Yeoman Dedjoy Recovered Log 1: Clio's Away Team

Posted on Fri Mar 13th, 2020 @ 1:47pm by Rear Admiral Farenia Meowlith & Petty Officer 2nd Class Ila Dedjoy
Edited on on Fri Mar 20th, 2020 @ 4:01pm

Mission: Dedjoy System Mystery
Location: USS Katana: Station of Glitter
Timeline: 2393

Yeoman Ila Dedjoy's log, 2397. After making contact with the hivemind entity now known as Sia Dead Joy, I'm reminded of my sister whom I'll admit as the second twin born, was not expected to achieve anything in her life by Illaran standards or tradition. Even so, she hoped to escape these constraints of our society and our rock farming family by joining the Starfleet Enlisted Corps before I did. However, on her first assignment, and in fact as far as I know, her first away mission, she lost her life. I have given the entity today the name that she had hoped to earn and I can't help but review the logs of her passing. Thus, for posterity, I will record my own memories and records of what happened. Perhaps one day researchers will look back on these logs in relation to the Sia Dead Joy entity in the Primordius planet in the Dedjoy system and wonder...

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Clio had intentionally gone to transporter room two early, deciding to wait there for Vicky and Crewman Dedjoy. Their mission parameters were simultaneously simple and complex. Collect information on the 'Drej' without anyone realizing that was, in fact, what they were doing. With that in mind, Clio had swapped her uniform for something more casual, jeans and a lightweight sweater, with instructions sent to the others to dress similarly. Farenia was the official face of this operation; Clio's team wasn't meant to look remotely Starfleet. That did not, however, mean she was going unarmed. She assumed her teammates would know to at least bring a phaser, and she had a phaser hidden at her waist as well as a number of small knives hidden in whatever convenient places she'd found in her outfit. Anyone looking at her would assume she was unarmed and harmless.

The ten minutes she'd given Vicky and Dedjoy was quickly running out, and she glanced at the door with a hint of concern. If they didn't synchronize their beam out, the people on the station might realize two teams had been sent instead of one.

Vicky and Crewman Dedjoy arrived at the same time. While Vicky was still in uniform, the crewman was dressed in a blacked out catsuit of some sort and had not one, but two tricorders on her belt. She also had a small phaser and several pouches on that belt. "An away mission to a station. Thank you for this opportunity, Commander. I won't let you down." The crewman said as she reported in with Clio. As for Vicky, she noticed she was overdressed, and just morphed her clothes into something resembling a combination of the other two outfits.

"You're welcome." Clio checked her watch and ushered them onto the pad. "Coordinated beam out with Captain Meowlith's team. You have about fifteen seconds to get in place."

Vicky and Dedjoy clambered up into place on the transporter pad just in time. "I hate these things..." Vicky muttered as the transporter's sparkle effect washed over them.

"Suck it up." Clio wasn't sure whether to use their last names or first names, so she just left their names out altogether for now. Once they'd materialized, she looked around where they'd ended up, an abandoned section of the station near where all the shops and gathering places were. "Anything we find might be useful. Don't brush anything off, no matter how silly it sounds."

"Like this graffiti?" Dedjoy asked, pulling out a tricorder and scanning a slightly glowing blue spray painted vaguely humanoid figure.

Vicky was edging closer to a closed down store, looking over the empty stalls where she assumed fruit once rested. "The existence of produce stands indicates that there may have been farming on this station at one point... I wonder if there still is. And commander, please call me Vicky while we're here. I understand now that covert is part of our mission here."

Dedjoy looked up from her tricorder for a moment and stammered out an introduction as well. "Ah... um... my people only use one name unless we earn a second. I'm just Dedjoy. Just like seventeen generations of women before me."

"Clio. Not 'commander'. We aren't in Starfleet, capiche?" Clio took note of the glow-y graffiti and long forgotten fruit stands, which both spoke to a much higher population in the past. It was odd how empty this part of the station was. "Once we get to what passes for civilization here, start mingling." Her sensitive ears having already heard some faint but distinct sounds that generally meant people, Clio headed off down one of the corridors, still looking around.

The two other women followed along, trying to stay quiet. Vicky failed though as she was looking up at a billboard of some sort and tripped over a stack of empty crates. muttering a bit, she apologized to the crates and restacked them.

Dedjoy looked around scared, then realized no one was there to even notice them. Moving closer to Clio, she brought up the subject of the tricorders. "These tricorders are Starfleet issue... Should I have not brought them? Eh... Clio?"

Clio neatly suppressed the impulse to roll her eyes, though she was pretty certain she'd made sure to tell them this mission was covert. And one of them had brought Starfleet issue tricorders without disguising them. "Just... if anyone asks, you stole them from some idiot who set them down and turned his back."

"Roger that," Dedjoy replied, returning to scanning everything.

By this time, Vicky had made her way to the end of the street and was looking out at the people walking and shopping. There weren't many people, but there were enough for her to get a good read on how hard life was in this part of the station.

The station was oddly sparsely populated, even as they moved closer to the population center. Not a soul seemed interested in talking; most just hurried by, minding their own business. Clio watched them all without being very obvious about it, until she heard a small group of men talking about the Drej. She caught a few words, mostly "Drej" and "ugly plasma bastards" before they noticed she was listening. Then they quickly moved off.

Dedjoy was less than helpful as she tried talking to several people. No one seemed interested though. Vicky, on the other hand, had studied several of the locals and had morphed to mimic one of the more common races of the local populace. Except her hair and eyes were purple... People still avoided her, but at least she could attempt to mingle and heard more than the others. Moving back to Clio, she reported her findings. "Apparently, the farms three levels down have had catastrophic water failure and a lot of people have moved to other geofronts. That's why we're not seeing many people. There's also supposedly no one left that knows the systems there so repairs are expected to take a few cycles. And replicated food seems to garner disdain by the locals."

