The Bush Bunny of Humpy Creek (Backpost)

Posted on Tue Aug 4th, 2026 @ 1:51pm by Lieutenant Arianna Frost & Lieutenant Jack Lashmore

Mission: A New Day at Midnight
Location: Dartmouth - Humpy Creek, Forest. Victoria, Australia.
Timeline: Some Weeks ago

ON:

Dartmouth was a small town situated in a quite remote valley surrounded by the forests and mountains of Victoria's highland country. The town itself was established in the late 20th century for workers on the construction of a massive dam, though, as time past the population dwindled to that of a tourist town catering to campers, fishermen and casual outdoor adventurers. Its position in the highlands protected it from much of the developments of the 21st century and beyond, yet also insulated it from broader progress thereafter. Dartmouth moved more towards farming and general off-grid living as time progressed, which suited its latest resident quite well.

After being released from Driaan's dilithium-mining prison, Jack initially refused all attempts by Starfleet colleagues to reenter service. Whilst he could not exactly dodge the forced counselling sessions to, in Starfleet's mind, aid in his reintegration into society after trauma, he could, however, escape everything else. Utilising a contact and some older, retired former superior officers family ties, Jack had managed himself a simple farmhand job in the farmland near Dartmouth. He was granted use of a run-down, not modern at all log-cabin in the hills and forest along a watersource known as 'Humpy Creek.' On the odd days he would take a horse and ride to an agricultural farm that worked the lands in an organic way, old-fashioned and without the aid of modern technology.

On other days, he was content alone at the cabin and surrounding land, which suited him just fine. A small garden, some old-fashioned hunting and fishing and generally quite often only accompanied by horse and a bottle of beer. Well, not to mention the wild cats which seemed to have owned the cabin longer than he did, but they warmed up to him, or perhaps, the cats considered they had domesticated Jack to their ways enough to tolerate him instead.

The main issue for visitors from the outside world, however, would be the lack of any cleared land near the cabin, which, was not an issue until present.

CLAANNG!!! A sound of something hitting a metal can or canister, and said metal object going bouncing off of nearby rocks. Clang, clang clang!

Then an expletive, then another.

Some bushes rustled, before another sound, more akin to a thud and tumble.

More expletives followed in the deep dark night that surrounded the small cabin; its outer light more dim and cozy, than illuminating.

Bush rustling followed again, then another clang and a thud, followed by an annoyed plea and another curse. Raw, unfiltered and distinctly Australian.

In reply to the constant stream of foul language streaming from a female tongue in the deep of night, there of course was a mix of frustration yet much too much curiosity brewing within Jack, who himself was not within his cabin but at the time enjoying a nighttime walk through the forest, though not unarmed.

Once the source of knocking things over blindly in the night and the swearing was spotted, Jack raised his vintage Winchester-style pulse rifle towards the target and initiated its battery, which was loud enough to be its own vocal warning.

The bush rustling suddenly stopped. Then a whirling of a tricorder, its familiar flickering lights giving visual to a hand, with a battery strapped to the back of it. A hand moved through the soft illumination and turned the battery on, though it pointed downward, in between itself and the sound of the pulse rifle.

"Look, I'm not trying to stir anything," a female voice said. "I'm just looking for Horsfall Estate. I've already had to fight off two local gronks from two different places, trying to find this joint. If you're not from there, can you at least point me in the right direction?"

"You're on it." Jack had not untrained his rifle from its target. "Big estate, though, miss; you wanna backtrack the way you came a few kilometers to main residence and bunkhouses if you're seeking the foreman or work." Almost spoken as a polite warning to go away.

The hand without the flashlight pulled out a PADD and held it up, the woman staying silent for a moment, then the hand with the PADD went down. "You Lashmore?" She asked, her tone clear that she did know it was him.

"Always hear jokes at the pub.... more the wants of lonely men in the bush. So," Jack lowered his rifle. "The myth, the legend, the Bush Bunny of Humpy Creek wants to play, hmm? Wouldn't of taken her as a blonde."

