Save'ena - Weekend Excursion - Part 2: Search and Rescue

Posted on Saturday 12 May 2018 @ 03:07 by Commander Save'ena (Sav) Tillatix & Lieutenant Colonel Kachiko Bayushi
Edited on on Sunday 20 May 2018 @ 13:02

Mission: Academy Days
Location: StarFleet Academy - National Forest
Timeline: 1105 hours, September 2nd, 2389 SD 65344.71
3428 words - 6.9 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Right at 11:05 hours, a call was sent to Captain Kachiko Bayushi in regards to one of her students she supported at the school.

=/\= Captain Bayushi, Campus Police, one of your Advisee's has gotten herself into trouble.=/\=

"Bayushi here. Go ahead."

=/\= Well, Sir, it seems that she went on a camping excursion trip with a bunch of Freshmen Cadets overseen by Senior Classmen Chaperones, when she suddenly lashed out at two of them and ran off into the woods. They have received rather deep cuts, one along his thigh and calf, the other along arm and palm. Your charge has really nasty, long, curved climbing claws that come out from between her fingers and toes. No one told the Seniors and they were not prepared.=/\=

"And which Cadet would that be?" Kachiko asked sarcastically, already knowing the answer. Unfortunately, she would have to consult with Security Headquarters about observing proper communications protocol.

=/\= Oh, uhh, that student is Cadet Tillatix, and, well, she's still missing. Two Seniors went looking for her but she disappeared into the trees, it seems. So, the upper classmen are keeping the group together and waiting for us, LEO's, and a couple of Civilian Medical Doctors to come out to them. A shuttle is standing by at platform three. Oh, yeah, they are 48.3 kilometers north, in the National Forest. =/\=

"It's probably best that you transport the other Cadets back to the campus and have the injured tended. I shall be there shortly. Please communicate Cadet Tillatix's last known coordinates. I have more knowledge of the young lady's habits and nature and I am better trained in finding people."

=/\= Sorry, Sir, we cannot transport the Cadets until the Local Enforcement Officers arrive to take their photos and forensic evidence. After that, we'll get them back. Fortunately for us, though, two of the Cadets are Medical Officers, and they are treating the wounds even as we speak. They preserved the initial evidence in their Medical Tricorders. However, if you want, you can transport this way?=/\=

Receiving the specific coordinates, Kachiko interfaced with the Academy computer system to access Starbase One's systems, setting the given coordinates before snatching up a tricorder. She opened a drawer and withdrew a helmet with an attached visor. With this in hand, she lifted her Type-II phaser from her hip, the weapon blacked out like the rest of her uniform, checking the charge. Satisfied with its full charge, she touched the computer panel, the diminutive black haired woman enveloped in phosphorescent light.

=FOREST=

Kachiko appeared, turning and immediately addressing the security officers there. "Attend to the Cadets. Statements and the rest. I want your report on my desk by seventeen hundred."

The lead officer, Lt. Lenkins, a Terran, nodded to Kachiko. "Yes, Captain Bayushi, I will get it done as soon as the LEO's process the scene. As this is National lands, they have jurisdiction."

In keeping with his words, three shuttles landed. One was local law enforcement, one was forensics, and one was land Ranger and accompanying task force. They swarmed out and began processing the scene, specialty tricorders recording away.

A National Park Ranger, a lead skilled in tracking, came over to Kachiko. "Greetings, Captain Bayushi, I am Ranger Henry Trailing Wolf. Would you like some help tracking the culprit?"

Kachiko smiled, "I'm not yet certain that she's a culprit, first. Second, I have sufficient experience hunting even invisible Jem H'dar among other things over the years. Besides, the young lady has a great distrust and fear of human men. As her Academic Advisor, she trusts me and I should be able to to talk her down."

Henry cocked his head, "I understand. This is a student under you. However, if you need anything, please contact me on private channel 33, encoding W01f."

"Of course," Kachiko sighed as the man returned to the 'crime scene'.

The small yet deadly Marine Officer then turned back to the woodlands, pulling the helmet atop her head, flipping the visor over her eyes as the tricorder began to scan for life forms in the immediate area. Kachiko's eyes were elsewhere, however, watching the dirt for the Cadet's footprints.

