[snip]

Walking in Joe noticed the bridge crew and was pleased to have some company. He sat in the command chair dropped a bag of jellybeans on the armrest and asked whoever would listen. “Anything exciting happening?”

As the Merrimack fell into orbit into the system sensors would soon confirm they were not picking up any klingon ships or installations nearby. There were some pieces of junk and debris likely from a small ship dock yard and processing area that could not have been removed so the klingons blew it up to bits upon leaving, but otherwise nothing of worth was noted. Assuming then that no klingon ships were cloaked nearby they were alone. Life signs on the planet were consistent with the primitive humanoid natives. No obvious signs of Klingons were picked up. While there were signs of former mining and such industrial systems on the planet, again indications were the Klingons had blown them to bits or in the case of larger camp sites, simply used disruptors from orbit to destroy them on the whole.

Currently the populace was of note was near one such former site where a sort of large shanty town was arrayed around a site that had likely been used for ore processing from a nearby mine. If anywhere might be useful to get a scout team sent down near here would probably be a good spot to get started. Currently the populace seemed in disarray in one form or another. Again consistent with what Starfleet Intel was saying.

Joe was amazingly not impressed by what they were finding here. The Klingons seemed to have wrecked anything of value to anyone and then left the native population to fend for themselves or not. Like any mining site there had to be a slag heap of some sort of Joe reasoned. This would mean a hill somewhere which might overlook the small town from which a team from a certain star ship could scout out the town from a reasonably close distance safely.

“Can someone get me some sort of topographical scan surrounding the area of the settlement please?” Joe asked.

”..Sure sir, one moment..” said one NE at the science station since no one else of note had jumped onto the request.

Shortly after their arrival, Captain Glen walked onto the Bridge. “Good morning, Commander,” Glen said, “if your team is ready to depart, then you may leave whenever you wish.”

Seeing Glenn walk in Joe stood aside and said to Glenn. “Yes, sir I’ll have everyone in native clothing and outfitted shortly sir. “Joe replied I’ll have them assemble in the transporter room. “

“Good,” said the Captain, “…but you do know that it isn’t a fashion show?”

-Glen, CO

A moment later a beep echoed through the bridge and on the main screen a topological detailed scan of the surrounding settlement came up. The whole settlement was in a small valley region, probably once fairly healthy for farming and such decades ago but by now such passage of time had turned much of it into a polluted area of strip mining and industrial processing.

The valley ran north to south by about 6 or so miles long, and from east to west by about 11 miles wide. Several smaller paths up small hills rising about 20-50 feet in height led out of the valley into other areas. The hills on both sides of the valley were fairly barren, stripped of any level of trees, rocks, and anything else remotely of value over the years and leaving behind wrecked shanty buildings, of primitive make and half rusted oily buildings of low level pre-fabs of klingon design. Mostly it seemed due to the poisons in the local streams and pollution in these spots no one really lived here for long. So while it would be ok for say a short stay or just passing through no one spent more then a day or so unless they wanted to get sick from the poor air quality or such. That said this also meant it made an excellent hiding spot for observing the lower valley region all around, as few natives of native animal life seemed in evidence.

The main settlement and former mining site at the southern most end of the valley where the larger shanty and such areas were and had seen to be the site of the local Klingons once ruling from as the divine agents was a wreck in small fires both from disruptors and small demolitions. Anything of real use had been trashed upon their leaving. The native populace was shown squabbling at present on the screen over bits of metal they seemed to think was important. Slightly better fed and dressed natives likely those who were ‘favored’ by the ‘gods’ seemed to be trying to use their former influence to push others around to some success. But at the same time desperate starving weak natives were also seen in places pushing back either by shouting or physical violence.

GM CockRoach