Lance brings environment suits to the remaining crew in the shuttle.
We need to move fast. We have a man trapped out there! Suit up, we'll grab Rorke and get to the redoubt and finish this mission the way we intended.
He looks to Bhalla, shame and gratitude in equal measure. And we'll work together to do it.
"Agreed." the prideful doctor responds. She assists the remaining crew with their environmental suits, then grabs her tricorder.
The crew takes off at a clip and quickly makes their way to the rift into which Kreskin fell. Recovering the abandoned Ensign, the lot of you continue on toward the redoubt.
You move across the barren surface of the planet. No more of the alien creatures appear to interfere with you. Perhaps humanoids are too small to attract their attention.
Approaching the shelter, you see a thermal concrete building set into the side of a mountain. It has a fortified door large enough for a shuttle to fly through easily. Two turrets with medium-powered phasers sit just outside. Clearly, Starfleet made sure to provide some defense for the colonists. Scans show that there is no power running to the turrets, and the shelter seems to be running on backup fusion generators.
Lance bangs on the door, shouting Federation authentication codes to identify himself and the group.
Dr. Bhalla opens her tricorder looking for confirmation of humanoid life signs within the redoubt.
Lance broadcasts his authentication codes and receives a response.
The shuttle bay doors ring loudly as they begin to open. They open in a fairly majestic fashion, but halt when they are only open about twice the width of an environmental suit. No reason to waste energy opening them all the way.
Bhalla detects two life signs on the other side of the door. Two humanoids in environmental suits, both humans.
Kreskin is greeted by a human woman in an environmental suit, "Welcome, I am Deputy Administrator Elyse Russell. I'm in charge here. I'm afraid my superior, Nunn, did not survive the initial attack. Thank you for answering our distress call. How are you going to get us out of here?"
Dr. Bhalla detects 76 humanoid life signs, plus 4 canines, 6 felines, and 7 small reptiles.
"Hopefully, the same way we got in." Dr. Bhalla responds to the Deputy Administrator.
Turning to the commander, she notes, "Based on my tricorder readings, this is all of them, unless you'd like us to transport some pets."
The doctor activates her communicator. "Away team to Valiant." she begins. "Request for emergency beam out."
Thoss opens a channel to the Doctor, "Valiant here. Message received, stand by." Closing the channel he turns to face the Captain. "Sir, the emergency transporters are not configured to use the pattern enhancing techniques. We will have to transport them six at a time."
Its risky, but maybe we can leave via beam out at shuttle? They’ll have an easier chance locking on from there.
"You want to march us all out there into the field of fire of those squid creatures?! ARE YOU CRAZY! Those things blasted our habitats through our shields. You want us to go out there in environment suits?"
It is hard to read body language in the bulky suits, but the tone of the Deputy Administrator's voice is unmistakable.
Garrett thinks for a minute and calls the bridge saying If they took three tricorders with them the away team could set up a triangle field that I could beam small groups at a time up using what I did before as a guideline. It's all theory mind you but it should work.
"Deputy Administrator," Doctor Bhalla begins, "I assume that you have had some opportunity to observe these cephalopod-like creatures. Do you have any idea as to what may motivate them? Or distract them?"
"Yes, we've analyzed our data about a series of boreholes around played out dilithium deposits. It appears that these creatures harvest dilithium from this rock, but they aren't here all of the time. They were here in the past, and now they've returned. And we are sitting on a huge deposit of harvested dilithium."
"Harvest dilithium." Dr. Bhalla mulls over the thought, not having recalled the creatures using any sort of obvious technology within the atmosphere. "Have you seen them conducting such a harvest? Any theories on how they go about detecting the substance?"
The doctor subconsciously rubs her fingers together as she is in thought. Then she suggests, "If we know what sort of 'sensor' they use, we may be able to create a false reading. Create a diversion."
"We haven't had a chance to study them with adequate equipment. They are clearly hostile, why don't you just blow them out of space."
"I'm a doctor, not a sniper." the Starfleet officer responds. "Starfleet's mission is to seek out new life, not eradicate it."
She ponders a moment longer, then asks, "Do you have any harvested dilithium within the facility?"
Thoss turns to face the Captain. "Sir, if the creatures are attracted to dilithium we could use our stores of dilithium to draw the creatures away from the redoubt...or perhaps even bargain with them, should we establish communications with them."
Motioning to the communication station, "Deputy Administrator, this is Valiant. Please send us all recorded visual sighting you have of those creatures. It is our best shot of trying to establish communication with them."
Sure blowing these creatures out of the sky may work...but I believe their brethren will take a dim view of us. They let us go once...I do not wish to press our luck here...
to Dr. Bhalla: "Of course, we are a dilithium mining colony. We have an abundance of mined and refined dilithium."
to Thoss: "Certainly, sending our records now."
Yesult will pour over the records and their own run in with the creatures seeing if he can spot anything of use.
"Of course. We have an ample supply of both refined and unrefined dilithium. We are a mining colony, after all. We haven't sent a shipment out for months, so we have an abundance of dilithium."
Receiving no guidance from her superiors , Doctor Bhalla takes control of the situation.
Turning to the Deputy Administrator, she requests, "Please retrieve as much dilithium that a person can safely carry. We will need a diversion to get us all out of here."
"Doctor Bhalla to Valiant." she broadcasts over the communicator. Once, she establishes a signal, she continues. "We believe the squid-like creatures are drawn here due to the dilithium. It may be that they are attracted to the substance or view it as a food source. I suspect that if you are able to transport a sufficiently large quantity of dilithium to an area of the surface, either by transporter or un-manned probe, that doing so may draw them away from our current location and allow us to make it back to the shuttle craft for transport unmolested."
