Land Dispute, Part 2
Posted on 12 Oct 2025 @ 8:58pm by Ensign Ryan Collingway & Captain Sabrina Corbin & Lieutenant Commander Sandra Boren & Lieutenant Commander Riah Amberlyn XMD
1,778 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Fractured Accord
Location: Tarvik III
Timeline: Morning
=/\= Tarvik III =/\=
"Kaldari?" Sorvak quietly asked Boren.
Sandra raised an eyebrow at Sorvak, "I believe the Captain mentioned them, but I have been too busy in Engineering to find out more information about them, Commander."
"This land does not belong to you." The head of the group shouted out.
Ryan glanced nervously at the terraforming equipment as they put up their hands. They were still in the process of unpacking, setting it up, turning it on and beginning preliminary set-up testing. As a result, half of the equipment was working around them. He had no idea what would happen if phaser fire disrupted the equipment, but 'definitely unsafe' would be the first thing to come to mind.
Sandra raised her hands, but allowed her left hand to brush her communicator, and she and softly, under her breath, stated, "Away team to Arawyn bridge, we have unfriendly visitors." She didn't want to say more, in case they realised she had asked for help, and left the comm line open to the bridge, so they could hear the rest of the conversation.
=/\= Bridge – USS Arawyn =/\=
For a heartbeat, the bridge went still. Corbin’s knuckles pressed into the arm of her chair, eyes fixed on the sudden chaos spilling through the open comm, phaser discharge, wind, Boren’s breathless words.
Bloody hell, she thought. They’d placed the security detail a kilometer downslope, escorting the supply drones and watching for seismic microfractures near the colony’s foundation grid. It had made sense at the time, keep their presence low, non-threatening. Now it felt like an oversight wrapped in logic.
“Bridge acknowledges,” she said evenly, voice cutting through the static. “Commander Boren, hold position and conserve power. Security detail, report.”
A strained voice broke through the interference. “—This is Petty Officer Larell, ma’am. We’re moving in from the south ridge—two minutes out. Hostiles appear Kaldari, small arms only.”
Corbin exhaled once, quiet and deliberate. “Understood, Larell. Keep your weapons on stun. Containment only—no escalation.”
She tapped her combadge. “Corbin to Flammia. Lieutenant, assemble a second security team and beam down to Site Alpha. Reinforce Boren’s perimeter; you have tactical lead until I say otherwise.”
Her gaze flicked to Tactical. “Set transport pattern buffers for emergency retrieval, multiple casualties. Helm, maintain orbit over the colony grid; Tactical, lock phasers on suppression spread, standby only.”
=/\= Tarvik III =/\=
"Turn off your machines!" one of the females demanded.
"It needs a controlled shutdown-" Ryan started to explain.
Impatiently, the woman shot at the machine. Suddenly, the ground underneath them crystallized into ice. They were already protected by the spacesuits against the coldness of space. Otherwise, the air would have gotten a lot colder for them as snow and hail rained down on them.
"What the...", Sandra mumbled as she duck out of the way, behind a pallet with equipment. "Arawyn, we need support, and weapons to defend ourselves," she said urgently in the open comm line. Where was the security team when you needed it. She looked around the edge of the pallet, to see if the rest of the Away Team was OK. "Collingway, Sorvak, Bolan are you ok?"
Ryan nodded, but his face was concerned. Unfortunately, he was still fairly put in the open. "We need to shut down that machine! It could go off again at any time!"
"Don't move!" the woman ordered, holding her gun at him. But she gave the machine a scared look. She glanced at her companion. "What do we do?"
There was a sudden rumble from the machine, and the next thing Ryan could see was a sudden rush of vegetation overtop of the ice which knocked everyone down. Ryan went flying through the air and landed with an audible crack on the still-icy ground. His 'companion' holding the gun wasn't so lucky and went further away as a literal tree hit her.
His helmet was completely smashed, so he removed it. The air could sustain human life...barely. He could hear his lungs wheezing as he looked for the machine. Where was it? He couldn't see much in the sudden new jungle around him.
The medical team materialized into a chaos of vegetation emerging from the ground, sprouting out of towering trees, dangling, tangling vines growing like live snakes from everywhere. The medics were scattered, each trying to avoid being trapped or ambushed by the giant ferns or the sudden arrival of a large branch from the trunk of a tree rising through the foliage that now covered the ground. There were no trails, no pathways, nothing to use as a reference. The sky was becoming increasingly difficult to even see through the canopy of broad-leafed deep teal-toned greenery.
“Cmdr Boren?” called Sam Jamison, the medic in charge of the medical team. “Can anyone hear me? This is Lt Jamison, Medic from Arawyn.” He knew they would be beaming into a dangerous area and that they had been sited to arrive behind the cover of a shield of protection from some equipment and supplies. But a jungle had not been among their expectations upon arrival.
