A "lofty" conversation

[ElaineDelgado 0]

The away team had finally come close enough to the Romulan base to fulfill their mission, and had started climbing up a tree. Brian continued to climb the tree, stopping at about every branch to see if he could view the base clearly yet. Finally deeming one sufficient moved up onto a branch and sat on it. “I think this should be high enough,” he said briskly to Elaine while taking out a pair of binoculars and looking around with them.

 

Climbing onto a branch near him, Elaine paused to look down. “Hmm... yes, high enough indeed.” Then, looking back towards him and his antennae, she asked, “How are the uh...” then motioning towards his head, ”um… doing?

 

He moved his antennae about for a moment. “They're better. I got scared for a minute. If I mess these up I'll probably fall out of this tree.”

 

“That... would not be good.” Elaine said, looking around in front of them. “So, what exactly are we looking for? I would like to help.”

 

“Well, we want to get an idea of the layout of this base,” he explained to her. “See how many Romulans they have here, what their defenses are, and their posture. Plus, anything else we happen to observe.”

 

Elaine slowly removed a hand from its death grip on the tree and lifted her binoculars to get a better view of things. “I don't usually like going on the away missions and this one is no different... but everything seems to be going so smoothly, she said, smiling at him. ”I have a good feeling about this mission.”

 

”I wish I could say the same, but I'm glad you feel that way,” Brian said noncommittally while looking at the base through his binoculars. He worked on getting a basic overview of the base before zooming in closer. “Hmm, based on the layout, it appears to be set in a Delta 2 configuration,” he mumbled while zooming in even more to look at the smaller structures.

 

“Oh yes, yes of course, mmm-hmm...” Elaine mumbled while looking around. She pointed. “Over to the right there, do you think that's the main office type place?

 

He moved his view to where Elaine indicated, looking over the structure. “Probably. It's lack of outside features would suggest that.” He motioned at other areas. ”If you look around the perimeter of the base you can see some small structures. Those are probably defensive fortifications. I'd say they look like they are prepared for an infantry attack.”

 

”Infantry...” Elaine thought quickly, then asked, “would that be like the Jem'Hadar?”

 

Surprised at her quick assessment, he replied, “Well, yeah, exactly like that. No offense Doctor, but I wouldn't have expected you to make that connection.”

Elaine smirked. “I'll take that as a compliment and move on... from the building count here, can we make an assessment of how many people are stationed here?”

 

Brian inhaled deeply through his teeth, trying to come up with the calculation. “Only about 350. It's not a very large base, probably because this is such a sparsely populated environment.”

 

Nodding, she pressed on. “Alright, so what other information about this base do we need to gather? Normal movements of troops, power generator locations, when they like to take a break and do folk dances...?” She shot him a sideways glance. “Just... a little joke there.”

 

“If that were true I'd be sure to get a picture. That would destroy the Romulan military reputation,” he told her with a smile before going back to his binoculars. “Umm, power generation… power generation... maybe that, the domed thing with the two smaller cubes beside it, mostly because I don't know what else it could be.”

 

Elaine looked in that direction. “Hmm… yeah, I'd go with power generator.” She leaned to grab a hold of a nearby branch, still feeling as though she were about to fall out of the tree.

 

Brian scanned the area more, saying, “Now that flatter building is probably the barracks, since...” he let his sentence trail off, noting a shadow coming from his left. “What is that?”

 

Just then a Romulan shuttle skimmed over the trees and headed for the base. Elaine blinked and admitted quietly, “I don’t like things that big that close to me…”

 

“Nor do I,” Brian agreed, holding as still as he could so as not to attract any attention. “I don't remember seeing any landing facilities...” he looked furtively through his binoculars to confirm.

 

”Maybe they're hiding them behind some of the trees.” Elaine was starting too look very weary about being in this tree.

 

Having confirmed there were no landing facilities, he told her, “Your probably right. there must be another clearing close by.” He stopped talking so he could watch the shuttlecraft more closely.

 

Elaine looked a bit confused. “How do we know this is the only base they have here?”

 

“Oh, there are more around the planet. But from what Chen found, this is the only one in the area. They may just have a clearing with some lights, nothing too technical. It wouldn't show up that way.”

 

She nodded and asked, “And sir... how much longer do we have to stay up in this tree?”

 

“Right after we see where that shuttle lands, we can leave. I think we have seen everything,” he assured her. Taking a moment to look around the base one last time, he noticed some activity near the office building. “Hey, there’s some Romulans coming out of that building you pointed out.”

 

Elaine had had quite enough of this perching business. “Sir, parts of me are going numb. I'm worried about falling out of the tree.”

 

“One more second Doctor, I think me way see someone important. Important enough to be guarded at least… Do you want to start heading down? I’ll follow you in a moment.” He did not want to seem unsympathetic, but he wondered what was happening down there. Four Romulans took up flanking positions at the doorway. Two figures emerged from the building and with an electronic sound he widened the view a bit to see who they were… the first a Romulan, possibly the commander of the base. The second… “Elaine, are you seeing this?”

 

Brian had been greeted by the craggy face of a Jem’Hadar.

 

“What? What are you seeing?” Elaine scrambled to catch hold of the tree, startled by Brian’s outburst.

 

“I’m seeing a meeting that I wish I wasn’t. It looks like the Romulans are having talks with the Dominion.” Engrossed in the movements below, he added, “Well, maybe not Dominion. That's not the traditional Jem'Hadar uniform. He could possibly be loyal to the Hundred...”

 

Elaine leaned her head despondently against a tree branch. “And things were going so well… what do we do now?”

 

He put his binoculars away and looked down at Elaine. “We get the heck out of here and get this information back to Starfleet.” And with that, he headed down the tree with her.