Forest Encounter

Posted on Mon Jan 4th, 2010 @ 10:38pm by Commander Jack Tolren

2,349 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: POWERING UP THE STATION
Location: Holodeck - Nal Ta - Northern Forest
Timeline: Current

ON

Work, work, work; off-duty to the holodeck! The hard long-haul had yet to begin but sometimes it was better to enjoy fun while work was light rather than wait until you were burried in it.

Will was an engineer with that mentality and enjoying every minute of it as he jumped and swung through a holographic recreation of his homeworld. Miles tall trees and vines stretched out all around while a familiar three G's of gravity tried to pull him away from it all.

Jack Tolren was keen to meet the man who would run the engineering intricacies of Typhon and had managed to locate him in one of the holodecks. It was technically off-duty time, but it made sense to get the meet and greet over with as soon as possible as opposed to waiting until a formal meeting, Jack always felt more comfortable that way.

He entered the holodeck to be confronted with what looked like a jungle. He was amidst an array of plants, trees and ferns, which, though dense, were passable. The holodeck doors slid shut behind him as he moved into the wooded area.

Jack took a look around trying to see if the engineer was anywhere nearby. He couldn't make a thing out through the vegetation and so resorted to the second method.

"Commander Couter?" he called out.

Will came to a stop high up, clinging against a tree while he looked for where the sound had come from, then he spotted a lone figure in a Starfleet uniform all the way at the bottom. "Figures" he said, turning and launching at the ground around the officer. He hit the ground hard, collapsed his skeleton and rolled with the force to come up standing not too far from the commander. "You yelled sir?"

Tolren jumped slightly at the sudden appearance of the figure. He took a fraction of a second to adjust himself before nodding to the smaller, hairy officer wearing his civilian attire.

"Yes, I just wanted to introduce myself," Jack said. "Jack Tolren, I'm Typhon's Executive Officer. I hope I'm not interrupting your... workout."

"Not a work out sir, just seeing my home world" Will said, "haven't been home for four years and every now and then its nice to see the forests."

"Well I'm sure swinging from branch to branch is good for you, particularly in this gravity," Tolren replied, noting that he felt much heavier than normal, nothing his Orion genetic strength couldn't stand, though he didn't suppose he would be jumping far.

"Should see the Golith's, that is an exercise for anyone" Will answered, "assuming ye' survive. Rotten things fight to kill. And speaking of which, I get a funny feeling we're attracting a lot of attention."

"You do have the safety's on?" Jack asked, rapidly becoming aware of the slightest rustling of bushes around him.

"Yes," Will said, seeing the head of their predator peeking out. It looked like a raptors but the creature was much larger, he started to speak in more hushed tones, "but unfortunately that doesn't do much to prevent broken legs."

"I hope you're going to prevent that happening," Tolren whispered, starting to lower himself towards the ground aware that Will was watching something.

"Well, as I see it so long as it can't kill us, we might as well play along," Will said, keeping an eye on the target as it circled them, "there's a small outpost five clicks to our six or we can start climbing. Luckily these blighters can't climb to well, can't get too far past a mile up."

"Let's hope the upper body strength helps," Jack said, looking up the nearest tree to find hand holds.

"I get a funny feeling we're gonna be running" Will said taking just a minute to look at the commander then going back to looking at his target except that it was gone. "Ah crap. We've got about ten seconds to clear out!" Without waiting for the commander to move he made a run at a tree and pretty much threw the commander up towards a branch on his way.

Jack grabbed onto a large branch as he was launched up the tree. Pulling himself up quickly he reached for the next one and was soon making rapid progress up towards the sky, despite the higher gravity.

Will was figuratively light years ahead, bounding between trees in a series of jumps up. "Commander, at that pace your dog meat!" he yelled down. About this point he wished he'd included some closer transit in this area. "On my signal, drop down and make a run to the six, I'll hold off the Golith."

"Will do!" Jack shouted back, slowing his progress and finding out where he was supposed to run to.

Will stopped, hugging tight against a branch and started looking for the Golith, once he found it the engineer lept off and rocketed for it. "Now!" he yelled as he shot downward, aiming for the creatures head. It would be tricky but there were a few ways to take em' down without weapons or much force.

Jack dropped quickly from the tree and began to sprint in the direction Will had indicated. The sprinting, however, was impeded by the particularly high gravity in the area.

The Golith shook, rammed trees and in general did everything a raging, giant animal would to get something off it. Will meanwhile was hell bent on staying on and making finding those pressure points he needed. On the bright side it kept the thing slow enough that it wouldn't catch up to Jack though on the downside he wasn't making much progress.

"What I wouldn't give for working telepathy on a holodeck" Will yelled, referring to something that would work back home and not here.

"What I wouldn't give for lower gravity!" Jack bellowed as he ran as fast as he could, well aware that the creature being ridden by Will was only metres away.

Will pretty much ignored the complaint as he focused on stopping the raging animal, after a whole lot of running he took a minute to look up towards where they were headed just in time to see a cliff and an ocean ahead of them.

"Commander, unless you want to go for a swim, get to the right, I'll send this thing into the water" the engineer yelled, "they suck at swimming."

Jack dodged to the right and ran for a few metres before turning around to see what Will was about to accomplish.

The Golith kept going, too busy trying to extricate the furball on it to see the cliff before it was too late. On the flip-side of the coin, Will didn't have time to ditch either so he went along with it.

