SD242102.05 | Lt. Ra'lin Sha'mer | "Explorations"

Posted on Sun Feb 19th, 2023 @ 7:51pm by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova & Lieutenant Ra'lin Sha'mer

872 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Genesis
Timeline: BACKLOG

Ra'lin had been down before the others, after promising earnestly that no, she absolutely wouldn't touch anything and wouldn't disturb any evidence. As if the site was still pristine after Starfleet Intel had walzed all over it. But she made her promise willingly. After all, she had the feeling that she needed her mind more than her eyes – which was precisely why she wanted some time alone there.

It had taken some time to locate the shuttle, even longer to reach it and she wondered how in star's name it had managed to crash down *here*. But she got down there at last and entered the shuttle carefully, suddenly glad she was wearing the environmental suit. She had donned it as part of her promise to minimise contaging the crash site, but it also protected her from the environment in here and that was a good thing.

It didn't take long for her to reach the same conclusion as Landon had reached before her. The cut restraints, spatters of blood, drag marks… and on one of the belt buckles, the only one which had been loosened without being cut, a partial fingerprint. Rochelle's? It seemed too large for her hands. Then whose? One of the spooks? Someone else?

She had been wrong after all, it seemed. She did need her eyes, not her mind. Or did she?
She sent the fingerprint to Science, to be analysed later. Then she sat down in the middle of the shuttle. This took some effort, because there was still debris everywhere, but she managed to find one spot where she could sit without disturbing anything. It was a good thing she was skinny and small and folded easily in tight spaces. Then she closed her eyes and reached out.
The walls of the shuttle cried out in pain, a long drawn out tormented sigh of contorted and torn metal, the cry of an object which has crashed but still yearns for the stars. Ra'lin drew back in shock. She hadn't expected this. Then she slowly extended her senses again, tuning out this mechanical wail to search for other minds.

The team had landed, she could feel them, but distantly. They were still spread out on the surface and looking for the shuttle itself. But the walls of the mine or whatever it was where the shuttle had ended up in contained something which not only made scanning down here very hard, it had a smiliar effect on telepathic talents.

Ra'lin sighed and unfloded from her cramped space. She took one long last look around, took a few more readings inside the shuttle, recording the damage, a sample of the blood which was splattered over what remained of the control panel, then left as carefully as she had entered.
Once outside, she carefully chose a spot. High enough so that she wasn't blocked in by the walls, far enough away from the others so that she wouldn't be overwhelmed by their intensity. As it was, she could feel them still, but their minds were known and at this distance she could filter them out easily. All but one, really, she didn't know the mind of the new security officer, Lieutenant Ryan, that well. But since she was with the others, it was easy enough to mark her as a known entity and move on. The sharp, spiky mind of Lieutenant Shran. The slightly fuzzy mind of the Counselor, Ethel (...and there was *something* about that mind, but she couldnt' quite put her finger on it and right now, that wasn't even remotely what she was looking for…), the Engineering mind of Lt. D'Gracefull… She identified them briefly and moved on. Their minds became part of the mental landscape around her and faded away.

She let her mind expand across the barren landscape. Though she had removed the helmet of her environmental suit once she was out of the shuttle, she barely felt the stinging cold and payed no attention to the first snowflakes which began tumbling down. Her eyes were closed and she… didn't exactly search, just lowered her mental shields one by one, allowing all sensations from outside to enter.

Nothing. Nothing. Some primitive emotions from animals holed up underground, bundled up safely against the cold. Nothing. No-

There was a sudden spike, somewhere in the distance. Too vague to even attach a mind to it, too far away, but the spike was sudden and unmistakeble. Hatred. Pain.

Ivanova?

Both emotions, both minds faded away as she tried to focus on them, but she felt fairly certain that neither of them belonged to the Commodore. But they were the only minds in the surroundings - even as far away as they were.

The more she tried to zoom in, the weaker they became, until they winked out. Was she just getting tired? Were they? Or something else? With a snap, Ra'lin returned to herself. She grabbed her helmet and jumped up, then scowled and jumped up and down until the pins and needles sensations in her legs died down. Then she ran down to join the others.

She arrived just in time to see the last two look around and prepare to beam back on board.

 

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