I remember a do-it-yourself adventure from Gurps Prime Directive. I threw the story together based on what I recall from that adventure. Here is the latest tale from the Adventures of Jesse Decker, Spacebabe at Large.
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There were seven of them gathered around a circular table in the lounge at starbase nine. Two of them commanded the ships assigned to the starbase, one was a new arrival, two others were base personnel, and the last was Jesse Decker, waiting for her ship to be repaired. She had no real duties here, but occasionally took out one of the ships belonging to the first pair, allowing them to have some down time.
The gathering of Federation Police Lieutenants was unusually large, so they took advantage of the opportunity to celebrate and share a few war stories. They all laughed at Lieutenant Tarpels story about the “primitive” natives on a planet he had recently visited: primitive natives capable of traversing their planet’s core and building large underwater cities protected by force fields.
The new arrival turned to Jesse. “I heard you’re Commodore Decker’s niece. You must have some great stories about him.”
The table became unnaturally quiet as five pairs of eyes turned to avoid looking at her. It was no secret that her uncle Matt had been a painful subject for her since his death.
It was obvious to the new arrival that he had said something to upset her and darken the mood. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was a taboo subject,” he said.
Jesse forced herself to smile. “It’s not your fault. Besides, it’s something I’ve been working on coming to grips with lately. As a matter of fact, I do have a story to tell. It goes back a few years though. Uncle Matt was on leave for a while. His son, Will, wasn’t even in his teens yet and I had one more year to go in high school.”
“We met up with him on Terilek Prime. He had some interest in archaeology and there were some ancient ruins on Terilek that hadn’t been fully explored. He had the Constellation beam us down near an unexplored temple. Our camp was about a kilometer from the temple: it was the nearest local source of potable water. Uncle Matt had some weird idea about taking a camping trip as a holiday. So we had a campfire, roasted marshmallows, and told ghost stories.
“Uncle Matt was in Starfleet, so naturally we kept a guard. Of course I ended up first. My job was to keep watch for half the night and then wake up Will for the other half. Uncle Matt got to sleep the night away ‘unless there was an emergency’.
“So there I was pacing around in the dark with smoke in my nose. There really wasn’t much to be guarding against. Terilek has no sentient life, and the local predators were no larger than a big dog and would have likely avoided our campsite. I had been at it a couple of hours when I saw lights flickering in the distant sky. They were above the horizon and moving quickly, like a shuttlecraft. It flew practically overhead. The markings on it were easy to see: Orion.
“I thought about it for a few minutes and decided to go investigate. I had a tricorder, a flashlight, a communicator, and a phaser, so I didn’t feel like I could get myself in too much trouble. I woke up Will and told him I was going to investigate so he should keep watch for me. It didn’t take me too long to find an animal track going generally in the right direction.
“Of course animal tracks mean animals and I heard something coming up the trail. I scrambled up the nearest tree and watched a wild boar of some kind pass under my perch. When I was sure it was gone, I headed toward the temple. I found another path. A quick tricorder scan revealed it was recently made by humanoid feet and cutting tools.
“I decided to move quietly from then on and was rewarded to hear someone coming down the path before they saw me. I stepped off the path into the darkness and hid behind a large tree. It was an Orion! He was wearing some kind of uniform and had a phaser in his hand and was looking around.
“You have to remember at this point that I was sixteen years old and had never fired a phaser at anyone. The only time I had ever used one at all was on a shooting range. So I took a few seconds to aim and steady my hands. Luckily, my first shot stunned him. I took his phaser and dragged him off the path and under some bushes.
“At this point I should have gone back and woken up Uncle Matt, and I knew it. But I was pumped up from my first victory and now I had two weapons. I climbed on up the hill and reached the temple. I couldn’t count how many, but there were several Orions walking back and forth from the temple entrance to their shuttlecraft, which had landed nearby. Some of them were carrying boxes. That’s when I saw their supervisor: a Klingon! And he was in military uniform.
“Eventually all of them went inside, except two. I crept closer until I was afraid they would hear me if I moved any further. I lined up both phasers on a rock and fired at the same time. Two perfect hits and but only one Orion down. It turns out the other weapon wasn’t a phaser at all, but a disrupter. The other Orion and I both screamed and I dropped the disrupter.
“He dropped down behind the shuttle and stuck his head out a little to shoot at me. His pistol was a disrupter too. I knew I had to hit him quickly but it was hard to get a good shot. I threw the disrupter at him. It clanged off the shuttle and he moved. So I shot him and hurried over to the temple. I did not look at him as I passed by.
“When I reached the temple, I shined my flashlight into its dark mouth. There only appeared to be one room. I knew that was wrong, so I took a closer look. There were pictograms on the walls so I hoped the tricorder could make something out of them. Fortunately, the archaeology module was able to translate them. I pushed the right place and a section of the floor rumbled as it moved aside, revealing a staircase leading below ground.
