Ice Planet Expedition: Through the Looking Glass, parat 1

Posted on Sun Feb 14th, 2010 @ 6:15am by Commander Raven Adams & Khiy Tal'ehrihn & Commander Basil Hart & Commodore Edward Fannin

1,371 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: FORGING AHEAD
Location: Tiberius X
Timeline: Current

ON

The night passed uneventfully. The k'naar tried to leave the caves once or twice, but the Marines on watch quickly shot them. After that, they seemed to learn their lesson and stayed inside.

Raven was among the first to awake. Even though three people had died, she found the planet fascinating. The rodents in the caves were remarkably tenacious to survive so long on so little.

She decided to go for a short walk before searching out breakfast.

It was while she was doing a lap around the camp that she saw him. Large as life and wearing a dark vest and breeches. He looked at his watch, muttered a few words, and disappeared into a hole in the ground.

Raven stopped and stared for a full minute. She had not /i> seen what she thought she'd seen. It was inconceivable.

She turned around to talk to someone when she saw the perfect person. Doctor Hart. He was the closest thing they had to a counselor.

"Doctor," she called, walking over to him. "I think I'm in need of... professional help. I just saw a giant white rabbit. He was looking at his pocket watch and mumbling something about being late."

Basil smiled at her. "Did you see a little blond girl in a blue dress, white petticoat and apron follow him?" With a flash of insight, he realized she was serious. "Sorry, Raven. Were you alone when you saw it?"

"Yes. I was alone. No, Alice wasn't following him," Raven said wryly. "I'm not crazy, doctor. I saw the white rabbit." She heard something buzzing and turned around quickly. "Did you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" He mentioned. He was making notes on a PADD when she whirled around. He looked up at her as she stared off into the empty air behind her. He surreptitiously ran a medical scanner over her, and was surprised to find increased levels of activity in the 5-HT2A and 5-HT1A serotonin receptors in her brain. "Raven," he said cautiously, "Have you ingested anything at all that you did not bring with you from the ship? Did you maybe melt some ice and drink the water, or anything like that?" He didn't like the implications of where this little problem might lead. He began increasing the intensity of his scans using his tricorder, and found several other people were beginning to have similar issues with their Serotonin levels.

She giggled. "Don't be silly. Why would I melt ice when we have a perfectly good replicator? I don't know where this ice has been. Do you?" She looked around, then had to close her eyes to keep from getting dizzy. "Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Personally, I blame the rabbit."

Basil grabbed a hypo and took a blood sample from Raven, then performed a hurried field analysis. He didn't like the results. Initial findings indicated exposure to a hallucinogenic fungus. He didn't see how such a fungus could grow in such a hostile environment, but it was there, and in concentrations sufficient to cause impairment. "Raven," he said reasonably. "Let's go to the shuttle for a few minutes. I want to check something out. T'mpest! Would you come here for a minute? I need your help."

T'mpest had just emerged from the women's tent when she heard Basil calling her. She walked over to him. "Good morning, Doctor. What can I do for you?"

Basil condensed the issue into verbal shorthand. "Hallucinogenic fungus in the air. Making us all loopy. Need filtration masks replicated for everybody! I may be effected at any time. Raven and I get the first masks, then take the others who are most effected. Stun the uncooperative ones to keep them from hurting themselves, including me, if I get unreasonable. Move quickly!"

It seemed like a good idea at the time for Ty to take a morning run, as he stepped from the tent he took his clothes off an started jogging towards the Giant Panda bear that was eating ice cream in the center of the camp....

John heard Ty leave the tent and yawned, he was very sleepy and rolled over returning to an interesting dream he was having...

Beatrix woke up early and headed to the shuttle to take a quick shower. As she walked across the compound she caught sight of Ty... At first she wasn't sure what she saw, so she had to look again. She couldn't help herself. She laughed. It was especially funny to see the little green gnome jogging behind him holding a bucket. Why he was holding a bucket she had no idea.

Ty ran past the small laughing bush and off into the night. It was very hot at the beach he thought and was glad he could dive into the cool water of the lagoon...

Basil caught a glimpse of Ty streaking naked across the ice. This was worse than he had anticipated. Ty would freeze to death in a matter of minutes of he didn't get some clothes on. He sprinted after the delusional naked man, calling his name. He hated to do it, but if Ty didn't stop running away, Basil would have to stun him. It looked like T'mpest had her hands full, too, getting Beatrix to stop giggling and pointing at Ty. He called to her, telling her to get the filters on everyone's' faces ASAP.

"TY! Come here for a minute! Let's run together!" he called, hoping Ty would be agreeable.

Ty saw the man calling his name and ran towards him. "Hello, are you going for a swim too?"

Basil shook his head. "No swimming for me, thanks! But I have something BETTER than a swim to cool us off! Let's run back this way towards the sno-cone stands, and we can have a sno-cone in a nice air-conditioned room!" He pointed to the shuttlecraft a hundred meters away. He placed his hand on the butt of his phaser in its holster, just in case Ty didn't go for the ploy.

"SNOW CONES!, Ty ran off towards the Shuttle and was almost there when Gifford tackled him brutally, "Thrown for a loss on the fifteen yard line," Gifford was up and running around the camp in full linebacker mode. He would get down in a stance and wait for a play to be called deep in his confused mind then slam into the closest warm body he could get to.

This was going from bad to worse. Basil ran up to the two hallucinating crewmen. He had to get Ty inside before hypothermia set in, and Gifford wasn't helping. Whistling through his teeth, he tried to imitate a referee from the old American Football games he had watched in his studies of Sports Medicine. "DOWNED BALL! Personal foul on the Defense, late hit, fifteen-yard penalty! Ball moves back to the thirty-yard line! Player injured, number thirty five, needs to be taken off the field." He grabbed Ty and began supporting the shivering naked man, and dragging him toward the shuttle. If this didn't work, there would be a lot of sore people in a while. He hoped he didn't get caught up in everyone's delusions, or T'mpest would have her hands full.

Gifford was pissed, He through his helmet on the ground and mumbled about being taken out of the game... He headed back to his locker room.

Without a word, T'mpest walked up to Gifford and used a Vulcan nerve pinch to drop him to the ground. With one arm, she picked him up, tossed him over one shoulder, and hauled him to the shuttle. She was not in the mood for games: it was too cold.

(To be Continued...)

USS Endeavor:

Commander T'mpest Michaels
Chief Science Officer

Lieutenant Commander John Gifford
Chief Intelligence Officer

Ensign Beatrix Marelle
Alien Archaeologist/Anthropologist

USS Orion:

Lieutenant Commander Samantha York
Chief Science Officer

1st Lieutenant Damon Raine
Marine CO

Petty Officer 3rd Class Yvette Jaynes (NPC)
Nurse

Trent Kushner (NPC)
Marine Rifleman

Starbase Typhon:

Lieutenant Commander Basil Hart
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Commander Raven Adams
Chief Intelligence Officer

Ty Seven (NPC)
Intel Officer

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