Corianis Colony Log

[Crash Calestorm 0]

Corianis Colony

Alpha Quadrant

 

Captain Ashton Marie Calestorm currently hung by a harness lifeline outside a retro-fitted shuttle atmosphere hopper. The sliding entry way doors set to either side of the shuttle were completely retracted, like an old style Earth helicopter, letting in the air and dirt of the colony world that she and her crew had been retro actively assigned to for the next few weeks. There was the smell of a distant rainstorm on the wind as well, and the whiff of the elements was intoxicating to the middle aged commanding officer.

 

Her booted feet were purchased on the scarred dark gray deck plating within the small cargo area of the atmosphere shuttle hopper, but most of her upper body was hanging outside the shuttle’s exterior entry way. She wore the typical protective duty attire that most of her border patrol crew wore when they were dispatched on a planetary operation -- cap, flak vest, standard Fleet BDU trousers, gloves -- and unless you got a good look in her eyes, you’d mistake her for any other colony support soldier.

 

Her light hazel eyes held an edge to them, the type of edge that a commander who had put some serious service time in usually gained as they moved up the command ranks usually gained over the years of service. She knew that she was at the top of her game and would never make it past captain, so that command edge was also tinged with a driving force that would make a Tarkathian pit bull proud. Calestorm was a consummate professional, she was very thorough at what she did, and she typically embraced the moment and the mission with a passion that was borderline psychotic.

 

And her Executive Officer, maintaining the co-pilots seat and console at the front of the cockpit, was having kittens for lack of a better term as his captain literally hung out in the wind. She pretty much ignored him and his minor hysterics and enjoyed the rush of the moment as she made use of a portable digital-sensor camera that she wore headphone style on her ear and left eye grabbed some recon shots. She was a hands on commanding officer, always had been, and she didn’t intend to change now.

 

Lieutenant Nisho tr’Astorix, a half blood Rihan/Human who had been with the crew of the Jackrabbit for well over five years now, just smirked at the back and forth exchange between his captain and first officer and piloted the small three man flight craft, the amused light it his eyes not visible behind the tinted goggles of his pilot helmet. The dark skinned shuttle pilot and helm officer merely did his job and piloted the colony patrol craft, letting his commanding officers flack back and forth at one another.

 

Commander Lucas McCall, a Human male with light skin and dark hair that he kept in a close crew cut and possessed what was referred to as ‘classically rugged features’, threw his hands up in the air, already starting to admit defeat “Cale, will you please just stop hanging out … that much. At least put on a combat helmet.”

 

“Stow it Lucas. Just let me be. I’ll get a few more shots of the grid mapping area of this mining camp and we’ll call it a day. The local administrators want to know if the more reprobate of these protestors are playing musical chairs with the camp locations so the local militia has a harder time trackin’ ‘em.”

 

“You know, we do have shuttle sensor and tracking programs that can record images.”

 

“Hush up. That’s an order.” Her southeastern Old Earth Americas accent (commonly referred to as a Southern accent), spiked and the regional inflections on her words became more prominent, indicating that she was reaching the end of her patience with McCall and his griping. She and Lucas had served together for years now, but that didn’t mean that’d she’d hesitate to put him in his place command wise.

 

Cale had once been an attractive woman. She still retained that quality of beauty, but age, command, and time spent within the harsh weather environments on a few dozen colony border worlds had etched their mark on her exposed skin areas. She had crows feet set at the corners of her eyes, and age lines snaked about her mouth. Her hands were still of a feminine shape, yet had grown strong manipulating first a starfighter control stick and then the controls of a Helm console on a few starships. They were battle scarred as well, with burns and cuts long healed and calluses marring their skin surface. Her wheat colored hair had streaks of gray appearing throughout the strands, and she walked with a slight limp due to rampant battle injury induced arthritis that kept coming back in her right knee.

 

She most often answered to Captain or Calestorm from those she worked with and the officers and crew under her command. Old friends and former pilot’s that she had flown with on past assignments called her Cale or by her call sign, Crash. Her family called her Ash or Cale. Only her mother was permitted to call her Ashton Marie.

 

The USS Jackrabbit had been assigned to the Corianis colony world about two months ago. Cale and her crew had originally brought in some supplies and replacement workers for the mining colony, and then were to set out on standard patrol within the sector. But, things had not gone according to plan, and the patrol ship and her 100 personnel crew had been ordered to go into full police mode per the orders of Admiral James “Mork” Mkory back at Fleet Command.

