STF

Mason and Paris - Taking a Break

Posted May 25, 2020, 7:20 a.m. by Commander Mason Black (Executive Officer) (David Shotton)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Paris Carisi (Armorer/Physicist) in Mason and Paris - Taking a Break
Snip

They walked for what seemed like forever but it only got worse once the trek stopped being flat hardpan and shifted to rocky outcroppings.  Every step had to be watched to avoid twisted ankles or worse.  Falling here with no communication systems would send them back to the dark ages of the twenty-first century.   Exploring places like this was still fun but there were safety precautions that were lacking at the moment making this trip anything but adventurous.  It was also strenuous.  Paris was in top physical shape but that did not mean she didn’t have to work twice as hard as Mason in some sections.  His legs were longer meaning things he could step up onto, Paris at times had to almost crawl up.  Luckily for her, her fiancee was always the gentlemen.  When the ledges were going to take him pulling up his own body weight, he boosted her lessening Paris’ exertion.  This allowed her to continue without needing more breaks than Black.   When the span was too far for her to step up, he offered a hand to lift her partway.    While this made things easier for her, it also increased Mason’s exertion more than if he was traveling by himself.  Once they got back to the colony, showered, and changed, Paris knew they both were going to curl up in the sheets and sleep for about eight hours.  Once rested, they would move to more pleasurable activities.  This was the thought that kept Paris going: not the heat or promise of a cold drink of water.  It was the promise that within a few hours she and Mason would be clean, in climate control, and hopefully engaging in the weekender they had wanted.

Climbing up and pulling himself over a ledge, Mason turned and reached back down to help Paris up. “This is it, I can see one of the towers from here.” He told her, but he hadn’t voiced his confusion that he could only see one tower, there were more in the colony of the same height.
“One tower,” she grunted taking his hand and moving to the ledge he was kneeling on to reach down to her.   “The whole place was towers.”    

Pulling her up beside him, he rolled to one side and pushed himself to his feet. “Oh no,” he said and reached out a hand to help Paris up, he wasn’t watching where his hand was going through as he looked down towards the colony. “Baby, we have a little problem.”

“Do not tell me that we went on the wrong side of the volcano or so help me God May,” Paris moaned getting to her feet.  The site before her stole the words from her lips.  She could do nothing but look out at the landscape that had irrevocably been altered.  
Stretched out below them was a scene of devastation that only a natural disaster could create. The colony had been built over a wide space but it had often been built upwards, Mason and Paris both knew now that the ground underneath the colony was hollow, an enormous cavern that was he home for a huge underground wildlife and geothermically active thanks to the volcano that had somehow been noted as dormant with no geological activity by the company that had colonized it.

That cavern had collapsed in many places with the result that many of the habitation towers had collapsed and sunken into the ground, the rocks being thrown from the volcano had landed amongst the buildings and many were on fire and the forms of people lying on the ground indicated that heat, gases or the rocks hadn’t been kind to the colony. Steam clouds burst from the ground in many places and Mason noted that desperately few people were trying to fight the fires or drag people away from the buildings.  “It’s gone,” Mason said looking at the scene below them. “They aren’t rebuilding that, my god how the hell can they let that happen?” He looked at Paris and checked the suits oxygen levels. “We have to help, then we have to find that bastard in a suit.”

