Jump Start - Raptors and Taters

Posted on Thu Jan 5th, 2023 @ 2:54am by Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Ensign Kitiuas Thenis & Lieutenant Thomas Haldeman & Senior Chief Petty Officer Ronson Mitchell

Mission: Planet of the Dinosaurs
Location: USS Sunfire
Timeline: Day 2 - Late Evening
Tags:

Kitiuas had dried off, and was examining her wound, it had reopened and was oozing some puss, well this is going to leave a scar she thought. She quickly hit it with a numbing agent and some broad-spectrum antibiotics from a med kit she had found. She then took the two alien Velociraptors over to a table and began running a science tricorder over them. She then took an exoscappel and slowly opened one of the creatures up. She then in a very methodical way began to remove the creatures' organs using a sonic separator. When she was finished, she again ran the tricorder over the creature, and the organs she had removed. Satisfied with her findings she slowly started cutting the creature into small steak like sections. She then proceeded to do the same with the other. She was happy with her discoveries she had made, yes, these creatures' meat was edible by humanoids, but first one needed to use a micro-tone to remove the poison sacks at the base of the stinger like tail. There were two poison glands; one that produced a neurotoxin and another that produced an anticoagulation serum, in combination these two would paralyze a creature up to she estimated weighing around ninety-one kilograms, or about two hundred pounds. The creature would be helpless as the alien Velociraptor began eating its prey alive, all the while bleeding out from its wounds. What she had taken as feathers were actually very fine shapes scales, very similar to fish scales of trout and salmon on Earth. She shook her head, time enough for further evaluation of the creatures once she started the evening meal. Kit could her the thunder from the storm as it reverberated inside the hull of the Sunfire.

Tom had managed to dry off and find a dry and clean uniform. Once he had changed, he went in search of Kit. He found her expertly slicing the Velociraptors into steaks. He walked over to her, "So based on what I am seeing, I'm guessing our dead dino buddies check out as safe to eat?

Kit looked down at her uniform and saw a small spot of green blood “As one of the old Earth movies said ‘Tis merely a flesh wound’ and it really is not that bothersome, just leakage.”

"So, what can i do to help you? I'm good at following orders in the kitchen, just ask Alison." He noticed her arm. "How's your arm? Why didn't say something Kit? We're a team and I should have been told about your arm." He said calmly. No need to get mad, it was in the past.

She then handed Tom the two stinger like tails very gently, “Be extremely careful and please put them in the specimen field jars there, then turn on the stasis fields. Again do not allow the tips stick you or the attached sacks break, or you will have the most horrible day.” Kit said smiling sweetly, “Once that is done, please add the rest of the organs to the specimen jars I have here and turn their respective fields on. As for helping cook, no self-respecting Orion female allows a male to touch her food.” She again said with a smile. “We will take these over to the hastily assembled meeting, gathering and sleeping quarters where I will then cook it. You could bring that bag over there,” here she pointed to a small sack “with us and start peeling the Coltayin roots, closest I could find to Earth potatoes.”

Tom took the two tails and purposely avoided the stingers in the tails and took them to the specimen field jars and turned on the statis fields. Once the stingers were safely in the jars he bent down to look at them more closely. "Nasty looking things" He commented before carefully collecting the rest of the organs and placed them in the other specimen jars and again turned on the statis fields. He glanced at the small sack and picked it up. "I am an A number one potato peeler. Let's get the steaks over to our little quarters and you can start prepping the steaks and I'll start peeler the potatoes er the Coltayin roots."

Kit again stoked up the coals of her Orion Firepot ensuring they were good and hot, the crudely erotic scenes of Orion mythology dancing in the light. She uncorked a bottle of Orion Ale and poured some in a saucepan and placed it on the hourglass-shaped device. She then took another flat lipped pan of the firepot and added some Orion Beer and began adding some Orion spices to it until she had a sticky slurry; once satisfied with her preparations she began dredging the alien Velociraptor steaks through them. As she began pounding and kneading the ‘steaks’ she looked at Lieutenant Hadleman, “When you finish cleaning and peeling the Coltayian roots, place them in the sauce pan there,” here she nodded to the earlier warming pan of Orion Ale. “Then in the bag next to my bunk you will find some Bajoran onions and mushrooms, clean them up and dice them up, then they go in with the Coltayian roots.” Already the smells of the food were intoxicating. Kit took the flat lipped pan and set it on the Orion Firepot and started searing the ‘steaks. The muffled sounds of thunder could be heard, making Kitiuas flinch.

