Star Trek: Starbase 777 - dense-rainforest

What had been an urban, populated area only moments before now rapidly changed into something entirely new. Grass began to sprout from the ground upwards, flowers growing with them. Trees – different to the oak, fir, and birch trees of before – grew to towering heights. Giant palm leaves cast shade over the area as they sprouted from the branches that had formed. Insects began to chirp, a stream softly bubbled away nearby, and birds chittered overhead. The air grew warm, thick, humid - and from the skies above, a light drizzle began to pour. The terrasphere had become a rainforest.

[Comms] "All away teams from the Eventide. We’re picking up that three of the generators have gone down now, well done! Our scans are showing that the holo-shielding around the central area – the bit that looks like it houses the prisoners – has gone down. Can you guys head straight there? We should take the opportunity to get them out now, just in case they try to fix the place before we can even get there."

The transferring from the residential square to the rainforest wasn't too much of a throw-off for Copia, as much as the drizzle from above. She didn't really mind the drizzle itself, she just didn't want any of the water to get into her circuits, although given how she was built it wouldn't be a problem. Still, she continued on, as unphased as she could, forward, and onward, through the rainforest as ordered by Zai. Deep breaths escaped from her mouth as she traversed the landscape, passing vines, leaves, and exotic greenery around her.

While he was focused on not falling through for a moment, the sudden change of scenery felt jarring, and he hadn't even processed exactly where they were standing for a moment, looking around at the team just to make sure that everyone was still here with him. And to his knowledge, they seemed to be, and it was then that he felt the rain droplets hitting his hair and his face, heard them hitting the plated shoulders of his uniform - it felt... oh. It felt familiar. Too much so. The gentle drizzle that used to be something extremely comforting to him, the reddish wood of the giant mahogany trees towering above them, the kapok trees that went even further above them than those, the metallic orchid bees flying past his ears - "H-hey, um..." he stood still, looking down at the ground below him and rubbing the toe of his boot into the soil as if to check if it was stable ground and that this wasn't some fucked up hallucination of his. "You guys can hear me still, right..?"

Copia looked back briefly upon hearing Allan's remark, not really thinking anything of it, but since the scenery did change around them, understandably he'd need to be reassured. "Affirmative, Lieutenant," Copia replied. "My audio sensor array does detect the relative frequencies transmitted out from your vocal cords in an expected decibel range given the distance you are away from me, the volume at which you speak, and the relative environmental conditions in which your sound is travelling."

Allan understood all of that perfectly, and was honestly thankful for all the words that flowed together so neatly in his brain, like a fun little techy flowchart of information. "Thanks, Copia, really," he smiled back at her, taking a deep breath as he stood next to her, trying not to pay attention to his surroundings too much. Still, it felt strangely personal to him, in a way that only reminded him of what the Undine had told him earlier. It.. wasn't though, right? Rainforest settings were pretty common. Even though they were mostly common on Earth, and he was one of the few humans - no, no, this was. Definitely just a common thing. On purpose. Like, the Federation had rainforests! So it was an important.. part of the simulation. Clearly. "Heading straight to the central area, then, yeah?"

The tricorder was still set to head to the next generator, but with a little bit of reworking it could work like a compass and navigate the team straight through the rainforest and to the central area where the prisoners were supposed to be.

Copia took out her own tricorder, scanning the area for a direction in which the team could take to find the central holding area. At first, it was still set to find the next generator. Then... "Is there a workaround to tailor the tricorder's navigation matrix to the central holding area? I believe we may be able to change the output frequency of the tricorder's navigation matrix to resonate with that of the central holding area, as opposed to the next generator."

"Well, y-" Allan had started to say, before being caught off guard by the sight of two animals that were otherwise known as the Earth's smallest deer, although it was odd that the two were different species of the genus - he'd learned they were named pudu puda and pudu mephistophiles - wasn't that funny now - and they were never found in the same area, given that they were known as the southern and northern pudu, respectively. Still, they were cute, and - he had to remind himself - like the Not-Dog, they weren't real. "Yeah. It should. Um- it should.. you just go..." he stopped talking, mostly because he felt that all-too-familiar feeling of his voice threatening to break if he spoke further, instead choosing to gesture to his tricorder to show Copia how it could be done - changing the tricorder's program over a bit to go to a basic compass function. "Like, um. That?"