“I was sure anyone down there would have heard that and I really want to go down to a room full of Orions with disrupters. I finally decided it was time to use the communicator. Nothing. Something must have been jamming it. The tricorder couldn’t find anything so I could either walk back and report or go on. If I walked back, the Orions I had stunned might wake up before we returned, so I decided to risk the stairs anyway.
“At least I didn’t have to worry about it being dark; the Orions had placed portable lights along the walls. The stairway went down at right angles for about twenty meters before ending. Of course, the first thing I ran into was an intersection. All three ways looked the same, so I started with the right one on the theory that left is never right.
“I did a quick tricorder scan, but found nothing helpful and came to another room. There was a clear spot on the floor where I guess all the boxes came from. There wasn’t anything else to do so I went back and took the middle path.
“This time the tricorder picked up something. There was a hole in the floor, covered by timber planks. I decided not to trust them and carefully went around it. The next room was pretty big: there was a large stone sarcophagus in the center of it and a metal statue on an altar at the far end. There were two Orions sitting on the sarcophagus, eating: it smelled like durian fruit wrapped in salami.
“We all stared at each other for a second. Then they both grabbed for their disrupters and I fired my phaser. It was a clean miss, but it scared him. He dropped his disrupter. His buddy, weapon in hand, dove behind the sarcophagus. I hit the first guy on my second shot and also ducked. The other one and I traded shots with each other until we both popped up at the same time. I shot him and he shot me.
“Thank God it was a holdout pistol instead of a regular military disrupter. As it was, it burned my left shoulder pretty bad. I lay on the stone floor, tears streaming out of my eyes, trying not to scream or faint. The smell of burned flesh is a lot worse than wood smoke.
“When I could finally get up, I found out that both Orions were stunned. I couldn’t use my left arm at all and it hurt like hell. But I was mad now and had gone too far to turn back without anything to show for it. I also figured that I had gotten all of the Orions and only had the Klingon to deal with. If I could catch him by surprise too, then I had a good chance.
“I had to put my phaser down to use the tricorder now, but I wanted to scan the statue. Part of its makeup included uranium. The radiation level wasn’t seriously dangerous, but I left the room quickly anyway. And yes, I did remember to pick up my phaser.
“With nothing left for it, I took the last passage. Again I had to put my phaser away to use my tricorder, but after the pit in the last passage, I wasn’t taking any chances. There was a hidden opening on one side. It used the same procedure as the entrance room, but at least the door opened quietly.
“The room was about the size of a closet. There was a wooden pallet filling most of it. Its sole occupant was an Orion slave girl, wearing little more than rags and handcuffs. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was their slave and they used her for sex. She asked me to take her with me. I countered by asking her where the Klingon was. She indicated he was just down the hall but that he had come on his own shuttlecraft and she could take me there. There was no way I was going to risk taking her with me and I couldn’t leave her, so I stunned her with the phaser and went on my way.
“I entered the room with the Klingon. He had his back to me and I could see his uniform more clearly now: he was in the GRU – Klingon military intelligence. He turned to face me and he wasn’t happy. Fortunately, I had my phaser in my hand and his disrupter pistol was on his hip. He shrugged off my first shot and drew his weapon.
“I hit him a second time before he could fire, but the stun blasts just weren’t affecting him. He must have hurried his first shot because it went over my head. I fired a third time and this time he went down. I didn’t know how long he would remain stunned so I just grabbed the data cubes that were on the desk in front of him and ran.
“I didn’t run all the way back to our campsite. Whatever was jamming communicator signals was probably centered on the temple. Once past the Orion shuttle, I called Will. Within two minutes I was in sickbay on the Constellation and there was an away team on the surface.”
Jesse stopped to look around at her compatriots. They were clearly impressed. “At sixteen? No wonder you went on to the start of a great career.” “Wait a minute. I call foul. You said your Uncle Matt was involved. The part he played barely counts.” “What was on the data cubes?” “Did you find out what the Klingon and Orions were doing there?”
Jesse grinned and raised her hand. “Alright, I’m not done. The ship’s doctor gave me a hypo and when I woke up, my shoulder was much better. Uncle Matt and Will were the first two people I met. Uncle Matt told me that I had showed strong initiative and if I was in Starfleet he would have put me up for a commendation. When I was starting to feel pleased with myself, he added that it was very reckless and I should have awakened him and let him make a command decision.
“Next came the debriefing. Uncle Matt was not there. I had to go over everything with his XO and security chief. I never did find out what was going on. I was told it was classified. I do know there were two Orion prisoners in the brig, but that’s all I ever learned about it.”
Topic: The Temple on Terilek Prime (Read 2959 times)