Refuge From the Storm

Posted on 02 Jul 2025 @ 2:55am by Captain Bane Plase & Lieutenant T'Lara Ahmad & Lieutenant JG Cajag Lagnas

1,558 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: The Festival of Unity

ON:

Vulcans do not dream.

Well, generally no. Through rigorous controls and an almost fanatical dedication to meditative exercises, the brain does not need to organize and strengthen memories or process emotions, making the act of dreaming unnecessary.

However, since T’Lara’s unfortunate accident she had found the equilibrium found through meditation to be unattainable. Coupled with her ‘enforced’ downtime her mind was essentially ‘running amok.’ She currently found herself in main engineering just before the explosion. No one listened to her as she called out warnings to her fellow colleagues; they even refused to stop their tasks as she desperately tried to pull familiar faces away from their stations. Her stomach twisted and churned in an unfamiliar sensation which was quite dis-satisfactory as the seconds ticked down inescapably.

Her vision was suddenly consumed by a brilliant white light and the crashing sound of the explosion caused her body to jerk upright as a scream tore from her throat. She blinked against the aura filling her vision, frantically trying to figure out where she was.

Another brilliant flash filled her eyes, and she scrambled off the bed before the crashing thunder reverberated through the structure she was currently occupying—not to mention her bones. Confusion and yes, even fear, poured through her as her mind tried to figure out what was going on.
The wind began to howl, and a deluge of rain began, creating a cacophony of unnerving sounds that overwhelmed her sensitive hearing. The roofing began to creak and crack menacingly as the natural materials used to protect the interior of the bungalow she had been assigned to were torn away in the gale. A crashing sound of a nearby tree falling to the ground incited her to move, recognizing the danger she was in.

Another tree suddenly tore through the structure, bisecting it nearly in half. T’Lara dove out of the way, and scrambled to get out of the structure as it was torn apart by the turbulent winds that now ravaged the heavily damaged structure. Uncaring that she was scantily clad in the utilitarian Starfleet regulation undergarments, she maneuvered her way out of the remains of her bungalow and into the heart of the storm.

Flashes of light, followed immediately by the deafening reverberations of thunder that shook the very ground in its ferocity threw her consciousness back into the explosion that had taken out her ship, so many of her coworkers and even her memories. The winds pulled her hair out of the long braid she wore for sleep, whipping the quickly saturated strands of hair about her face and shoulders like agitated snakes, as if she were somehow some alien Medusa.

Given that her lodging was the furthest from the shore, for obvious, Vulcan reasons, T’Lara tore off down the now littered path towards the ocean—and the other bungalows—to search for other members of the crew, not because she was panicking in an utterly un-Vulcan-like manner. She set off in a sprint, and found the footpaths to be far more perilous than before the maelstrom; for now they were littered with all sorts of debris and were saturated with water. She may have slipped and fallen as the sands and mud took on a much less forgiving consistency.

Inside Bane's bungalow, Plase continued to hide in his bathroom, a mattress over his body, inside his over-large bathtub. As the storm continued, he could hear the structure around him creaking, then moaning, and finally breaking and shattering. The mattress on top of him was pelted hard, doing it's job protecting him. However, the wind was too strong, the mattress eventually being ripped from his grasp. Plase was at first dazzled by the light show, but quickly got his wits about him and made it out what was left of his home away from home.

Although the wind was fierce and the waters over the boardwalk, he made his way, slowly, back to shore, albeit on his hands and knees. By the time he arrived, the clothes he had tossed on were soaked, battered and torn. Looking around, there was nowhere else to go here. Turning towards the path up to the village, and much stronger structures. Surprised, he saw someone standing there, though in the rain and wind and debris, he didnt immediately recognize who it was. "Are you okay," he bellowed over the cacophony. "We need to find shelter!"