Arianna blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it. Then blinked again. "The whosamawhatnow?" She shook her head and took a step closer. "Com..." no, she was no longer a Commander. "Arianna Frost, Fleet Intel. I was sent by Old Mate, Orpheus, he needs you to look over something." She extended the hand with the PADD again, this time in a gesture of handing it over to him.

Orpheus, the callsign of the now Commodore Alexander Night.

Jack sighed, he had already assumed as such considering the lighting of the PaDD and tricorder. "That is so much less fun." He finally approached her, looked her up and down and simply added audibly, "...eh," in evaluation of her before walking past her and continuing on his way towards the dimlight further ahead that would be his cabin.

Both eyebrows went up at his less that unimpressed answer and followed a few steps after him, using the light of her torches to try and not trip over random canisters and cans and rocks, which this area seemed to be unapologetically riddled with.

"Some things don't change, no matter the sophistication, eh?" She thought to herself.

It took five minutes of casual walking for Jack and very careful walking for Ari before they reached his cabin. She could swear she heard sounds of chain links clinking together pass by them several times as they walked.

"The Button Man?" She wondered, remembering tales of a weird old man living in the High Country bush, who collected buttons. The legends had persisted through centuries, so if it was real, it would have been a new Button Man, or a descendant of the original.

She couldn't help a sideways glance at the sound as they stepped over to the cabin, as she heard it again. Then the scent of firewood reached her nostrils. Ari then looked over at the cabin.

"Possums," Jack noted her looking towards the sound, "their growl can sometimes sound...weird."

The cabin itself was a small abode which seemed like it had been made more than a century ago from local resources and barely maintained. No technology visible; even the lanterns on the surrounding balcony seemed natural - although they were of modern technology only made to appear of yesteryear.

Ascending the wooden steps to the cabins' surrounding balcony with each step resounding with a creak of protest from the aged wooden planks Jack glanced over his shoulder to the woman. "If it bites you, you're fucked." Without saying what, if anything, would do the biting, Jack proceeded inside - the hinges of the door also creaking in desperate plea for WD-40.

Several steps in quick succession followed him. "I'm starting to remember why my ancestors went walkabout to outer space." She said as she followed him inside. She turned off the torch strapped to her wrist.

This place was...a perfect place for someone looking to disappear. Not in a running-away-from consequences kind of disappear. More like a drown-out-ones-trauma disappear. From what little she'd managed to read of his file on her way over, that tracked.

Part of her wondered, was it worth pulling him out of his self-imposed exile? Dragging him back to the field where all of what had happened to him could happen again? Alex had seemed confident that he would go with her. It took her a moment, as she observed the surroundings and the man in front of her.
Night knew this man well.

With more light to ascertain details, it was noticed Jack did seem quite unkempt. A beard left unshaven for at least a year, almost shoulder-length hair and a touch more wear on his skin than typical of humans in the 24th century. He still barely regarded her presence at all as he removed his weathered oil-skin coat and hung it on a cast-iron hook by the door, revealing an all too typical look of the area; a panelled and buttoned flannelette shirt, leather belt and dusty denim jeans.

With a sigh, Jack crossed the small length of the living, an area with a stone fireplace, a rusty cast-iron woodstove, an ageing wooden table with two chairs and a lightly torn old leather couch by the fireplace. Once by the fire he set the rifle in his hand against the wall and crouched to feed the nearly dead fire with more fuel from a woodpile beside it.

Ari placed the PADD on the table and holstered her tricorder on her left hip. On her right, her own hand phaser, that she had never unholstered. As she took all the details in, especially the state of Jack, she sighed.

Why this dilapidated husk of a man in this dilapidated dwelling. What was he to Alex, for him to be so certain that he would accept the position.

Unless?

"Bloody hell, you're Old Mate." She said finally, "I've heard stories about you."

"That could refer to any ol' bloke." Jack stoked the fire some more. "Might need to specify these bullshit stories before I claim ownership of it."

Ari took a seat at the table, opposite to where the PADD was, leaned her elbows and hands on it, while she leaned back in the chair. "Of course it could. However, Alex would not perform Cabaret shows with any old codger. If I recall you're a baritone-bass, and you play the violin. Alex is more of a baritone-tenor." She began, keeping herself casual, yet unreadable.

