"Transporter Chief, this is the captain, come in!" shouted Captain Mark Freeman over the intercom.
"Chief McClellan here sir," came back a female voice with just a hint of an accent the captain couldn't quite place. "The watch Chief is here also."
"Chief McClellan, status of transporters? Can you get a lock on our people down below?" the captain asked.
"Negative sir. I can't read their signals, and the transporters are still out at any rate," she responded.
"Pull in as many officers as you need; I want those transporters working within the hour, Chief!" the captain ordered.
A nearly inaudible moan of dismay filled the silence between the captain's order and the vocal reply of the transporter chief, "As you say, Captain. McClellan out."
"In the mean time," the captain said, addressing the bridge crew, "we can do something useful. Ensign Gates, using all available information, plot an estimated point of impact for the Xerxes on the planet. I want you and Lt. Hathaway to plot an intensive search pattern centered on that point and spiraling outwards. We need to find our officers!"
"But captain, our sensors are barely getting anything through this storm. How will we find them?" Lt. Hathaway asked.
"Perhaps they can signal us somehow. Carry out my orders, Lt.," responded the captain. Captain Freeman then walked around the bridge, eventually ending up at the tactical station. "Interesting, the effects of that beam on us, wouldn't you say Lt. O'Shea?" the captain asked the tactical officer. "And this atmospheric disturbance; rather convenient timing, wouldn't you agree?"
"Yessir," O'Shea responded. "There is an intelligence at work here."
"Hostile?" the captain asked.
"Perhaps," O'Shea said. "It might just be defending itself however. We might be very frightening to it."
The captain nodded and smiled and patted the tactical officer on the back. He then walked back around and sat in the command chair.
"Search course plotted Captain," Ensign Gates reported, swinging around in her chair to face the captain.
"Excellent; engage Ensign," the captain ordered. Ensign Gates swung back around to her panel, while glancing at Lt. Hathaway who nodded at her. They initiated the search pattern.
"What will we do while the search area is being explored sir?" Lt. Hathaway asked.
"Do? We'll wait Lt.," the captain said with a slight annoyance in his voice. He added more softly, "We'll just have to wait."
On the planet surface lay the wrecked shuttlecraft, its hull breached. Slowly, cautiously, the shuttle's occupants emerged from the wreckage one by one. Based on the condition of the shuttle, an onlooker might have thought there would be no survivors, but, miraculously, all the occupants emerged alive. All four had been bruised up by the impact; Ivanovna had an open gash on her forehead, and by the way Reiv was holding his left arm, it was probably broken.
The sky was dark with clouds billowing overhead and lightning and thunder all about; thankfully, it wasn't raining. The Bajoran Lt. Reiv sat clutching his arm on a nearby rock, while the doctor attended to Lt. Ivanovna and her open wound. Commander Cecilia Yilaan took a tricorder reading of the area.
"Well it would appear this planet is survivable at any rate; no surprises," Yilaan said, referring to the temperature and the amount of oxygen in the air.
"Glad to hear that," said Dr. Marisa Giovanni, as she patched up Ivanovna and moved over to Lt. Reiv. "Yep, this is definitely broken," the doctor said, indicating the Lt.'s left arm.
The Lt. gave Giovanni a pained 'I could've told you that' expression, but remained silent. The doctor took something out of her med-kit and attempted to activate it; when it failed, she frowned. "Commander, some of my instruments aren't working," Giovanni reported to Yilaan.
Commander Yilaan tapped her comm-badge, "Bristol, this is Yilaan, come in." No response came back. "Bristol, acknowledge, this is Commander Yilaan," the commander repeated. Again, she was greeted with no response.
"Check the shuttle for supplies," Yilaan ordered Ivanovna and Giovanni. "And bring back phasers for each of us; we don't know what we're facing down here, and it would be helpful if we were somewhat prepared for the worst," she added.
Ivanovna proceeded back to the shuttle and looked around it and inside of it. Soon after, the chief medical officer returned and reported. "Commander, the medical supplies on board the shuttle are destroyed, or contaminated so as to be unusable," she said irritably.
"What do you mean 'contaminated'?" Lt. Reiv interjected.
"An energy conduit on board is leaking, and various contaminants have corrupted some of the contents of the shuttle," the doctor said. "Unfortunately, this also includes the emergency rations. With the replicators also off-line...." the doctor let her sentence hang.
"We have some work to do, it would appear," Yilaan said, calmly completing the doctor's report. "Dr., you and Reiv search around and see what you can find in the way of food; I'm going to see what Ivanovna's up to in the shuttle."
"I should be able to find some wood or something to help splint your arm Lt.," the doctor said to Lt. Reiv, who nodded back in appreciation as the two of them walked off.
