SD 08/20/05 - "Planet Survivor" - I don't know how the Redshirts missed this small PADD when they scanned us. I don't even remember taking it. Oh well, I now have a way of recording our stay here. We'll be here for three weeks.
No lights, no hover-cart, not a single luxury. Like Robinson Coruseo, it's primitive as can be.
Instead of our regular uniforms, we had to wear these blue suits, with no rank insignia. We joked about them a little, "Is this me?" "Does this make my butt too big?" Cosmo took one several sizes too big for material later on, which we may be grateful for later on. The no rank pips detail may have been a slight relief for Benjamin Dover as his sentence for what he pled guilty to was being stripped of his comission and demoted to Redshirt Zilch-Class.
To anyone else reading this log, Redshirt Zilch-Class is a punishment rank beneath entry-level Seaman, usually given out for extreme deriliction of duty or gross incompetence, at least in all the cases I heard of that's what brought it on. Dover must've had a real grouchy judge in his hearing. Also in the cases I heard of, the defendant was sumarily dismissed from Starfleet, the rank being only of clerical importance, as well as to humiliate the man whenever he applied for a new job and had to list his Starfleet service record. Him staying on, he's going to be the lowest guy on the ship. The shuttle pilot and co-pilot were openly poking fun at him.
Why is he staying? Is he trying to redeem himself? Is he a bit of a masochist? Or is he so low-spirited he sees himself as a failure in everything he does and doesn't see the point in bothering to move on? Oh well, that's Lynx's department, not mine.
We talked among one another, well I didn't do much talking. Lynx and Tarra were conversing in their Kzin language. Tarra also talked a little to Half using Klingon. I couldn't make out the words, not having a Universal Translator, though I could tell some of the chat between Lynx and Tarra was a tad serious. They do have great skill at wilderness simulations, but perhaps they were reminding themselves not to take things for granted. I did speak up at one point, bringing up the babysiters. Lynx then dropped her serious tone to give me a playful poke in the rib. Besides Tarra's friend the ex-Borg "Twitchy," or Khaelis as he was known before the Borg got him, and Lynx's childhood mentor, Grandmother Blackfeather of Alaska.
I read up what I could on the planet and re-read a few things about wilderness survival and primitive living. Cosmo was watching some episodes of the late 20th Century Earth television show "MacGuyver," propbably as inspiration as the one I spotted had little to do with wilderness.
Given a generic name of letters and numbers, the place has come to be known as Planet Survivor. Practicaly all the land is in the tropics, and there are numerous animals, including the rabbits mentioned by the admirals. There are also numerous deposits of minerals, a geologist's delight as well as a naturalist's one. It's been used for realistic survival training by Starfleet for years. There is no permanent Starfleet presence. Trainees are expected to know what to do in any circumstance and are left on their own for three weeks.
We touched down, and exited the ship to varried surroundings. We were in a field of grass with a rocky hill on one side, and to the other a stream and a jungle. Lott went to the rocks to begin making arrowheads right away. Cosmo begin examinging the local plants. I asked the shuttle crew about our knives and were told we had to make them from the rocks. Ben Dover was the last to leave, or rather was booted out by the crew, literally. They then began joking how long he would last, then one made a bet that half of us wouldn't make it, mentioning something he overheard from the Vulcans. Whatever it was, they shut the door and took off before mentioning it.
What did they mean?
So far, we've been doing okay for the most part. Lott is still busy making arrowheads, and I made up a hand-axe quicker than I thought. Benjamin Dover is having some trouble. Lynx "persuaded" him to go into the jungle to get something, and he emerged screaming and his uniform torn up. He exclaimed something attacked him, but all we saw was the squirrel that emerged just long enough to curse a few chitters his way then run back in. Tarra went after it, "Oooo, an appetizer!" Followed by Lynx. They came back not with a squirrel, but the bones from some abandoned kill, full of marrow. Cosmo has been telling us a few tales about when he did "The Walk" in his adolescent rite to passage on his world, which this survival course reminds him of. I'm not sure how Melvin is doing. He wandered off after we landed and he hasn't come back yet.
Tarra and Lynx's find does make me worry a little as it shows there are predators about, but with the weapons we're making we should be able to handle them. I'm still having a little trouble with these bowstrings, but I should have something ready soon. Oh, drat! We need something that can hold a strong pull.