Hide and seek

Posted on Mon Mar 10th, 2025 @ 4:58am by Captain Mira Rodale & Lieutenant Betaras K'ner
Edited on on Wed Apr 2nd, 2025 @ 6:50pm

2,025 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: The days of our lives
Location: Relva Vlll
Timeline: Present

On:

{Relva Vlll, Cavern in the mountains}

Tossing her backpack down, she pulled out water and a meal bar. Beef and apple? Odd, Mira thought. Taking a bite, she shrugged. It wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. Sitting down, she leaned up against the backpack.

As she looked at the PADD, “If we are on Relva VlIl, I need to see the mountains in the morning. I might recognize something.” Mira told Awal softly.

“You have been here before?” He asked her.

“I have been to Relva Vlll before but …” She sighed. “I need to know for sure. If we are on that planet then we will need to go north towards a very long mountain range. At the end of that range is Tenu. It’s the only place ships can land. We can’t go south. Water is too scarce.” She took a sip of her water.

“We need to leave before dawn and get moving. With any luck the Orions will think it’s Klingon escape pod and not come looking for us.”

“and if they do follow us?” he asked her.

Mira frown. “Kill, steal and do whatever we need to in order to get back to our families.”

He nodded. “Do you still plan to follow Isbethal’s plan?”

She scooted down to lay her head on the pack “No. I am not saying the man should not die, but without a fast ship to get us out of Orion space, it would be crazy to mess with the Orion Syndicate. We would not make it out of Orion space.” She told him. Vaytoc settled next to her, laying his head on her stomach.

“Kevin asked me to marry him.” She held up her hand to show him the delicate ring that twisted in gold and silver with a white stone the humans called a diamond. “I said yes. Then Isbethal took us. What if he is thinking I got cold feet and ran off?”

K'ner couldn't stop the subtle snicker from her shadowy post near the entrance. As the two looked at the dark corner, she replied. "The XO is besotted with the Captain. I do believe it is he that will be worried that you will be thinking the other way around. If we fail to find a craft to leave this world, I suspect it will be just a matter of time before he shows up to rectify the situation. Then you'll have to appreciate the alone time until we get you back to your progeny."

K'ner admonished herself, thinking, 'Progeny?... Now Taz if affecting MY vocabulary...'

Mira nodded she hoped so.

Awal shook his head, “He wouldn’t. You have never ran off or away from anything. He will know something happened. Knowing him, he is probably doing a grid search.”

Mira fought the smile that wanted to appear. Kevin was always very thorough. She gave a little nod and tried to relax. “Wake me when it’s my shift for watch.” Mira told him before closing her eyes. Kevin would do a search, only he wouldn’t know what part of the galaxy to start in. No, they were on their own this time. It was really hard not to panic. At least this time she wasn’t alone.

{Cave, hours before dawn.}

A nightmare awoke her from the deepest sleep she had in days.

A few of their people weren’t in the cave. Mira frowned until she thought they were probably on guard duty. Still, someone should have awakened her.

She stoked the fire and added more to burn. It lit the area enough to see around. Pouring some water into a metal cup, she put it on top of coals to heat up. She then dropped a pill into it. Instant coffee was better then no coffee. Pulling out the other half the bar she had started to eat last night, she finished it off. As the steam started to drift off the mug, she carefully picked it up, sipping slowly as she got up and moved to the entrance. It should be light enough out to see something.

Dawn was just starting to peek out over the horizon. There was the mountain range she was looking for. If it wasn’t enough to convince her they were on Relva Vlll the cutest little jerboa ran by her. Those were good to have in your group, they always warned of upcoming storms and what kinds of storms would hit.

She had been about to see if they could get it when Spike ran after it. Well, he was probably hungry.

She smiled at Nod. “Break camp as soon as possible. We are headed to the base of that mountain range. North of that is the spaceport.”

“K’ner isn’t back yet. She went to investigate.” Nod told her.

“Not by herself?” Mira asked a little worried but relaxed when he shook his head no. “Ok, we head out as soon as she is back.” It was going to take days to get to that mountain then a few more to get to the spaceport. That’s only if everything went smoothly. Ok, so things never went smoothly, but maybe in 2 weeks they would be off this rock and headed home. Or at least to Earth to get her kids. That was reasonable. Right?

Vaytoc looked up at her and sent an image of food. “Yeah, Spike went off that way. You two find breakfast and bring Spike back here. Stay close I want to leave quickly.” She at least got that last part out before he was gone.

{ Perimeter }

K'ner breathed so shallow it probably wouldn't register. Her helmet wouldn't pass on any sound anyway but old habits were hard to break, and it was good to stay in practice. She supposed there might be a time when she didn't have the tech suit, even though that was slim to none.