Cmdr Black, XO

Paris did not have words.  She only nodded feeling numb inside.   The death and destruction before her was life-changing.  Learning about tragedy or participating in the sanitary conditions of a holodeck did not match was was about to occur around her.  People had spent years debating how the realism of a holodeck made one experience catastrophic events.  This was true.  Individuals could be made to smell the acrid air, hear the cries and moans of people dying, see the broken and charred bodies, feel the environmental impacts on their own skin forcing those experiencing it to take long showers to scrub the sensation away.  The difference was it was just a poof a smoke and mirrors.    Individuals purported mental issues ensuing after such exercises but it was just fake.  Deep inside it was just 1’s and 0’s that were hurt and injured.  Real-life was drastically different as Paris and Mason were experiencing now.  Ordering the computer to end the program was not possible.  The 1’s and 0’s were digitized images of men and women but real men and women with names like John, Jane, Mary, and Samuel.    These people would not spring back up in another program about skiing or pottery making but be forever dead appearing only in the memories of those that loved them. 
Never in her career had Paris faced such horrific conditions.   Moving amongst the rubble she tried to stay close to Mason’s side.   She was a Starfleet officer.  These were Federation citizens yet in this moment, Paris was only worried about her future with him.   The ground continued to shake at times beneath her feet.  The one geologist that appeared to have survived the accident assured those rescuing people they ground was solid.   That the shimmers and shakes were only aftershocks.   Paris had to believe him to save those that needed help but it did not mean she wasn’t ready to put her faith one hundred percent on this fact.   
Two hours later, she slumped down on a rock next to Mason who was directing the rescue efforts from the command center they established in the shell of a building that remained intact.   Opening the bottle of water that had been handed to her, Paris gulped it down looking at Mason.   She had long since ditched the cumbersome environmental suit.   Her uniform underneath was torn in places from being snagged on bits of jagged metal and glass.   A black smudge, probably from soot, covered the left side of her face in a pattern showing where she had wiped her brow at some point.   Sweat marks dotted her uniform from the heat of the destruction and the climate of the planet.  “How are you holding up,” she asked.   The condition of his uniform showed Mason had not just stood around giving orders but was in the thick of things to surveying the area, pulling people from the rubble, and doing God knows what else to make the situation better for those involved. 

“Im fine,” Mason answered, although his voice sounded tired and the undercurrent of anger that had been under his words when they found the colony in this state, was gone to be replaced by a sound of frustration. “The emergency first aid site is safe and stable, unless that volcano decides to go again and spray rocks everywhere. The shuttles the colony had are destroyed so we can’t evacuate to a safer place, and one is unaccounted for. So is the suit.” Mason’s voice was bitter, he clearly knew that the company man had taken the shuttle at the first sign of the disaster.

“Most of the colony is gone, there isn’t much we can do when one of these habitation towers collapses.” He turned to her and wiped a smudge of soot from her cheek, or he tried to at least. All he really was able to do was smudge it further but he tried to smile slightly, before the dust and heat made him break into a cough.

“You need to drink something,” she passed her bottle of water to him.   “Have you contacted the Azzy?   When are they due to arrive,” she asked brushing a lock of damp hair from her brow.

Paris Carisi

Taking the water, he didn’t answer for a few moments while he poured a measure into his mouth and handed the bottle back to her, then swallowed and wiped his lips with his sleeve. The sleeve was torn from wrist to elbow and a scratch was visible where the tear fell aside. The area around them was filled with rubble and dust, and both Mason and Paris had more than enough scratches between them they could compare later. “They are on their way, but still a day away. They are too small though to evacuate the survivors, the next ship is another 5 days away. It looks like we are going to be here for a while but, I’m going to use the Azzy’s transporters to move us all to a stable location. Enough about me, how about you. You look tired, teach us for skipping the function and doing an all nighter in the pipes and caves huh.” His humor was weak, he knew full well that likely that was the only thing that had saved their lives. The tower where they had been quartered, with the suits thugs tied up in their bathroom, had collapsed and little was left in the twisted metal from the flames and fumes that had consumed it.

Holding the bottle close to her lips she gave him a sly smile. “Okay a five hundred sheet count might have been more fun but we probably burned the same about of calories either way,” she winked at him before taking a sip. The situation they were in was far from humorous yet at times that was the only thing one could fall back upon. Mason’s assessment of the situation was bleak. Paris had to think about something positive or break down. Opening her mouth, Paris was about to shift the conversation to something more meaningful than flirty banter when another voice cracked the semi-silence of the camp.

“We found another survivor!” A man shouted from a building not far away, waving towards the command center. With all the damage, local communications were down and Mason had ordered focus be spent on getting the satellite links going so they could call for help, thus most ground communication was being done by runner. Coming to his feet, he looked back and noted the lack of people available for the call. “That’s us, at least we are still finding people, it’s been hours.”

Moving as fast as possible through the rubble, Paris alternated between grabbing Mason’s arm and rubble to keep her balance. Crossing the terrain it was easy to find who was yelling. There was only one man and he was staring at the pile of twisted metal and rock.

