, brought up every array of scans, swiped each one aside, to see if he could find one that might capture something more than just those arbitrary pinpoints of-- Ah. His jaw set firm as he swapped to simultaneously address Combeferre, the Bridge, and Engineering all at once, urgent, and angrier more than anxious:
"Large, amorphous heat signature reading up to 376K shifting up from the southwest to pursue Lesgle and Fauchelevent at a sprinting speed of about 20.1 km/h, northward toward the Commander." His fingers flew over the console to try to estimate where he'd have to form a beam lock on the fleeing pair for the instant that they reappeared in range, trying to anticipate their movements and adjust the coordinates accordingly. In a near hiss as he worked, still aware that he was speaking over the intercom: "Am I the only person on this ship doing his job? What idiot was supposed to be monitoring heat signatures???"
{{ ACRONYMS || DSL: Désolé. | BU: Beam Up. | QCL: Quarantine Containment Level. | JIC: Just In Case. }}
no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 04:19 pm (UTC)And then, ah. There it was. Two minutes for crew; earlier than they should be back; and six minutes for him; later. It was a judgement call, and Rene didn't trust Alexis to agree with it, but he did trust himself to make it as the unit on the ground. Now it was time for Jehan's own judgement call, regarding the same...
When Montparnasse's voice crackled over the intercom, saying he'd lost contact...
Turning in his seat, speaking to Alexis directly: "Captain. The Commander last made contact with bridge one minute ago; note that his team was ready for beam-aboard." There. That was less 'give them two minutes', and far more 'they got the job done.' One couldn't argue with that. "He requested extra time to get his own catch into a containment pod." In other words, as the bridge team only knew that Montparnasse had lost contact, and nothing about the heat signatures yet- "Engineering should focus on beaming the ground team up before the commander, if they can get a lock. Please advise?"
He let his finger hover over the comm, for what response he should deliver to Montparnasse.
---------------------------
The moment Feuilly was in the transport room, he was stepping up beside Lucien, and making calibrations.
The solution was obvious, if difficult.
"If you have communication with the Commander, inform him we are doing a manual lock beam- on the Lieutenants first."
Bahorel and Combeferre both needed more time, and were in slightly less harrowing danger.
"After that, focus on Lt. Bossuet specifically." He would grab Fauchelevent. That way, neither of them were stepping on the other's toes, and there was a higher chance that at least one of them would succeed.
---------------------------
That Lucien had left the intercom on (the side-note to the bridge made Combeferre feel just great, thank you; all fine down here), he was able to hear Feuilly's relay, and spoke quickly, using his PAAD to search as he did.
"Lt. Bahorel needs to be beamed aboard with a Level Three containment field. He still needs a minute. I- I'm going to stay right here, and after you've grabbed those two, I'm going to need you to beam me to other coordinates on-planet." Risky, yes, especially with the shifting nature of the surface... but he couldn't come back empty-handed. Not after the humiliation with Montparnasse. So he'd find another area with the plant life he was looking for, and finish the collection mission before beam-aboard.
"Combeferre out."
Locating another patch, he sent the coordinates quickly before sighing, looking on ahead in the direction where Cosette and Felicien would be coming from, and steeled himself.
Then, wrote back to Bahorel:
You have one minute. Get it done.
Beware heat signatures.
See you on board.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 10:35 am (UTC)Rene was sending the team aboard ahead of time, and remaining alone for a little while longer... Though that did not bode well, he remembered again the last chat they had had regarding the chain of command, and forced himself to shake the feeling off.
"Have Engineering do what they must to get that lock; prioritize the ground team sans the Commander," Alexis agreed with a tight nod. "I trust the Commander's call, but if communications don't come back soon, he should still be locked on for emergency beam-up. Keep vigilant."
Feuilly's efficiency was something that Lucien would never fail to appreciate; if the Patron Minette were to have a contingency of Vulcans at hand, rather than half of the useless humans on board this ship, perhaps they wouldn't need to wait quite so long for their eventual rise.
"Sir--" he would go to affirm, though it seemed the Commander had overheard. Lucien snorted to himself silently as he moved to follow his commanding officer's order, tracing the life form blipping as it ran slightly ahead of its mate, focused.
He would leave the line open, however, that the Bridge would also hear Combeferre's report, that if he had left it on for the Commander to hear Feuilly, then surely the Captain could hear them, too -- at least until Combeferre cut the connection. It would be interesting, after all, to see just which trials by fire people were willing to forgive and forget, and which ones would further strengthen any bonds.
Thénardier had ordered that Lucien should monitor the situation and make himself useful, but he had never said he couldn't also enjoy himself in the meanwhile.
"Do we have a visual yet?" Alexis asked the Bridge, jaw certainly tight now, running through the list of possible reasons why Rene would choose such a risky venture. From a level-three containment field to massive heat signatures affecting his crew, there was plenty of danger implied to suggest that it would be best to beam Rene back aboard as well...
When the visual came up, however, not much could be made out at first, that the trees made for a difficult screen for the cameras to pierce through. There were the two heads of the humans weaving through the forest at breakneck speeds, barely a handful of metres away from a thick cloud that sparked and glinted like a crackling thunderstorm after them.
Alexis's lips parted in surprise, the rest of the bridge looking on in a similarly dumbfounded fashion, as the trees finally thinned into a clearing and the cloud erupted into plain view.
A thick swarm of bugs, wings glinting in the light, the largest of them judged to be half the size of a grown man, flew directly toward Bossuet and Cosette in an otherwise amorphous formation, roughly 30 metres across and 20 metres deep. If one were to try to compare them to any sort of Earth creature, they resembled locusts in general shape, though, while in flight, their bodies drooped and curved a little downward in the manner of a feeding mosquito. They were mostly dark and metallic in colour -- coppers, blacks, silvers, golds -- though they seemed to be made of rock more than metal itself, and scans would still be unable to penetrate through the material to produce readings of lifesigns; further inspection would find that they were, indeed, covered in the same sort of minerals that made up the core of the planet.
Yet it wasn't the strange bugs or their lack of readings as lifesigns or the general mass of them that held everyone's attention in that moment of shock -- it was the streaks of scorched earth that the cloud left behind in their wake. Every inch of foliage that the swarm seemed to pass over withered into a crisp, that Montparnasse's earlier maximum reading of 376º K (or roughly 217º F) would do its magic over the greenery that the massive cloud passed. The darkest burns seemed to follow along the trail of the largest insects, that the ground behind them specifically was striped in irregular intervals.
The staticky sound of a broken comm line stuttered, bringing everyone's attention back to focus.
"Let's-----this aga-----esgle to Transp----oom----get a beam-u---? ----etty pleas----ith suga----on top? ... Hello??"
Bahorel had finally managed to find something promising, that it wasn't quite the Calendula, but the soil was beginning to turn richer, as though that scorching heat that had affected the previous clearings had never approached in this direction somehow, and that boded well for his search.
When Rene's message came through, he raised a brow, that he would have missed the entirety of the exchange, and known nothing at all of the dangers that pursued the others.
The moistness of the air around him soothed the burning of his wounds, which boded well, that perhaps water would be more than enough to wash the pollen away. Bahorel breathed in a little more deeply through his breather again, without quite realizing that, as it was only intended to filter out for underwater breathing, was still coated fairly thickly with the pollen from the unknown organism.
Yet that thought wouldn't even cross his mind as his eyes espied the telltale yellow-orange of his beloved Calendula, that Bahorel had not seen such a beautiful sight in ever. He might have teared up somewhat when he crouched down before the precious little flower, caressed it ever so carefully with his fingertip, but no one would have known it, that he was alone.