North Team Flight [✱14]

Posted on Sat Mar 21st, 2026 @ 8:48am by Lieutenant Commander N'Tgni Creon & Cadet Senior Grade Bellis & SubCommander Saa & Polyphron & Lieutenant JG O'Raan & Crewman Thomas Callaghan
Edited on on Sat Mar 21st, 2026 @ 8:50am

1,840 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: UnderMind [4]
Location: USS Faraday, Bridge
Timeline: Morning - MD04

Commander Creon was surprised by the detail that had gone into this new bridge. It was almost like a whole new class of ship. Not that she'd spent any time on Oberths before, but it certainly didn't feel like all the other 23rd century ships she'd been on.

She had remained quiet unless asked something directly, but the Tok'ra Polyphron was quite happy to be on the bridge, and away from the endless cataloguing and tag-testing of technology confiscated from the Atenists.

The non-corporeal being Korusca had offered one of his encounter suits for her use, she she had converted it quickly into something that would sustain her and make her mobile unhosted. She hadn't quite settled on a voice she liked yet, so she settled on sounding as she had in her previous humanoid host, which seemed a bit odd to her without the presence of the woman she had inhabited. Still, to be mobile, to be at least vaguely humanoid again, she felt so much more herself.

“Commander Creon, I think we’ve got something.” Lieutenant Ulloriaq said, swivelling around on the Faraday’s bridge to the Romulan in command.

"What kind of something, Lieutenant?" Creon asked, turning her seat to face the science station.

"We'll be in beaming range in 30 seconds. It looks like... remains. A limb. An arm, to be precise. Vulcan." Ulloriaq explained with increasing concern as the detail appeared.

“Beam it aboard. Give me a forensic breakdown of what happened, and keep following the same track.” Creon ordered.

A few minutes and a few hundred kilometers later, another limb was found. This time, a foot. They reported that unfortunately this was not the same individual as the arm.

“Something up ahead, Commander.” The science officer announced. In a valley between low foothills, a trio of spires rose up out of the ground, the design of an insect. “I’m detecting more remnants of Vulcan biomatter from within. I think whatever fragmented those Vulcans lives in there.”

"Take us over it." Creon told the helm, and for a moment they hung there in the sky, reviewing what little scans could tell them.

"The spires themselves seem to empty. I'm detecting one large lifesign just inside the entry at ground level. Anything else within must be underground." Ulloriaq explained.

"How likely are we to lose transporters if we go down there?" Creon asked nobody in particular.

"As long as you remain this side of the cave threshold, we'll be able to pull you back. As for the ring transporter, as long as you can be seen from above, we can get you." Came a confident estimate from Ops.

"Alright then. I'm going down. Landing team one, with me. Shield belts and desert gear." Creon told the bridge, getting up from her seat.

"Subcommander, I'd like you to join us when you're ready, though if you would prefer to wait until we have secured the area I would understand."

"If it's all the same ma'am, this is a great chance for a natural-gravity landing stress test. I'd like to oversee it." Saa said.

"As you wish, Subcommander. Just make sure she's ready to go if we need her." Creon told the Dolphin with the Vulcan rank. "If anyone else wants to come with, now's the time to ask. If your security credentials aren't up to scratch, don't bother." Creon invited with caution.

"I would join you, Commander. I do not have credentials in the same way as the rest of you," Polyphron said using the in-built vocalizer on the mechanical body she inhabited, "but I have seen and survived more conflict in the last 500 years than all of you put together, I would wager."

"Alright. You're not technically my responsibility, so you can do as you please. But if you crack that fishbowl you're in, don't expect to get snuggled up in my neck." Creon admonished.

"Understood, Commander. Thank you." Polyphron said. She didn't have the physical capability of smiling, but she would have.

"I have completed all advanced senior security courses offered at the academy, ma'am. I wish to join the away mission." Cadet Bellis asked even though she thought the Commander would probably say no.

Creon hadn't planned to take any cadets with her, let alone one from communications. But she'd seen this particular cadet's transcripts when she was approving the mission crew, and she had better security qualifications than a lot of the graduated officers aboard. "Alright. Gear up."

Bellis was happy but she still looked serious. She left to get her gear.

---

Creon and the team landed on the hot dune floor amid a flash of light, the ring transport having dropped them. The rings then retreated back up their magnetic pathway into the Faraday, which moved to a slightly higher altitude.

"Any questions or concerns, the time is now. Otherwise, get ready to move out. Tricorders tricording, shields hot. Only stun wildlife if you're charged and can't affect retreat, only go higher if someone's going to get seriously hurt if you don't. Anything that bumps into your shield will probably think twice about doing it again, so phasers are a last resort. Remember, we're still discovering this place." Creon told the away team, reaching under the folds of her desert gear to activate the personal shield built into her belt.