 

While the Miranda class ship had been completing the routine drop off mission, things had taken a turn for the worse on the world. Stories on the local newswire indicated a rift between colony management and the workers who kept the dilithium flowing. That rift had turned into local uprisings, and now, the situation was teetering on full blown riot mode.

 

As the resident Starfleet ship, pending any further clearance from Fleet Command on Earth, Calestorm had launched into lockdown mode, sending out her security patrols to try and help the local colony police and civilian militia with the irate civilians railing against the colony administrators. The Jackrabbit had been retrofitted about eight years ago with the Hopper class shuttles, and these shuttles were primarily made for colony world operations such as atmosphere patrol, personnel transfer, supply drops if transporters couldn’t punch through ion interference, and the shuttles were usually posted to border patrol vessels such as Cale’s ship.

 

The shuttles could either be locked down or plated like your typical Fleet transport, carrying up to eight passengers including pilot and co pilot. But, they could also be swapped out and stripped down easily by the engineering crews depending on the needs of a particular colony mission. In this case, Cale, McCall and tr’Astorix were using the three man patrol boat configuration typically employed for low atmosphere supply runs, recon hops, or even crowd control.

 

Nisho banked the shuttle off to the north west so they could get a look at the secondary mining camp within this area of the planetary grid. The Rihan was one of the better Jackrabbit Helm officers, but even so he had to fight through some turbulent winds; Cale hunkered down and held onto her harness apparatus, squinting her eyes even through her protective goggles.

 

The Jackrabbit had been one of the more successful test subjects using the atmosphere shuttle hoppers, but Calestorm felt an uncommon heaviness in her chest considering the way that she was employing the shuttles right now: she had authorized the use of non lethal force against any pockets of rioters the patrol shuttles came across during their vector runs. So far, the incidents had been minor, and any combatants had dispersed easily. For now, the problems were contained amongst the mining camps scattered across the surface of the colony world, but the riots and uprisings were slowly spreading into the larger colony urban areas as well as the small ground based spaceport and orbital platform.

 

But, it was only a matter of time before the riot situation got really out of hand, and Cale had already heard rumors over the sector to sector wireless that another Starfleet ship might be coming in to further contain the rioting on the world. In a way, she resented the help let alone the incursion of another ships command staff into what she considered her territory, but she couldn’t do much about it when it came down to orders from the ‘Frisco based Admiralty.

 

She was still mad enough to spit nails at the whole damn cluster frack though, and fully intended to see this mission -- her mission -- through to the end.

 

tr’Astorix came over the internal wireless that the three of them shared via their connecting ear communication devices; the little communicators glowed a lurid shade of blue, indicating that the officers were contacting one another.

 

“Sir, we have tone on that camp down there; one of the locals is on the network wireless. They have a riot brewing down there.”

 

Cale paused with her recon shots, and felt her jaw set even as she made the mental decision. She swung back into the interior of the shuttle, disengaging her harness through easy of practice and linked her headgear over onto the internal combat mode that the shuttles shared with one another so she could monitor her other shuttle patrol teams that were out and about as well.

 

“McCall, contact our Hopper patrolling the North vector; have them fly a straight run and drop tear gas on the problem area.”

 

“Any warnings?”

 

“Why? Didn’t do any good last time when we flew over this area and broadcasted the please disperse orders over the audio. No warnings. They have clearance to just up and let loose with the gas, my authorization. If the colony admin wants to complain, lord knows it won’t be the first time. Fleet Command told us to contain the situation as best we can, and that’s what we’re doin’ here.”

 

Her tone came out so decisive and flat, that McCall chose not to question the orders as he had done the last time. Cale had dressed him down pretty good in private, and he had no desire to attract her general tetchiness again. They might have served together for a long time, but when the woman got a notion in her head, she was the reaper on the wind and lord help you if you faltered or got in her way.

 

This Corianis colony de facto mission had indeed put her into her full command mode, and she had gone stubborn as all get out.

 

“Aye sir, forwarding your orders on now, confirmed by our lead Lieutenant on call.”

 

The Captain huffed out a breath of air through her nose. It was going to be another long day trying to quell these factions that are uprising…

Edited July 3, 2009 by Capt Calestorm