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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...
Last post by Dumedion -
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit, Wolf-04 | Holding pattern near SB 234] Attn: @rae  @Ellen Fitz  @RyeTanker  @Pierce @ob2lander961 & anyone else
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She’d been re-tasked almost immediately upon returning from the Cayaga mission, given enough time to eat and sleep, refit and rearm, then launched again; it wasn’t unusual, given the Wolves limited numbers of pilots and ships, but Talia couldn’t help but wonder about the logic of pairing her and DixieBee together. There was nothing personal about it; Via had proven herself a perfectly capable pilot – Talia studied her fellow Wolf’s helm footage from both the Hobus scrap and the Triangle battle. Capability wasn’t the issue. Experience, however? Perhaps that was the point, she reckoned; this’ll certainly be a prime opportunity to learn a few things.

Not like it was a big deal, or anything. It’s just a day trip to Romulus. What could possibly go wrong, Shadow snorted.“Come on DB, what the hell’s taking so long,” she sighed to herself, head craning to port and behind, looking for Via’s ship. The Valravyn was right behind her on the flight-line when Shadow launched; they should have rendezvoused five minutes ago to hold station for the shuttle. Instead, Talia had been forced into a slow, lazy orbital circuit (because TC refused to let her sit still and had already shifted her assigned lane three times for no reason other than his own amusement).

“Wolf 4, Traffic Control,” a masculine voice grated inside her helm.

Speak of the devil, Talia sighed. “Wolf 4, send it Control.”

“Wolf 4, alter lane z + twenty kilometers, heading 035.8. Station keeping at outbound lane epsilon.”

“Zeta plus twenty, 035.8, holding at epsilon,” Talia repeated rapidly, managing to keep the irritation out of her tone, if only just; the adjustments were inputted manually, but she let Anahi execute the minor course change.

As the Valkyrie creeped ever so slowly off to port, Shadow’s helm exploded with noise in a wash of what might have been called music – to Via. The bass was a heavy, droning rhythm, punctuated by high percussive snares; throughout it all, someone – or something – was mumbling words so fast it sounded like gibberish. Talia screwed her eyes shut against the acoustic onslaught with a groaned string of Arabic curses usually reserved to describe something worthy of utter and complete damnation from the beginning of creation itself, then searched for the source.

Sure enough, Via’s bird soared into the void, spiraling out at nearly full impulse.

Talia heard Traffic Control screaming over the music, barely audible. Shadow joined her voice to the cacophany, trying to get Via to turn her music off – because she obviously didn’t realize she was broadcasting wide open – to no effect.

“Fuck sakes, Via,” Shadow laughed, powering up her thrusters with a shake of her head. Via was coming in hot, deaf and oblivious. It was only a matter of time until TC locked her ass down with a tractor, at best. Control was having a conniption now that both fighters were breaking maximum thrust regulations, but was easily ignored over the pounding music. Talia felt herself nodding along to the beat, even though the words were almost impossible to decipher; she banked hard, climbing up to roll over Via’s ship close enough to get her attention. Another few seconds and they were inverted, canopy to canopy; she looked up, watching Via’s hands and arms jerking about – while Beachhead waved up enthusiastically behind her.

Talia motioned to her ear then drew a hand across her throat after typing out a coded message: MUSIC OVER OPEN NET - TURN OFF, NOW!


[Meanwhile… LT Vanya | Shuttle Bay 2 | Deck 15 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy]
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Vanya padded across the deck barefoot, a pair of polished black heels in one hand, PADD in the other; she had no need for any other personal belongings – nothing that couldn’t be replicated en route or upon arrival later, at any rate. The assignment itself – a diplomatic mission to Romulus – had taken her by surprise; being who and what she was, there was a high probability that her presence would pose unquantifiable degrees of complications, but there were too many variables at play to cause Vanya to feel overly concerned. After all, for all intents and purposes, it was highly likely that the Tal Shiar considered her a neutralized threat; that afforded an opportunity for Vanya, should they choose to act rashly.