As Sav was a plantigrade, with feet resembling most humanoids, she wore shoes, except hers allowed for her climbing claws to come out. Her shoe prints led below a tree with a branch 13 feet in the air, then disappeared. However, that path led directly 90 degrees from the water, and so that path was most likely the way Sav went. The problem was, the tricorder was detecting no signs of the Mephetian along this path. It kept showing her status back at a no longer there tent with a scuffle showing in the dirt.

Kachiko frowned. She kept forgetting how the Cadet had the enviable ability to disappear from life scans. So she would have to look closer. Thankfully, she had more than a decade of field work as a Security Officer with a considerable number of investigations under her belt.

That scuffle area still had rope fibers in the dirt, and embedded in the tree. There were Mephetian hairs embedded in the bark, as well as some mephetian blood in the dirt where a semi-reclining bound Mephetian would have been up against the tree. The Seniors had not realized Sav, due to the mesh inside, was bleeding into a now over soaked pad in her panties, making a trail for anyone paying attention. There were unique characteristics in the blood, although what was unknown as the tricorder was not a bio-sciences tricorder. However, that blood could be tracked.

The sight of blood concerned Kachiko, though it did give her the opportunity to start following the Mephetian girl.

The two Senior Med Students had noticed the Captain's attention where the Mephetian had been bound.

Meanwhile, the tricorder was picking up trace amounts blood in the mid lower branches of the trees.

Kachiko had noticed the Cadets trailing in her wake, curious as to what they were up to. The signs of Sav's movements continued to increase the Marine's worry over the Cadet's health.

The Cadets seemed to be making scans and preserving the evidence found at the tree.

Kachiko took off following Sav's trail of blood droplets up in the trees.

As soon as she left to go searching for that Mephetian, the two seniors moved over and used their medical tricorders to find what the Captain found, then immediately began cleaning up the scene. As they were 'helping' the LEO's and Academy Security, no one noticed they were destroying evidence instead of gathering it. The blood spatter from the two raked Seniors had already been moved to the new location, so one Senior marked the hairs as from that location and not this one, picked up the robe fibers, and scraped away the dirt with Sav's blood in it. Finished with 'processing' that area, they moved off to perform their final scans, put Sav's hair at 'proper' tree, rerecord that area, and then get the evidence to Security and the LEO's.

Sav's trail went eastward, away from the water. It led Kachiko several kilometers and a couple of hours later. Now she came upon a spot between two trees with a large splatter of blood upon the ground. There were several broken branches with claw marks upon them, claw marks too big for small wildlife around here, and not big enough to be a bear. The impressions in the ground showed whoever it was had landed upon feet and hands, then went to knees for a bit.

A trail of footprints and heavier blood splatters went off from here, still going away from the ocean. That path followed along game trails, always zig-zagging, continuing East. Fortunately, the blood splatters lessened and then became the occasional droplet again. After another hour, straight ahead was a creek. At the bank of a pool of the creek was a hand made clothes line, frontier style, and signs of blood still around the edges of the pool. However, no sign of Sav.

Kachiko paused at the signs of 'civilization', remaining unseen and undetectable even to the Cadet's heightened senses, and then continued on.

North of the pool, at a narrow crossing, were footprints once more. They continued going East. However, this time in following the trails, there was an errant hair here and there, white coloration with an occasional darker mixed in, found in a bush or along a tree. The footsteps were closer together now and showing signs of slight weaving. The terrain had become more hilly with rock outcroppings and a mixture of smaller and larger trees. The footprints disappeared in this terrain. A kilometer later, past this terrain with the forest showing again, no sign of footprints or blood was found. Sav never left the rocky terrain.

=/\= Captain Bayushi, Lt. Lenkins, have you found the Cadet yet? We just found out some vital information from the Marshall Service. The Cadet is a Mephetian, and when feeling endangered, their Tail's manage to hide them from tricorder and life scanners. So, Several LEO's, a Park Ranger, and my Security team are ready to come assist in the search.=/\=

Kachiko sighed, before touching her jaw to activate the subdural communications implant, the subvocal microphone implant at her throat picking up her tiny voice, "Negative. Stand down, Lieutenant. Keep the other Cadets separated from one another and in custody. I am having second thoughts regarding Cadet Tillatix's culpability."

There was a space of silence, then the communications resumed, =/\= Well, Sir, since it has been a little over five and a half hours since you left, the forensic processing of the incident scene is completed and the Cadets are all back at the Academy on their own recognizance. The two seniors who were clawed have been treated and released, they will be fully recovered by Monday. Everything points to Cadet Tillatix being surprised and arbitrarily lashing out at the two Seniors who went looking for her.=/\=

"First impressions can often be mistaken," came her response. "Cadet Tillatix has a side to this story and I will suss this out without causing further trauma for the girl."

