Summary: Paris and Kim get in a small predicament while on planet.

Pairings: None.

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek, including Voyager. This is just my little contribution to the prolific field of Trek fanfiction.

Rating: PG

Spoilers: None.

Setting: Early first season.

Feedback: Please! Praise and constructive criticism welcome. Flames will be used for grilling.

Archive: Ask first and I'll probably say yes.

Author's Note: Jeez, I haven't written Voyager fic in ages, and then I just got a couple of the images in this and had to write them up. The timing worked out well, though; this demanded writing the same day that the computer system went down at work, so I was able to finish most of it uninterrupted!

Hillsides and Mudslides and Bears, Oh My!

By B.L.A. the Mouse

The away team had been walking back along the narrow ridge. B'Elanna was leading— or, more accurately, storming ahead of the others and setting a quick pace away from the caves that had not yielded dilithium crystals as the initial planetary scans had suggested they would. Tuvok followed her, a watchful eye on their surroundings as they walked to meet Neelix's team at the shuttle a kilometer away.

Tom and Harry were bringing up the rear. Tom had managed to translate B'Elanna's stomp-cum-forced march into an easy lope with his long legs, and Harry was trying to accomplish the same but with less success. Nonetheless they were reasonably relaxed as they followed the other two, talking cheerfully about nothing and enjoying the warm air.

The relaxation was what did them in. It had rained torrentially shortly before they'd taken the shuttle down, and while the breezy, high elevation with the sun strong between the sparse trees had mostly dried out there were still a few wet or muddy spots. Harry stretched his legs out to reach a rock in the middle of one such spot, trying to keep from acquiring new layers of mud on his boots with no other concern in his mind, and realized immediately that its stability was deceptive. The rock tilted under his weight and his foot shot out from under him. He landed hard, the breath knocked out of him, and the already precarious dirt gave way at the assault, sloughing away from the hillside.

Tom yelled, "Harry!" and reached to grab him, stepping forward to the edge of the clump even as it detached. He missed him, Harry too stunned by the sudden landing to reach out in turn before he slid out of reach, and in the process he also missed the sucking sound of his own newly-destabilized section of hillside. With a shout and windmilling arms, he slipped down the ridge after Harry.

Only meters apart, they somersaulted down the slope, bringing more mud and loose dirt with them. Tom huffed when he smacked into a willowy tree, knocking the air from his lungs before he went pinwheeling away, and Harry scrabbled for purchase at one root before he slipped on yet another muddy clump and was off again. Their dizzying tumble only ended when they reach the bottom, an abrupt slam into what felt like a mound of more dirt, wet and packed. Their momentum carried them down it another meter into a vast dirty puddle, splashing each other as they finally landed more or less simultaneously.

For a moment neither man did more than breathe, registering the cessation of movement as well as an abundance of pain. Fortunately, neither had broken or sprained anything, and while they were both scratched up and would be bruised they were able to get themselves slowly and shakily to their feet. Tom was the first to wipe the water away from his eyes, hissing at the feel of his own fingers along a nasty cut across his cheek; next to him Harry was snorting and spitting, trying to clear the mud out of his nose and mouth. He had a bleeding ear, but assumed that there was no major damage as he could still hear Tom on that side.

Above them the hillside rose, and while it seemed unlikely that Tuvok or B'Elanna hadn't heard them neither was in sight. Behind them and to the sides stretched the forest they'd been hiking above, dense with trees the size of sequoias, the old-growth kind that were thicker than a shuttle was long. The one to their backs was easily that wide.

Tom wiped a clod off his shoulder and asked, "You okay?"

Or rather, he started to ask. There had been a rattling sort of noise for the last minute or two, which they had both assumed to be stones falling down the hillside as a result of their own fall. Now, as Tom opened his mouth, the volume rose drastically and the tenor deepened from a rattle to a growl, and he didn't get a word out at all as the mound of packed earth in front of them grew and morphed and developed limbs and a head far above their own. The growl became a roar as the creature resolved into a huge ursine shape. Together the two men retreated to the tree behind them, as far as they could go without turning their backs.

"Harry," Tom asked instead, a remote part of him oddly proud that his voice barely wavered at all, "do you have your phaser?"

"I lost it during the fall. Tell me you have yours?" He locked his knees, as they were less distracting that way than when they were shaking.

"I think it's somewhere under… that." "That" was still growling, the noise resonating in his bones. Tom gulped.

"How— How about your tricorder? Confuse it or stun it with noise or an overload?" Harry squeaked slightly on the last syllable as the creature dropped to all fours, coming closer to them in the process.

"Dropped it on the hill, I think. Yours?" He nearly squeaked as well when his voice made it swing its head to, apparently, focus on him with reddish eyes.

"Pretty sure it hit a rock. Maybe we can t-talk it down?" His knees unlocked when the head turned back to him, shaking again even without the growl's vibration.

"Not even I'm that good." Tom was pressing against the tree hard enough to feel the ridges of the bark digging into his back. He still tried to sink back farther when that huge muzzle came closer, sniffing. "You've been to the academy more recently, didn't you take any wilderness classes?"

"They didn't cover this."

Angered— or something— by the conversation or their smell or who knew what, the creature roared again, long enough for their eardrums to ache, then took a step closer, sniffing again and snarling at whatever it smelled. Harry gulped, giving up on his knees just as long as he stayed upright. "It can't— I— If we split up—"

A whine split the air as the phaser beam lanced down from above. The creature let out a truncated groan and fell forward, its head centimeters from their toes and sending up a wave of dirty water to splash their knees.

They started at the prone animal before them, stunned not only speechless but motionless. That lasted a few seconds before another noise from up the hill made them look to see Tuvok sliding down, upright and with far more grace than they had had taking the same path down, with his phase pistol at the ready. He coasted to a stop just before the mud puddle and the creature when he reached level ground.

Unsurprisingly, Tom was the first to regain the power of speech as the Vulcan inspected the creature. "Nice shooting, Tuvok. Thanks."

"I believe it is Lieutenant Torres you have to thank," he informed them, still studying the animal. He took out his tricorder with his free hand and began scanning it. "She was checking this side of the ridge for you when I heard the phaser."

A few more small stones rattled down the hill and they all looked up to see B'Elanna herself making her way down via large rocks and root segments, stopping to pick something up while he watched. She made reasonably quick progress, despite the stop-and-go nature of the descent, and was in front of them in less than a minute, giving the creature a look of distaste. "Here," she said, tossing Tom a phaser and Harry a tricorder. "Try not to lose them next time. They're a pain to replicate."

Harry barely caught his. "Uh, thanks."

Tom did a little better. "Yeah, thank you. Especially for the really well-timed rescue."

"Just don't repeat it." She checked her own tricorder. "We should be able to meet the shuttle from here. Let's go." She started walking, for all appearances paying no attention to whether they were following.

Tuvok simply holstered his tricorder and phaser and followed; if he weren't Vulcan he might have sighed or shrugged. Tom actually did shrug before starting after them, keeping the phaser out in case they ran into the thing's big brother. Harry was the only one to linger a second longer, staring at the creature in disbelief over the events of the last few minutes.

"Come on, Starfleet, it's only stunned!"

Jerked out of the transfixion, Harry shook his head and took one last look before jogging to catch up with the others.

The End