Those calculations continued to run in the background of her positronic network, however; there were more immediate tasks at hand.

Dr. Frost had personally briefed the android concerning her specific role for the mission; insofar as it concerned Vanya, she was to represent the scientific department with utmost curtesy, providing technical assistance to the newly minted Romulan-Reman coalition as well as aiding LT Nysarisiza zh’Eziarath in any capacity deemed appropriate. While that settled easily enough, Vanya couldn’t help but smile inwardly at the amount of ‘wiggle-room’ inherent in such vagueness; there were a great many options available in such a tasking.

A solitary figure stood before the shuttle assigned to them; Vanya’s optical and olfactory senses studied as she approached: male, Romulan, relaxed but alert posture – lightly scented with unique oils and scents of medical ointments and the barest hint of blood - handsomely lean, healthy middle-age. Whoever he was, he had recently spent a great deal of time either wounded, or tending to the same. Curious, Vanya’s lips twitched down in a frown, unable to recall interacting with him before.

Another anomalous memory gap in her short-term databanks, thanks to the virus no doubt.

She passed him without breaking stride, clad in a skirted uniform with the addition of a white lab coat that billowed slightly in her wake. The PADD shifted to under the arm holding her footwear before she keyed in the access code to open the shuttle’s ramp, then spun to face the older Romulan with a pleasant smile, the drape of her dark hair loose about her shoulders. Her body language was relaxed and open, a hand twirling in the air in his direction like a curb-side magician’s slight-of-hand tell. Vanya deliberately chose to engage him in Rihan versus Federation standard, out of respect and neutrality – introducing herself first as only Vanya, then asking what name he wished to be called in turn; Romulans were quite fond of multiple names, after all.

Except Vanya herself, of course; he’d soon discover she was quite un-Romulan, for better or worse.

“Aren't you dashing. Forgive my curiosity dear,” Vanya continued with a friendly smile in Rihan, utilizing the standard northern dialect, “I simply must know; what to do you?”
3
Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Corpsman Ehfva Feynri | Shuttlecraft Maslow | En Route to the Cayuga ] Attn: @RyeTanker   @Brutus    @Dumedion @Nesota Kynnovan   @Stegro88    @Krajin  @pertinent writers

The bone was replicated. The knife found no grain, no direction, nothing that pushed back. She carved into it anyway.

The mourning spiral was Okashii Atama work — the kind she had learned before she'd learned to write, her grandmother's claw guiding the tool through the first curve of it while the fire outside the tent made the shadows move. Real bone remembered which way it had grown. The scrimshaw followed that memory, and the elders had called that the art's honesty: you listened for where the bone was willing to go. This bone was willing to go anywhere. It would hold whatever she cut into it without complaint, and that was the problem, and she was making marks regardless.

Her male Vulcine form sat wide across the shuttle seat clothed in the medical department uniform, her ear-length hair combed back from her face as she worked at the bone. Wrong. Not wrong in the way an injury was wrong — wrong the way borrowed clothes were wrong, technically functional, all the edges slightly off. Her third shift in Arven's lab had gone into this form, and it had landed cleaner than the feral, but the proprioception was still arguing with her. She kept reaching for things a half-centimeter from where her hand actually was.

And the other forms pressed.

Not loudly. Not urgently in any way she had language for. More like standing in a doorway while a room full of people waited behind you — each one patient, each one present, each one hers. The feral form worst of all: it had a kind of blunt insistence, pure body knowing what it was, and it had pushed at the edges of the Vulcine shift the entire time until she'd come back out the other side of it, and Arven's equipment had recorded seventeen deviations she couldn't feel from the inside.

The knife followed the outer ring of the spiral without her watching it. She knew this design by repetition; over forty years of scrimshaw had put it below the level of thought, which was the point. Her grandmother had taught her that the hands could hold grief the way the mind couldn't — steadier, quieter, without the mind's habit of turning the thing over and over looking for the angle that hurt less.

There was no angle that hurt less. The Cayuga was out there. She had not looked at the viewport as they cast off from Theurgy and she would not look outside again until they arrived.

