Team 4 - Getting to know one another

Posted on Tue Jul 9th, 2024 @ 8:31am by Lieutenant Sapphire Morgan [Lalor] & Consul Josephine Carlyle-Cragen & Avalon [ADMIN NPC] & Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath & Lieutenant Alice Jordan ( Barclay de Tolly ) & Lieutenant Nicholas Reece [Reece] & Captain David Tonelly [Reece] & Captain George Charles [Reece] & Gunnery Sergeant Nenaa [Sthilg]

Mission: Season 6 HIATUS
Location: Edens Reach and Transporter Room 4
Timeline: MD7 - 07h00
2452 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

The group of officers and enlisted gathered in the transporter bay where a pile of backpacks were waiting. An ensign stood there with a PADD. Once everyone was gathered, the Ensign began to speak.

“Welcome to your daily challenge. Grab a pack, they are all the same. You will be beamed down to a location on the planet, all land based. There you will spend the day as a group, looking around the area, taking scans, samples, hiking through the forests and the like. You will spend 8 hours planet side. Work together, listen to each other. Learn about each other. While you may wear different ranks, this is a working together exercise and one I want you all to do, without considering rank.” The ensign smiled. “So Speaks the Commodore. Please grab your bags and step onto the transporter pads.”

The ensign then added “Oh, the weather may be inclement. So be prepared to get wet.”

As David was closest to the pile of bags, he started to hand them out to everyone as the they moved to the transporter chamber to await their beamdown.

Sapphire took the bag, sighing. "She knows i hate hiking" she grumbled.

Josephine merely smiled at David and took the bag. "Thank you David." She said and stepped up onto the platform.

J'Air joined the ladies and took her bag, thanking David as she did. "I love hiking, I think it's a great way to see places, sort of close up and personal with nature, as it were......." she began but trailed off, catching the grumble in Sapphire's voice and the matching unhappy look on her face. J'Air smiled, hoping to soften the fact that she's just contradicted her superior officer.

She supposed she'd better get used to it seeing as the Ensign who was here to set them all away was the only other one who wasn't senior so J'Air was glad they'd been told rank wasn't important on these challenges, as she was sure to "open mouth, insert foot" more times before they got back.

Nenaa nodded as she picked up one of the bags and stepped onto the transporter padd. She didn't know any of these people so it would be good to know more of her ship mates.

George stepped forward and took an offered bag. "Thank you, Sir," he said without thinking about it.

"Careful, George," David replied with a grin. "The instructions were to be no ranks. So, no Sirs, no Captains, just David, alright?"

"Yes, S..." George stopped and chuckled. "Okay, David." He then moved up into the transporter chamber with the rest.

Nicholas Reece hurried in to the transporter room. "Sorry I'm late! Was finishing getting my daughter ready. What did I miss?"

David looked over and grinned again, tossing the big man a pack. "The Commodore has decided to send down several groups to work on team building exercises on the planet. Also, there are no ranks, so we are all equal for this exercise. That about sums it up, right ensign?" He looked over to the young woman who had given the initial briefing

“I am Alice everyone,” Alice looked around. “I know some of you. Married,” she said as her husband is listed as missing in action, “Hope all of you are doing well.”.

"Right" the ensign replied. "Everyone on the transporter padd."

Once all were assembled the ensign beamed them down.

==/\==

There were so many islands on the planet, and this one was one of the few no one had been on. It had the same white sand and clear water, but the jungle was very dense, and it was right on the equator. So the group found themselves in a very warm environment.

“Good thing I bought my bathing suit,” Alice sighs.

"We should start by taking detailed scans of the area," David suggested.

"Okay, do we have scanners in our packs?" J'Air agreed and started to search through her own, finding all kinds of fun kit - including a small but bristling scanning drone and a personal handheld tricoder to compliment it."

