Surviving on Arth: Part 3

Posted on 28 Jan 2025 @ 5:43pm by Lieutenant Alexandra Lee

664 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: S04 Episode 01 Captive State Part 2 (Incidentals)
Location: Arth: Main Plaza in Central City

[ON]

Alexandra was now aware what was happening and that Arth was about to move into "Big Brother" mode. She was aware that Dr. Davine was using federation tech as well as her knowledge of older technology to advance this planet.

When Alexandra was left on the surface to gather data and await for her and her team to be retrieved, she never expected how it would evolve in a short time.

From the moment she arrived on the surface, she was aware of the unusual formations of the insects. This whole planet had a different aerie about it with the fact that humans could live here but the flora and fauna were so vastly different than terra firma. The insects here were the most similar to Earth insects but the mammals, avian and reptilian lifeforms were so vastly different. Even the aquatic life was different enough to make you know you were not on Earth.

The insects may have had an extra pair of legs from earthly insects but they were practically the same. That is what made Alexandra notice them more. The iridescent bodies of the dragonflies, the butterflies and even the normal flies were all so slight off form normal insects of that nature. That is when she realized they were AI drones. They were artificial yet acted normal and even were accepted by natural members of the species they resembled. Their programming was so spot on that they blended in so well and yet would not raise suspicion of the human natives of Arth.

While she was on the planet, she had examined a few of the drones that seemed to be towards the end of their functionality. They were similar to designs of little drones her brothers played with as children. They had the ability to gather data and images and transmit that information to a remote storage collector. The programming allowed the drones to mimic a programmed image of a native species and then blend in. They were more sophisticated than the ones children would play with.

Now back to the situation at hand, The insectoid drones were all a buzz around the gathering in the Main Plaza of Central City. They were not attracting any attention from the crowd but yet Alexandra was monitoring them. Dr. Davina was still on the stage and talking to another governmental figure. So she kept her eye on Dr. Davina.

Suddenly, there was a pulse in her pocket where her tricorder was. This was the pulse that she programmed to notify her of a ship in orbit, unknown to her at that moment it was detecting the Orion Syndicate ship when she had no way to know it was not the Tomcat. So Alexandra made her way calmly out of crowd and to a secluded alley to look at the tricorder.

She was not recognizing the reading as Federation and then realized something was very wrong. What should she do? Should she warn the public? Should she contact Dr. Davina? Should she try to get out of the city?

Alexandra then figured out the best move was to get back to the edge of town where the original duck blind was and hope that she could ride out the time until the Tomcat came back.

She started to make her way calming out the alley and back across the crowd. She noticed the insectoid drones were still over the crowd but more or less were closer to the stage than the edges of the crowd. So she felt safer in her movements.

Alexandra made about six blocks from the Main Plaza and got another pulse from the tricorder. She got to her rental unit and went inside. There she took out her tricorder and saw a Starfleet signature but it was not the Tomcat, but she still felt a sense of relief as that was likely a ship that was there to try to get her home.

[OFF] ... to be continued.

 

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