Tom was working on peeling the roots, it was a slow go as he wanted to make sure there nothing left on the root that shouldn't be there and in turn ruin someone's dinner. The intoxicating smells of the Velociraptor steaks mixed with the sauce Kit had made filled the air. Finishing the last of the roots, he dumped them into the sauce pan containing Orion Ale. He rose and moved to where Kit's bunk was and brought back the sack and opened it, taking out a handful to begin cleaning before he diced them up and added them to the sauce containing the Coltayian roots. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw her flinch at the crack of thunder. "It is okay Kit. you are inside and protected." He said quietly.

Kit just glanced over at Lieutenant Hadleman and shrugged. On an impulse and to distract her from the thunder she asked “Why did you volunteer to stay behind instead of going with the rest of the crew? You let your wife, whom I believe is pregnant, and daughter go with the crew without you.” She expertly flipped the steaks and then took the Coltayian roots out of the simmering boil and added them to the pan with the steaks.

Tom stopped his dicing off the mushrooms and onions and looked across at Kit. He was offended by the question rather he was surprised. He threw another question back at Kit. "How much do you know about me?" He asked but before Kit could reply, he continued. "Doesn't matter. You are right Alison is pregnant and Mandy that is Amanda is with her. I used to be a captain. My ship was the USS Manchester. We crashed and were taken captive by the native population and forced to compete in a deadly game of survival. I beat the game and saved my crew. However, because I won, I became the game master and when other ships crews were captured, I had to instruct them on the game. If they won, they would go free, and my crew would die. I refused and my four-year-old son was killed before my eyes." He said quietly. "It was like that for ten years. Until the Sunfire crew was captured. I convinced Rhenora er Captain Kaylen to help me overthrow the masters of the game.''

He grew silent as memories of his son being killed flashed in his mind along with Alison screaming at him, how she hated him. He shook his head, "For my actions Starfleet demoted me to Lieutenant and Rhenora took me in. You asked why I stayed behind. I did it to prove I can be trusted, there are some who have doubts. I want to prove to them and myself I that I still have what it takes to be a captain again. Not to mention I want to help this crew survive and I owe Rhenora a favor." He stopped his eyes on her, "That answer your question?"

“I apologize Lieutenant, a simple ‘It is none of your business’ would have sufficed for an answer. Now I have done and caused you some mental anguish.” replied Kitiuas. “It is my insatiable curiosity that gets me into trouble. One of my instructors used to tell me ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ whenever I pushed the bounds of my inquiries. I never really understood that phrase. Still, I find my curiosity allows me to override to a degree my phobias. So, to a different topic, how do you want your steak?”

"Nothing to apologize for Kit and to say it is none of your business while it may be true, is rude and, you deserve an answer. Never apologize for asking questions it is how we learn. You didn't cause me any mental anguish Kit. I did a long time ago." Plus, you asking and me telling helped you with your dislike of thunder. So, it was all good." Tom answered easily. He looked at the steaks and inhaled. "Man, they smell good. Um medium well please. Shouldn't we wait for the others to join us?"

Kit pointed up just as a huge crack of thunder pealed off “I have a feeling the others will be busy here shortly, besides the ‘condemn’ are entitled to a last meal. If our little plan fails, we could, in theory, be vaporized. I’ll set aside the steaks and finish them to their liking when they return.” With that she slide a small pan onto the Orion Firepot and placed the steaks, minus two onto the pan.

A bolt of electrical energy hit the sails straight on, followed by a huge clap of thunder that reverberated through the upper hull. Kitiuas about jumped out of her skin. The bolt of electricity made the entire room light up for a second as consoles and terminals suddenly came alive with the surge of power. There was the smell of ozone from coming from some of the blown circuit panels. In a shaking and quivery voice Kit replied, “Well I guess we now know we can gather the electricity, must not got a full charge to try a cold start.”

Tom got up and moved to the consoles. He swiped some tendrils of smoke away. Moving between them checking them, tapping a few buttons to see the various readouts. "They've rebooted but looks ready to use. Just have to input the desired information into them. Batteries have to be close to fully charged with all these lightning strikes. I hope it is enough for them to cold start the core." he looked back at Kit. "If we can get the core restarted that will be a huge plus in hopefully getting the ship back into space."

TBC