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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...
Last post by RyeTanker -
[ Chief Petty Officer Dominic Lau | Outside Chief Diplomatic Officer's Office | Deck 08 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy] @rae @Ellen Fitz

Chief Petty Officer Dominic Lau had a fairly solid idea why he'd been chosen for his current destination and he wasn't entirely convinced.  It made a lot of sense since he also had a background in security, so he could handle the protection detail.  Especially with security stretched thin as it was, so the need for an experienced team leader for a diplomatically sensitive operation was called for.  That wasn't was upsetting though.  No.  It was the fact the team was being split up.  It had been hard to figure out who had to go with whom, but the rules of too many competing priorities was coming into play.  Bessir was accompanying a junior attache to Qo’Nos as security, Knox was going off to who knows where while himself and Cheung would accompany the diplomat.  Thus leading to their first change where the team Chief and the Bajoran-Cardassian were in security yellow instead of their normally required intel red shirts.

A quartet security crewman accompanied the re-purposed infiltration team.  "It should be straight forward assignment."  Chief Lau started.  "We're mainly there to make sure the assigned diplomat is kept safe and alive.  We'll patrol in pairs with myself staying close to the VIP."  He took a moment to check at the Asian women following as she carried her PADD, but set up as a portable terminal with additional privacy features. "Klaudia.  You're our ace in the hole."  He pulled an earbud out of his pocket and passed it to the resident tech expert who put it in her ear without question. "I'm going to keep an eye on the other parties to watch how the opposition reacts and pass on those observations to you while you do the same thing."  He paused for a moment.  "You'll have the best chance to pick out additional data points to pass on to the diplomat.  In the mean time, we're going to get a background brief and find out what rules we're operating under.  Klaudia, you're going to act as the diplomat's aide, take her notes and what not."  This explanation was not for Cheung who knew her job very well, but for the quartet of security who didn't know her at all.  It also gave a plausible cover for whatever Cheung would decide to do on the job.

The team Chief saw a tall slim Andorian enter the office ahead of his group.  She certainly was a graceful member he noted from the way she carried herself and how her hair was arranged.  It didn't take long for the group to follow and he pressed the admittance chime, then entered when summoned.  He recognized the woman sitting at the Chief Diplomat's desk.  A very rapid promotion under the circumstances and he nodded respectfully to the officers as he brought his procession in. "Lieutenant Madsen, Lieutenant zh’Eziarath.  Chief Dominic Lau. I'll be leading the security detachment. Lieutenant zh’Eziarath, this is PO2 Klaudia Cheung.  She's been selected as an aide for this mission."  With introductions complete, he waited for his introduction to sink in and for what ever information would be forthcoming.
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Director's Cut / Re: [Stardate 57714.5: May 12th, 2381] - Boldly they rode...
Last post by Hans Applegate -
[PO2 Knox | Stolen Romulan fighter crashing into Donatra's Ship | The Triangle ] Attn: Writers

Turning, banking, rolling, dodging! And just trying not to get blown up! Knox pulled hard on the controls again to roll out of the way of another disrupter beam from a Romulan fighter that had been proving rather annoying. By annoying, meaning trying to kill him.
“Why are all of these solids so mean today? Damn it! I need to get out of this fighter-” a glancing blow to the hull of his space fighter sent a shudder through the craft.

Seeing Donatra’s ship up ahead, Knox aimed at it and fired off a few beams of his own. The beans connected with the hull of the ship this time. Realizing the shields were down, Knox flew straight for the ship. He figured he would do better fighting in melee combat instead of this fighter he had no training in.

Thankfully, a member of the Theurgy’s crew in another fighter took care of the Romulan fighter that had been ‘annoying’ Knox. This left him open to fly straight at a large gapping hole in the side of Donatra’s ship. Just before impact, he popped the canopy and bailed out, still wearing his stolen space suit. His mind briefly wandered to how that Romulan chick ended up doing a nude space walk when he took the suit from her in the airlock, and laughed as his shiny new fighter slammed into the hull and made it even bigger with a series of secondary explosions.