As usual, the dots played out on her HUD. The girls were well in position as the little purple dots made their way up the trail they'd taken to the cave. With Nod in the cave and Kotsoo on the close in perimeter, she was worried about anyone getting past them, or coming up the other side somehow without being detected.

But the dots below hadn't changed number in a while so she wasn't expecting surprises. Once they were in the proper position she stood, just enough ahead of them that she knew she could get to the nearest one in a quick movement but they were unlikely to be confident they could engage in similar fashion.

K'ner preferred to take them voluntarily. Wasn't likely to happen, but she wanted to avoid energy weapons' fire that could conceivably be detected... plus she wanted someone alive to have a chat with. Or the Captain would she was certain.

Taking another breath so she wouldn't sound nervous she stood as they reached the 'x' she'd set on her HUD, same as the picture Deena and Korra were looking at. She was a little less concerned when it took two full seconds before any of the four actually noticed her, even in the relative darkness!

Now she got a close-up look. Only two Orions... Two humans... Although K'ner wondered just what species the humans would register as if she did a proper examination... maybe later.

The standoff was short. They had weapons, but not at the ready. They at least had enough training and/or experience not to have made any furtive moves once they realized they weren't alone. Basic kinetic armor, only one combat helmet. She knew Korra already had the comms ready to block and that one would go down first.

"Can I help you? You seem lost?" K'ner opened the conversation. She obviously had weapons too, both melee and ranged arms, and like them, she also didn't have them bearing down on the potential targets.

The one in the lead looked back, much to the displeasure of the third in line. That human shook his head with a look of disappointment and replied. "I was about to ask you the same thing. We don't see much foot traffic out here when we're... hunting."

K'ner could already discern they had no snares, no traps, and they hadn't ventured far off a trail, nor did they have weapons designed to harvest game. They were a merc squad plain and simple.

"I haven't seen anyone else... it's been pretty quiet, that's why I like to camp out here. I do have a question though." K'ner kept her tone light.

"Oh yeah, no one else eh?" The man practically sneered. "What's your question little lady... at least I think yore a lady. Hard to tell with all that crag wiggling around your face like that."

His companions thought he was hilarious. K'ner, less so, but she ignored the jab.

"Who hired you?" Her question brought the sudden quiet she expected.

"What are you talking about? We're out hunting for our settlement. No one hired us for anything."

The guy should definitely not gamble, he was a terrible liar, full of tells.

"How much?"

"How much what?"

"How much did they offer you. Because I hope it was significant, as it's really gonna cost you."

The guy laughed, although rather tensely, and also deciding to give up the pretense. "You? You're gonna cost me? I highly doubt that. Right now my mate over there has confirmed your whereabouts and our bonus is practically guaranteed. We should be getting picked up shortly." He poked a thumb over his shoulder at the Orion male that had a frustrated look on his face.

K'ner shook her head slightly, now looking amused. "Oh really? I don't think that's going to happen." She paused for effect.

"One, you haven't secured your bonus yet, don't count your herenian crorks before they're hatched." The man didn't catch on to his buddy's frustration and just replayed the sneer he must think he's so good at.

"Two, you're gonna regale me with the tale of how you came to be here, hunting me and my friends, who else is looking, and why."

The man outright laughed, but with tension. His eyes revealed a bit of desperation creeping in, wondering just what he didn't know about these elusive targets. He was beginning to realize they were more than the slight clues they'd been provided, and given the difficulty they'd had tracking them this far.

"Don't do it. You won't like the result," K'ner said, already reading his body language and calculating who would react next after the man committed his action.

The man obviously took that as a challenge but K'ner wasn't going to wait to react. Her finger was already on the remote trigger of the sonic grenade that would deftly change the man's focus to his nether region. Releasing it, the tiny charge at the man's feet squealed for a split second and the muted thump carried him off his feet, his face ever-so-slowly scrunching up as pain radiated out from his loins.

K'ner saw in her peripheral, the other Orion and Human go down from two forms that stepped in as the two were stunned from the sonic round. K'ner had also moved forward as her finger had released the trigger, her other hand shooting forward, straight into the unprotected neck of the Orion scout. His eyes barely had time to widen as the air ceased to flow and the white streaks flashed across his vision... the blackness came next.

K'ner checked with the other two. "Secure and contain. We need to be moving on before it's light and I'm guessing the Captain will be wondering what the thump was, even if she was dozing. I'm sure she'll want to have a short conversation with our new friends here... Then we can leave them trussed up in the cave for someone to find them later..."

"Much later..."



OFF:

Lt Betaras K'ner
Hazard Team Combat Medic TL-B / CMO
USS Chuck Norris

&

Captain Mira Rodale
CO USS Chuck Norris

 

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