[snip]

Tia’s nerves were shot! And they had only been surface side a couple hours at the most. “Well… this is an interesting day,” she murmured half to herself. As responses were exchanged back and forth and the snake glared at her, Tia found it hard to think of actually disobeying the ‘stand still’ order. As she noticed a change in the momma snake, something came to mind. The snake was an air breather. She doubted, highly, that the serpent would allow its babies to die. “Don’t beam me out till these are gone!” She reminded those making plans for their rescue.

“If the transporters are working as they are designed, then the biofilters should scan and remove any organisms from incoming individuals,” replied Glen. The problem is that the biofilters are only effective against known organisms that it has been programmed to recognize, thought Glen.

Glancing at the others she smiled at Jasper. Seeing his nervousness, she nodded in reassurance. “No worries, Jas… think how amazing this story will sound next time we’re on shore leave! The girls will love it!” She hoped the embarrassment of her comment might override his fright and help him calm down a bit. As she spoke to him, she slowly moved to a slightly sideways lunge position. Putting her body closer to the ground, she hoped, would encourage the little ones to crawl off her and across the rocky ground towards their mother. She reached out to slightly stroke them in hopes that her touch would be something they didn’t like.

She just hoped she didn’t get hated to the point of being snapped at. She bit her lip and half held her breath as she did it. If they were beamed out of here, the last thing she wanted was the little critters hitching a ride with them.

Despite the physical exhaustion,Cross had another idea ‘’Say since the darn snakes are around your feet why don’t you pull down the trousers wrap them up and throw the critters away from the team as far as possible......a few seconds before we get transported ‘’ the doctor wondered if Tia would relish her proposition but then the Chief Engineer did seem a jovial character.
As the saying goes ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’.

As Tia looked down at the baby Serpents and lunged to the side the babies shifted a bit, then a loud ‘hiss’ from the Mother seemed to attract their attention and after a pause they slithered off her and over to the Mother, something seemed to happen then and the babies and Mother shimmered perhaps by some sort of transporter effect and vanished! Thankfully they still had their little energy bubble to keep them from the vacuum of space, it also seemed like they were done here....

=^=Prepare for transport.=^= came Kords voice over the comms.

With a swirl of transporter energy the away team vanished from the remains of the planet and reformed safe and sound back on the Merrimack.

GM CockRoach