=/\= Well, her hair and the seniors' blood was found at a tree that was three trees into the forest, away from the camp and behind the tent the Senior Cadets has said was pitched for her and two other first year female cadets. That is in accordance with the stories. On the medical tricorder scans by the Senior Medical Cadets, they have been sealed, handed over, and scanned. Only signs of Tillatix is that tree where she was getting ready to relieve herself, oh, and some blood in the tree she climbed up into. Could be the Seniors' blood, could be she cut herself climbing. =/\=

"That's nice," Kachiko sighed. "Any evidence from the Cadets is suspect. Take scans yourselves, or have you forgotten proper police procedure?"

=/\= Sir, don't worry. We know our jobs. After we shuttled off the Cadets, we performed scans ourselves to verify their scans. Everything is catalogued and saved. We will await word from you, Security out.=/\= What the security detail didn't know was that in only taking their scans after the Seniors were done with their help, they found exactly what the Seniors had changed to be evidence and not the original evidence of what was going on.

Once she was finished talking over the communicator, Kachiko's secondary senses reached out, able to transmit over the entirety of this forest if need be. It helped that she was already familiar with the Cadet's mind and that Save'eena was also familiar with her mental voice.

As Kachiko searched for the Mephetian's unique psi signature, she found it back among the rock outcropping terrain. It was fortunate they had formed the link after having first met as Sav's Psi defenses had wrapped upon themselves to hide from anybody psi searching, except sensing known entities, the group Kachiko now belonged in. The mind seemed to be still, yet, a fuzziness was somehow sensed behind that still mind.

"~Sav, doll,~" came Kachiko's voice in the Mephetian's head. "~I'm here. I found your little campsite and am about a kilometer Southwest of the campsite. I need you to come to me, hon.~"

At a small cave higher in an outcropping of rock, there was movement as a young girl mephetian began moving and working towards wakefulness, the last several hours very hard on her body with pains, internal tears, bleeding, and dehydration as her body just now stabilized to allow swallowed water to replenish what she was loosing. She felt.. felt, a presence, and knew she had to hide, yet, it was familiar, one of trusted to contact. Within her suppressed dreams, she answered.

~ *confusion/Dizziness/scattered thinking* My imaginings are back.. hey Kachiko.. just out for a stroll... giggle... Okay, Sav focus.. have to wake up.. look for captors... can't go back.. can't go back... but, must save girls... save girls.. from what happened to me... wake up Sav.. Wake up... ~

"~Captors, sweetie?~" Kachiko asked psychically, hoping to wake the girl up.

Sav blinked her eyes, her body feeling like ran over by a football squad, as she licked her very thirsty lips. She was in darkness... wait.. light, there was light just in front of her.

~Kachiko.. really you? Slave capture crew not here? *voice change lower* That is the rambling of a Raver Girl seeking attention. *return* Errrh, dammit... Ah.. okay.. Senior Cadets not here, just you?~

"~Wait, what?~" came Kachiko's response. "~No. You clawed some of them and there's some law enforcement back at the original camp site. The Senior Cadets have been relocated back to Starfleet Medical and released back to their dorm rooms. Where are you?~"

~ I'm hidden.. in a cave... uh, climbing out.. oh, thirty five feet up... let me get my bearings... my senses aren't... what they used to be... since my 'incident' on Apollonia... okay, I know where I am at... 200 meters in from north border of rocky terrain zone... halfway across from west to east. *pause* Umm, did you say you know where I am?~

"~No, I can't track you with sensors and tracking you psychically requires you to be much closer,~" Kachiko

~ Oh.. me.. feeling threatened. Yeah, hard to do. *Kachiko's original words replayed from Sav's recording Compartment* Campsite? Oh, where I did a quick wash of my clothes and feminine napkin, as well as get some water. That was temp.. that I forgot to tear it down... I'm not doing so hot right now, huh.~ Twinges of Pain flashed through Sav's communication foremind. ~Okay, I'm down. Kind of walking straight... so, meet you in the middle? Umm, got any water you can spare? I'm.. a little bit thirsty.~

"~I do,~" came the Marine's response, glad that she always came prepared for these incidents. "~I sense that we're getting closer to each other.~"

Sav sent to Kachiko, ~Thanks... I don't think I can make it back to the stream... and, I am not seeing or sensing anybody else... so, I should start appearing on your sensors again... ~

During their talking, even though Telepathy was much faster than speech, and if concentrated on, can occur within a twinkling of an eye, Sav was walking towards the middle of the rocky terrain to meet up with Kachiko. She stumbled and almost bashed her muzzle into a rock jutting out from a crevasse she was going through.