A golden beam of a phaser cut through the bush and struck a tree about 5 feet from Jamison.
“Get down, everyone. Get down,” yelled Jamison. “Don’t shoot. We are a medical team. We will help anyone who is injured. Please, do not open fire.”
Even as he urged others to restrain from using their weapons, he did pull his own weapon from its holster. This was highly dangerous situation. None of those on the surface were prepared to hack their way through a jungle with anything other than maybe a phaser. He struggled through the vegetation to another spot to the right of the angle of the shot to the tree, and called again.
“Can anyone hear me? Science Team! What is our status with this development of a jungle? Can it be stopped?”
Sandra hang upside down in a tree when she came to, and tried to figure out what was going on. Her mind was spinning, and it took all her strength and mental control to stop it. The planet, terra forming. Phaser fire.... at the point she noticed the pain in her leg, the leg that she was hanging by in the tree. And she estimated it was at least 30 m off the ground. She heard a voice shouting to get down, and don’t shoot. Her helmet was in the way of looking around, and she didn’t want to move, it hurt too much. I had an open comm line, she mused, trying to figure out how to get help without giving her position away to the enemy. Quietly, she spoke, “Boren to whoever can hear me, I’m stuck up in a tree, I am injured, enemy fire on the ground.”
Jamison heard the call over his audio ear implant and tapped his badge. "Jamison to Boren," he said quietly. "receiving your call. triangulating your position with my scanner." He didn't want to speak loudly at this point. It seemed that the phaser fire had stopped, but he'd gotten no vocal replies to his call.
Using the wrist scanner, Jamison homed in my Boren and began to fight his way through the jungle undergrowth. When he found the tree, he was very alarmed, for there was really no way to climb up there, and no way to get her down if he were to reach her. Again tapping his ear, he alerted her to his arrival. "Commander, I'm right below you. Can you breathe without pain?"
"Yes," came the reply in Jamison's ear.
"Can you describe your injuries?" He could barely see her 30 m up (about 90 ft), hidden by leaves, branches and vines, her pale yellow protective suit was the only thing that gave her position away. He was grateful it was not a camouflage fabric, except enemies might also see her.
=/\= Bridge - USS Arawyn =/\=
Corbin was already half out of her chair the moment Boren’s strained voice came through the comm — faint, distorted, but unmistakably hers.
“Injured, elevated position—enemy fire below,” the transmission crackled.
Sabrina didn’t hesitate. “Transporter Room One, lock onto Commander Boren’s signal and beam her directly to Sickbay, now.”
“Ma’am, interference from the vegetation surge—”
“Then burn through it,” she snapped, controlled but razor-edged. “Use the comm signature as a secondary anchor and isolate for bio-read.”
She tapped her combadge. “Corbin to Dr. Amberlyn. Prepare for incoming trauma case, Commander Boren, possible fracture and hypoxia. ”
"Ready and waiting," replied Medical.
// Tarvik III //
Sandra replied calmly to Jamison's question. "I believe I have broken my leg. I'm upside down and am unable to pull myself upright. I suggest you beam me directly ....."
"To sickbay," finished Jamison as he saw the pale yellow suit twinkle into stardust.
=/\= Bridge - USS Arawyn =/\=
Corbin's gaze flicked to Tactical. “Keep sensors locked on that tree line. I don’t want whoever fired on her thinking they can take another shot before we get her out.”
A breath, quiet and measured. “Let’s get her home, people.”
"We have the Commander in Sickbay, Captain," the medical yeoman announced on the comm.
=/\= Tarvik III =/\=
Ryan slowly approached the fallen woman. She was unconscious, but alive. "You idiot..." he wheezed. "All I wanted was a controlled shutdown. Why didn't you listen to me?"
There was no response. Not that he expected any. He looked down, and spotted her phase pistol. He picked it up, and studied it. He didn't have a weapon on the Newton, or arriving here. It was the first time he had gripped a weapon in six months. Would he have to use it? He could hear someone shouting, but they were nowhere nearby. He walked back towards the area where he thought the machine had been.
His communicator was damaged, and he didn't hear Commander Boren's distress call.It didn't take him long to find the machine, but there was someone else trying to work on it, someone he didn't recognize. He shot and fired at the man without hesitation. It was a perfect shot, and the man went down. Trying to ignore how satisfied that made him feel, he went to the controls and did a controlled shutdown. The machine shut off.
He breathed a sigh of relief and glanced up as Commander Sorvak approached, covered in brambles. "In retrospect, the nanobots aren't the worst thing we could do to this planet," Ryan said lightly.
Captain Sabrina Corbin
Commanding Officer
USS Arawyn
LtCmdr Sandra Boren
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn
Ensign Ryan Collingway
Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn
Sam Jamison
Medic apb Kate
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