"Field Trip from Hell"

[Kansas_Jones 0]

10.13.07

ISS Agincourt ICC-81762

“Field Trip from Hell”

 

Planet fall.

 

It could be a beautiful thing.

 

Lieutenant Commander Kansas JoNs perched on a large rock in the shade of an old gnarled green leaf tree and observed about half of her department meander around the fifty kilometer or so section of the field that they had all overtaken. Security had gone on a field trip, so to speak, down to the planet, designation number 78 NZ-80, the Novartis Cluster. No inhabitants, Class M, quite pretty when you thought about it.

 

The Agincourt had some downtime, and had put in orbit over NZ-80. The security chief had taken the opportunity to get some of her people off of the ship and down on the planet for some security based training. Everyone was showing off their skills (Kansas herself had cleaned up in bets and performance over at the firing range), and it was just generally a time of companionship.

 

The feline officer had blatantly ‘borrowed’ the idea from her former chief on the ISS Greenleaf, her posting prior to the Agincourt. At the time, Kansas had just been grateful for the down time; today, as a chief herself, the Caitian now recognized the real reasoning behind the trips – keeping tabs on people and their alliances and such, while simultaneously letting them blow off steam so that steam wouldn’t boil over in confrontations on the ship. Of course, her guards Master Chief Keltex and Lieutenant Mical had also been detached to planet duty, and were enjoying themselves for once.

 

JoNs herself was as well enjoying the time away from the ship, and felt comfortable enough leaving the department to her line officers – plus the fact, they all knew she’d Booth them if they took over in her absence or something. And not to play favorites or anything, she had chosen only twenty five people from her department, all of them in the top twenty percent of last months duty output. Did you do a good job and not assassinate anyone in the process? Your reward was some time away from the ship.

 

The feline jumped down from the rock and walked through the main camp among the tents and temporary pre-fab shelters set up, nodding at a few stragglers; most of the group was out on the various courses set up around the camp for the training sessions. Her sensitive ears picked up the firing range in the distance, as well as some shouts from the sparring area.

 

It took her a good ten minute walk, but she eventually arrived at the section of the field designated for the ballistics. Most of the armory officers that had come down were here of course, including a new arrival – Lieutenant senior grade Kreval, a Tellerite transfer from the ISS Trident with a specialty in explosives The Teller had come with the highest recommendations, but Kansas had gathered that the Trident was also eager to get rid of him; apparently the man could be a bit over exuberant at times. The feline had merely wanted the best of the best for her department however, and therefore here he was. She had even gone through the proper personnel channels this time.

 

Kreval was busy putting the finishing touches on his demonstration, which was a low level charge attached to a used and deactivated torpedo casing; all of the components had been stripped down and removed by the engineering grease monkeys. Apparently, Kreval had re-routed the firing mechanism on his charges to cut down on misfiring and such, and this was the purpose of the demo.

 

The feline quietly took her place in the small group standing well away from the target, and listened to the last few moments of the male officer’s lecture. A smile lit his porcine features. “And now, allow me to demonstrate.” His stubby hand hoof digit entered the command codes to the Padd, activating the delayed charge.

 

One of his fellow armory officers asked, “You had said the charge was for twenty cc’s Lieutenant?”

 

“Aye, but what I really want to see is how the charge interacts with the un-graded plasma nitro packet.”

 

Kansas swore the temperature dropped as a collective gasp went through the group. Her heart leapt into her throat as she approached her officer, her mind going through what she knew of basic ballistics procedures. “Kreval, stop the exercise now - that stuff is too volatile by itself….”

 

“Oh, nonsense; plasma nitro is highly over-rated; I’ve done this before, you just have to have the right combination…”

 

“Stop the countdown now Lieutenant Kreval!”

 

“But sir, it’s a free form hair trigger…I didn’t program fail safe commands… there is no need to this far out…”

 

JoNs and the others did not wait for the explanation; they were all hauling rear-end away from the test site.

 

At which point, the target ka-boomed, and it was a quite impressive and successful experiment as pieces of the tube went this way and that. Unfortunately, the waning concussive wave slammed into the retreating group, knocking them off their feet.

 

They painfully gathered themselves up, with Kreval hooting and hollering back where they had left him. JoNs up and dashed at him, claws out. The feline was thankfully intercepted by a big muscled crewman who grabbed her around the waist and held her fast, despite the hissing, spitting and general cussing.

 

Suddenly, a secondary random explosion occurred, no doubt a hiccup from the un graded nitro plasma, sending a tail section of the former active torp upward in an arc. It traveled for some seconds, before disappearing over the hill. Going in the direction of the location where the shuttle had been parked. The one they had brought for the upcoming evacuation exercise planned by Ensign Katt. The distant boom of an impact sounded. The group hushed.

 

JoNs’s wrist comm blipped shortly thereafter by the security officer remanded to guard duty for the vehicle.

 

“Sir? This is Rafferty…uh, yeah, the Hexen was just nailed by an unidentified flying object… really large dent and all …”