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Vanishing Dots
Title: Vanishing Dots
Fandom: Original Fiction - Lizards ‘verse
Series: Kat’s Therapy Journal - 3rd Nerban, 5433
Prompt: Disappearing
Character: Katrin
Medium: FIC
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 973
Summary: PsyCorps Recovered Files: 26th Jursto, 5410: Lieutenant Colonel Katrin Harisse took a mission to the third moon of Cusrl to investigate and salvage any usable tech from an abandoned L’spi base. No tech recovered due to instability of base and all equipment.
Content Notes: No standard notes apply
3rd Nerban, 5433
Subject: Missions gone wrong
When we were talking, you asked me about things not going my way, Doctor Ellie. As usual you wanted examples and details. The problem is not that there aren’t any stories to tell, it is just that there are too many!
Cardinal Flight was plagued by bad luck, something almost always went wrong on a mission. That was why we always went in with such a large task force, backups of our backups, redundancies for almost every person, system or piece of equipment. Things went wrong a lot.
They pulled me off our regular detail to do some preliminary post-training missions with other teams. I think perhaps the bad luck was mine, because it followed me on a mission that should have been easy.
We were tasked with sweeping an abandoned L’spi base out near the edge of the sector. In what must have been a moment of brilliance, I demanded that Storm, one of Cardinal Flight’s pilots, be assigned as the co-pilot for the mission. If not for that, we might not have made it back.
I tagged the younglings, all those fresh faced, eager little operatives. I had a reader, so I could keep track of them, each of them represented by a colored dot on the screen. They might have made it through their training, but this was fieldwork and they were still little chicks that needed someone to mind them. I felt no guilt in tagging them. I had ten in this batch, with Storm and myself, that made for a closely packed crowd on the ember runner we took out to the old base.
They were all so eager to be off the ship and away. I remember wondering if I had ever been that young and enthusiastic about rushing into a dangerous situation. Probably, before I had a taste of real combat and dangerous situations. The ramp went down and the tumbled out like a pack of pups and scattered to the levels they had each been assigned to check.
Leaving Storm to guard the ship and track us all from there, I made my way towards the center of the base, taking my handheld monitor to keep an eye on my dots. I didn’t notice the first one go. The second dot vanished of my screen as I was looking straight at it. I remember slapping my palm against the side of the device and shaking it to make sure it was working. Then I tried the coms. No answer from my two missing dots. A call to Storm showed them off his tracking system as well.
I recalled everyone to the ship, thinking to regroup and form search parties. As I watched the screen, two more dots vanished. My heart began to race, seeing that I was losing those kids in rapid succession. I began to run. So did the dot closest to the last that had vanished, just before it to blinked out. I had no idea what was out there, or why I couldn’t see them, but vanishing tracking devices usually meant Something Very Bad was happening.
I was out of breath by the time I made it back to the ship, as were the other three that got to the rendezvous. As we were standing there, catching our breath, one of my missing chicks came jogging over. I was extremely relieved to see her. He waved his comm link at me and said it had stopped working and he wasn’t sure why, so he came back to get it switched out for another one before continuing working his search grid. He was the only one of the seven that had the forethought to do that. I made a note in his record about it, recommending that they keep an eye on him for officer training. Would it make you smile to know that it was a very young and green Keethe Oxsfen, before he was our beloved Duck?
We stayed together and went to find the others. We had not gone far before the hairs on my arm stood on end, we were hit by an energy pulse of some kind. It knocked out our comms and my tracking device. We turned back and hightailed it for the ship to warn Storm. It was good fortune or foresight that I’d brought the experienced pilot. He picked up the anomaly on his sensors and moved the ship outside the facility where it was safe. Once we had assured ourselves that we would be able to get back to base, I took the little chicks with me and went searching again. We found everyone, it took a little time, and one of them had managed to get stuck at the bottom of a lift shaft and we had to pull him out with a rope.
Watching those indicator dots vanish gave me one of the worst feelings I’d ever had as an officer. I wasn’t used to working with inexperienced youngsters in the field. Sure, I had four children by that point, but that was different. Or maybe it really wasn’t. Maybe I felt the way I did because they were so young that my mothering instincts kicked in. I used to get kidded a lot after that mission because I made it policy that any party leaving the ship was to be tagged to be tracked. I watched dots on every mission from then on.
And then came Barido and I watched one by one as Cardinal Flight disappeared off my monitor. They might have teased me about my little obsession, but because of those stupid tracking devices, I knew there were still a handful of survivors that had to be pulled out of there. But that is the subject for a different day.
