Yeah. Right.

[Crash Calestorm 0]

Away Team One

Shuttle Four

Inbound to Neural

 

Calestorm sat back in her seat, gaze fixed on a data slate as she studied real time tactical map grids; she cast furtive glances towards the front cockpit, the image of the distant planet growing larger in the clear viewport. The insertion pilot deftly manipulated the console controls, ensuring that she and the other two officers had a smooth ride.

 

The captain had shut down her mental activity as much as she could, and her facial expressions and mannerisms were as low key as possible due to the assigned away team officers that currently shared the inbound shuttle with her.

 

Oh, hai! We can haz awkward situation?

 

She mentally shook herself out of the ‘Net street speak, and welcome mental distraction aside at the memory the silly saying evoked, she was blamin’ her nephew; he had sent her the newest kitten upload photos from the Giggle Out Loud Katz site. Good kid, but she needed to have a little chat with the boy about sending stuff to her official (and private) Starfleet account.

 

Bodie could hack into anything. Anything.

 

If it had coding, he was well on his way into the computer program and sub-routines. His best time so far was ninety seconds flat. Firewalls? Yeah, right. He was a couple years away from graduating high school, but should he ever choose to enlist in the Navy or -- Saints preserve us -- the Marines as his other Aunt Ashton kept advocating, he’d be well on his way to a senior officer position at Starfleet Computer Science R&D.

 

The kid had brains, this was for damn sure.

 

Back to the situation at hand; she was traveling with an emp-sensitive officer, and a medical officer trained to pick up on body language. It wouldn’t do for her to strongly project her own feelings regarding the mission.

 

And, Crash Calestorm was running about nuclear with regard to her opinions.

 

Civilians tended to take for granted the duties of a Starfleet officer. Only someone who had ‘been there, done that’ could really understand the career or the inherent situations or dangers of the job.

 

Both of the dispatched insertion teams were going into a situation that was touchy, at best. A culture had been compromised. How badly compromised remained to be determined.

 

Starfleet Intelligence had some serious issues internally with rogue personnel. How involved these rogue elements were with the cultural problems remained to be determined.

 

An undercover Federation observation team had been compromised. How badly they were compromised, or if Dr. Lester and her people were still alive remained to be determined.

 

The Starfleet Border Patrol, specifically the First Threat Response program officers, had been targeted to handle the Neural situation by Starfleet officers of questionable affiliation. How questionable would come out in the light of day so to speak, though Cale was fairly determined to shine a big damn sun lamp on the entire situation based on what she and her officers found at Neural.

 

This was a lot to be determined, the potential was there for complications to be encountered, and there was very little current information to go on.

 

Sure, the ship’s sensors and the Sciences and Medical technicians correlating the information could determine the following: locations of the nomadic Hill factions, as well as the locations of the Villager factions and towns. Geographic terrains or bodies of water. Varying species of local flora and fauna.

 

What could not immediately be determined was the location of Dr. Lester and her team, and what sort of hornet’s nest she and her officers were truly walking into. On site eyes were needed in the field, and that was why she’d authorized the two initial shore parties to investigate the contamination.

 

And then again, maybe the entire Neural situation would turn out to be all fuzzy bunnies. All pink and fluffy and happily hopping about fields of jasmine. Yeah. Right.