Star Trek Discovery: Danger Zone

Chapter Two

"Keyla! Keyla!" Linus shouted at the communicator that had gone silent after the burst of unmistakable plasma-rifle fire. He swore in his native language, savoring the profane taste of it on his tongue. He cursed himself for being just a moment too slow in recognizing the energy signature as the bleed from a low-power dampening field. The kind a reconnaissance team would use...

And now they'd been found...by someone. Panic bubbled up inside him as his nervous system ticked into fight-or-flight mode, while his brain didn't have enough information to choose either option. Instead he concentrated on his field equipment—the hardy, transpari-steel computer display that was relaying data, and the communicator that seemed to get lost in his long-taloned hand. He went for the communicator first.

"Keyla! Keyla, do you read me?" He was rewarded by silence. He drew breath to call out for Owosekun, but stopped himself. "Survey team!" he said instead—no need to transmit more personal information than he already had—"Survey team, this is Research Base, do you copy?" There was still no response, but at least he'd used non-threatening titles in case the mysterious others were listening. Research Base and Survey Team sounded a lot less like an invasion force. Maybe whoever was responsible for this was mulling that over as Owosekun gently explained Starfleet's role as an exploration and peacekeeping organization.

Maybe the communicator was chattering his translated voice to the uncaring jungle from Keyla Detmer's limp, cold hand.

He felt the urge to flee again, his Saurian blood bellowing do something NOW!!! His people weren't contemplators or tacticians, they were doers. Their long climb up the evolutionary ladder—millions of years in the making, much longer than that of the mammalian humanoids—had been informed by the hazards of their world, and on Varunus contemplation got you killed. Assessing a situation got you boiled in a mudburst if you came from the deserts of the Glassland. Planning and plotting got you eaten by a celeosaurian if you were from the Great Green. Varanus taught its inhabitants that to act was to live and to ponder was to die.

But you are not your quadruped ancestors!!! Linus thought furiously. Use your developed brain! There are no mudbursts here, and no raptor plants, and if a celeosaurian shows up, you can just scratch its belly until it falls asleep. There is a problem and you're going to have to come up with a solution. Think, dammit, think!

Wait...that seemed familiar...

The first course of action came to him with mind-boggling simplicity: call the ship. The Discovery could scour the planet with its high-intensity sensors until it found the team, and then beam them to safety. Or perhaps, they'd send a security team, and the pretty Security Chief with the fragile lungs who'd recently joined them from the Enterprise would lead a recovery team to get them. Either way, they'd be back aboard the ship in time for first dibs on Taco Tuesday.

Linus switched to the Discovery's channel and bounced it off the shuttlecraft's power repeater. "Linus to Discovery...do you read me, Discovery?"

Silence. The communicator may as well have been a solid hunk of molded polymer or an ornately-painted rock. After three more tries he had to fight the urge to throw it into the jungle.

Think, dammit, think!

********

USS Discovery

Three Nights Earlier

"Think, dammit, think!" the human with the fraying head-pelt said furiously to himself.

"Why doesn't he use his bio-transceiver?" Linus asked around the bamboo shoot he was gnawing in lieu of the "popped corn" Ensign Maki had baked (broiled? Fried?) for the occasion. He was sorely tempted to try some of the human snack, but there was too great a risk of exposing his forked tongue, and he tried not to do that in front of humans.