“It’s a young girl, she’s trapped under beams,” the man called, and Mason tapped the phaser at his belt. “Lucky we bought our multi tools.” When Paris was beside him he began to jog in the direction of the call, it took only moments to reach the man, who then led them through a maze of twisted beams, rubble and the occasional body that they hadn’t yet been able to move in the hunt for survivors. Coming to a pile of scrap metal and siding that looked like any and every other collapsed building around them, they came to a stop. A man and a woman were standing outside a small hole in the rubble that they had been able to clear by hand, but the lack of tools prevented them going further, that they had found her at all was only because one of the rare tricorders that were in working order was in their hands.

“She’s in here, about 15 meters in. There’s a gap in the rubble and she’s trapped between them,” a man told them, he looked in the same condition as Paris and Mason and just as tired.

“Good work,” Mason told him, and slapped him on the shoulder. “We can cut through to her, but you need to watch the beams in case something gives way.” He looked at Paris and drew his Phaser, pressing the buttons to select the power he wanted. His face was tense, if he cut a beam that was bearing weight, he might not end up rescuing the young girl at all. Blinking to clear his eyes and his thoughts from the tiredness he felt, he drew a deep breath and looked at Paris. He had been busy rescuing people, sure, but he had spent most of the time directing the rescues. Paris had been doing exactly this for hours and he could only imagine the toll it had taken on her, some of the people he had rescued hadn’t made it, but up until now it was just a numbness he had felt doing his job.

Cmdr Black, XO

Small whimpers and cries carried on the wind not loud enough to be heard as constant noise, but with sufficient volume to remind those nearby someone was trapped. Fortunately for the rescuers, it let them know the survivor was still alive. Unfortunately, it was hard to keep her calm as dust and debris fell over her like snow.

Leaning as far as he could into the debris, Mason called out to the girl. “Hey honey, listen to me, we are here to get you out. You’re going to hear some noises and there might be some loud bangs, but we are coming to you. You’re safe now, do you hear me?” Mason lied, but he did his best to sound positive and friendly despite how tired and unsure he was about how the building would handle being cut apart. Looking at Paris, he drew his Phaser and set it to one of the highest settings. “You’re going to have to be my eyes,” he told her and stepped back slightly. “Tell me if you see anything moving or bending that shouldn’t be.”

With a nod to her, he raised the Phaser and chose a beam to start cutting away. Then he fired.

The multi-tool sliced through the metal with ease but each cut caused the surrounding rubble to creak and groan. “Mason stop,” Paris put a hand on his arm. “I don’t think this is going to hold and if you cut anymore the pocket she is sitting in is going to collapse. Bending down, Paris shone a light down into the inky depths. At this point the team was able to see the girl and come to the realization, she was too young to get out herself. Kicking the ground with her heel, the ledge of dirt and rubble held firm.

“What have we got bub?” Mason asked softly, holstering the Phaser and squatting down beside her. He couldn’t see the girl, but Paris had this part in control. He tried to slide in beside her to look down the hole as well, meaning he had to put his hand around her waist to keep both of their balance.

“She looks to be about fifteen feet down. Get me a rope,” Paris stated turning to look up at Mason. “I think I can wiggle through the opening you made. I know I am not going to be able to get back up the way I went down.” Taking the rope that someone had just handed her, she began to tie it around her waist. “Lower me down. I will tie off the kid and then you pull her up. After we rinse and repeat,” she said exhaling as she spoke. Starfleet had trained her to sound confident and authoritative but Mason would see she was nervous as hell. The problem was the opening was not large enough for anyone but someone her size to fit into.

Paris Carisi armor

“Hey,” Mason said quietly and raised a hand to cup her cheek. “You got this, okay. And I got you, we’re a team and I’ll be right here.” Despite his gut doing somersaults at the thought of letting her go down there herself, Mason knew she was right. The hole simply wouldn’t fit him or any of the others and if he was right, their would hardly be enough room where the girl was for Mason to be able to fit down their beside her anyway. Taking the end of the rope, Mason began to tie it around his own waist so that it would not get dragged in behind her. “I’d prefer you to come back up with the kid though, I don’t want you down their longer than you need to be. I can pull you both up, we have enough hands on this end.”

Cmdr Black, XO


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