The Crux of the Situation

Posted on Fri Aug 18th, 2023 @ 12:39am by Commander Samantha Howard & Captain Shran dh'Klar & Lieutenant JG Kate Kono & Lieutenant JG James Phoenix

Mission: Damn Dirty Apes
Location: USS Washington

Deanna reported back to the bridge immediately after returning to the ship. She had a great deal of tricorder data to look over, along with all the data the probe had collected, but hearing that the probe had to be self-destructed, she knew the captain would want a debrief of some sort regarding Jon and Ayana, and she knew Sam was in no shape to do so in an expedited sense. Entering the bridge she quickly made her way towards the captain, who motioned for her to go to his ready room, where he followed, leaving L'Rissa in command for the time being.

"What happened down there?" Shran questioned as the door closed behind him.

"It is a remarkable planet. Remarkable, but savage. It appears two species have evolved. One appears to be human, albeit a primitive version, something akin to humans around the stone or bronze age technologically speaking. The other race seems to be the dominant species, a humanoid ape species that has evolved to include early 20th century Earth gunpowder based weapons at the very least from what we saw. I will be able to tell you more about everything once I have analyzed my tricorder data and the probe data. We managed to retrieve Callie, but Ayana remains on the planet with Cmdr Grayson. The two of them were giving us protection from the apes before we were transported up. My understanding is that Sam was wounded and was on route to sickbay upon our return, as was Ens Kono."

Shran looked frustrated with the situation. "Analyze the data quickly Deanna, and find a way for us to transport our people through this EM field."

"Understood captain" she replied simply.

Shran exited his ready room back onto the bridge and spotted Phoenix at tactical. "Ens Phoenix, accompany me" he said as he made his way to the turbolift.

“Aye Captain” James replied before tapping a few buttons on his station to send for a relief. Quickly, he followed Shran into the turbolift.

As Phoenix entered the turbolift Shran called out the destination, "Sickbay." The doors closed and the turbolift hurried to its destination. Shran looked at Phoenix, "Ensign, should it be necessary, do you feel capable of manning the tactical station?"

The junior officer turned and looked at the captain. He would man tactical every so often and he had just come from manning the station. He knew he was capable. But he also knew the possible meaning of what the captain was asking. “Of course, sir” he answered without hesitation.

"Very good. We'll check on our people in sickbay and see what we may need to do from there" Shran replied.

* Meanwhile in sickbay *

Kate entered Sickbay after taking a moment to go to her quarters. Kate had her straight black hair clean and styled in a way that spiked out like an explosion in a curious, but fun looking style all around. Kate was dressed in a brand-new Starfleet Uniform that fit her compact frame perfectly without a single blemish on the black and blue fabric to be seen. She had a PADD in one hand to take notes, and Sam’s jacket on a hangar that dangled from her left index finger in the other hand. She smiled kindly at Sam as she handed her the jacket.

“Thank you, Sam… So much. Hope you’re feeling better.”


Sam sat up from the biobed, taking the freshly cleaned jacket with a smile "Thanks, I'm glad you got to have a shower and a fresh uniform. I can't wait to get this grime off me."

Shran entered sickbay and took a look around, seeing Shon treating Sam. "I heard things got a little rough out there" he said as he approached.

Kate tilted her head to the side and started to nod.
"I went native, Sam got shot, and a bunch of advanced ape-like bi-peds took great offense to our existence." Kate finished nodding to Shran in agreement to his assessment.

"Certainly an eventful first away mission for you then ensign." Shran looked at Sam and Shon, "I assume you will recover fully?"

"I will indeed, thankfully it wasn't deep, nor was the tip tainted with anything that would prove troublesome." Sam swung her legs over the edge of the bed and hopped to her feet. "Any news on Jon and Ayana?"

"Deanna is working on cutting through the damn EM field that permeates from this planet. It is keeping us from making contact, and transporters are spotty at best, far too risky to attempt any sort of transport" Shran replied, frustration in his voice.

"There's got to be a way to transport them," Kate suggested while showing a little confusion on her face as she shrugged her shoulders and held her hands in front of her. "... I mean, we got transported out just fine. There's got to be a way to repeat the process, right?"