T'Lara's current position looked over the once tranquil lagoon that was now becoming consumed by rising storm surge. The blindingly bright flashes of lightning kept her from rapidly identifying the person scrambling towards her on his hands and knees, but that didn't stop her from rushing forward to keep him from getting washed off the walkway.

Uncaring of physical contact in the moment, she reached down and helped him stand, and a particularly brutal gust of wind buffeted them, almost taking the both of them back to the ground. "Are there others out on the lagoon?!" She yelled hoping the winds wouldn't steal the words from her before being heard.

Bane yelled back, the wind and the sand and rain and other debris making it nigh impossible to make out who he was talking to. At the very least, he knew it wasn't someone native to this planet. They all probably were smart enough to have taken refuge long ago. "I have no idea! I came from that away," he said pointing, and realizing someone else was close by, standing like an obelisk of Ancient Bajor.

Cajag still in his ankle length board shorts, Haywain Shirt and badly camouflaged boonie hat tied to his head was standing in the storm. In one hand he held a tricorder which was connected to a long wire connected some sort of weather monitoring device, which he held in one hand. The device seemed to be spinning frantically. Caj smiled, seemingly obliviously to the danger of the situation and attempted to wave at his fellow officers from afar.

Plase looked back to his companion, only then realizing who it was. "It appears so! That person seems to be in shock or something. They aren't moving!"

Caj awkwardly dropped his tricorder so he could hold onto his hat as he walked towards the two starfleet offiercers "Hello Sir," he shouted over the storm.

Just as Bane was about to say something, a bright, purplish flash dazzled all of their eyes. At almost the exact same moment, a thunderous report clapped all around them. Between the sudden flash and the cacophony that was the thunder right on top of them, all three were momentarily stunned. While all three recovered at roughly the same moment, Bane was the one to speak first. "Sweet Prophets! We need to get out of here, now! Follow that path," he indicated, pointing.

T'Lara recalled the story her mother told her regarding the lightning storms that would strike her clan's land during the 'summers,' blinding in their brilliance as the crackling energy snaked across the sky. The intensity caused the nictating membrane which rarely made an appearance to reflexively close over her eyes. It prevented the temporarily blinding auras from filling her vision. Bane's shouted words registered, and she couldn't help but inwardly agree to the sentiment...it was time to retreat. She turned and scrambled down the path that the captain had gestured to and kept her eyes up lest a piece of debris--or even a tree--surprise them.

Caj watching the others run down the path. Hurried after the starfleet officers. One hand holding his hat down the other, clasping his tricorder. "I grossly underestimated the intensity of this weather front."

"You have a knack for the obvious understatement there, Caj," Bane bellowed in the wind to his companions. " I think I see a structure up there! Do you see it, T'Lara?"

T'Lara dutifully turned and looked and attempted to discern the structure that Bane had observed. It took a moment to 'see' it. "Yes, captain, I do!" She yelled in order to be heard. "We should all make our way there post haste; Our safety is in jeopardy at this current location!"

Caj smiled to himself, ever so briefly, as the thougt of post haste and old Victorian Steam trains came to his mind, but then the danger of the situation kicked back in. "Yeah lets get the hell out of here."

The three scrambled, slipped, tripped, fell and clambered over fallen debris until they made it to the structure, bloodied a bit from scratches and scrapes, covered in mud, muck, a leaf or three and other dirts and debris that had been whipped up by the intense winds, but still relatively unscathed. All three made it into the building, the power out, just barely able to see, largely thanks to the flashing of the lightning.

"Is everyone okay....whoa," he said, as his initial concerns for the safety of his two companions and himself melted away, surprised at what he was seeing now.

Caj patted himself down all over, from toes to feet. "All extremities accounted for sir."

Bane looked from Caj to T'Lara, then back to the scene before him. So. Many. People.


OFF

Bane Plase, Captain
USS Cygnus, Commanding

and

Ensign Cajag Lagnas
Science Officer
USS Cygnus

and

Lieutenant T'Lara
Chief Engineer
USS Cygnus

 

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