when I look at the stars I feel like myself

McCoy, on the other hand, was not the kind of guy who found overgrown jungles exciting. In fact he usually found them overgrown and disease filled and generally unpleasant. Which he was voicing in a low grumble as they walked.

"Of course, go out in the jungle probably filled with primitive malaria-filled mosquitos or god knows what else." He muttered to himself. After nearly getting his boot stuck in the mud he hurried after Sulu, scowling. "Wait up will you."

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Sulu was pretty much completely ignoring the muttering, laughing over them a bit but otherwise giving McCoy all the space he needed to rant about how awful the jungle was. As far as he was concerned, the danger was part of the fun.

When he heard the mud trying to suck up McCoy's foot he looked over his shoulder, grinning at the doctor and slowing down his pace a bit. "Sure. You know, doctor, it isn't that bad. The humidity is a little high but other than that, this is a lot like how the Amazon rainforest was millions of years ago." Stopping fully to crouch down and examine a plant, he added, "Besides, I'm sure you have hyposprays for malaria. Right?"

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"'Isn't that bad-' we're on an uncharted planet with all sorts of uncharted diseases and dangerous plants you're sticking your nose in." McCoy answered, glancing around. "There's a reason people avoided the jungles- intelligent people at least. Knowing our luck we'll carry back a disease, infect the entire crew and I'll be spending the next three days elbow deep in blood, mucus and other bodily fluid I don't care to dwell on."

"Give me a nice forest any day, or maybe a field. Open, sun in the sky and solid ground under your feet. Solid ground-" He glared back at the mud. "Not this mush." His attention turned back to Sulu. "Find something interesting there Mr. Sulu?"

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If Sulu were less of a gentleman, he would probably be mocking McCoy ruthlessly over his paranoia. Of course, he was plenty a gentleman so he just laughed and shook his head. "So far, I haven't found anything from the flora that would indicate any toxins, so unless you're planning on bringing something back yourself, I don't think we have anything to worry about."

He removed a seed pod from inside what was a tubular sort of plant, tucking it away. "Nothing interesting, really, just new."

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Botanists. McCoy kneeled, tricorder out to test the air and environment again for any pollen drifting on the breeze that might test that theory of Sulu's. There was nothing- so far the planet was safe, almost earth like despite the strange tint to the sky and how the sun seemed too close in the horizon.

"What I don't understand Mr. Sulu-" McCoy said as he walked further along, tricorder out and beeping it's readings. "-is why you didn't choose the science track with this love of flora you have."

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That's right, botanists. Satisfied with his samples, Sulu stood and followed McCoy, sorting out his little pack of seeds. "It's easy," he grinned, "My current occupation lets me do both of the things I love, rather than limiting me to one." He shrugged and looked upwards, towards the canopy. "If I were solely a botanist, I'd probably be crazy by now, anyway."

A pause, "I've been wondering something similar about you, actually. Why'd you decide to become a doctor?" He grinned to himself - McCoy seemed more likely to be the kind of guy to sit on his porch and wave a walker at neighborhood kids. Not that he would... ever, ever say that out loud. "Not that it isn't admirable."

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"Fair enough." McCoy agreed, following the logic. Sometimes Sulu seemed so laid back it was hard to believe he was flying around a starship. He ducked a low hanging branch, furrowing his brow at some readings before tapping his tricorder. "A girl I met in college told me I had the hands of a surgeon." McCoy answered in all honesty. "Decided I might as well follow the family calling."

He knelt by a particular plant, a little brighter than the rest, careful not to touch the spines in it's leaves as he held out the tricorder.

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Sulu ducked under the branch himself, watching McCoy inspect one of the local plants. "Nothing like the classics." He finally approached, crouching down to look over the plant that so enthralled the doctor, watching the tricorder for a moment before looking over the plant itself. "It looks like it belongs to the Acanthaceae family - the weird thing is the pigment. There don't seem to be any other plants here with blue pigmentation, especially not this bright. Heavy pollen, too."

He was already trying to figure out the best way to take the thing back with him.

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"Be careful with that, I'm getting some mixed readings." McCoy stood as he glanced over the tricorder. "Use gloves or I'm going to let the new kids in the Infirmary test their knowledge out on you." He stared at the readings- there was some sort of pulse within the plant, though he couldn't pinpoint the source. It was almost like an erratic heartbeat.

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He just nodded and did exactly what McCoy suggested, pulling on a pair of gloves before gently pulling back some petals to get a better look at the interior of the flower.