Vara was here not! Her writer back from the worst movie they had ever seen, she trailed behind the other two. “I hate places like this. Urban is my kinda place.”

Copia watched closely as Allan reconfigured his tricorder quickly, while mimicking the motions and reconfiguring the tricorder in the same way - aha! Basic compass functions on the tricorder! Easy enough! And it was pointing straight towards the central area, or at least, that's what Copia suspected it was. "Vara," Copia said. "We'll be out of the rainforest soon enough, we have a path forward. Just power through it and I promise you'll be back on the station in no time!"

From the back of the group, he silently urged them forward, until he joined in with Copia in encouraging them. "Almost there, don't quit on me now!" He barked out with as much authority as he could muster.

The grass was tall, the terrain uneven and ragged with roots from the sprawling trees. It certainly didn’t make trekking through this rainforest easy, and the oppressive heat didn’t make it a more pleasant experience. At least there was the light drizzle to help keep the away team at least somewhat cool. From a nearby tree there was a sound of chittering, and a blue Risian feather monkey looked at the away team with curiosity, hanging from a branch one-handed as it did so.

Tevis eyed the monkey suspiciously, giving it a 'my eyes are on you' gesture as they walked past it. "Watch out for flora...and fauna..."

The monkey's eyes were right back on Tevis, too - and in a moment, so was the entire monkey. With a swiftness and strength, it swung back with one arm and launched itself through the air -- before landing right on top of Tevis's head.

Allan nodded once Copia reconfigured her own tricorder, and followed behind the group as Tevis instructed them to do so. He was used to the heat, but.. he was also used to wearing clothes that were not a full combat suit in said heat. It was only a second that he was able to look at the monkey before it landed on top of Tevis's head, and while his initial reaction was his eyes widening in shock, his second reaction was to rush up to Tevis to steady him if the man were to fall from the sudden impact of a monkey falling on his fucking head. "Commander, you alright?"

Copia was slightly startled by the monkey diving onto Tevis's head, and she had to think quick if she was going to get the monkey off - she needed to think of something that would deter the monkey or at the very least give it reason to go away. Then she remembered - she's an android, damnit, she can play any sound she wants! Once she got that idea, Copia began playing the sound of a monkey's clatter, while subtly acting like the monkey itself to get its attention.

Instead of losing his shit, like anyone else would, was simply to try and push the monkey off of his head with one hand and pull his handphaser with the other. "What the actual fuck..." He said, tone full of exasperation, before he tried, and failed to stun the monkey, beam missing and hitting a tree in the distance.

The monkey was pushed from Tevis's head but fell to the ground neatly. It let out a unimpressed coo before turning to Copia, bouncing on its toes as she started making monkey noises too. Hey look, fellow moneky! Immediately he was off; this time, straight onto Copia's head. At least he was a relatively small monkey so he wasn't heavy.

Copia had the urge to get the monkey off of her head as it landed on her head, and she briefly tussled around, but decided to stay calm and just be observant and communicative with the monkey. A few more monkey clatters from Copia, some "Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!" and a few "Aah-aah-aah-aah-aah!" improvisations here and there to make it so that she wasn't playing the same soun effect over and over again. In fact, Copia even used her hands and arms to gesture so that she could communicate with the monkey.

Vara hid behind Copia. “Monkey….”

Okay, this.. this wasn't actually bad. This was... kind of fun, actually, for a moment, and he actually laughed for the first time he'd been here for a genuinely happy reason as he watched Copia play with the monkey, keeping an eye around for any more, though, that may unexpectedly descend.

It probably wasn't a good idea to try to hide behind the person that the monkey was currently chilling on top of. Initially it looked quite happy, sat there on top of Copia's head, but Vara's sudden moving behind them spooked it. With all four paws it launched itself off of Copia and back to the nearest target - Tevis - but this time, caught him clean in the face instead of on top of his head. Claws dug in as it scrambled to find a foothold (or pawhold, perhaps.)