As was normal in her line of work, Kachiko saw Sav long before the girl knew she was there. Before she got to the girl, she flipped up the IHADSS visor, not wanting startle the spooked Mephetian.

Sav had almost made it to the middle, but at a point outwards of the clearing, had found a nice spot of grass with a flat boulder to lay against to sink down to rest. She was lightheaded, dizzy, feeling not all there, and her limbs refused to obey her commands anymore. She needed water and some food. Last food she had was dinner at 1730 hours the day before, and with her being dehydrated from blood loss, she just was not doing well.

Still, she smelled something not natural and felt eyes upon her. She managed to look towards where Kachiko was and waved to let her know where she was, not realizing the Marine had already spotted her and was coming towards her. Sav was breathing fast and shallow, while her body was trembling in waves.

Kachiko didn't speak just yet, instead helping the much taller Cadet sit down on the ground. Unbidden, she uncapped her canteen, holding it up to Sav.

Sav reached out for the water, smiling to Kachiko, but her hand slipped off of the water bottle as Sav had no strength left. Now that Kachiko had found her, Sav's force of will to keep going had went as she was rescued.

Kachiko frowned, concerned about the girl's physical state in addition to her mental and emotional state. To help her,she lifted the canteen and held it to Sav's lips. "Drink, slowly."

As Sav followed Kachiko's instructions, her hands were along her thighs so that abrasions and torn hair could be seen along her wrists where she had fought to free herself, and also along her ankles. The two rope loops around her waist were still there as Sav never had the need to remove them. Her demeanor picked up as she partook of the needed refreshment. After several swallows, she leaned back against the natural 'easy chair' she was in and said, "Thanks, Kachiko, I really needed that... I can go on... just, give me a second, okay?"

"Okay. Just take a breath and when you're ready... you went out with those Seniors and other Cadets?"

Sav took in a breath, then let it out. After the water, she found she had more energy to get her speaking more normal. "Yeah, against my better judgement, I let Rina and the other girls convince me to go with them to the Senior Gathering at the Dancing Divito Lounge. I went to help keep them out of trouble. I'm best used for a wingman and to get girls home safe. I still am trying to figure out what happened. I sipped on one Sambuca through the night, just one, and then finally relented to slam one shot... just one shot, with the other girls. Everything went woozy, I blacked out. I kept trying to wake up, and kind of felt like I was floating, kind of like I was on a swamp boat back home, and then I managed to wake up and find myself being tied with two seniors at the knots, and seeing about me the other ladies tied up with the other Seniors about. I... I... had to escape, get help, I couldn't face this again, I couldn't. I began using my claws to get to the ropes, and the two seniors on my began trying to hold me down and tighten the bonds. I think... yeah, I did, in my attentions to cutting the ropes, I think I got one, or maybe both of the seniors. They backed off which let me finish slicing my bonds, and I quickly went into the tree road, away from the sea water behind me, to find help. If I kept going.... East, yeah, East, I would eventually run into a road, or house, or Ranger."

"Wait, you're telling me that the Senior Cadets had you and the other female Cadets tied up?" Kachiko asked with an arched eyebrow. "And you managed to get both Seniors, actually. Local Law Enforcement is under the impression that you were startled and attacked them."

Sav shuddered as she responded, "Huh? Startled and Attacked them... umm, kind of, but not? What would you do waking up in the woods with two Cadet Seniors working at the ropes on your hands and feet and seeing the other girls tied up? Startled? Yah. Attacked them? They were binding me... Self defense... it was self defense.. I mean, last I remembered was the bar, and a sho.... that shot... that damn shot... I was mickeyed, again... AGAIN... why for ME again?" Sav's body began to shiver as past trauma wrapped itself about her.

Kachiko touched a wristwatch like device around her left wrist, before both she and the Cadet disappeared in a haze of phosphorescent light.

TBC

OFF:

First Year Cadet Save'ena Amillia Tillatix
StarFleet Academy
Earth

(Marine) Captain Bayushi Kachiko
Academic and Student Life Advisor
Starfleet Academy, Earth