Lieutenant-Commander Elizabeth Barbosa stood hands clasped behind her back as she stared out of the window of her office, situated at one end of the main prefabricated building, which formed the bulk of Cabot Base.  Examining the features of her forty something rounded face and her prematurely greying hair; at least some of it was still her original copper colour.  It was raining again!  And it was coming down as heavily as it had been for the past 27 days.  The ground was absolutely saturated with water; puddles and pools forming were there hadn’t been any before.

Everything had been fine when the team had first arrived four months ago. Barbosa was a botanist herself and in overall charge of the 16 strong team of scientific experts, currently working on the site.  At least they should be working, if it wasn’t for the inclement weather.  It was meant to be early summer in the northern hemisphere of Zeta-Delta III; but a freak one in a billion occurrence had flipped everything on its head, in more ways than one. 

It was something they couldn’t prevent, a rare act of geomagnetic mechanics; the evidence of which they’d missed in their haste to set up this base and all its equipment.  Technical as team leader it was her fault for not getting the vessel that had brought them here to scan the planet more thoroughly; she’d simply relied on the previously gathered data.  For 28 days ago; the planet Zeta-Delta III’s magnetic field had flipped.  Magnetic north was now technically south and vice versa.  The entire planet had been thrown into meteorological chaos; winds of nearly 200 kph had swept across its surface, tsunami like waves had battered huge areas of coastline and the rain was falling like there was no tomorrow.

The location of Cabot Base was on high ground and relatively sheltered from the hurricane force winds; but it had not escaped unscathed.  On the fourth day of this planet wide catastrophe, the communications tower had been struck by lightning.  The main dish had shattered and all the connecting wiring melted; leaving them unable to contact the outside world.  They did have a pair of shuttle craft which they’d been using for aerial surveys and moving equipment around; but it would be suicide attempting to take off in this weather. So they remained tethered down. 

Barbosa heard the door behind her open, she rarely ever had it locked and was used to the other scientists just walking in.  It was Lieutenant Chervil the chief Microbiologist and her deputy on this mission.

“Ah, Kate.” Elizabeth tried her best to sound cheerful, no small task, given the situation.  “How is the repair work going?”

“Paulson and Caliph are out having another go at the transmitter, so we can send an emergency signal.” The diminutive brunette replied. “And Wallenberg is seeing if he can fix number two generator.”

Barbosa hated the thought of those two guy’s being on the tower in such appalling conditions, attempting to rewire the short range antenna.  Abingdon had already fallen off the structure attempting the same thing; he was currently in their basic medical facility, sporting a broken arm.  The dislocated shoulder that had gone with it had been taken care of.  As for the Geologist working on one of the two generators which should have been powering the base, she did wonder what his chances of success where given his lack of knowledge regarding them.

‘Note to self.  Bring more than one engineer next time, and not just a bunch of scientists!’ Abingdon was first rate, but couldn’t do much with one working arm.  Though she knew if they hadn’t sedated him, he’d be trying to help. 

Elizabeth offered her friend and colleague a drink; wondering which piece of equipment would suddenly stop working, the moment she activated the replicator.  She could just imagine one of her team charging in to make a complaint.  Barbosa never got to hear anyone bemoan their plight, nor did she even get that drink.  There was a rumble like an earthquake and an almighty roar; before the whole world seemed to tip over on one side and everything went dark.  She heard Chervil yell something, right before the back of her head impacted against a hard object, knocking her unconscious. 

            ********** 

Awareness slowly returned; each sense taking it in turns to report its information to her brain; a brain that was having difficulty unscrambling the details.  Eyes slowly blinking open; picked up on lights and shadows.  Some of them moving whilst others remained stationary; none as yet totally in focus.

“Ah, you’re awake.” Came a calm male voice; but not one she recognised as being any member of her team.  Doctor Phlen smiled in that way only a Denobulan ever seemed to manage; ran a quick scan with the medical tricorder, then reported to his captain that the patient was coming round.

By the time Commander Lyambo had arrived at the ward were Barbosa was being cared for the Brazilian botanist was starting to see a little more clearly, and was sitting up with some water; which one of the nurses had fetched her.  Other than a mild throbbing at the back of the head, where she’d hit in against something in the dark, an ache in the lower back and a twinge in her right knee; she felt relatively ok.

After establishing where she was and how long she’d been out; Barbosa’s concern rapidly turned to that of her colleagues.  Most of those who’d been within the main building had suffered only minor injuries, mainly bumps, bruises and one dislocated ankle.  The exception to this however had been Wallenberg the Geologist.  She was saddened to learn that he’d been crushed to death by the generator he was attempting to repair.

“So what exactly happened down there?” She finally asked.

“Well according to my Chief Engineer who’s down there right now assessing the damage.” The Commander replied. “All that heavy rain opened up a sinkhole.  Your main building dropped about twenty metres before getting wedged against the rock.”

“Can anything be salvaged?”

“We’re getting that assessed right now.” 

            ********** 

As the Commander spoke his younger brother and the USS Chapel’s Chief Engineer was picking his way through the wreckage that had been Cabot Base.  Dinari picked up a damaged Electron Microscope, twisting it around in his hand, examining it from all sides.  Then tossed it to the young man about 5 metres away from him. “Stick that for recycling.” Was all he said as the other man caught the item and placed it on the growing pile of unsalvageable equipment.  He wasn’t sure what the next item he picked up was, but guessed the box like object with a small control panel mounted at the front, wasn’t meant to rattle when you shuck it. “And that.”  With a finally scan of his surrounding, the Chief was satisfied that this room had been dealt with and more cautiously to the next one.

There were those who’d questioned why he felt the need to climb down the sinkhole into the collapsed section of the base; but he knew how the scientists would feel if no attempt was made to rescue anything, and the structure was stable enough now the rain had ceased.  He’d already had a dozen samples collected by them beamed up to the Chapel. 

He’d be down there nearly another hour, before finally calling it quits and climbing back out.  He sat himself down on a dented shipping crate, excepting a flask from one of the few members of the scientific team still on the surface of the planet.  Paulson thanked him and his team for all the effort they’d made.  He wondered what would happen to the expedition now, having lost a fair chunk of their equipment; then of cause there was Wallenberg, a guy he’d worked with several times in the past.  Paulson would miss that roaring laugh.

The two of them turned to witness one of the two bases shuttles take off.  It had escaped unscathed, unlike its twin, now lying upside down in a ditch about 50 metres from its landing spot; yet still firmly attached to its half of the platform. 

“Come on then.” Dinari announced tapping the scientist on the shoulder. “Time to go folks.” He shouted loud enough for those dotted around the site to hear him.  A few short minutes later the base was deserted.