Then Knox drifted. The momentum carried him slowly towards Donatra’s ship. Well, he was actually going kind of fast, but not as fast as he would like, considering how open and exposed he was in the middle of a space battle with only a flimsy spacesuit. Eventually, eight seconds later, he tumbled into the large opening on the ship.

The damage control had left the part of the ship he was sort of inside still exposed to hard vacuum. A problem, but a temporary one. He just had to find a hatch that he could force open briefly. Very briefly. So that he could slip in. Then he would slip out of his space suit and look for Romulans to kill. Not a complex plan, and there were a few holes in it. But he liked to keep planning loose and open to change. He was all about change after all.

Exploring the torn-open area of the damaged ship, Knox eventually found a small service tunnel that had been severed. Wriggling into it he climbed up. He knew it was up because the gravity kicked in eventually as he left the damaged area and returned to a place still with life support and gravity. The problem was that his little tunnel had no atmosphere, remaining unpressurized from where it was severed at the crash site. Working with the handle and turning it. Knox braced himself and slowly cranked the hatchway open. There was a rush of air coming out! But soon that stopped. Presumably, by a safety mechanism upstream of this area of the maintenance network. This safety mechanism allowed Knox to climb through the opening and close the hatch behind him. A few moments later, air returned. Knox was now fully inside the ship.

Quickly, he stripped off the spacesuit and briefly contemplated a Romulan form to take. Deciding on a male with high rank, he morphed into a new body that would help him cause havoc. After listening for a few seconds, Knox exited through a vent into an empty corridor as a slime then quickly assumed his Romulan male form with a high rank and started running. He didn’t know where he was going. He just knew there was a battle and nobody would stop to question a ranking officer running when the ship was under attack. That theory was tested moments later.

Two lieutenants emerged from the door at the end of the corridor just as Knox arrived. The two men, seeing a superior officer running towards them as a few more thuds of impacting ordnance thundered through the hull, froze. Then they asked him something…in Romulan…

It was at this moment that Knox realized that he had fucked up. He couldn’t speak Romulan.

The two, shaken Romulan lieutenants looked at him expectantly.

Knox stared back blankly, standing in front of them.
The lieutenants looked at each other then back and Knox and said something else. It was equally unintelligible but seemed like a question.

Knox, thinking quickly, just pointed behind them.

When the two Romulan men turned to look behind them, Knox transformed his outstretched arm into a blade and quickly cut their heads off. As their bodies crumpled and their heads hit the floor and rolled, a Romulan female came jogging out of a different door a few paces away. She stopped in shock, looking at the two headless bodies of her shipmates and the blade-armed Knox, now not in very good disguise. A second later, she screamed and turned to run away!

OK, so this was a terrible plan, Knox thought as he gave up on stealth and grew a few more bladed appendages. Then he gave chase...
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 03 [ 1330hrs ] Back Channel Operations
Last post by Hans Applegate -
[PO2 Knox | Civilian Freighter Merchant's Folly \ In Transit - Triangle Region] Atten: Pertinent Writers @Ellen Fitz @Krajin

Knox is in human male form, riding along with them, eager to get things. Thrift is fun. Actually paying for stuff would also be an enlightening experience. Knox is happy to be on a field trip. He is, however, completely unaware that Thane, sitting across from him, is a telepath.

He hoped that his brown cargo pants and dark leather trench coat would help him fit in on this mission. He chose to appear unarmed. But he had four phasers hidden inside his body internally. Just in case things got fun…

Knox absently stares at the ceiling, wondering how much fun he is going to have helping his boss’s boss acquire new shiny things that their ship needs. Everything he had hoped for was slowly coming true. He had finally fallen in with the more corrupt, underhanded, morally bankrupt, murder hobo, pirate thieves he had yet encountered after leaving the collective. His mind raced, imagining fun new adventures that awaited him and his new solid friends as he blankly stared at the ceiling. Knox, for the first time in a long time, felt at home and happy.
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [ 0800 hrs ] Maybe By Next Tuesday
Last post by Hans Applegate -
[PO2 Knox, | Starbase 234] Attn: Open

Knox looked around reading people’s body language as he followed close behind Stark, listening carefully to the conversation she was having with Warrant Officer Delas. What he learned was that he was correct about his assessment of the Theurgy. They were the ultimate pirate marauders of a warlike, and strangely bureaucratic, organization called Starfleet. His friend Anderson did well to assign him here. He would have to thank the man if he ever saw him again.