Kate took a breath and pointed to the general direction of the floor, "I still have that shuttle prepped and ready to go either way. I can pick them up and ask them why they didn't want me to shoot despite them freely opening fire after they gave the order not to." It could have been an accusation but the half giggle in her voice when she pointed the hypocrisy out signified that she was amused rather than upset.

Shran had a quizzical look on his face. "Who told you not to fire? The Prime Directive doesn't apply if your life is in immediate jeopardy."

Instantly, Kate realized that she accidentally put her friends and crewmates on the spot. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

"Maybe I misheard the order. The EM field was pretty thick and - knowing that personal safety is a judgement call for myself I should have just done what was safest for me so ultimately, it was my fault I didn't fire anyway." Kate hoped that putting a little of ultimate truth despite asking for orders, onto her own shoulders, would save everyone from her tiny little mouth. "... But it is something I can totally ask if I can pick them up..."

She wiggled her little index finger toward the carpet in the general imaginative direction of where the shuttle bay was, where, hours prior, she had prepared it for its original rescue mission. "... With that cute hunk of shuttle that I totally have ready to go on the ramp at a moments notice. Maybe they'll tell me 'nopez, we told you to fire away.'"

The way Kate smiled from ear-to-ear with wide, worried dark eyes gave the perfect combination of 'I'm exaggerating through those teeth, but I learned my lesson for next time anyway' and she hoped that the hole she dug for her Crewmembers, despite being honest, was suddenly filled with her captain's knowing generosity. With any luck, the day would end with Sam having saved her from needing to replicate a bag to put over her head, and the captain saving her from having to replicate an extra shoe to stick in her mouth.

Shran could see Kate was trying to pull herself out of some sort of quagmire she apparently put herself into. "A shuttle would be of no use ensign. The EM field would preclude it from doing much of anything, just as it precludes the Washington to get any closer than we currently are. You're young, you'll learn that a great needs to be experienced that they don't really teach you at the Academy."

Kate suddenly smiled and started jumping by accident a moment as she had an idea.

"What if I took a shuttle and brought it out of orbital velocity to avoid ionization of the supplies we send down and tag transportation enhancers with a beacon that could be read by their tricorders? It'd put some strain on the shuttles engines but I could keep the shuttle at an altitude in space above their location - more or less at the same altitude the Washington is orbiting and hang the ship on thrusters. We can open up the back and just drop the enhancers on chutes. That way, when they hit the atmosphere, the terminal velocity slows the supplies down before they reach critical velocity." Kate explained her idea and hoped it made sense to everyone. "... Once we drop them off, you can beam us out if we fry the engines but with any luck, I can bring the velocity out to orbital speed again and avoid the EM field at the same time. Either way, you can pull us out with the transporter if I blow the system, and we can get the pattern enhancers to our people."


"What you are suggesting is out of the question at this time ensign. The EM field permeates the entire planet, there is no avoiding it. Our people that are on the planet have no way at this time to even know to look for anything we might attempt to send down, and we have no way of knowing it will get to them. What you are suggesting would very well risk breaking the Prime Directive. I don't mind that if it meant getting our people out, but we must temper your youth and enthusiasm with experience and wisdom. Cmdr Grayson and Lt Hillis are experienced StarFleet officers, and both fully capable of surviving long periods without all of our modern equipment. If you wish to discuss this further, you may join the other senior officers in the conference room in 1 hour and we will give it a full discussion, as well as hear what new information Deanna has." Shran looked at Sam, I'll see you in an hour Sam."

" Yes Sir" Sam replied simply as she took the jacket and donned it over the ruined turtleneck, affixing her combadge to the outside. She felt bad about telling the others on the away team to hold their fire, but she still felt it was justified.

Phoenix had walked in behind the captain, but he had been silent up until now. He piped up as he looked at Shran. “Captain, I fully understand that taking a shuttle would risk violating the Prime Directive, but if need be, could there hypothetically be a way to mask an approach from a shuttle or even starship? For instance, hiding a ship in a remote area or in an ocean so that we aren’t seen?”

Shran looked back at Phoenix, "You are forgetting about the EM field. All of the problems we have revolve around that. We had a temporary fix with the probe, but the EM field ultimately forced us to destroy the probe, stranding Jon and Ayana on the surface with no way for us to communicate and or transport them up at this time. If Deanna can discover a way to neutralize that EM field, we can then get our people back with just a simple transport. Hopefully in an hour Deanna will be able to tell us she has found such a way."