Work Text:
The parameters of the mission were perfect for Joann Owosekun, and given the opportunity to assemble her away team, she was quick to select some of her most trusted crew members. Unfortunately, she had failed to consider how one small detail might affect Airiam and Detmer’s performance and comfort on the planet’s surface.
“It had to be a bog planet.” Detmer sighed as she tugged her boot out of the tight grip of muck below.
“It’s not all swamps.” Owosekun retorted with a friendly glance backwards, “There’s an ocean ahead where we’ll be meeting with- Airiam!” With a shout, Owosekun backtracked to assist the half-submerged woman struggling in the rear. Airiam accepted an outstretched hand to pull herself out of the mud.
“I am alright.” She confirmed after a millisecond-long systems check. “Unfortunately, the proportion of my mass to the surface area touching the ground is not ideal. Perhaps I should beam back aboard Discovery.” Airiam offered, understanding that her dense, heavily augmented form was not ideal for slogging through this terrain.
But, Owosekun had plans for her on this mission, and didn’t want to move forward without someone with such keen navigational skills and reflexes as their operations officer. Remembering a trick from her home world, she pulled some wide palm fronds off a nearby tree, “Here, tie these to your boots.” A few knots later, Airiam was in the lead and soon all three women sported the creative footwear, setting a brisk pace.
“How much further?” Detmer asked, swatting a shockingly large fly out of her face.
“One quarter kilometer to the planet’s largest body of water.” Airiam answered confidently, and soon enough they were on a brown beach edging murky greenish waters.
“Not like the beaches on Earth, hm?” Detmer commented, knowing their leader had a fondness for the waters of her homeworld.
Owosekun shook her head ‘no’ in agreement. “Diving in this would be like swimming at night with no moon in the sky.”
“The visibility would be severely limited to mere inches.” Airiam added, then pulled a small device from her belt. “But that is why we brought this.”
Taking an identical item from her own uniform, an advanced underwater breathing and vision equipment, Owosekun prepared for their search. “Finding the pearls will be no problem, even if we’re going in blind.”
Stripping off any extra items from their wetsuits, Owosekun and Detmer approached the water’s edge. It was decided that Airiam would stay ashore to coordinate the hunt for the sacred items Starfleet wished to retrieve in a diplomatic gesture to the planet’s resident species.
“Ready?” Owosekun asked. Detmer nodded, but Owosekun could sense some trepidation in the other woman’s stance. She reached out for her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Just like I taught you, Joann.”
Detmer smiled fondly as she remembered training in a big glass tank in cargo bay with Owosekun and Dr. Pollard as part of her physical therapy. It had quickly gone beyond that, becoming an enjoyed activity in spare time, but she’d never swam in anything so wild. “Right, just like you taught me.”
Donning their gear, they strode into the tide together and activated the enhanced visioning tools. The water was thick with kelp and floating debris, feeling more like a slime than liquid. Through an earpiece, Airiam checked in and began scanning, giving directions towards where readings that could be pearls pinged. Eventually, they hit the motherload. On the ocean floor, right before their faces the floating sand and blackness gave way to the small lights mounted on their goggles reflecting back off a cluster of four massive pearls, each the size of a chair.
Owosekun dove further down, lodging herself under one, but it was no use, the pearl barely budging when Detmer pulled from above.
“We’re going to need some backup down here.”
Letting out a slight chuckle, Owosekun admitted, “I can see why they want these back, must have been some incredible creature to make these.”
“I just hope they stay home, and don’t try to protect the nest.”
“Nest? Pearls are more like rocks than eggs.”
Detmer took Owosekun’s wrist, pulling her closer, “Look, there’s hairline fractures on the edge, and something is leaking out, pulsing. These pearls are alive.”
Owosekun couldn't see it, but trusted that Detmer’s enhanced eye could. “Oh.” Things just got complicated. As they discussed how to proceed, Airiam approached. “Communications got scrambled underwater, is there a problem?”
“Two, actually. The pearls are too big to move, and might be some sort of egg.” Detmer caught their cyborg companion up on the mission status.