Fandom: Original Fiction - Lizards ‘verse
Series: Kat’s Therapy Journal - 3rd Nerban, 5433
Prompt: Disappearing
Character: Katrin
Medium: FIC
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 973
Summary: PsyCorps Recovered Files: 26th Jursto, 5410: Lieutenant Colonel Katrin Harisse took a mission to the third moon of Cusrl to investigate and salvage any usable tech from an abandoned L’spi base. No tech recovered due to instability of base and all equipment.
Content Notes: No standard notes apply
3rd Nerban, 5433
Subject: Missions gone wrong
When we were talking, you asked me about things not going my way, Doctor Ellie. As usual you wanted examples and details. The problem is not that there aren’t any stories to tell, it is just that there are too many!
Cardinal Flight was plagued by bad luck, something almost always went wrong on a mission. That was why we always went in with such a large task force, backups of our backups, redundancies for almost every person, system or piece of equipment. Things went wrong a lot.
They pulled me off our regular detail to do some preliminary post-training missions with other teams. I think perhaps the bad luck was mine, because it followed me on a mission that should have been easy.
We were tasked with sweeping an abandoned L’spi base out near the edge of the sector. In what must have been a moment of brilliance, I demanded that Storm, one of Cardinal Flight’s pilots, be assigned as the co-pilot for the mission. If not for that, we might not have made it back.
I tagged the younglings, all those fresh faced, eager little operatives. I had a reader, so I could keep track of them, each of them represented by a colored dot on the screen. They might have made it through their training, but this was fieldwork and they were still little chicks that needed someone to mind them. I felt no guilt in tagging them. I had ten in this batch, with Storm and myself, that made for a closely packed crowd on the ember runner we took out to the old base.
They were all so eager to be off the ship and away. I remember wondering if I had ever been that young and enthusiastic about rushing into a dangerous situation. Probably, before I had a taste of real combat and dangerous situations. The ramp went down and the tumbled out like a pack of pups and scattered to the levels they had each been assigned to check.
Leaving Storm to guard the ship and track us all from there, I made my way towards the center of the base, taking my handheld monitor to keep an eye on my dots. I didn’t notice the first one go. The second dot vanished of my screen as I was looking straight at it. I remember slapping my palm against the side of the device and shaking it to make sure it was working. Then I tried the coms. No answer from my two missing dots. A call to Storm showed them off his tracking system as well.
I recalled everyone to the ship, thinking to regroup and form search parties. As I watched the screen, two more dots vanished. My heart began to race, seeing that I was losing those kids in rapid succession. I began to run. So did the dot closest to the last that had vanished, just before it to blinked out. I had no idea what was out there, or why I couldn’t see them, but vanishing tracking devices usually meant Something Very Bad was happening.
I was out of breath by the time I made it back to the ship, as were the other three that got to the rendezvous. As we were standing there, catching our breath, one of my missing chicks came jogging over. I was extremely relieved to see her. He waved his comm link at me and said it had stopped working and he wasn’t sure why, so he came back to get it switched out for another one before continuing working his search grid. He was the only one of the seven that had the forethought to do that. I made a note in his record about it, recommending that they keep an eye on him for officer training. Would it make you smile to know that it was a very young and green Keethe Oxsfen, before he was our beloved Duck?
We stayed together and went to find the others. We had not gone far before the hairs on my arm stood on end, we were hit by an energy pulse of some kind. It knocked out our comms and my tracking device. We turned back and hightailed it for the ship to warn Storm. It was good fortune or foresight that I’d brought the experienced pilot. He picked up the anomaly on his sensors and moved the ship outside the facility where it was safe. Once we had assured ourselves that we would be able to get back to base, I took the little chicks with me and went searching again. We found everyone, it took a little time, and one of them had managed to get stuck at the bottom of a lift shaft and we had to pull him out with a rope.
Watching those indicator dots vanish gave me one of the worst feelings I’d ever had as an officer. I wasn’t used to working with inexperienced youngsters in the field. Sure, I had four children by that point, but that was different. Or maybe it really wasn’t. Maybe I felt the way I did because they were so young that my mothering instincts kicked in. I used to get kidded a lot after that mission because I made it policy that any party leaving the ship was to be tagged to be tracked. I watched dots on every mission from then on.
And then came Barido and I watched one by one as Cardinal Flight disappeared off my monitor. They might have teased me about my little obsession, but because of those stupid tracking devices, I knew there were still a handful of survivors that had to be pulled out of there. But that is the subject for a different day.