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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Epi 2 [ D02 | 2300 hrs.] All Squared up at the Triangle
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Of the pilots who still had functioning fighters, Janus was the last to land. He’d kept Atlas out with him, clearing the way and providing cover for the more damaged ships to land. The AO was cleared, but better safe than sorry, especially after a day fighting cloaked ships. He was jumpy, fingers twitchy and ready for action at every flicker, but experienced enough to know that it was probably fueled by exhaustion and not a new instinctive fear of Romulans decloaking in front of him.
Then he sent Atlas in. Janus was impressed that the Ferasan had managed so well with only a few days on the Mark III under his belt. He was talented – or incredibly lucky. Time would tell which one.
Then Janus was alone in the dark, with only debris and the dead for company. Of his missing pilots, two had been recovered. Archon had regained enough control to bring his damaged fighter in for a landing. Janus had watched from his position, then tuned into the Theurgy’s comms to hear the calls for fire suppression and medical. One of the rescue shuttles had found Salvo and his RIO Knight, barely alive, and called for emergency transports to sickbay. They hadn’t found Razor yet.
It had only been a little over a week since Ghost had concocted her little leadership coup, convincing V-Nine to move Janus up the surgery queue in the hopes that he would replace Razor. Now they were both gone. If there was a life after death – be it the Celestial Temple of his mother’s whispered stories, the Klingon’s great shouts of Sto-vo-kor, or some other place he hadn’t heard about – he wondered if Ghost was watching. If she thought it was all worth it.
The news from Theurgy didn’t help his mood. The captain he’d served under for years was bound for a stasis chamber, almost like they were switching places. Wraith was dead, Hunter had landed their ship in his place. They’d pulled Athen’s body from the back of Wolf-13. Janus remembered how thoroughly disconcerted he’d been in that seat when Gemini told him how the two communicated in combat. How would it feel to lose him? Dix and Beachhead were both rushed to sickbay. There were more, reports of people he’d never met or barely knew coming through as he flicked through the comm channels. He’d get a full report eventually. Detailed injury and recovery times for his people, and a list of names for the rest.
[Wolf-One, Flight Ops.] The direct communication cut through the noise. [You’re cleared for landing. Watch out for debris Commander, it’s a mess in here.]
“Acknowledged. On approach.” Where wasn’t it a mess?
Admittedly, he didn’t quite understand what they meant until he was through the doors into the bay, which had clearly seen combat before the Wolves’ mangled ships returned. “Ah…” he muttered, gathering a last burst of concentration to maneuver his Valkyrie back to its landing pad. The ship had been a bit finicky since losing main power earlier, but he managed it with only a few wobbles, landing a bit crooked to avoid something – was that a bulkhead or a piece of a ship? – in the way.
He powered the ship down as he popped the canopy. Pulling his helmet off should have been a relief, but it turned out that replacing the smell of his sweat with the smell of smokey, burnt, not totally processed by the atmospheric recyclers air was just switching one bad thing for another. Janus spotted a group of deckhands running towards him, a medical kit and fire suppressors at the ready, and waved them off. “You all have better things to do, I’m good.”
Janus dropped his helmet to the ground first, suddenly too tired to carry it. Now that he was back in the bay, the residual adrenaline that had been keeping him going was fading away. Even the ladder seemed impossibly long. He didn’t consciously decide to use the chairlift so much as fall into it, a tangle of limbs in a bulky exosuit. It worked as designed, ferrying him smoothly to the deck even though he didn’t quite fit in it.
Janus laughed. “Someone tell Shadow that this was a great idea. You should all get one.”
Fuck it, he really was getting old, wasn’t he?
[ Lt. JG Nysarisiza “Nysari” zh’Eziarath | Battle Bridge AKA a front row seat to nightmare fuel | Deck 8 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ]
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[Donatra herself… is no longer a threat.]
The words were innocent enough, but the implication behind them hit her like a disruptor shot, a sensation she was unfortunately now familiar with. Another diplomatic foray ended in death.
