trans_9 | Mission 01 - Recovery: Group 5

Brainiac 5 had been happy to ignore the bickering - he was used to working with a team of other teenagers, it happened more often than not - but the swarm of insects were another matter entirely.

He keeps an eye on the towering, noisy cloud, weapons at the ready in case they decide to attack after all.

"You didn't get stung or bitten, did you?"

"No."

Leela shapes the muddy water off her arm, wincing.

The suit is shredded. The little critters apparently have mandibles that could shred leaves like leaf-cutter ants.

And there are giant, swollen welts all up and down her arm. She had to have been stung close to fifty times.

"Uh. Maybe just a little bit?" she says, with a nervous grin. "S'just some bee stings, right? I'm not allergic or--"

She's looking a little unsteady there all of a sudden.

"Or anythingasnnngh."

That's when she collapses.

"Oh sh -"

. . . is is all Allen allows himself. By the time he catches her, his face and voice have gone flat and calm.

"Anaphylactic shock. Who has the medkit?"

"I do." Ignoring the insects now, Brainy retrieves the medkit from the storage compartment in his chest and pulls a hypospray from it.

"Epinephrine," he says by way of explanation as he crosses to Leela's side and presses it firmly against her uninjured arm. "It should help."

She's gasping in little shuddering gasps, half-conscious, clinging to Allen, panic on her face.

"Can't-- still can't--" she chokes out. "Can't breathe."

Allen's face and voice are still even and flat, even vaguely robotic. He sounds, and looks, more like a mechanic fixing a car (very quickly, mind you), or a computer delivering a diagnosis, than a doctor.

"Administering antihistamines and steroids to prevent bronchoconstriction. Her breathing is already strongly inhibited. She may need a trach tube. Leela, I realize you're experiencing a great deal of fear and discomfort, but I can only be so efficient when you're clinging to me."

He points to Paco, then to a small grassy knoll far enough away from the two doctors to be out of their way, but close enough to be in Leela's line of sight.

"You. Come sit here and talk to her. Keep her awake and keep out of our way."

"You got it," Paco said, shoving his stick back into its sheath, then pulled it out again to poke the grassy lump before he sat on it.

Nope. No bees, no bugs, nothing that was going to try and sting or eat him. He sat, and then impulsively reached out to hold onto her hand.

"Come on chica, you heard Team Robo-Doc's. Besides, there's a couple people on board whose butts you need to kick so you can be top of the heap. Guys with blades on their freaking tails, and guys with swords and there's probably going to be a few more in the pods. Also, bugs? Really suck. So you just focus on breathing, okay? I know it's hard, there was a girl in my third grade class who was allergic to bees and got stung on a field trip, but Jaime's mom was there and she's a nurse, so she took care of it, and the girl got through it fine." A pause. "Well, except for the bit where she turned out to be really annoying and bratty in high school. So don't follow her example too far..."

The Chief pretty much appears at Cale's shoulder, he's awfully quiet for someone so huge. The situation with Leela seems to be as in control as it can be, and he's no doctor so he'll be staying out of that.

But this? This was bad. He's been quietly tolerating Cale and Leela's bickering this whole time as something that was a little annoying, yes, but not a threat to the safety of the team. That just changed.

"Cale. I told everyone to stay close to the group. Now do you understand why I did that?"

They all get a call on the comms from Mal Reynolds.

«This is Six Lead--we've found the remains of some sorta city.. weather control devices and everything. Looks like everyone just, I don't know. Vanished. Might be some nasties out there to so keep y'alls eyes open. Anyone gotta pod status report?»

The Chief pauses for a second in his reprimanding of Cale.

"Wait one."

<< This is Five Lead. We may have found the reason for the empty city. There's some kind of bomb out here. Current theory is nanites. Possibly targeted all humans. No sign of them, if any are left they've most likely deteriorated and are not a threat. Have not reached the pod, but we're close. >>

Nightwing chimes in next. « This is Three Lead. That bomb would explain why there's signs of sentient life but not any actual life. And we actually already ran into at least one nasty, but we'll keep our eyes out for more. Hopefully, you're right about the nanites or whatever it was, Five lead.»