As they rounded the next corner heading to some kind of large storage room/workshop, in the large space station, Knox caught sight of at least 3 different humanoid looking species. So, it was common for non-humans to serve in Starfleet. Knox made a mental note of this.

“And your name is?” CWO Delas asked, pulling Knox back to reality while consulting his clipboard.

“I am PO2 Knox.”

“Ah yes. I have your name here.” CWO Delas made some sort of a mark on his paper then looked up. “You are to go help Hurly over there with getting ambient interphasic confinement capacitors ready to transfer over to the USS Theurgy.” Delas pointed to a burly man on the far side of the room. “As soon as you two are done you can use a hover cart to move it back to your ship.”

“Aye Sir.” Knox snapped a quick salute and headed over to see Hurly. His new, and temporary work partner.

“Yo Hurly. I am Knox.” Knox said to the man as he held out his hand offering a handshake. “I didn’t get your rank so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

The large burly man paused with a blank expression for a moment before smiling and shaking Knox’s hand. “Well rank sure doesn't affect our pay, that is for sure!” Hurly said with a chuckle.

“Well what are we working on here?” Knox asked as his eyes drifted (metaphorically) to look at the work station next to Hurly.

“Just some ambient interphasic confinement capacitors. It will go quicker now that you are here. Almost done with the intricate stuff. Can you attach the covers to this lot here, while I finish up with the innards of these last few here?”

“Only if you show me to the galley afterwards. I am hungry.” With that, the two men got to work and quickly finished ambient interphasic confinement capacitors. And stowed ambient interphasic confinement capacitors where it belonged on the USS Theurgy. Job complete, Knox was eager for Hurly to show him to the galley so he could try out the food available on a space station.

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Main OOC Board / Re: Interregnum Season 2: 02-03
Last post by Pierce -
So I think I want to do the following:

Alana Pierce - Any that makes sense but need guidance where she might best fit.
Tessa Lance - Day 03 [ 1330hrs ] Back Channel Operations
Ashley Kerina - Day 02 [ 1100hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...
Lauren Pierce - Day 02 [ 1100hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job
Last post by Krajin -
[ Lt.JG Dominic 'Atlas' Winters | Wolf-10 | Outbound Lane Beta Near Starbase 234] Attn: @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88


Atlas had volunteered to fly escort and join the shuttles to hit the Cayuga with Wolf-10. He'd brought up the prospect of piracy being an issue with an abandoned starship out there in an unknown condition. His physical strength, size, and minor in engineering would be a benefit on the job when or if they boarded the Cayuga. Sure, he'd tried to sell himself on the job but the man got pulled along for it. Along with Shadow, whom he trusted despite the short time he had flown with the crazy lady.

Wolf-10 sat on the right flank of the shuttle convoy and stayed close, Atlas had requested that four launchers be fitted to Wolf-10. Two were loaded with Photon Torpedoes, and the other two were loaded with EMP. He listened to the comms between LTC Arnold and the Traffic Control Tower

"Gotta love a power tripping asshole in the tower. He can go sit and spin." Atlas put over the comm.

[Lower Shuttle Bay | Deck 21 | Vector 3 | A few hours earlier....]

Atlas had sat down on a crate in the shuttle bay with many others, Talia next to him as the two escort pilots for the job. Frank gave the briefing, and when the man mentioned the Valkyries flying in escort and patrolling the perimeter, Atlas raised his hand to wave at the others. His ears sat up, and his tail tip twitched lightly.

"If need be, we can land and assist as well. We have skills and talents outside of piloting. Depending on the condition of the ship eh?"

He left it at that and settled in for the rest until they were dismissed. He had his PADD out and had been working out his suggested loadout for the job. He passed the PADD to Shadow for her stamp of approval or suggestions. She might be crazy and an Ensign, but she outranked him in experience flying the MK 3. Plus, she might have interesting insights and he was keen to build a friendship up with her.

[Back to the present...]