Sulu would probably later berate himself on the fact that the plant was far too unusual and the scent far too strong for the thing to just be some kind of benign (possibly poisonous to consume) plant. For the timebeing, though, Sulu didn't really think anything about touching the flower. He applied pressure, keeping a hand over his mouth just so he wouldn't inhale any pollen - that'd be smart to avoid, right?

When something roughly the texture and size of an ancient tree root suddenly tightened around his ankle and yanked him off the ground like a snare trap, Sulu decided that he really needed to start avoiding more things than just pollen.

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"Sulu stop horsing around, Jim said-" McCoy began, turning to properly berate Sulu just in time to see the pilot be lifted several feet off the ground by a... tree? Fantastic.

McCoy reached for his phaser just as the ground began to get unsteady, stumbling out of the way of a root as it went sailing for him. He aimed for the base of the root holding Sulu and missed as he lost his footing, the shot hitting another vine or root or whatever the hell. Hitting it and pissing it off it seemed.

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Correcting McCoy would be completely arbitrary and so Sulu ignored the doctor, reaching for his phaser even as the thing shakes him to dislodge just such things. He tries to blow a hole through the root holding him up but the moment he gets a shot in, another root grabs at his arm, yanking hard and oh, hey, is that the ground opening up?

Oh, great, it's the ground opening up. Why do these things always have to have so many teeth? "McCoy, get out of here!"

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"Damnit Sulu!" McCoy shouted back, shooting at the biggest mass of roots approaching. It singed and burned the bark but only seemed to deter the damned thing for a second before it recovered and sent a new root hurtling towards him. One sent him flying back, scrambling to grab the phaser that had fallen to the ground as a root curled around his ankle.

"Son of a-" He reached for his communicator as he noticed Sulu's little dilemma and the- great, great, fan-fucking-tastic, it had teeth. "McCoy to Kirk, McCoy to- Hell, someone get over here now!" He shouted as a vine went around his throat, cutting off his attempts at speaking and attempts at shooting Sulu down in one swoop.

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"Damn me!" Sulu didn't know how he managed to sound so offended at that outburst of McCoy's in the current situation, but there you have it. "This is hardly my f-"

Well, it was his fault but that's beside the point, because now the two roots were practically trying to rip him in two. Sulu swore and fired off two more times, managing to injure the root grabbing at his ankle enough that it let go - of course, that left him dangling by his arm over the gaping maw under the soil. "Great," he muttered, trying to bend his knee to get to the collapsible sword tucked in his boot before the thing... saw him, or whatever it was doing. When he saw McCoy getting a root to the throat, though, he forgot about the sword and fired at the base of the offending root, trying to at least get it to let go for one stupid second.

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McCoy sputtered as the root began to curl more tightly, dropping the communicator as he tried to dig his hand into the root an pull it off, tried to pull it away enough to breath because hell if that didn't sound like a good idea. The root just got tighter, making his vision swim until a loud crack and the smell of burnt wood punctuated the root falling away.

McCoy gasped for breath, getting to his knees with his phaser still right in one hand. "Sulu!" He managed to croak. Right, Sulu, being eaten- god damnit he didn't sign up for this. He lifted his phaser and tried to aim for the... the mouth or whatever it was that was trying to make a lunch out of the ship's pilot, watching the plant shake violently when a hit landed.

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Sulu just kept trying to shoot at whatever roots he could see; he quickly started to regret doing that, however, when McCoy shot at the thing's mouth and the root around his arm finally decided to let go.

He fell freely for a split second before reaching out and grabbing a root, digging his nails into the bark and basically clinging to the thing as it went crazy, trying to whip him off into that hole of teeth.

This was ridiculous and Sulu said as much, shouting at the plant, "This is completely stupid!"

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McCoy tried to stand, falling as the now frenzied roots began to whip and lash at him rather than just try to, you know choke him to death. He shot again and again at the mouth, three times before a root finally hit his arm, knocking the phaser straight out of his hand. He backed up as the roots began surrounding him in an almost mocking slowness, looking up to Sulu.

"Have any better last words?" He croaked.

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"How about 'thank you, Captain'?"

It was Kirk - he'd come from the north and he had two yeomen from Engineering with him. He increased the intensity of his phaser beam and shot into the mouth of the... plant. It didn't feel quite as satisfying compared to some of the alien creatures he'd taken down in the nick of time. He took position behind a convenient rock and continued firing, trying to get it to drop his officers.

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Dropping Sulu meant pretty much dropping him into a set of gnashing teeth trying to eat phaser fire (failing, but still trying), but Sulu was resourceful enough to keep hold of the flailing root, swinging off of it onto the ground some (relatively) safe distance away, now that the thing was distracted.