Lecture away, Chief! Still sitting elbow deep in muck, Cale isn't even listening. All the sounds around him have been drowned out and are little more than a low hum as he stares wide-eyed while Allen and B5 get to work on Leela. The only sound Cale hears is his own voice in his head shouting out in disbelief, anger and guilt. He knew that he'd screwed up. Big time! And he probably wouldn't be alive right now if it weren't for Leela--the girl he'd spent every moment since they'd arrived on the planet being pissed of at--and now it looked like she might be the one to die.

Go ahead, Chief, lecture away. He might not be able to hear you over his own inner voice screaming in his head, but even if he could, he'd probably just be agreeing with you.

In the midst of all the fighting, confusion, yelling, and distractions, no one may have noticed Samus slipping away. Actually, she managed to slink away quite awhile ago. She can be quite sneaky, even in the suit, when she wants to be.

In fact, in the time it took the rest of the group to get stuck in the mud and have some serious issues with the bugs, Samus, tracker in hand, made the rest of the trek to the pod.

See that thing, blasting off about a quarter of a mile out? Yeah, that's the pod this group was supposed to retrieve. It was functional, so Samus sent it on its way back to Stacy. The entire mission went surprisingly quickly once she had abandoned the rest of the group.

"Get up, Tucker. This isn't over yet. We still have a mission to finish, and she isn't dead." For now.

Just as he finishes saying this, something blasts off out of the trees. The Chief turns sharply, using his helmet to telescope in on the... the thing. He gets an odd, instinctive hunch and quickly looks over the rest of the group. All present and accounted for except...

<< Samus. Status. Now. >>

No, he's not happy with her either. He already has a pretty good idea of what happened.

<< Mission completed. >>

Her voice is much more monotone than someone who just finished an eight person mission alone really should be, but honestly, this is the sort of stuff she does all the time. Strange missions on odd planets are old hat for her now.

She does look the smallest bit smug as she jogs out of the forest several minutes later. She puts her hands on her hips and says, "Let's head back."

Gah. There are at least six different questions he wants to ask right now, ranging in coherency and usefulness from "When did you leave?" to "What the hell did you just do?". However, he holds all of them back.

<< I'll talk to you later, >> he says shortly in a private comm channel. They don't have time for this right now. If Leela's stable enough he wants to get her back to the ship as soon as they can. And if the pod's gone, they have nothing else to chase after.

Publicly, he says, "Did you scan it?"

Oh, Chief, she is not scared by any "talking to" you can give her.

"Of course," she made sure she took care of every detail of this mission. She knew others would approve of her doing it on her own, so there was no chance she was going to let any part of it slide. "It was functional, so I activated it and sent it on its way back to Stacy. You probably saw that."

Leela's breathing (barely), but she's not going to be walking back.

"She's stabilized. Chief, speaking objectively from a medical standpoint, she should be taken back to the ship whether or not the mission is complete," Allen pipes up, tone still flat, as if to back up his objectivity.

The Chief nods shortly.

"Alright. Tucker and Paco, you carry her." It's not a random decision. It's Cale's fault this happened, so this seems very fitting to have him help. He also doesn't want to weigh down the group's better armed fighters when they might need a quick reaction to whatever other unfriendly wildlife the planet plans to throw them.

"Way back will be slower, but we know the ground some now and can stick to the solid parts. And Samus launched the pod, so we're finished anyway." He looks at her briefly, though his faceplate prevents it from being in any way readable.

Cale just nods and pushes himself up out of the muck and--after wiping his hands off on the pants of his plantsuit--walks over to where Leela lay and picks her up by her shoulders so that Paco can take her feet.

He'd been keeping relatively quiet during the exchange and the revelation of Samus finishing the mission for them, busy packing the medkit up and storing it back in his chest compartment. But now he speaks up.

"As much as I dislike objecting to someone else's suggestions," which isn't actually that much but anyway, "I might be the better choice in moving her. I can create a forcefield to keep her stable and also monitor her condition while we move."

"Then do it." They just need to get out of here. He didn't know that Brainy could do that, and if he can then maybe it's better. Leela surviving really is the important thing here.

"Anything else we haven't dealt with before we move?"

He's getting sick of all the surprises.

He didn't think it needed to be mentioned, since his counterpart had done the same before they left and it's obvious he's just as skilled (if not much better) as the other Brainiac 5.

Raising his hands, he generates a translucent green forcefield from his palms that neatly wraps around Leela's body and lifts her gently until she's floating by his side.

"Done. I can keep an eye on her until we return to the ship and its medical facilities."

Mission 01 - Recovery: Group 5

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