Life on Mark II

Commanders meet up

Chapter 5

Commander Angel

All of the commanders had compiled and organized the data that was collected the first day. Now they came together to compare notes. Although they hadn't been too far from the other groups, the data they gathered was different from group to group. Angel was very surprised when Halin commented on hot, heavy rainfall and Raven talked about the chilly climates. She herself had led her group into what seemed like a Sahara. She had seen many strange creatures just out of the corner of her eye that had run away when she tried to look at them.

Even with that she had seen some amazing plants that looked as though they were walking. She had managed to catch sight of a small animal that looked like a furry caiman before it scrambled underground. The sand was a strange orangish blue colour with accents of green on the crests of the hill. Since this was an observation mission only she hadn't had time to find out what caused these bizarre colours. She hypothesized that it might be a type of oxidization or exposure to other elements. 

She had an abundance of questions bursting to be answered. She found that the group she had been assigned to shared her unquenchable curiosity. They too were disheartened when they were informed that they couldn't take samples or do field testing.  

Angel sighed knowing that next week she would be able to take and test as she pleased and make charts and data and analyze samples. She would be in heaven, scientific heaven. 

As she thought about all the things she would put under the microscope that she barely heard what the others were discussing. Finally she snapped out of her happy fantasies when she heard someone calling her name. She looked up still shaking off some of her daydream and saw them all looking at her.

"What did you say?" She asked, slightly embarrassed. 

"We wanted to know if you were ok with the people in your group." Explained Dasya'.

"Pay attention next time, kay hun?" Halin said with a voice that was at once sugary sweet and dripping with contempt. 

Angel was unfazed. She had dealt with popular mean girls before. Whenever she was teased or mocked she would just need to talk to them and they were later making plans to go for coffee together. This girl, she thought, would be no different. 

"Sorry I was thinking about next week when we can run tests and gather data and all that cool stuff. I am loving my group, we all share a deep curiosity and have all become tight-knit friends!" 

"All of you!?" Fiona cried. "All 875 of you?" She put emphasis on the number. 

"Yeah, all 875" She said copying Fiona's emphasis on the number. She couldn't comprehend why the other couldn't understand the importance of getting acquainted with their group. 

Angel knew the name and personality of everyone in her group and could bring up the information at a whim. For example she knew that Jackson Flire was very quiet but he aced any test given to him. Vinessa Lorre had a collection of every element on the periodic table both found in nature and synthesized. Manne Rockeford was related to a Nobel Prize winner. The list went on and on. 

"How about you guys?" She inquired "How do you like your groups?" 

"Mine are ok but they don't like getting their hands dirty. They've never run a test on a sample that hasn't been sterilized and prepared on a slide for them. They are total lab jockeys." Complained Raven. 

"My group started to get rowdy after about an hour and I had quite a task getting them to settle down." Dasya' put in.

"The kids with me were pretty good but they wouldn't stop talking and touching everything. One nearly got bitten when they poked what looked like a flower that was actually a vicious insect." Said Kamal.

"And my group was so idiotic that they couldn't walk in a straight line. I told them that if they didn't walk correctly then I would find an ocean, throw them in, and take notes on what came up and tried to eat them!" Halin fumed. 

"Well I guess that leaves me?" Fiona said. It was more of a quiet question rather than the statement she meant it to be. "My kids were just excited to be on a whole new planet that they had a chance to make history on in the future. It was quite interesting to observe their optimism." She was back to her peppy self. 

"That's so great!" Halin said in a sarcastic tone that suggested she didn't think it was great at all. "What's next? We're going to go and slide down a rainbow? Or maybe befriend the flower insect and fly around the desert." Once again subduing the bubbly Brazilian with her demeaning comments. 

"You don't have to say it so harshly." Fiona mumbled. "I think it's a good thing that they want to learn. It's better than having to force them to learn like they had to do in schools on Mark I."

"Anyway we should get back to business!" Angel said brightly. She was obviously trying to stop the feud between her two fellow commanders. She changed the subject to sustenance. "Has anyone found anything that could serve as a food source when we run out of rations?" 

"Our group discovered a type of fish that is similar to a barramundi in a body of water. It seemed like a wide, brackish river." Raven explained how, one of the people in her group waded in since it was so hot and the fish just hit his leg and stopped moving. "It was still alive but we believed this might be a defense mechanism. There was something strange about it though, It had a set of eyes not only on it's head but on it's stomach and tail. We don't know if it could use all at once or one set at a time but we can test that next week." Raven was about to go off on a tangent about tests but the others started talking before she could go on.

"We found a bush of berries that didn't look poisonous so we observed how the native animals reacted to them. Though they could have been immune to any toxins residing in the plant one of the more brash students put a handful in his mouth and since then hasn't suffered any ill effects." Kamal added. He still looked a bit miffed that the kid had disobeyed instructions.

"Well that is a mishap that turned out to be fortunate. Much like many of the other major discoveries. This could be a good development." Chirped Angel. 

With this comment the meeting was adjourned.