Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 1: My ...Girl?
My eyes convinced, eclipsed with the younger moon attained with love…
13.1
My ...Girl?
“Time to contact?”
Captain Rhonda Carter was sitting up on the edge of her command chair. There was a familiar ferocious intensity to the blue-haired captain that her crew had not seen in quite some time. She was no longer a farm girl sitting in a chair too big for her. A predator was sitting in that chair now.
An apex predator.
“3 minutes, 48 seconds,” reported Ensign John Sevork from the “eyes” station.
“Let’s use them,” said Carter. “Overview of what’s coming our way. What’s different about this lepreshroom from the ones we got rid of back in that trinary system?”
“Aside from your boy riding on it,” Sevork started, “It appears the interior atmosphere generated by the fungus extends above the top and is maintained within the warp shell. Also, there appears to be a considerable amount of interior space. Even though it is easily 12 times the size of the largest specimen we observed in the, um, Landthorn system, there is the same amount of fungal matter, concentrated primarily just inside the rock.”
The young vulcan brought up images on the main screen as he was speaking that provided outlines, diagrams, cross-sections, and a lot of written information. Like most command-level Star Fleet officers, Rhonda Carter had trained herself to register and absorb such information at speed. And like Master Chief Bill Waller at the helm, Carter had long experience with this display schematic, making it easy for her to consume this information.
“No artificial gravity,” Carter observed. “The creature on top is held in place by its legs projecting through the rock and anchoring in the fungus. Feeding on it, possibly.”
“Space shrimp,” Waller offered.
“So you’re not giving me a name,” Carter said, rather incongruously. “I’m going to call you Steve. Steve the space shrimp…”
“Contact in 1 minute, 8 seconds,” reported Ensign Sevork.
“Your count is off, John,” Carter observed.
“Captain?” Sevork asked.
“Shields Captain?” Waller prompted.
“Standby weapons, but do not target,” Carter ordered.
“Shields?” Waller asked again.
“Useless,” Carter replied. “Steve can walk through our shields as if they weren’t even there. All power to weapons.”
“Contact now,” Sevork reported. “On screen.”
“No,” Carter said, a faraway look in her eyes.
“Captain?” Sevork asked again.
“Contact 1 minute, 19 seconds ago,” Carter whispered. Then: “No. Not Steve…”
Carter seemed to be looking into the middle distance, her voice distant, musing.
“...Stephanie…”
13.1