What with it being distracted, it didn't notice him with his sword, ducking right back in to hack at the roots advancing on McCoy. "Thank you, Captain," he shouted - just to be a smartass.

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"It's about damned time Jim!" McCoy glowered in the Captain's general direction before dodging another root, keeping close to Sulu and his nice, sharp blade that kept the rest of the roots at bay or chopped in half.

"Remind me to ask you why you like plants again after this." He grumbled, looking for his phaser amongst the jungle floor.

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Jim continued sniping from his position at the moving roots, keeping them from getting to near McCoy since the doctor was still unarmed. He waved the two crewmembers up to flank the sides so they could find a weak point while Jim made a dash to Sulu's side.

"What is this thing?" He demanded between intermittent fire. "You're the plant guy, shouldn't you know? I really don't want to have to set the whole goddamn forest on fire because of one plant."

Edited Date: 2009-11-17 06:31 am (UTC)

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The fact was that Sulu had read about plantlife like this back in the Academy, even though nobody had any actual, living samples of the sort of monster they were currently up against. It was a little difficult to recall all of the notes about it considering the current situation but he did his best, reciting a list of factoids under his breath.

"...Oh! The flower - it serves as bait for animals. It has to be sensitive enough to feel insects, so destroying it could seriously disorient the... thing." He gestures in the direction of the mouth, where a short root is waving, the flower growing from it like some kind of creepy lure.

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"The tricorder- shit-" McCoy began, ducking his head. "The tricorder picked up a pulse coming from the flower. Whatever it is Mr. Sulu sounds like he has the right idea."

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"You've got it, Mr. Sulu." With that, Jim ducked under a flying root, dramatically rolling out of the way of another, and finally firing off a short burst of phaser shots in the direction of the flower. Three hit in quick succession in a cluster, decimating the blossom - just in time for the limbs to slowly go limp after they'd snatched up one of the yeoman who was particularly awful at stealth tactics. Jim took a moment to remain on his ass in the dirt, looking particularly displeased and giving a 'really?' look to the crewman before looking back over in Sulu and McCoy's direction.

"You guys all right?"

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The moment the roots began to drop back towards the ground Sulu was straightening out, collapsing the sword in hand and tucking it back away. The look in his eyes may or may not have been particularly curious. He walked right on past Jim, heading for the decimated flower while still keeping just out of reach of the closing mouth near his feet. "I'm fine," he said, sounding out of breath but at least he was trying to put a casual face back on.

He leaned down near the root of the flower, looking through the thick undergrowth surrounding it. "Funny, I didn't even notice it. Well, Dr. McCoy," he said, grinning mildly, "At least you don't have to worry about mosquitoes. That's all this thing has probably eaten lately."

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McCoy let out a breath of relief, hand reaching up to rub his throat more out of a vague irritation at the situation than anything else.

"Yeah, just fantastic." He walked to Kirk's side, looking over at Sulu's activities before looking back to Kirk. "You owe me drink after this. I told you this jungle would be nothing but trouble." He looked back at Sulu with a frown. "Jesus look at him, he's smiling. It's got to be space madness."

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Climbing to his feet with minimal stumbling, he dusted himself off, frowning at a few tears that had made their way into his regulation slacks. He simply nodded to McCoy, looking up in Sulu's direction.

"I'm not gonna lie, I sort of expected it. But, I mean, you'd think he'd be a little more hesitant to jump on something that just tried to kill him." He shrugged, looking suddenly as though he hadn't just encountered some dangerous alien flora. Patting McCoy's shoulder, he even went so far as to grin. "You shouldn't be such a pessimist, Bones. We're alive, aren't we? Maybe next time you guys won't go off without a full away-team." He laughed, realizing quickly that he was just going to get a more sour response based on that. "Right, right. Drinks it is."

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While McCoy and Jim were busy making fun of him, Sulu was taking the opportunity to investigate a tiny bulge in the underbrush. A small, bright blue flower peeked up at him. Hmm.

After a moment, he stood and turned around, dusting off his hands. "I heard that, by the way. Speaking of something that just tried to kill us, you do realize that we're standing on top of something that will probably try again once it comes to its senses."

With a bright grin, "I say we get back to the ship before that happens."

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Bones rolled his eyes. "I just got choked by a damned plant with teeth. I don't call that attitude pessimism, I call it realism." He answered Kirk's grin, moving to where his phaser was gleaming behind a heavy root. When Sulu spoke he straightened, putting the phaser in his belt with an uneasy look at the plant.

"Very sensible space madness." He said, turning to where Kirk and his party had come from. "Let's go you two- and you're not allowed to ask Chapel to take out your splinters Jim." He said as he began to walk, not looking back.

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