"Before we make our presence known to all and sundry though, were there any instructions to say we're likely to be in danger of meeting natives or worse?" she asked everyone in general but looking at David by pure habit of deferring to seniority. "I was just hoping the ship has scanned the island for lifeforms before we all landed here?" she said, blushing softly at what she hoped wouldn't come over as bossy from her as a start off.

" I'm sure they wouldn't have beamed us down if they detected anything dangerous." The Orion gunny replied as she looked at the white sands and beautiful ocean. " Pity i didn't bring my swimsuit the ocean looks great."

"So why not swim anyway?" Josephine asked curiously. "We are here for hours right? We are going to have time to dry off."

"From the reports I've seen," David stated to the group, "Sensors haven't identified any major predators on the land areas. Now, as I'm sure we are all aware, nature abhors a vacuum. If there were no predators, the prey flora and fauna would multiply to staggering numbers, destroying the various plant and food stock. As the planet is as healthy as it seems, that bears weight to the fact that there are some apex predators in existence somewhere. Everyone stay focused on where you step and where the rest of the team is."

“We should have a buddy system,” Alice suggested. “Nenaa, you want to be my buddy?”

" Sure sounds fun." The green onion replied with a smile.

Alice nodded gingerly. “Plus it would be nice to get to know you. “

Looking around the group to see if anyone else was already planning to pair up, J'Air thought that Nicholas or Sapphire would be possible partners she might approach but then she thought that perhaps she was leaning to those two because she was comfortable with their ranks and they'd all been instructed to ignore rank into account in this exercise.

Consciously, she then made an effort to try to view David and George differently but catching one of their eyes she just blushed which wasn't a good way to start at all. There was always the Consul, she wondered.

"I'll drop my tricorder as an alert system" Sapphire said brightly as she looked towards the water. "The coral looks great."

David caught J'air's glance over to both himself and George. Feeling that, given his current situation with Baeryn and Samanthanna, he felt it would a good idea to get to know the ACMO better. "George, why don't you go work with the Consul?"

The Betazoid nodded, then made his way over. In the meantime, David moved over to where J'air was standing. "Well, Doc, where would you care to investigate?" He gave her a big friendly grin as he spoke.

"I'd love to take a look around at all the beautiful plants but I like Josephine's suggestion of a swim to start off with, if that's not wasting too much time before we start exploring?" J'Air replied with a smile. It was nice to do these kind of excursions, there was very little chance that she'd have met these people in more than passing, in an ordinary day on board ship.


Nenaa had been checking through her bag for what was in it. A ration pack, phaser and everything one would need. Right at the bottom was several rolled-up silver tubes. A smile spread over her face. The higher-ups had thought of everything. " We have some spare swimsuits if anyone wants to go swimming."

“Let’s go for a good swim,” Alice said with a half smile. “My husband used to go all the time.” She breathes in a bit.

David grinned as he replied. "Alright. I suppose a swim is in order."

The Orion marine handed out the spare swimsuits to those who wanted them before heading a short distance away from the group before she started to disrobe. Being an Orion and a federation jarhead her own nudity had long lost any shame. Dressed in the fleet grey swimsuit she put her clothes back into her bag.

J'Air did the same, taking out a standard, identical fleet grey Swimming costume she too changed, slightly more modestly, deftly behind the towel that was in the backpack as well. She also stashed her clothes in the pack afterwards and left it on the dry ground above the waterline, as mark by previous tidemarks.

" Water looks great. " Nenaa said from the water's edge as she waited for the others to arrive.

To prevent any uncomfortable blushes from the team, David moved behind a copse of trees and changed into his generic swim trunks. He then returned to the group, his uniform neatly folded in his pack. After placing it with the other packs, he moved down into the water, the surf gently crashing on his well-maintained physique.

With a final breath of air, Nenaa dived below the waves. Her green eyes gazed at the alien coral reef before her and her companions. Alien fish swam before them seemingly unaware of the arrival of the alien strangers from another world.