Polyphron had a great appreciation for the Federation phaser since she'd first fired one at the treacherous Goa'uld Mars, even if to her disappointment she had missed him. She hoped for a chance to use it within this strange insect's tower, even if she would never let her hosts know that. The Tok'ra followed Creon's lead carefully.

Petty Officer Callaghan hated sand. This assignment wasn't his idea. He adjusted his shield belt a few times as he walked, hoping they wouldn't be here long, or at least he'd have the chance to shoot something.

The smell of sand made Bellis nervous. She was proud to be here anyway.

Behind them, the Faraday made a careful and quiet landing, only kicking up a bit of sand as it descended, resting delicately on the newly installed landing legs that elegantly managed the significant weight of the small craft.

"Commander, we're reading something moving." Came a warning through the team's combadges. "Something big. We're ready to beam out at your request."

As Ulloriaq said it, something emerged from the shadowy ground-level opening of the tallest spire, something enormous emerged. It was at least six meters tall, and thirty long. Anyone with experience in entomology would recognise it as an Earth species, the pavement ant, but orders of magnitude larger.

Polyphron put her hand to her weapon, waiting for instructions. It seemed a remarkable creature, she hoped they could scare it away without hurting it.

Insects always made Bellis uncomfortable. This one being huge made no difference. She held her rifle ready but followed the orders to wait.

Creon raised her weapon carefully, a shot aimed at its head was prepared. But she paused. "Steady. Remember, phasers are out last resort.

As daunting as the creature was, it quickly became obvious that it was injured, perhaps gravely. A few steps out into the sun, and the massive ant collapsed under its own weight, falling limp into the sand.

"Is it dead?" Bellis asked.

Callaghan hoped it was. And that there weren't any more.

N'Tgni felt a pang of sympathy as she watched the creature collapse. She could see stab and slash wounds across its body and limbs, weeping haemolymph into the sand. "O'Raan, what is this thing?" She asked the scientist who had joined them.

"This doesn't make any sense, Commander. According to the tricorder, this is a carpenter ant. Camponotus caryae. They live on Earth, but at fractions of the size. And they don't build towers." The Caitain scientist O'Raan explained.

"I'm not getting the impression its got long to live." Creon said, edging closer to the creature.

"I think you're right, ma'am. Except..." O'Raan moved closer also, trying to go around to the side of the creature. He held tightly to his belt with his spare hand, as if contact with it would make the shield more effective.

"Look ma'am, an egg. I think it was protecting its young. If there's more of whatever did this to the ant down there, this may well be the last one. Recommend we beam it back to the Faraday and put it in stasis."

"Do it." Creon said. With a final collapse as she said it, the ant seemed to die. She felt more sympathy than she expected for the giant insect.

With coordinates locked in from O'Raan's tricorder, the egg sack adhered to the underside of the ant was beamed carefully away.

"Alright. Let's get moving. There's every chance there's even more ants down there, and we've just stolen one of their eggs. Eyes open." She led the team around the great carcass, towards the entrance to the spire.

As the team moved, the Faraday briefly and quickly ascended above the atmosphere within beaming range of DS13, returning the egg there for safekeeping. It descended once more and was back where it had left from by the time they reached the large organic structure.

"O'Raan, send in a probe." She instructed the scientist, and he complied quickly, removing a spherical device from his belt and dropping it in the air. An antigrav unit caught it, and it flew away down the tunnel, scanning as it went. O'Raan watched the feed on his tricorder, and Creon moved over to get a look at it, turning back every few moments to make sure nothing was emerging.

The probe revealed very little other than a long hallway, but before long its telemetry was lost to the inscrutable compounds in the soil, even if it did continue on its journey unmonitored.

Callaghan's heart sank. He had a feeling they'd be going in after it.

"We've lost the probe telemetry." O'Raan said, "But we did get readings of Vulcan DNA." He didn't want to share that information, knowing what it would lead to, but his professionalism and curiosity overpowered his survival instincts. He had heard the Earth expression about curiousity and cats.

"I can place adhesive signal boosters every 2.5 meters. They should allow us to maintain some contact, even if it is only poor quality audio." Polyphron suggested, she'd brought a torso full of tracking equipment to allow her to try her wits against the confounding local conditions.

"I like where your head's at, Poly." Creon told the Tok'ra.

Behind them, Subcommander Saa and another trio of support officers approached. "Alright ma'am, if I could request we get going before I change my mind about all this underground business."

"As you wish, Subcom." Creon told the Chief Engineer. "Everyone who's got sensory equipment we can send ahead, get it out. I don't want any surprises." Creon told the team, and a number of small probes began to move under their own power, keeping slightly ahead of the advancing Starfleet team.

 

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