Immediately Copia watched as the monkey returned to Tevis, prompting her to think quick once more. "Sir! Don't make any sudden movements, any sudden movements will only prompt the monkey to want to latch on harder," Copia said. "Allow me to try and reason with it." Then, after a moment, Copia began her monkey clatter again. "Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!" Sort of like a 'hey, get off of him! He's friendly!' As much as she could, anyway. Copia took a few slow and steady steps towards the monkey, holding a hand out to the monkey, to show that Copia wasn't going to hurt it. "Ooh.....ooh....ooh....ooh. Ooh! Ooh..."

"Fucking little prick! Get the fuck off of me asshole! My face is a goddamned scratching post!" He growled out, before bodily flinging the monkey off of it and stunning it cold.

23:39

"Ow" He groaned out, ignoring the blood pouring out of his face for the moment, urging the group to keep going. "Let's keep up the pace and get clear of here!"

Poor monkey. He was now on the ground, KOd. What had he done to deserve this.

"Copia, you still have that first aid kit, right?" Allan asked as they kept moving through the rainforest, knowing that the first aid kit probably had something to help Tevis out for now.

Welp. That didn't work. Copia tried her best, though. It seemed it was working pretty well when she was communicating and keeping the peace with the monkey. Perhaps he could have been an ally! At the very least he wasn't dead. Copia nodded to Allan. "Already ahead of you," as she approached Tevis right away with the first aid kit, providing bandages and sterile gauze for him. "Sir, take these, they should help," Copia said to Tevis. Then, she returned to the front of the team, and stopped right next to the KOd monkey. "I'm sorry... I wish I could have stopped it," Copia said to the monkey before standing back up. "You heard Lieutenant Commander Pog, let's pick up the pace!"

“….was that a real monkey or an Undine. Eh I don’t wanna know.” She said as she rolled her shoulders as she started to move with the rest of the team,

Keeping the pace up at the front of the pack, Copia continued on, powering through what seemed to be the last of the rainforest, although only the tricorder could tell their exact location. When Vara brought up the monkey possibly being Undine, however, Copia responded to Vara without turning around, as she didn't want to slow herself or the others down. "You may have a point, Vara," Copia admitted. "It would not be out of character for the Undine to adopt such a disguise. However, if that monkey was Undine, we likely would have already been eliminated. The Undine adopt standard organic life form disguises such as humans to blend in and can communicate so that their presence goes undetected. Monkeys unfortunately do not have the same communication style that humans do, so a Undine disguised as a monkey likely would not waste time in attacking us. I believe it is safe to say that that monkey was not Undine."

There was somewhat more of a trek to go, but there were was no more monkeying around and eventually the away team stumbled upon a cave built into the side off a small cliff-face. The tricorder was pointing right towards it: this must have been the area that was once surrounded by holofields, where the Undine were keeping the prisoners within the terrasphere.

Phew, okay. So that was just a little monkey accident and Tevis would be fine and everyone on this team would be fine and they were almost to this cave looking thing and Allan wouldn't have to look at the rainforest anymore or see anymore specifically rainforest creatures, with - with any luck, at least. "Okay, so... that cave... is where we're meant to go?" He asked, checking his tricorder again and looking at everyone else to make sure their tricorders said pretty much the same.

Copia double and triple-checked her tricorder. Yeah, it was... it was there. Copia responded to Allan before turning to Tevis. "Apparently so. Awaiting your orders, sir."

Uncaring of the blood on his face, and likely in a bit of shock, he simply clenched his jaw and leveled the team with a broad grin. "I guess it's cave time! Stay frosty!" He said, before pulling his phaser and powering it. "Ready?"

Copia grabbed her phaser and powered it on Tevis's cue. "Ready, sir."

She brought out her phaser with a nod. “As I’ll ever be.”

He held his phaser over his head before gesturing forward with it and yelling. "Let's fucking go!!"