Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

“No,” Maren O’Connor muttered, looking out the window of her tiny escape pod with dread and dismay.  “No, no, no, no, no.”  She closed her eyes and collapsed back into her seat with a heavy sigh, ignoring the now-released safety buckles digging into her scrawny back.  Of course, she thought.  Of course they’d send me here for my survival test.

There was not much Maren hated more than being cold, and outside the window, she could see nothing but ice.  A blizzard was raging around the capsule, and what little she could make out of the landscape appeared to be a desolate icy wasteland piled high with snow.  It was impossible to estimate how deep the snow cover was without exiting the craft, but that was the last thing she wanted to do.

“Computer, location?” she queried, wriggling around in her seat until the uncomfortable safety buckles shifted out from underneath her.  This could be Delta Vega or Antarctica, and she wouldn’t know the difference until she stumbled across a penguin or a monster alien with telescoping fangs.

 “Sol System.  Earth.  Location: Lincoln Sea.  Coordinates 83 N, 58 W.”

Maren rolled her eyes.  Fantastic; I’m on top of the world, she thought sarcastically.  The North freaking Pole.  It wasn’t penguins she’d be running into; it was polar bears and Santa Claus. She supposed that was better than hostile aliens. Maybe I can hitch a ride on Santa’s sleigh, she mused with a bitter smile.  “Computer, how far to civilization?”

“The nearest populated settlement is Alert, Nunavut, approximately 18 kilometers to the southwest.”

Eighteen kilometers.  Maren frowned and craned her neck to look out the viewport again.  Under different circumstances, eighteen kliks was nothing.  But that was a hell of a storm out there.  “Computer, can you access weather radar and tell me when this storm is going to end?”

 “Negative,” the computer replied.  “Access to secondary sensors denied for the duration of this exercise.”

Of course.  She was being tested on her wits, here.  The computer could tell her where to go, but not whether it would be safe to travel there.  That was for her to decide.

All she had to do was survive for 72 hours.  She could stay in the climate-controlled capsule for up to 48 of them – that was how much basic life support she’d been allotted.  For 24 hours – consecutive or not – it would be her against the elements, fighting for her life in a hostile and dangerous environment.

She wondered where they’d send JQ for his test the following week.  He’d be perfect for this; he had grown up in Edmonton and didn’t mind the snow and cold.  They'll probably drop him in the middle of the Vulcan desert, she figured.  Starfleet had a way of analyzing people’s weaknesses and forcing them to face them.

She eyed the storm outside warily again.  To freeze, or not to freeze? she wondered.  If she decided to brave the elements, she could maybe make it to Alert and be on her way home a day or two early, with extra points for the effort.  But if she got lost in the blizzard, she’d have to activate her emergency beacon and fail the exercise – which meant she’d have to do it all over again before she could graduate.

Then again, if she waited the storm out, she’d run the risk of running out of life support before it ended, forcing her out into the brutal weather with even less time to reach the settlement before her time was up, and no safe haven to return to if she needed it.

Fuck it, she decided, annoyed with the Kobayashi Maru-ness of the choice.  She shifted in the small capsule and pried off the maintenance control panel.  Starfleet had programmed the computer not to help her; well, she’d just have to reprogram it.  It’s a survival exercise, she reasoned, and resourcefulness is the best way to survive.  Besides, it would be easy enough to reprogram it back to Starfleet’s settings after she’d gotten a weather forecast and planned out her strategy.  They’d never have to know.

But what if I get caught?   For an instant, she felt worried.  She quickly pushed the fear aside.  First of all, she was not going to get caught.  She was too good for that.  Even if she did, though, she figured that was better than wandering out onto the frozen surface of the sea in the middle of a blizzard and having to punch out in the middle of nowhere when she couldn’t take it anymore.

As far as she could see, there were only two options, and they all depended on the weather.  If the storm was ending soon, she’d wait it out in the comfort of the escape pod and walk to Alert when it was over.  If not, she’d have to stay here and ration her time inside the capsule to stretch 48 hours of resources over 72.

She frowned at that.  She didn’t like the idea of hanging around outside the pod for hours at a time just for the sake of being able to turn it off.  What if she couldn’t turn it on again?  Worse yet, what if the weight of it cracked the sea ice?  She knew that was unlikely, but she still wanted to be sealed safely inside if it happened.

“Computer, reduce interior temperature to 13 C,” she ordered, turning to open the emergency clothing compartment.  She fished around until she found a cold weather jacket, a hat, gloves and a blanket.  She set the gloves aside to leave her fingers free for programming, but she put on the hat, pulling it down tightly over her blonde hair and ears; then shimmied into the jacket, zipping it all the way up, and threw the blanket over her lap.  13 degrees was colder than she liked it, but it would use less power than the escape pod’s preset of 20 degrees Celsius, and maybe give her a few more hours of heat if she needed them.  She’d also program the computer to shut off any non-essential components, and reroute that power to life support.

With a small smile, she said a quick prayer and began to hack into the computer’s subroutines to get past Starfleet’s defenses.  The first thing she needed was a weather report.  Then she’d know what to do.  With any luck, either she’d be well on her way home within hours, or she’d have reprogrammed the escape pod to get her through the whole exercise without freezing to death.

Either way, she was determined to succeed.