Maiden Voyage

Six

Ensign Dawn Capps sat atop an empty environmental samples container in the transporter room. At barely five feet tall, the container was waist high and provided the perfect perch. She had assembled her team after the briefing by Captain Pike, but they had been waiting for the signal to beam down for what seemed like hours. She hesitantly glanced at the wall. The chronometer read twelve hundred hours, sixteen minutes. Time was becoming a factor for her mission.

Ensign Capps had dealt with bipolar disorder for most of her adult life. It never hindered her progress or goals since she was first diagnosed. Treatment was readily available; it just took her awhile to come to grips with accepting the condition. Never using it as a crutch, she still had to be cognizant of the triggers that would activate her coping strategies to control the anxiety. Right now, she felt slight panic about getting the survey done, analyzed and back to report to the captain at his sixteen hundred hours briefing. The longer they waited, the less time the team had to accomplish their tasks. Not to mention the alluring prospect of having her molecules scattered across space by the transporter, only to have them reassembled hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. Would she still be the same once all her parts were put back together? Quietly, she started her breathing exercises, hoping no one would notice. The ensign considered meditating but didn't want her teammates to think she had fallen asleep. Shifting back and forth atop the canister seemed like the thing to do to keep the insatiable magnetic pull of the chronometer off her attention. It was now twelve hundred hours, twenty-one minutes. Damn.

The doors to the transporter room swished open. In walked Number One, Lieutenant Rios and Ensign Spock. They were all carrying large silver cylindrical tubes with tripod bases. Ensign Spock had his over his shoulder attached to a sling; the other two were left near the transporter pad. Number One proceeded to Chief Pitcairn.

She handed him a datapad. "Chief, here is a set of coordinates. Communicate with Mr. Spock and beam him to the first western setting. Then beam him to the north and east, respectively. Follow the transport with beaming down one of the remaining probes here. First, transport Lieutenant Rios to the captain's location. Got all that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Ensign Capps' heart sank. She started her deep breathing again. More delays? Was her team ever going to see the surface of M-114?

Number One turned to exit the transporter room when she stopped to address Ensign Capps.

"Ensign, you're all clear. Following Mr. Spock's departure, your team is on. Sorry for the wait. You know how the captain is when he has to do his diplomacy thing first." It was important to acknowledge the very patient ensign.

#

Lieutenant Rios materialized in the town's square. He glanced around at the colonial type houses that ran up and down both sides of the streets. His face lit up with a huge smile as he instinctively reached for his tricorder to scan. He read the same thing his captain's device had read, except he knew with his previous vantage point from space, the colony looked exactly like a typical Starfleet colony. On the Enterprise's sensors, anyway. He strolled forward, unaware of the vibrant costumes worn by the colony's inhabitants.

Captain Pike's voice snapped him out of his fascination with the buildings surrounding him. "Rios, over here."

Rios walked quickly over to where Captain Pike, Doctor Boyce, Governor Vessey and Corporal Samira stood in front of Ruby's, which remained exposed from the holo-emitter illusion.

Rios noticed it immediately. "Captain, this is what the colony looks like from space. I don't understand."

Pike explained, walking his assistant chief engineer over to the first holo-emitter. "The colonists have invented a pretty high-tech holo-emitter system that their engineers have programmed with historical data from earth, the turn of the twentieth century. Governor Vessey has been generous enough to permit us a look-see at the tech, up close and personal."