It was stunningly beautiful beneath the surface of the waves, once J'Air had dived in and accustomed herself to the temperature of the azure water. If she hadn't been holding her breath, she might have breathed in deeply in appreciation of the sights down here.

Nenaa kicked away as she began to explore the alien depths. The alien fish did nothing to the green strangers from another world as they went about there business.

Alice came out as she was hiding for a few minutes wearing a stunning one piece bathing suit with eye protected gear. It had been a long time since she had worn one out of respect to her missing in action husband. She dived in to the water from a high spot. Alice went deep then rose quickly to the top splashing her hair back.

George, having changed into his fleet-issued trunks, moved down into the surf, until he was waist-deep, then closed his eyes. After a few deep breaths, he opened his mind to his surroundings. Though, he was careful not to intrude on any of his team mate's minds.

Back up in the beach, while everyone else was in the water, Nicholas set up a shade tent and rations for everyone to use when they were done splashing around. Once he was done, he laid down on a large towel, and closed his eyes, deciding to take a bit of a nap until the group came out of the water.

After a while, J'Air swam back into the shallows and walked back through the surf to the beach. She stood at the edge of the water and shook out her long red-auburn hair, squeezing the salt water out of it and wincing as she could feel the harshness that the salt had left in her hair, having stripped out some of its condition. "Harsh" she muttered and kept on walking up the beach towards Nicholas and his 'tent base', looking for her towel.

Nenaa speed through the water like an Orion mermaid. The warm water felt great against her skin. It felt nice to relax knowing nothing was going to happen to her team.

J'Air reached the area where Nicholas had set up and retrieved a towel to start rubbing her long hair to attempt to dry it off a little at least before she rubbed the rest of her just enough. It was warm enough in the sun to let most of the moisture evaporate off slowly once the worst of it was initially rubbed away.

"That was gorgeous!" she told Nicholas. "Did you stay out to keep the bags and kit safe? Because if you did, I can watch it all now and you can run down to have your own swim, if you'd like to? I highly recommend it!" she said.

Nicholas smiled, but shook his head. "I'm good right now, but thank you, J'Air." As he finished speaking, his commbadge beeped. When he tapped it and replied, they heard the voice of the transporter operator, informing them that they had about twenty minutes left before it was time to be beamed back up. Nicholas acknowledged the information, then closed the connection. "Well, guess that ends another day," he said with a smile to J'Air as he stood and moved a few meters closer to the water. After whistling loudly to get everyone's attention, he shouted that it was time to get ready to leave, and waved them to come back in.

J'Air had a head start as she was already getting dried and, wrapped in her towel already, she made short work of stepping out of her swimsuit inside the towel, and pulling on her trousers, then top, manipulating the towel upwards and down again, to cover her modesty until she was quickly dressed. Packing her backpack up again, putting the wet but wrung out swimsuit in an outer zipped compartment to save the rest of the kit from the seawater, she moved across to where Nicholas was collecting up the group for transport.

"This was fun" J'Air said to everyone generally, but no-one in particular, hoping they would all feel the same and agree with her. It wasn't long before they were all back on the beach and dried off. The group gathered around chatting and laughing about their day and the beautiful experience it had been on such an idyllic beach, in such clear water, with so much stunning scenery, wildlife, underwater beauty and a real sense of relaxation and good company.

They were chattering together like old friends so it seemed to J'Air that their remit had been successfully delivered. They *had* got to know one another much better and had managed to set themselves up with much better recovery vibes than they would have had if they'd just been carrying on as normal. It had been a proper 'breath of fresh air' in every sense of the phrase.

J'Air couldn't wait to get back to the ship and tell Chuck about her day. She had missed him.

For now though, with everyone gathered together and ready, it was time to request transfer back.

Alice looked at her new friends. “Listen, when we get back to the ship, let us meet off hours now and then. I like to get to know you all better. Agreed!”

David nodded and grinned softly. "Sure, sounds like a plan."

The call went out and soon they were all back on the ship.