"Be back in an hour," Yilaan called after them, "With this cloud cover and these storms, we can't tell what time of day it is; it could easily start getting dark soon." She then walked over to the wreckage of the shuttle where Ivanovna was attempting to operate some controls.
"Status Lt.?" Yilaan asked of the chief security officer.
"As you can see sir, it's a disaster. However, I think I can do something with it," Ivanovna said, pausing to duck under a panel and fiddle with some wiring. "The shuttle's only operating on battery power at the moment. I might be able to get partial sensors operational, so we could tell where we are, and where those elusive lifeforms are. If we're fortunate, I'll pull it off without permanently shorting it out."
"I have confidence in you Lt.; proceed with the modifications," Yilaan ordered. She then added, "Sounds like you have a little engineering blood in you."
"My grandfather was an engineer aboard a Federation transport ship. He taught me a lot of things."
"Why didn't you go into Engineering instead of Security and Tactical training?"
At that moment the tool Ivanovna was working with broke something off of the panel she was working on. Ivanovna swore loudly in Russian, slightly startling Yilaan. "It's too annoying," Ivanovna replied. "My grandfather had a fascination with tools and making them do new and exciting things with the hunks of titanium and other metals around him. I see the body and the mind as the tool to accomplish things of importance. Machines are a little too...I don't know...cold for me at times."
"Yet here you are making shuttle wreckage into something useful," Yilaan teasingly pointed out.
Lt. Ivanovna stopped working for a moment and leaned out to look Commander Yilaan in the eye. "I do what needs to be done," Ivanovna said with seriousness, either not noticing or ignoring Yilaan's teasing. "I'm sure my grandfather would be proud."
"I'm sure he would be Lt.," Commander Yilaan replied. "Carry on."
Ivanovna nodded, "Aye sir," and went back to work.
About a half hour later, Lt. Reiv and Dr. Giovanni returned, hands dirty and arms full of vegetation. "We're in luck Commander!" the doctor called out. "There are enough edible plants and fungus here to last a long time! There's even a slow moving stream not too far from here. I know this great stew I'll make tonight for us; you'll love it, I promise!"
Yilaan smiled, "Very good Doctor, you seem to have things well in hand."
The doctor prepared the stew as promised, using bits and pieces of the shuttle's wreckage for pots and bowls. "This is a very old recipe from my family," the doctor said as she poured some of the stew into bowls for her shipmates. "It goes back several generations, and is quite delicious if I do say so myself. Of course this planet doesn't have the original ingredients called for, but I think the substitutes will do just fine."
"Is any of this poisonous?" Ivanovna asked.
The doctor got an innocent look on her face, "Gee. I don't know Lt., I don't think so." Ivanovna paled before Dr. Giovanni laughed. "No Lt., nothing here is poisonous; I checked it all out with my medical tricorder before preparation," she said. Lt. Ivanovna didn't appear to enjoy the joke.
Lt. Reiv, noting a moss-like film floating on the top of his serving, inquired, "What's all in this Doctor? Do you even know?"
Doctor Giovanni smiled, "Sorry Reiv; that's a secret." Noting everyone's hesitation, she said, "Come on everyone, drink up! This is good stuff." She then took a healthy draught of her serving, made a twisted face, and spat it on to the ground next to her. Commander Yilaan, who had drunk some of it at the same time, did the same thing. Lt. Reiv pushed his bowl to one side and made a face of disgust. Only Lt. Ivanovna continued to consume the fare before her.
The other officers looked on incredulously. "You actually like that stuff?" Reiv asked her.
Ivanovna stopped eating and answered. "Lt. Reiv, this is about the worst thing that I've tasted in a long time. However, it is edible, and probably somewhat nutritious. I have no desire to weaken and starve on some alien planet. I intend to keep my strength up, no matter what."
The other officers looked at one another and decided she had a point. They each consumed their portions of the foul tasting concoction. When they were through, Commander Yilaan was making a particularly awful face and had her nose turned up.
"You said there was a river near by?" Yilaan asked of the doctor. "I wouldn't mind washing the taste of this out of my mouth." She then turned to Reiv and Ivanovna, "We'll bring some back for you; stay here and guard the camp." They nodded, and the first officer followed Dr. Giovanni towards the river.
Yilaan drank from the river deeply upon their arrival. She was about to comment about how good the water was, especially compared to what they had just eaten, when the doctor called out with a startled note in her voice, "Commander!"
"What is it?" the commander asked, getting up and moving over to where the doctor was.
The doctor pointed off into the distance, and the first officer squinted off in that direction, but saw nothing. "What is it?" Yilaan repeated.
"Sorry sir," Giovanni replied, "I thought I saw light coming from that direction, but now it's gone."
"Let's go back to the shuttle and get some rest; tomorrow we'll scout in that direction and see what we find."
"Aye Commander," the doctor replied, and the two officers set back for the downed shuttle.
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