Nysari had seen battles before. No one old enough to serve in the Dominion War was exempt from that. But she had never experienced one from the bridge. She had found the experience thoroughly nauseating, and had no desire to repeat it.
She left at the earliest opportunity. The Theurgy’s two halves would be reconnecting soon and command transferred back to the main bridge, and she hadn’t been essential to operations here in the first place. Instead, she hurried to the first empty office she could find, since her own space in the diplomatic council was in Vector 1, close by but currently inaccessible to her. In an empty Deck 9 counseling office, she set herself to the familiar trappings of protocol.
The President was on route. Nysari, who had worked many levels below President Bacco in the Palais de la Concorde until fate and circumstance brought her to the Theurgy and Starfleet, knew exactly what was expected when the President went anywhere. So she was writing a protocol memo to senior staff, who were surely too busy to read it in time.
At some point she started laughing, an insane, desperate outburst devoid of any humor. When the sound in her ears finally made it through to her brain, Nysari slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to take deep breaths until her antennae stopped jerking in random directions and she was calm again.
It was with slightly clearer eyes that she looked at the finished memo on the console. “This is a waste of time,” she decided, then left to volunteer for a cleanup crew.
[ Lt. Azrin Ryn doesn’t even remember what sleep is at this point | Jefferies Tube | Deck 25 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ]
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The whole day was passing with the quality of a dream. Azrin was not entirely sure when the dream had started. It seemed to cut in and out, moments of blissful nothingness cut between periods of startling clarity. She didn’t think she was falling asleep, because surely someone would have told her. But she wasn’t worried about it either, even though a nagging voice came and went telling her that she should be. Sometimes it was Dezra, smooth and comforting. Sometimes it was Zarin, deep and loud. Sometimes she didn’t recognize it at all, and that scared her, a momentary flash of deep, primal fear. But the fear couldn’t stick with her anymore than the voice could, slipping away in the flashes of a dream.
She remembered Romulans coming into engineering. If she’d had to pick something that wasn’t real, Azrin would have picked that. But she also remembered sabotaging the artificial gravity with the singular clarity of focus she had for everything work related, so that must have been real. Then someone pulled her up, then the world seemed to pause for a bit and she was on the ground again, then Frank and Zark were there, anxiously asking if she was ok.
Azrin had assured them that she was, choosing to focus on interesting ways to boobytrap engineering against invaders than whatever they were worried about. Frank said no, but Azrin didn’t mind. Thinking through the technical aspects had brought the clarity back.
As security and medical lingered around, Azrin went back to the one thing that made logical sense. Work.
That was – to the best of her recollection – what had brought her here. Where everything seemed to start for her, laying on her stomach in a Jefferies Tube, fiddling with wires below a panel.
If anyone was with her, they would have noticed that the task was taking far longer than it normally would. They also might have questioned why Azrin was about five centimeters away from the panel, since normally engineers didn’t need to be that close to rewire anything. But she was alone, the Theurgy’s understaffed and overworked engineers spread thin, so there was no one there to question her. As for Azrin, she liked that the wires filled her entire vision, this one little job became her whole world. Thinking about anything else was… difficult, but she could do this in her sleep.
Maybe she was.
It wasn’t long until another engineer found her. Her repair was a small piece of the larger puzzle of power relays, but that little red dot on the board was holding the entire department back. The bajoran woman rolled her eyes upon finding Azrin asleep, head lolling over the open floor panel, a bit of drool falling on the wires still gripped in her fingers. The Lieutenant’s antics were well known by now, eccentricities that would have been a problem on a normal ship never quite making it to the top of the list on the Theurgy.
“Good of you to take a nap Lieutenant,” Tenja said, reaching out to shake Azrin’s shoulder gently, “but we have to finish—” Getting no response, she pushed with more force. “Lieutenant?” Then again. Nothing.
“Crewman Tenja to transporter room, lock onto Lieutenant Ryn’s combadge and beam her to sickbay.”
OOC: Tagging @Dumedion so Talia can laugh