Checking her enviro-suit, the woman continues, "If that doesn't seem feasible, I plan to draw them away myself using dilithium stores presently here in the redoubt."
engineering to Doctor Bhalla. Dilithium is unstable in it's natural form but should be safe to transport. If you can bring enough to lure the creatures and then bring some more with the people I am beaming up so we can supply the federation with it's needed resources then we accomplish both missions. I am ready to transport if you set up a triangular tricorder transporter pad for them. Yesult says as a fun little tongue twister with a smile.
"With all due respect, Mr. Garrett, if I send the dilithium with the colonists, I'd be making them a target.". Doctor Bhalla responds. " Valiant will have to make due with what I can carry."
She takes a deep breath, then continues, "I will leave the redoubt first, laden with whatever dilithium I can carry. Monitor the creature's activity. If they take the bait and follow me, then send a signal to the Commander to let him know that the path to the shuttle is clear."
"I will try to evade the creature's as long as possible, attempting to stay low to the rocks and hiding among the terrain. Once you have the colonists and the other crew aboard, then retrieve me and whatever dilithium I am still carrying via transporter as quickly as possible." the woman requests. "Are my instructions clear?"
With the environmental seals on her suit secure and with all of the dilithium that she can carry, the doctor races out of the redoubt, hoping to get the "squids" attention and lead them in a direction away from the redoubt and the shuttle.
Once satisfied that the lure is working and that the path to the shuttle is "squid-free", she notifies the commander. "It looks like you are good to go, Commander. Get those people out of there. Quickly."
Yesult locks the transporters on the tricorders and brings the scientists up to the Valiant in groups as quickly as possible.
Dr. Bhalla runs across the barren surface of the planet with a small amount of refined crystallized dilithium. It takes only a few moments for the squidlike aliens to detect her cargo and move toward her. There natural camouflage ability keeps them hidden until they are quite close.
As the mining colonists dissolve in a series of transporter beams, being beamed into every transporter room on the ship, a cuttlefish shaped alien the size of a shuttle approaches Bhalla. It's skin shimmers with patterns matching the energetic storms above it, then shifts to a dark and somewhat threatening violet. It approaches Bhalla with tentacles splayed. Unlike an Earth cephalopod, it lacks a beak and has a more humanoid mouth opening at the center of its tentacles.
The tentacles ripple with ionic energy, but rather than blasting the Dr., it undulates toward its mouth, perhaps beckoning her.
At the same time, just as the last colonist arrives on a transporter pad, the strange alien structure that attacked the Valiant earlier appears in orbit above the planet. As it enters orbit, it disgorges a swarm of sky squid, one of which is noticeably larger than the others.
"Dr. Bhalla to Valiant," the woman says hurriedly into her communicator. "If an incoming transporter beam is not imminent, then it appears that either this haul of dilithium or myself will be fed to the creatures."
Garrett beams Dr Bhalla up hoping to get the shields up prior to the insectoid creatures attacking.
As the squid creature approaches the Dr., Garret attempts to focus the transporter beam on her. The squid approaches as Garrett works the sliders of the transporter, boosting power to the sensors. The strange creature approaches, closer and closer, its tentacles forcing the relatively tiny Dr. Bhalla into the gaping maw of the creature that so closely resembles an Earth squid.
Garrett suddenly finds that he cannot get a lock on the Dr. as she disappears completely from his sensor readings.
Dr. Bhalla finds herself inside an unpleasant but not deadly situation (at least not in her Environment Suit). She senses a sudden acceleration, as powerful as being launched into orbit without inertial dampeners, something she hasn't experiences since the academy.
The doctor attempts to figure out what has happened to her and why she has not been devoured.
She struggles to reach her communicator and activate it.
"Doctor Bhalla to Valiant. Come in, Valiant." she begins to repeat, hoping that the signal will be received.
The doctor is drawn into an orifice, pushed and collected by the creature's tentacles. Nonetheless, she does not appear to be inside some sort of extra stomach. She is not being digested, but merely stored with her supply of dilithium. The process reminds her of a bee bringing nectar to a hive.[
Her communicator is received clearly by the Valiant.
"Valiant, I am not sure that you are going to belief this." Doctor Bhalla begins, "I'm not sure that I believe it myself.. But, I seem to have been ingested--taken aboard one of the squid-like entities--along with the dilithium. Perhaps for storage?"
"Valiant to Doctor Bhalla, understood," Thoss acknowledges the message, "Looks like you have stirred up the proverbial hornet's nest. Rest assured we won't leave without you Doctor. Valiant out."
After bringing the ship to red alert Thoss turns to the Captain, "Sir recommend we disengage from orbit and pursue the squipd holding the Doctor captive. If we get the chance to then we could tractor beam the squid. Though I would like to know where they do take the dilithium."
For a wild moment Garrett had the doctor and then she was simply gone... Now he hears the communications and is almost jealous that the Dr gets a biological space ride. Garrett runs to engineering to do what he can for the situation.
Dr. Bhalla seems to be in a specialized organ designed to store materials.
As the creature reaches orbit, it joins the swarm that has flown from the hive ship. It approaches the creature that is unusually large, patterns flickering across its surface.
Thoss takes the ship out of orbit and pursues the creature.
As the Valiant moves toward the swarm, two groups break off from the main swarm. One moves toward the planet as another moves toward the Valiant.
"One of the swarms is headed straight for us. Do you want me to fire or rely on evasive maneuvers?"
"I recommend we intercede with the swarm heading towards the planet to best defend the colonists and the away team."