Vehemence

Chapter 15

Narrator

Spock was silently reading the planets he had to study about during the past week. Once in a while, Lany stops in in the office to ask if she had to do something but most of the time, she was just either at medbay or at the engine room.

They were both seated behind their desks, Spock fixing his PADD while Lany was waiting for him to say why he asked her to come.

"The Captain has informed me that we were going to do a research on Z'ochn." Spock finally said. "On what?"

"Z'ochn." He repeated.

She scrunched up her nose and looked at him, "Are you making that up?"

"I certainly am not." He said, cleaning up his desk. "Why haven't I heard of that before?"

He sighed and looked at her, "Because, Lieutenant, if you've heard of it before, there's no point researching about it anymore because all information are already found in computers. We are researching on this planet because it is new and unheard of yet."

"But how did you know it was called that?"

"We have a picture of the planet in our records but that was it, only the name was stated."

"Oh." Was all she could answer.

***

Jim, Spock, Lany, and Uhura were all preparing to go down, leaving the rest on the ship to wait. Lany somehow managed to convince Bones to come with them just in case there were health emergencies.

"Is it safe down there?" Lany asked the Captain, while she fixes her phaser on her belt. Kirk sighed, "Let's hope so." The answer made Lany anxious but she just shrugged it off, hoping it was safe on the planet she couldn't even pronounce. "Alright, is everyone ready to go down?" Scotty asked, preparing to beam everyone down. "Yes." Kirk said with a nod, "Take care of the ship, Sulu, and stay alert if we have emergency contacts in the enterprise." Sulu nodded at the Captain's order.

Z'ochn

Bones immediately cursed the moment he was beamed down at the planet, "I'll never get used to that." Lany laughed at his reaction, patting his back. "Let's stay close together, we're safer that way." Kirk said.

They carefully walked through the knee-length grasses, trying to make their way quicker. "Any signs of life on your tricorder, Spock?" Kirk asked, almost shouting. "Negative, captain."

The skies started to get darker as storm clouds start to cover the sky. Lany looked up from the sudden change in the air's humid, "Guys, I think it's going to rain soon, we should find somewhere to stop and make our tents first." She suggested, "I agree." Uhura said. She looked over to her right to see Kirk struggling a bit at all the things he was holding, "Here, let me help you." She offered. "I'm fine, I'm a strong man." He chuckled. "Okay, mr. Strong man, I'll help you anyway." She snorted quietly, taking a bag from Kirk, "Thanks." He grinned.

They walked through the endless field of grass, the rain heavily pouring on their heads. The grass were already past their heights like corn fields, and they could only hope nothing jumps on them since it was hard to look through the thick tall grass. "How do we know this rain's even safe?" Lany whispered to herself. They reached a plain field, almost like as if it was set up for them. "We can make our tent here for now." Bones said. "But... this is weird. This is like a set up." Lany said, "I mean look, it's still surrounded by tall grasses, why would there be a clear patch out here?"