"He passed on the music and how we can use it, in his training." She added. "Young criminal, until a certain Richardson took a chance on you and sentenced you to Starfleet service. Alex said it was the best decision you'd ever done. The poor street hustler from Ireland and the criminal rich boy from Driaan. Don't get me wrong, I am not judging. There is only so many things you can do when an Orion Pirate Kingpin decides your home is now his and the Syndicate moves in."

Driaan, another Australian Colony, got taken over by the a sub-faction of the Orion Syndicate - a faction lead by the notorious Reetorg.

"The war was the war, we all bear our scars from that one. You were on the Fenris, with him during the Hail Mary that was Torros III. Then Hellfire..." She trailed off. "I've been wracking my brain to understand why you - then it hit me. You're Old Mate. Only reason he would go that far for someone."

"He went this far for you too." The insistent voice in her mind piped up.

"I suppose," Jack stood up from his kneeling position by the fire, rubbing his hands together a moment as he turned and unceremoniously took the chair opposite Arianna's side of the table. "That is all factually true. Just far less glamorous in reality." He sighed and stared at the blonde woman a moment as he scratched the side of his nose a moment before asking, "and what about you?"

"I'm a mezzosoprano personally, and I play the flute." She said casually, with a small smirk.

It wasn't what he was asking, she knew. Yet that was the answer. Interest before information. The hook was not yet bitten.

"The flute? Suppose I can do the fingering." Came Jack's bland-in-tone reply despite the immediate comeback.

Arianna burst out laughing, she was now leaned forward, her shoulders shaking with mirth. "At least offer a sheila a drink before you skip to the good stuff, mate."

"Chat me up first, the old-fashioned way. I kinda did ask a question."

Another mirthful shrug as she settled from laughter. "And I kinda did answer, you gotta admit." She countered. "I'm from Achernar. Home of Jack the Ripper MK II. Dad's aussie, mum's russian, brother's a drunk PI. Started in Security, became a vet and transferred to the BAU. Then I got placed with R&D." Ari added a very abbreviated version of her career.

R&D, the usual cover story for any officer who transferred to Starfleet Intelligence at one point or another.

"And now a wetnurse trudging through the forest to pick up orphans? Seems you skipped a beat in your answer." Another quick yet bland-in-tone reply.

"Gotcha!"Ari chuckled, "I'm fishing for achievements. People get weird after they turn forty, you know how it goes." She said, opening her hands wider. "The 'would you like to know more' achievement needs unlocking." The index finger of her left hand pointed towards the PADD that was on the table next to him.

Jack locked his eyes with hers without moving an inch; eventually, he lowered a hand upon the PADD and pulled the PADD to him, bringing it up to read without changing his stance at all. The silence was deadening as he read, even the possums outside seemed to halt their annoyingly bizarre growls.

"USS Pandora, exploring beyond the borders, hmm? So, in short...you've been sidelined. Intelligence operatives generally have more work in more known sectors of space." He continued reading, "as for the rest, it looks like I lied well enough to the counselors to be assigned a Chief of Security..." He read that bit again on the PADD, its specific wording. "Son-of-a-bitch."

"Benched, more like." She thought at his sidelining reference. Ari chuckled, "bingo and bingo. So, I've got us a ride, but I couldn't land close enough to this place, hence the clang-a-swear fest you heard earlier."

Jack frowned, sighed and placed the PADD back down on the table whilst his left foot tapped the floor repeatedly. Clenching and unclenching his jaw, he looked anywhere but at Arianna at that moment.

Frost didn't feel slighted or offended at the act. She could understand the indecision, the apprehension and even fear, if she was reading his mannerisms correctly. Years of prison and torture will do that to a person. So, she rode the silence, waiting patiently.

"You know," Jack managed. "The war, seeing crewmates guts rearranged or heads turned into canoes and all of that stuff...never really hit me as much as it hit anyone else. It was just kind of expected, you know. You go into those situations expecting fight or die so neither really hit me much." A pause. "It's those years on standard service ships post-war that really do a number on you. On one hand," he gestured to the left, "there's seeing new cultures, discovering new things and honestly stuff that just takes your breath away."

