Interesting Curveballs
:'''''Note:''' The Arcadia website is currently undergoing reconstruction due to a previous database corruption. Content is in progress and will be available in [[User:Sasoriza|the webmaster]]'s time.''
Arcadia # 4666 | |
| — Memiklon — | |
| |
| year | 323 CE (2386) |
| posted | September 19 2006 |
| previous | Are We Really This Desperate? |
| next | How Can There Be That Many Coincidences? |
[Memiklon]
Memiklons resembled a cross of spiny lobsters and puffer fish. They must have had one heck of an evolution, Rampart thought. Listening to the rush of the breeze, the soft, subtle hiss of gas filling their red interiors and releasing, the rhythmic, intermittent click-clack sounds of their limbs brushing together, part of their method of communicating with one another... Rampart gripped the rail of the hovercraft, holding on, hoping he wouldn't get seasick – or airsick as was the case. The faint odor of rotten eggs continually teased his senses – something he would never quite forget. Fortunately, the nanites in his body counteracted the negative effects of the stench. He was sure it was probably stronger than it seemed.
The rest of the team appeared in a dour mood. And who could blame them? Davalos injured (until her nanomods healed her), the platform powerless, no diplomatic guide for dealing with these people.... Rampart didn't exactly feel like a ray of sunshine right about then.
Sunshine. He glanced up at the dark, misty sky, locked in an atmosphere of perpetual gray, reminiscent of rain-storm weather – except it wasn't raining. It rained snails earlier, but that was incidental. There was no sunshine. Did the clouds ever part?
Well, it was all incidental. He didn't feel like a dark cloud, either. Depression, gloom and doom... oh no – not that again. Going down that road once had torn apart his life. He'd gotten everything back he thought he'd lost, and that made him the kind of man who tried to look on the bright side... sunshine or no.
Surprisingly, he wasn't having much problem of that here, despite the situation. They were alive. They were safe for now. So some Memiklons took a shot at them. Others leapt to their rescue. He would have expected nothing less on Earth, or another Federation planet. When people were in trouble, others stopped to help out. Okay, so this wasn't a Federation planet – but that too was incidental. The Memiklons carrying them did the same. What did that say about them? A hopeful sign. An entire civilization couldn't be judged, or stereotyped, by the actions of a few individuals. They possessed compassion. So, he told himself to expect the best. What would expecting the worst accomplish? Not a thing.
Mala at least had some diplomatic skill. He wasn't sure how to use that, yet, here, but he filed it away to keep in mind. Boiled down, it looked like it was up to him, for starters.
Okay. Diplomatic. Be diplomatic, he told himself. It wasn't that he didn't know how... he just wasn't looking forward to it. He was a bit of a knuckle-dragger, when it came to politics – gutsy and straightforward. Plain truth, he was accustomed to. Diplomacy ranked with politics, and that was April's field of expertise. In politics, or diplomacy, one had to be... well... diplomatic... with words carefully chosen, so as not to offend. That task warned of being doubly difficult, with the language impediment – hence why he would have preferred April handle it, who was familiar with their dialogue... and whom they had been expecting. Not that Jordan Rampart ever feared a challenge.
He mentally paused and thought about it. Okay, that was a lie. There were a few instances in his life, and encounters, which scared the nerves out of him. He was human. Who could blame him, either, for that?
There was something else. The sensation that the Klingon's weird holo-language played some part in this... that was his impression, from a discussion with April. He hadn't intuited it yet – if he ever would. He was hoping maybe someone else on the team learned or realized something from it, through its self-teaching effect, that he didn't – something that might have imparted an idea of how to deal with the aliens, which was why he asked. But they seemed as in the dark as he. Maybe this planet's environment diluted it somehow.
A weird, silly sort of idea crept into Rampart's mind as the platform raised up, then descended, over a thick, fleshy, worm-shaped structure, into the sprawl of organic architecture. April. They believed he would be communicating through Rampart – that was the arrangement.
Could Rampart pretend to be April?
That would be a first. He let out a soft sigh and shook his head, smiling, unable to help himself, despite it all.
"Captain?" Siobhan Science said, curious at his amusement.
"Starfleet service throws interesting curve balls."
The platform slowed its descent, leveling to a halt. It continued swaying and rocking, as if they were on a boat. Wind shear chopped against the mass of Memiklons; they kept shifting, billowing, contracting, adjusting to maintain position.
They rested over a section of the glowing tubes seen earlier from the cliff. Light pulses flowed through the lattice behind them, brilliant yet not blinding. Science circled the platform, looking over the sides from every angle, stepping around Nyerko, stopping to check Davalos, then continuing. She wasn't thrilled that she was disallowed free reign with tricorder scans, but being an experienced science officer, she could, of course, use her brain... and what little naturally came the tricorder's way.
Their interpreter-guide did a little mid-air dance, limbs clicking and tracing patterns in the gray air. The swimming motions signaled another flock of the local lifeforms.
"Here we go," Rampart said, then mentally added, Wish me luck.
▷ TBC ◁