Atlas' computer pinged indicating the shuttles were going to warp and so, primed his own fighter to do the same and jump in tandem with them. Flipping the Bird at the Starbase in the process.
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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: EPI S: The curious case of Humpty Dumpty [Day 03 | 2330 hrs]
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Ehfva Feynri | Main Sickbay | Biolab 2 | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] @Dumedion

She breathed. In, slow. Out, slower. The elders had taught the kits to do this when their bodies were at war with themselves — when the feral pulled one direction and the Vulpinian pulled another, and nothing agreed. You found the oldest part of yourself, the part that predated the argument, and you held to it.

The sounds of the lab came and went at the edges of her attention — keystrokes, the low consultation of two voices finding a shared technical language, the soft drone of the scanner working its way along her body. She let them be sounds. She went somewhere else.
The day the Freedom Fire came, the eldest kit in the colony had just made her first successful kill in her feral form. They were celebrating. Ehfva remembered the smell of the cook-fire, the sound of the pack in full voice. Then the ship's silhouette crossed the sky. She had known it would come. She had simply chosen not to think about that until the moment it was unavoidable. Her grandmother's paw on the back of her neck. Not comfort. Steadiness.

The crew walked down the ramp as one clan. Her mother in her natural Vulpinian form, ears up, tail moving with ease. An older brother, fully Vulcine, his pointed ears catching the light, his tail hanging loose at his back. Another in their feral form, simply sitting at the base of the ramp, waiting.

On Okashii Atama, you relaxed into your natural Vulpinian form only inside, only among family. The Vulcine form was something else — forbidden, a corruption of the true way, a capitulation to the desire to look like something you were not. She had grown up understanding this as fact, the way she understood that stars were fixed and fire was hot.

The Freedom Fire crew understood this, but they did not share the same beliefs. They were not being provocative. And into this strange world so "at war," with how her grandparents had raised her, Ehfva willingly walked, as it was the expected and right thing to do.

The first months were not something she often described to people because there was nothing useful to say about them. She had been wrong about things she had never thought to question, and that particular kind of wrong left a specific mark. Her siblings — her brothers and sisters from the same parents, the same ship, the same wandering bloodline — had not laughed. They had each gone through their own version of Okashii Atama's unwinding and come out the other side, and they left her room to do the same.

What she remembered most was not the forms but the technology. The humiliation of being unable to operate a panel that a kit of a different upbringing half her age navigated without looking. She had built "tools" from raw materials in her feral form since she was old enough to sharpen a rock. She had never needed anything she could not make. Now she needed everything. She went to the navigation array on the third day because it was the one station that made sense — angles, distances, the relationship of moving things to fixed ones. The elders had taught the kits to find their way home by stars. The technology was the same knowledge in different clothes.

She started there and learned outward, without asking for help unless she had tried and failed twice, and never in front of strangers. The Vulcine form came last, and badly, and in private. In time, she became the one the captain, her father, sent when the negotiation required someone who could read a room in the dark, because her feral form had taught her in ways all the others could not.
When news of Okashii Atama reached the ship, she had been in the navigation bay. She remembered the captain's voice — the specific flatness of it that meant the processing was already done and only the information remained. Survivors. Few. The colony, mostly gone. She finished the calculation she was running. Then she went to find her siblings.

Four had already decided before she arrived. Two more when she walked in. Her parents did not argue.

The Kyodai Obi Military was people with weapons and sufficient motivation, organized just enough to be more dangerous than a mob. She had been trained by elders who believed the most honest form of warfare was the one you won before the other side knew it had started. The feral form at speed in the dark. The natural Vulpinian form for the close work that required hands. The Vulcine form for the infiltration work, when you needed to look like something other than what you were.

The battlefield surprised her. Not the death. The sound of it — her own people in every form, turned entirely toward destroying each other, and she could not always tell which side was which until the fighting started, because they were the same people carrying different grudges.

The name came after the third mission. Ha'tIa. She had not wanted it. Names like that became the story people told instead of looking at you.
She had met him in her male Vulcine form because that was what the negotiation required. He had looked at her face and waited to see what she was going to say. Most people looked at the pointed ears and thought Vulcan, then noticed the tail and reassessed, then found the amber eyes and gave up on the catalog entirely. He skipped all of that.