Not to be outdone, Dedjoy reported back as well. "I've discovered that this part of the station is close to ninety thousand years old and most of it is composed of a silicate-duranium alloy I'm having trouble analyzing. Also, the building materials of the structures within this area are closer to three hundred years old and seem to be made of carbon based plant fibers."

"All I've heard was a few scattered curses about the Drej. Nothing concrete." Clio hadn't known that there were civilizations using duranium ninety-thousand years ago, and the station certainly didn't look that old. "Is there anyway we can help these people? I'd hate to leave them struggling to survive out here."

Vicky had a response already formulating. Unfortunately, it wasn't entirely good. "I'd get with the Captain about that. I'm not even sure if our engineers can sort out their systems so I'd hate to promise something we can't deliver on."

"I'll ask her when we get back. Nothing about the Drej from anyone you talked to?" It didn't seem promising that they'd find anything here about the blue plasma creatures, but Clio thought it was worth asking anyway.

Vicky shook her head no. "I overheard someone talking about a bloody documentary in relation to the Drej, But that's it."

Dedjoy piped up at that note. "I found a somewhat working data terminal about a block back. We might be able to get at least some public information from it. Perhaps even this documentary."

"Better than nothing. Let's try it." Clio indicated that Dedjoy should show them where she'd seen the console. She figured that she could get it working more than just partway.

Leading the group back to where she found the terminal, she pushed aside a stack of empty crates that had been sitting in front of it and started scanning. The screen flickered a few times and showed a sort of static and bars pattern that shifted occasionally. "The datalink is active at least."

"That's all I need. Watch my back." Clio got down on the floor and slid underneath the terminal, carefully manipulating the loose wiring to see if she could clear up the picture at all. "Let me know if it clears up any."

Vicky actually looked around the area and watched for other people whereas Dedjoy literally watched Clio's back. She was the first to see the screen flicker to life though, the screen showing some blue and amber circle based operating system. "It's cleared up."

Clio slid out from underneath the terminal and scrambled to her feet before tapping gingerly on the screen to sort through what they were able to access. "Not a whole helluva lot here. Mostly shipping manifests, farming almanacs... and a single folder marked 'Drej'." Curious, she opened that folder and selected the video file inside.

The video started playing, going over facts and history about the Drej. The narrator was dry and boring, but there was still a lot of information doled out. Fortunately, this was the same video that the other away team had been introduced to by their welcoming party. facts and history.

Even Clio, a member of a species who considered war a form of art, found these 'Drej' to be distasteful. But she took one of Dedjoy's tricorders and uploaded the video to the Katana's computer for future reference without much commentary on its content. "Never thought I'd meet a species that makes my people look genuinely friendly."

"An entire race that just wants to exterminate all other forms of life..." Vicky muttered, wondering how anyone could be that xenophobic.

Dedjoy was still staring at the screen, but she could get out a response. "Your people have to be at least somewhat friendly to be in the Federation. These Drej...I doubt they could even be reasoned with."

"The Cervan Empire is not a member of the Federation. It's a long story, and one better suited for some other time." It was rare that Clio found herself so unsettled by another species and their lifestyle, but the Drej... well they weren't like any other species she'd met.

"You're in the Federation, even if your people aren't. Still friendly." Dedjoy insisted, still trying to wrap her head around what she'd learned about the Drej.

Then Vicky interrupted the other two."Sorry, but I think I hear sirens of some sort. Do you think it's a bad thing?"

"...most likely." Now that Vicky mentioned hearing them, Clio couldn't mistake the distinct sounds of some sort of alarm. "We should get back to our beam out point. Just in case."

Before they got more than a block away, the sirens stopped and there was the distinct sound of weapons fire not far from them. Both energy based and projectile based. Scanning the area, Dedjoy commented. "It's less than two blocks away. I'm picking up weapons discharges as well as a large stockpile of kemocite. Likely enough to take out most of this geofront."

"Our orders are to observe, not to get involved in a turf war." Clio's natural instinct was to find out what was going on, but she started urging Vicky and Dedjoy back toward the beam out point. "If they do have that much kemocite and we stay here... we're toast. We're leaving."

"Roger that," Dedjoy replied as they made their way back to the beam out site. it didn't take them long, but just as they got there, an explosion ripped through several buildings, causing an air burst to flow through the area. Both Dedjoy and Vicky were knocked over as debris came flying down from the explosion. Then there was a sound similar to that of a freight train.

Clio felt the explosion rip through her left ear drum even as it sent her tumbling to the deck and bits of debris bounced around her, some of it striking her and the others. "Shit!" Somehow finding her comm badge inside her sweater, she squeezed it and hoped they'd actually be able to hear her. "Eneas to Katana! Get us out of here!"

Either they'd heard her or the sound of rushing air had clued them in because a second later the transporter beam grabbed Clio and her team, depositing them in one of the transporter rooms. Clio could feel a slow trickle of blood escape from her damaged ear, but the first thing she did was look to see if Vicky and Dedjoy were at least in one piece.

Dedjoy had been knocked unconscious but otherwise seemed to at least be alive. There was blood trickling from her nose and ears, but she was breathing just fine.

Vicky... She was in the process of morphing into her tree form. Big brown pot... purple leaves... big boobs... She shook her branches a bit but otherwise... Well, who knows with her people.

Dedjoy was breathing and Vicky was... shapeshifting. Good enough, Clio could live with that. "Get medical up here," she said to the somewhat shell-shocked transporter tech. She figured she could make it to sickbay on her own, but Dedjoy clearly wasn't going to be walking anywhere.

Within moments, holographic medical orderlies materialized and begun the process of prepping all three for an emergency transport to sickbay.