"On the other hand," he gestured to the right. "It's those mostly peaceful voyages that are completely fucked up. Something on scanners, oh we're fucking Starfleet, we have to jump right into it and poke it. Oh, whoops, it has anomalies, and that cute chick you were about to ask out is suddenly rearranged across five decks and we spend the next week cleaning her bits out of the bulkheads. Or hit a time-thingmajig and you spend a week living in what's a second for everyone else...you know how god damned frustrating it is to be desperate to take a shit for a week. Still, your bodily functions or bowels don't move a millimetre yet somehow you're active and walking around in a frozen second of time?"

Frost nodded slowly, "I can certainly imagine," she said. "It'd be my first ship service in decades. First in this role, period." A pause, before she continued, "that being said, I've had well enough exposure to the weird and wonderful, as much as the weird and god-awful."

"You haven't seen in my fridge." Jack pointed out in regard to her experience.

A chuckle-snort escaped her. "You got grog? Might as well have one for the road if you're not coming with."

Jack leaned back in his chair and stretched a hand out behind him, almost at the verge of toppling over as he grasped what appeared to be a glass preservative jar from the shelf above his tiny cast-iron wood oven. Placing the jar of clear liquid before her he nodded once. "It...is technically alcohol?"

"Oh, experimental rocket fuel. Noice!" Ari took the jar and sniffed it. The punchy aroma assaulted her nostrils and hijinxed all the way up to her brain, her face contorting in a grimace. "Blyat, that is..." she didn't really have words for what the agressive smell was telling her. Instead she raised the jar slightly and nodded at him, then took a sip. Another grimace followed by a shudder and a grunt. Then a cough as she swallowed the liquid. "This just completely wiped out the hairs in my nose!" She struggled through coughs.

"Finish it and I'll give this PADD further consideration..." Jack indicated the PADD in mock casuality. "Twenty seconds."

Cough, "fuck..!" Cough, "...you!"

Still, she needed him to either say yes, or no. Clock was ticking and the Pandora was getting further away with every hour.

Pulling up her metaphorical 'big girl' pants on, she downed the acrid liquid. A slew of curses mixed with coughing followed. Her face was contorted in a grimace as she was hunched over, trying to stop coughing, her eyes red and teared up.

Jack barely contained a light chuckle. "Yeah, I should have mentioned that stuff is farm-made rubbing alcohol, not meant to be consumed."

Her voice came out hoarse and scratchy, devoid of tone.

"You owe me now," she managed to set herself upright finally, taking deep, laboured breaths and pointed at the PADD again. With the other hand, she wiped off her wet eyes, her mascara now messy and all over the shop. "God, this is how my ancestors felt when they invented vodka, didn't they?" She thought to herself as she took another laboured breath.

Jack chuckled dryly again then stared at the PADD, sliding a finger across its screen several times flipping through the details. He sighed. "I'm still trying to ascertain folks' angle with all this...in hindsight I don't actually think I ever was that good at any of this beyond tanking shots and punching folks."

Her voice came out without tone again, her expression calmer. "That was then, this is now. Why don't you find out if you can be?"

"Such a ringing endorsement..." Jack eyed her messed-up complexion after the drink as he scratched his beard. "In truth the first year I needed this..." He gestured loosely about the cabin. "...the second, I've probably just been a hamster trapped willingly in its wheel. Repetition is its own comfort drug." A sigh and a side-glance once more at the PADD. "Despite the chaos of it all..." He glanced towards a window on the far wall; not that he could see any stars through it. "It was mostly fun - for all the wrong reasons if you ask a sensible person." With that he sent a sideward wink her way.

Ari chuckled. Even a chuckle sounded hoarse and raspy. Her larynx and oesophagus were fried. Her stomach was starting to feel the burn. "Let me know when you find one." She said, referring to a sensible person. "So...ready to break the wheel?"

"First, one question."

Ari said nothing, instead just gestured with her hand, to go ahead.

"Do you need some water?"

Both of her hands now reached across, "god yes!"

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