From: Katie T (kayteese_at_gmail.com)
Date: Fri Aug 31 2007 - 03:12:20 PDT
=/\= "A Path Through the Wilderness" (Continued from Rahul's "The Other Team") =/\= Location: RESTIIN II Stardate: 2.70831.1145 Scene: Plains The sun was burning down on the plains, making the members of the away team wish for a bit of shade. In the distance a few clouds hung over the mountain range, but they were still too far away to benefit from any shadow they might cast. In a reflexive gesture Ginny lifted a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear but encountered only hard, bony substance beneath leathery skin. She grimaced. When she had first seen her altered reflection in the mirror after surgery, she had felt like a complete stranger was looking back at her. Gone were her red curls, her freckles, her green/golden eyes. Even the shape of her mouth had been altered slightly, which made her voice sound somewhat muffled. For the past ten minutes, Mikel Darum had been crouching over the mysterious rock with the strange markings which Maverick had unwittingly discovered. With the assistance of Ensigns LaGrande and Tam, the scientist had taken several high-resolution scans of the rock surface and tried all manners of image enhancements in an attempt to decipher the markings. However, it was no use. After much tweaking, only one of the pictographs became legible, and although Darum said it resembled the sign for "go" in some remote Iconian dialect, he still couldn't say for sure whether the message was really of Iconian origin, or what the rest of the symbols meant. Maverick listened to Darum's assessment of the situation. "This rock is useless then," he concluded. "Which means we should move on." He looked around at the other members of his team. Ginny closed her tricorder with a snap. "I tried scanning for the signatures again, but there's still nothing conclusive on either short or long range. If there's really a portal on this planet, it is hiding well." "Or it is simply well protected," Tam said, reminding them all that this mission was not without risk. "All right then, let's go." The marine picked up his pack and turned north again, where the mountain range loomed closer than it had been an hour ago but still some way away. "Not so fast," Catherine piped up suddenly. She had been crouching a few meters away, also fiddling with a tricorder. "This rock may not be quite as useless as you think." She got up and joined the rest of the team to show them the readings on the small screen. Darum's jaw dropped when he saw it, and he turned to look out over the plains, a longing expression on his face. Tam frowned. "Does this mean what I think it means?" "Well, for one thing this rock is not native to this planet," Catherine started, figuring that she might as well provide the full explanation for the benefit of all team members. "The database could not provide me with an accurate match for its origin, but at least I am sure that it was brought here from a different planet. And it's not the only one of its kind." She held up the tridorder again for everyone to see. The small screen displayed a map of their current surroundings, the light green plains bordered by an impressive brown mountain range to the north and west. But in addition, there was a dotted blue line right across the plains, running in a straight line from north-east to south-west, with no visible end points in either direction. "I'm reading at least thirty cairns similar to this within scanning range." "You said this was a directional marker?" Maverick asked Darum. The scientist snapped out of his dreamy state. "I said it *looked* like it *could be* a directional marker," he replied carefully. "As weathered and unreadable as it is, I simply cannot say for certain." "But if there are more, maybe we can find one that is better legible," Ginny suggested. Maverick frowned. He didn't like the prospect of tramping across the plains some more instead of heading for the relative safety of the mountains. On the other hand, this was the best lead they had this far. Coming to a decision, he took out his comm badge and tapped it. "Maverick to Kenta." It took a moment, but then Ben's voice came back, tersely quiet. [[This is a bad time, Colonel. We'll call you back.]] And the line closed. Dead silence reigned as all of Maverick's team members stared at the communicator in the marine's hand. Finally Mav tucked it back inside the folds of his clothing. "Where's the closest marker?" he asked Catherine. The intel officer pointed north-east. "About an hour's way in that direction." "Let's go." Darum almost skipped with excitement as he took the lead. The others followed at a slightly slower pace, warily looking about themselves and wondering what had happened to the other away team. =/\= NRPG: Thought I'd throw in some possiblity for trouble. ;-) Rahul: Congratulations! =/\= Katie T. Ensign Eugenie LaGrande Chief Engineering Officer USS PATRIOT From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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