The Cliche Campfire Club

Posted on Wed Apr 17th, 2019 @ 6:01am by The Narrator & Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci & Staff Warrant Officer Blaise Birch & Stephen Spires

Mission: S1E3: Moments Of Consolidation
Location: Campus of the White Tower, Carpathia, Carpathian System
Timeline: MD6 1800PM

The sun had set, and the dream time had begun.

Tangerine Dream hung large in the sky, filling the bowl of it with only a few stars twinkling at its edges. Swirls of rich oranges and red stormed in continent-sized ribbons across the surface of the gas giant, bathing the night side of Carpathia in a ruddy twilight. The silence of the forest was offset by the buzzing sound of the insect repeller's Rollin's had hung from one of the wings of the runabout, convinced that if the possibility of a bug bite was not zero then better safe than sorry.

During the day, whilst the explorers had gone to wander the grounds and Mara and Calhoon had gotten work done, Rollin's had set up camp. A trio of bubble fab tents had been inflated just beside the runabout, one acting as a dorm with the other two divided into a lab space and a meeting space. Illumination patches built into the bubble's domed ceils cast a bright light out from them open flaps, illuminating the group outside sitting under the light of a gas giant.

"This is not beef," Sidim declared as a final verdict on the subject as he manoeuvred his spork through the self-warming meal packs content. "It's not even good imitation beef."

"Do you do anything other than complain, Siddim?" Dania rolled her eyes as she passed by him and sat next to the black-eyed Birch.

"You alright?" She asked quietly. Storm had heard his mutterings earlier, but chose not to comment, as Siddim had already done so in a none too nice a way.

"I'm fine," Blaise said. "Just... hungry, but this food tastes like shit." He folded his arms behind his neck and leaned back. Eyes closed, he finally seemed to relax. "Sooner we get back to Canopus, the better." A nervous shudder ran through him and disturbed his reclining posture. He sighed in frustration. "I mean, just how long do the fucking days last on this miserable dirt clod?"

“Forever,” answered Mara, poking what was supposed to be chicken cordon bleu, but tasted a bit like someone had put an unflavored rue into a pocket of cardboard. “That’s why we brought a blackout tent for sleeping.” She eyed Spires, still not convinced he was as healed as the “Ensign Sue” claimed he was. “How are you feeling?” she asked the reporter.

Stephen pulled the antique bourbon flask away from his mouth and wiped his lips dry with his rolled up sleeve. "Never been better, principessa."

Mara only scowled in response. She hated that weird nickname he insisted on calling her.

Elias emerged from the runabout's hatch holding a tin cup full of coffee. He had already consumed a ration bar. Nothing else on the menu seemed exciting. Judging from all the forlorn expressions he felt he had made the right call. Maybe I should grab a harmonica and play something sad. "Another glorious day in the fleet, eh?" He grinned.

"Emphasis on 'day'," Blaise groused, placing his hands over his eyes. "I have never hated any sun more than I do right now."

Dania ripped open her ration, smirking a little at Madrid, "glorious might be a bit much," she said then took a bite, "but interesting, to be sure."

It had been a good distraction for her, a way to distance herself from the issue she'd been investigating. Away from Persephone. Once this little excursion was done though, she'd need to get back to it. Distance may help with perspective, she thought.

Though, Messier 4 was the epitome of 'waiting for the other shoe to drop' so she wasn't so sure that their little campfire bonanza was danger free and she was the closest thing they had to...security.

"Peachy." Dania thought to herself as she glanced around the little group.

Yes, interesting, Mara thought. Interesting did not always mean good, after all. “Although, it occurs to me that I don’t have to squint in this light,” she said. “It’s the first time in a long time under any sun that I haven’t squinted. And yet, it seems brighter. Or more clear. I don’t know. I should have brought my guitar.”

"Its optical lensing," Sidim said, waving a spoon full of might-be-cow in the air. "The nanoparticles in the air? From what I can tell they're self orienteering mirrors. The UV index for today was out of sync with the colony, but without any drop in luminosity. So it would seem whoever made the tower made a system that was able to mitigate a thinner atmosphere that wouldn't shield from UV ray exposure. You could stay out there for a day. Naked as the day you were born, and you'd not even get a tan."

He looked at Elias.

"That sort of swarm processing power must be very impressive in theoretical terms. Though I-"

CRACK!

It echoed in the still air of the night, coming from the far side of the runabout amid the fronds and silent bows of the jungle. On any other world or any other forest, the sound of a woodland creature walking on a stick or rustling the underbrush might have been ignored. But the jungle was dead save for it's green and verdant trunks.

"Commander Ross?" Blaise called out, suddenly unnerved. "That you out there?"

It had taken Mara several seconds to remember that there was supposedly nothing that could snap a twig in the jungle. When she did, she dropped what was left of the exactly-failed-to-be-Chicken and grabbed for her phaser, just in case. She did not draw it, but kept her hand on it just in case.

Dania was on her feet too, tricorder out and scanning. "Lets hope it's not another version of those things we saw at the Tower."

"Yes because the idea of one of those things bull rushing the Falstaff just makes me happy," Calhoon muttered as he reached into a crate inside the dorm bubble tent, and pulled out a pair of phaser rifles. He tossed one to Elias. "Congrats kid. You get to hold a big gun and feel like a man for this evenings entertainment."

Elias checked the settings with a bemused look. This wasn't the first time he'd held one of these things in a tense situation, but now wasn't a good moment to swap resumes.

"Yeah, no...it's worse." Dania sighed. "Can't read anything outside the radius of the camp all of a sudden. It wasn't there before."

Now Mara did draw her phaser. "Ever fired one of these?" she asked Spires as she pulled a second from the same crate from which Calhoon had pulled.

"Just 'cause I'm a journalist doesn't mean I'm a pussy." Stephen snatched the phaser away from Mara and checked its nadion supply being thumbing the charge activator. "Locked and loaded."

"No need to be rude!" retorted Mara irritably. "Not everyone knows their way around a phaser. I was just being polite."

Elias brought the rifle up to ready position, stock firmly against his shoulder, and looked through the sight. The targeting scanner couldn't see any targets. No movement, nothing to lock onto. He lowered the weapon's barrel. "I guess I could walk over and say hi. Anyone want to come with me?"

"I will," Calhoon said. "Rollins, stay with the bird. Anyone who's coming, come quietly. And yes that's directed at you Press Corp."

"I'll stay with Rollins," Mara added. "Strength in numbers and all that. Be careful."

With a flick of the wrist, the torch slung under the barrel of Calhoon's phaser rifle came on and illuminated a patch of the bone white floor of the tower's base. He brought it up slowly, and the white material gave way to the organic sprawl of the jungle beyond. Stepping from the Campus Of The White Tower into the jungle was an experience in and of itself. A step or two beyond the edge, and an oppressive silence filled the air around. No animal sounds, not even the breath of a breeze through thick fan-shaped fronds.

And all the while the rose coloured twilight of Dream Time filtered down from above, the flickering bands of the gas giant's cloud's adding a surreal backdrop where a night sky should be.