Midway down the engineer pushed off the giant animal and got himself oriented to land foot first as it was a more than large enough drop. Once in the water, he made for the cliff and climbed it like he climbed the trees, while behind him the Golith slowly made its way towards a beach.

After a seeming eternity, a soaked engineer made it up onto the cliff, "well that was fun" he said to the commander, "good thing the holodeck scaled that thing down or it'd be a lot harder."

"That was scaled down?" Jack asked, raising both eyebrows in surprise. "How big are the real ones?"

"About twice that size" Will answered, wringing out his tail, "most of my people stand from nine to twelve feet tall, only reason I'm not is genetic adaptation and the fact that these corridors are way to cramed for someone that tall."

"Ah, so it's relatively scaled, I was wondering how you'd tackle one so big," Jack replied. "Is this what you usually do for fun on the holodeck then? Tackle giant beasts?"

"It varies" Will said, "usually I'm up there, I was born to fly. I spent most of my childhood building gliders what on Earth would be called 'jet packs' amongst a lot of other things."

"I feel fairly limited with my anti-grav sailing and skydiving pursuits," Jack admitted. "Although I'm not built for tree climbing I'm afraid."

"Well, I should have a jet-pack somewhere near-by and we won't have to do the tree-jumping to get there," Will offered, might as well at this point and the moving air would get him dried off.

"Why not," Jack replied. "No time like the present."

"Indeed" Will said, heading along the cliff at a jog, "there should be alternation transportation a short distance this way."

Jack began to job, following Will's lead. One thing could be said, the scenery was breath-taking, particularly the ocean beside them.

"Ok, wait here" Will said, "our rides down there and if you don't do the jump right, you'll break a leg, safeties on or off." With that the engineer took a look over the side and then jumped towards a beach below, hitting a series of large leaves and vines to slow and guide his decent. At the bottom he dissapeared.

Jack waited as instructed, somewhat astounded by Will's ability to confidently leap from height and survive the landing. He looked over the edge before backing away slightly, he was fairly sure he would do more than break a leg jumping down there.

Ten minutes later a gray/white craft emerged heading upward toward the edge, on either side it had ducted lift fans while the body was long and sleek. The front half or so was open air with sides that stopped just short of forming a roof, while in front they got low and met with a windshield. On either side an elevator came out from the cockpit and farther back boosters and a tail provided additional manueverability and speed.

"Now boarding, the easy way flight" Will said as he sat the craft down on the edge of the cliff.

"Looks much better than tree-jumping," Jack joked as he climbed into the cockpit of the craft and took a seat.

"You say that now" Will said, taking the craft up and pretty much firewalling the throttle, sending them ripping through the forest. The small craft rolled, spun and even dived to avoid the countless obstacles as they headed towards a distant tree house of sorts.

Jack braced himself as Will flung the craft through the forest, "did you learn how to fly at home too?"

"Yea, I spent three years as the head pilot for engineering team Fifteen Bravo and before that I was using alternative means to help get scientists around" Will said as he took the craft into a roll followed by a rapid pull 'up' and then another roll to level off. A large tree loomed ahead, the engineer circled it descending until they hit a fairly large structure half way up the tree.

"Well, you'd make an excellent shuttle pilot I imagine," Jack said as they came to a stop.

"Those things fly like bricks" Will said, shutting down the engines and leaping over the side to disappear into the structure without another word. Inside was nothing but a mess of platforms scattered all over running up and down with ladders, vines and even round tree branches making spiral ramps.

"They're not too bad in space, it's when you get them inside an atmosphere they become a problem," Jack admitted, following the engineer inside.

"Tell that to the shuttle I came here on or any of the four others that died enroute" Will said, testing a few vines and then shooting up one and looking like a spider the whole way until he was out of sight.

A few seconds later a computer alarm went off, "alert, alert, power failure in grid fourteen echo six" and then it just looped and looped.

Meanwhile a good way up the hologrid started to reappear as the forest disappeared. The engineer couldn't get down fast enough and wound up falling the whole way down and hitting yet another holographic body of water not too far from the commander; unfortunately this time it was dirty run off from machinery.

Jack watched as the engineer fell, despite his best attempt he couldn't catch him and he landed into the pool of water only feet away. He stretched out his arm to help, hoping that Will found it amusing.

"Give me your hand, seems like holographic trees aren't so friendly as real ones," Jack said.

Will spat out a mouthful of water and got up on his own, "so help me if I find the damn engineers who built this place" he grumbled as he once more started to ring out his tail. Of all the things that would stay materialized, why did water have to be among them.

"Is that another job for the list then?" Jack asked.

"Part of it" Will grumbled, "along with assigning that person to scrub down the plasma manifold of every ship that ever comes here."

Jack chuckled, "that's the advantage of being Chief Engineer I guess, gods help someone who doesn't put something together properly."

"The devil deserves it and not a thing is gonna save him" Will said heading for the doors, assuming they too weren't dead.

Jack followed, smiling, "well once you have the thing fixed, give me a shout and we'll try out gliding."

Will kept going forward, the door didn't open and he wound up with a fair sized bruise from the unyielding duranium. "I have a glider in my quarters, we'll do real flying" he said then a short flurry of curses from his native language as he got to finding someway to get the door open.

"Well I look forward to it, provided we get out of the holodeck of course," Jack replied, looking around the arch for the emergency release switch.

For now however, the officers were caught and it seemed Murphy would continue to enforce his law as he always did around engineers. One more day, one million more problems and only one more thing working.

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