He had lost his home in a way that rhymed with her loss without being the same loss. They had talked for three hours without agreeing on anything political and with complete agreement on everything that mattered.

Keokuk had already known her male Vulcine form — had known it longer than any other, had done business beside it and shared meals in it and trusted it with things he did not tell other people. What she showed him later was her female Vulcine form, and after that her natural Vulpinian form, and last her feral form, because by then there was nothing left to withhold. She wanted him to understand that the person he had been talking to for months existed in all of these, not one at a time.

He was from a Terran tribe that marked significant things. Many spirits, many selves, all of them real. He said it the way you say something you intend to remember. He had given her a name: Nicoma.
The lab sounds sharpened. The quality of the quiet changed — people finishing rather than working. She looked at the hypo in Leux's hand. She looked at her own hands — wrong, neither one thing nor the other, not anything the elders had a word for. She met Leux's eyes and nodded. When the hypo pressed to her skin she turned her attention inward, reaching for the most familiar pathway first. The natural Vulpinian form — as children, they learned it before any other. The first, the easiest. The one that should have required no thought at all.

It did not come easily. Her mind went down the corridor and found it blocked, turned, doubled back, turned again. She could feel the shape of where the shift should happen, and her concentration kept sliding off it like wet hands on rope. The hypo's compound moved through her, and she tracked it and tried again. Her body throbbed beneath the painkiller — present, insistent, the throb of tissues that could not agree on their own architecture.

The shift, when it came, came slowly. Not the clean unfolding she remembered from sixty years of practice. Something grinding and reluctant, her body arguing with itself about every increment of change. She felt it in her shoulders first, then the restructure moving down through her hands, and she kept her eyes closed because looking would cost her concentration, which she didn't have to spare.

An eternity passed. Possibly three minutes. She looked down. Paws. Her paws — her own familiar timber wolf markings, the fur the right color, the claws the right length. She looked at her feet. Matching. She lifted one hand and felt her muzzle, the elongated line of it, the teeth beneath her lips when she ran her tongue along them. Sharp. Correct. She tensed her shoulders, released. Tensed her haunches, released. Moved down through every muscle group the way the elders had taught, checking each one. Everything answered.

"Stable." Her voice came out rough, the consonants dragged over vocal cords built for a different phonology — growling at the edges, a faint hiss on the sibilants, but intelligible. "Shifted. Full form." She worked her jaw. "Sluggish. More pain than should be, as you said. Nothing past bearing."

She looked at Leux, then Hirek. "Thank you." She said it plainly. "The shift was not normal. I could feel the other forms already — present, waiting. As though they each had a claim on my attention and I was choosing between them rather than simply moving." She considered this. "This does not feel normal. But it feels stable." She did not attempt to stand. She sat on the biobed with her paws flat on her thighs, her tail hanging where it fell, and looked at them both.

"Should I return here in eight hours for the next shift? To do it in a controlled environment, where you can monitor what happens and confirm the implant is functioning correctly across multiple transitions." It was not quite a question — more the reporting of a logical next step, offered for their confirmation or correction.
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Main OOC Board / Re: Interregnum Season 2: 02-03
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
I would like to send Ehfva on the Salvage Job as that was where she lived with her mate leading up to the Savi effing them over. However, if someone else from Medical is raring to go, I'm happy to step aside as well. Just thought it'd bring some closure for her.

I would also like to send Hirek to Romulus as his family is there, he was approached by the new Coalition to act as their representative onboard Theurgy and they're waiting for his answer, and thought it'd bring some closure for him as well. However, same with Ehfva, if others are wanting to go, happy to step aside. He's technically science, which isn't really needed in that capacity, but he could be good support otherwise.

Enyd is staying onboard so she can take part in the Maybe by Next Tuesday thread if anyone wants extra chaos (as that's inevitable with her).

And Cross is already heading up the Back Channel so he's spoken for.
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Main OOC Board / Re: Interregnum Season 2: 02-03
Last post by Brutus -
Okay folks, we have plenty of opportunities for characters to jump into threads. Looking forward to all of us diving into the story so let's get a jump on it.
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