“I see, and I sense a pulse emanating from the shells. Either undetectable seismic activity is stimulating them, or we are in the presence of new life.” Airiam responded, delicately laying a hand on the smooth, iridescent surface. Immediately, she pulled it away. “It responded!”
“It’s getting hot where you touched it!” Detmer exclaimed. Owosekun was growing frustrated that she could not sense any of these important changes, but then remembered that each member of the team was here for a reason, and applauded the other women’s strengths and was glad that despite the challenges before, all members of the away team had persevered to this point.
Fascinated, Detmer and Airiam swam closer to the orbs, inspecting every inch. Owosekun noticed something they could not, and reacted quickly, grabbing each woman by the arm and launching them backwards, “Look out!”
Suddenly, the microscopic fractures all along the shells began to glow and emit bubbles into the water, expanding and shifting from dull white to hot red. Pieces broke off the surface, shrapnel flying in all directions. There was no time for words, only action, and Airiam put herself between her more fragile companions and the sharp shards zooming by.
As soon as it started, it was over, the water too muddied by the action to see what may remain of the pearls.
“Airiam!” Both women shouted, checking on their friend.
“I have not sustained critical damage.” She replied with a stoic expression, but hissing leaks spewing air out told another story.
“Let’s get you to the surface.” Owosekun offered, hooking an arm under Airiam’s, and Detmer followed suit on the other side.
Airiam did not admit defeat, but she felt quite limp in their grip.
“You’re going to make it.” Airiam assured her, but the water was not growing lighter. They were very, very deep. A proximity alert dully pinged in her subconscious, something was approaching, but she ignored it with a more important task at hand, hoping it was some creature that would ignore them.
It did not, coming closer and closer and the water began to lighten, but not from sunlight. It was red like the exploding pearls. The water cleared as it approached, as if magically cleaned, giving them the ability to see just what was coming towards them.
Holding in a swear, Owosekun sucked in a sharp breath. It was a neon eel the size of ten men, glowing something furious in bright crimson.
Detmer kicked faster, forcing herself to look away as the being overloaded her UI. Their speed was no match for the sea creature and it curled around them, bathing the trio in blinding light. Alarms blared as Airiam reached her sensory limits in such a limited state as she was in.
Everything went from red to white again, hot and cold and nothing and everything and then it was gone.
Opening her eyes, Airiam sucked in a deep breath, cooling her core and feeding oxygen into her intake. They were all back on shore, sitting with their feet in crystal blue water on a powdery white beach. She must have overloaded and suffered an emergency reboot, but there was no log of such an action in her records. Turning to her trusted companions, Airiam asked what happened.
Detmer’s hand was at her eye, gently touching her prosthetic, drawing similarly confusing conclusions as Airiam. “I… don’t know.”
“Me either.” Owosekun admitted, burying her toes deeper into the sand and enjoying the cool sensation. “Where are we?”
Airiam quickly triangulated that they were at the exact point they entered the water, and turning around the boggy surroundings behind them confirmed it, but that did not explain the surreal foreground. Well, there was one explanation, but none wanted to verbalize the supernatural occurrence. Instead, they silently agreed to contact the ship.
“Finally! I’ve got them.” It was Saru on the other line, sounding especially nervous. “Don’t tell me you have anything to do with the sudden purification of the planet’s oceans?”
Owosekun stifled a chuckle as she replied, “Maybe, we found the pearls but they reacted to our presence and hatched into eels.”
“Eels?” Saru asked, bewildered. There was murmuring in the background of the connection, the whole crew was likely just as confused.
“Very large glowing eels. One of them transported us back to shore and… oh my.” Owosekun looked over to see Airiam had stood up, dusting off sand and looking pristine despite her wetsuit being torn to shreds in the back. “I think they healed Airiam.”
“Was Airiam injured on this mission?” Saru was only growing more distressed. “We’re going to beam you back aboard now if you’re finished down there, right to sick bay.”
With no objections, the women bid the strange planet farewell, finally ready to accept the truth of their strange encounter on what was initially an incredibly unpleasant planet. On Earth, Owosekun had learned more than just diving, she’d learned to leave a place in better condition then how one found it, and she was glad to live up to that standard even on a foreign shore.