Surviving on Arth part 1

Posted on 28 Dec 2024 @ 12:12am by Lieutenant Alexandra Lee

1,087 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: S04 Episode 01 Captive State Part 2 (Incidentals)
Location: Arth: Slums of the Central City

[ON]

Alexandra and her team held on to their lives as long as they could and kept as low a profile while on their mission. However, Ensign Torres was not lucky. She got questioned by a local vendor when she was purchasing some rations and the vendor did not care for her wording. The vendor called a constable over and she was then arrested and has not been seen since. That was about two months after the Tomcat left Arth.

Alexandra then lost Ensign Paris when he got an infection from a scratch he received while hiking to into town when they were still living in the observation post. The infection was not treated by any of the medicines from the med kit nor could they go to see a local doctor since they would not be able hide their red blood when the tests were done. He passed away about six months into the mission.

Alexandra was then living in a small one room apartment of sorts in what she called Skidrow of the Central City. She blended in well and was convincing to the locals. She was very cautious to not draw attention to herself and never took the same path home two days in row.

She has survived and managed to keep her gear in check and in working condition. She was liked by those in Skidrow and she was even treated well by the vendors in the area as she would sometimes help them out with odds and ends due in part to her rounded background and physical stamina.

She had a lot of data stored on a datachip from all her observations from the time Dodd had the Tomcat depart for another mission until about a week ago. However, she was now coming to learn that some of the vendors were growing concerned about new patrol patterns the constables were conducting in the area.

One day, she found out that chatter from the central government was leading to a new discovery. Apparently a new invention was created and was about to be announced to the people. A manmade satellite was going to be launched into orbit and would be able to allow for the government to listen to the sky beyond the blue.

That means that someone realized there was something beyond the visual abilities of the naked eye and thus used the technology of the rogue federation observer to make a new service for the already corrupted government. The big announcement would happen tomorrow and so Alexandra needed to get to the site of the public announcement to get more information and to see if she could witness this event.

So she packed up all she could conveniently carry without looking out of place and stowed what she could not carry in a crate in the rafters of her apartment with a transponder to help her find it later. She took off to go to the announcement that would happen tomorrow but it would take her the rest of the day to get there.....

After a short nap in a tram shelter, she got on her way again. She found a place to freshen up, which was merely washing her face and attempting to brush her teeth. She then walked for about an hour or two, then she arrived at the region of the city where the press conference was to occur to introduce the first manmade satellite to Arth.

She did some scans with her tricorder and found there were signals from several of the security personnel that were based upon Federation technology. She figured they may have some sort of phaser pistols on them. Her observations did lead her to realize that the tech on this planet that was derived from Federation tech was subpar to what her level was so she had to be extra careful not to provide new tech in the mix.

The event was still being setup and the security was all over the place. Alexandra was cautious and kept out of the field of vision and thus of the radar of the authority figures. She found a café of sorts to the south of the event center with a view of the main stage area. She entered and ordered a small beverage and a pastry that was sort of like a cronut but more savory than sweet. She still had her universal translator implant and it was still functional, which is how she was able to blend in so well. She listened to the other patrons of the café and paid attention to every detail she could. Her tricorder was designed to mimic a local item so she could have it out to record all that she could.

After about an hour, Alexandra then noticed that some of the government officials were starting to make their way in to event area to set up their positions for the announcement. According to her tricorder, one official did register as a Earthling. So she did her best to keep that person under watch.

Then she noticed that there appeared to be small swarm of insects in one of the trees. However, per her scanner they were not really insects, they were very miniaturized drones. She was aware they used such tech here. She has encountered many of them and even disabled them. They were similar to the once used devices on old Earth for kids to play with only these had audio visual abilities and were used to watch the rural communities and the people of interest.

She keep a watchful eye on all around her. She was really good at blending in and has managed to survive this lone. She also hoped that her ship would be back sooner than later as she longed for her comforts that were not on this planet.

After a while, Alexandra moved to a public bench to the side fo the event location. She took a seat and attempted to read the local newspaper to help her blend in. As she sat there observing she knew she would have a better vantage point here. She then noticed an official walk by with their aide. The two were talking and it was rather detailed.

From what Alexandra gathered it was about the upcoming attempt to send a device into orbit of the planet, which is interesting as most of the population did not have any idea there could be anything beyond the scope of Arth.

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to be continued.....

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