The spiral reached its center. She ran her thumb across the cuts — clean, consistent depth throughout — and the bone said nothing back, and she started a second design in the space beside it: the Okashii Atama mark for witness. She hadn't planned it. Her hands had already begun.

Voices at the front of the shuttle. Someone's equipment cycling. The mechanical breath of life support.

She kept the knife moving and did not look at the viewport and did not think about what it would look like when the Cayuga came on screen, what was left of it, what the Savi and the Romulans and the indifferent physics of a drifting ship had made of the place where she had once known where everything was.
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [ 0800 hrs ] Maybe By Next Tuesday
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Lt. Enyd Isolde Madsen | Diplomatic Liaison Office | Starbase 234 ] @Brutus @Hans Applegate @pertinent writers @Stegro88

Ensign Barnes had decided she was a problem before she finished introducing herself. She'd clocked it in the first thirty seconds — the chin, the look at her pip, the expression that settled into something technically neutral.

She'd been patient. She'd spent three years on Cardassia being patient with people who had active ideological reasons to want her gone, which was a considerably higher bar than one ensign with a database and an attitude he hadn't earned.

She explained the access request. He asked for her clearance codes. She provided them. He looked at them, nodded, and began constructing his objection.

"I'm afraid without authorization from a senior diplomatic officer currently posted to this starbase—"

"I am a senior diplomatic officer."

"—currently posted to this starbase," Barnes said, finding his footing and planting on it, "I'm not able to grant access to classified Federation diplomatic archives to crew from a vessel that until very recently was operating under a treason designation."

Enyd looked at him. Her hands were flat on the edge of his desk. She kept them there, still, because if she let them move, she was going to grab his uniform and explain at close range what the Theurgy''s crew had been doing while the Federation called them traitors. She was going to describe Zark's biobed. She was going to describe what a thalaron trigger looked like from ten meters with no cover and one Andorian standing between her and it, and ask Barnes which part of that he'd like to reclassify.

She didn't. She picked up her PADD. Straightened her uniform.

"When is the senior diplomatic attaché back?"

"Thursday, Lieutenant."

Three days.

"Thank you, Ensign." Warm. Level. Emptied of everything she was actually thinking. "I'll be in touch."

She walked out. She made it twelve steps before she thought, with real specificity, about going back in and upending his desk. She let herself have that for a few seconds, then kept walking.

He hadn't invented the propaganda. He'd absorbed it. She understood that. It didn't make her hands unclench.

Turbolift. She stared at the wall and made the list her grandmother had taught her to make when the thing she actually wanted wasn't available: what can you do right now, with what you have. The attaché's office. A comm to Cross. Cross up the chain to whoever sat above Barnes. She'd work it.

But not yet. Not before ten minutes of something that didn't smell like recycled air and institutional carpet. The arboretum was two decks down.
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Specialist Hirek tr'Aimne | Shuttlebay 2 | Deck 15 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] @rae @RyeTanker @Pierce

He had arrived first. His bag sat against the shuttle's landing strut. There was so much of the ship under repair, or soon to be under repair, that it frankly amazed him that there was even a bay stable enough for them to launch from.

Nysari had been direct with him. She had listed the reasons he should come. He had listened to each one, sorted them into accurate and not-quite-accurate, and agreed because the accurate ones were enough without the others. The Senator's response was owed in person. His family's last message had been too careful — his cousin Uhria using the old Uuluma construction that their grandmother had preferred, the house is well, which in her dialect meant we are watched, ask nothing directly. He had read it four times. Then he had stopped reading it and started packing.

What he had not told Nysari: he was not certain he was coming back.

Tal'aura was dead. Donatra was dead. The D'ravsai Coalition was hours old and already requiring two peoples who had spent centuries in structured antagonism to govern each other. He could not decide if that was optimism or carelessness, and the fact that he could not decide bothered him less than the fact that he was on a Federation ship while it was happening.

The islands would not stay the islands. Mainland politics moved the way tides moved. Not suddenly. Just eventually, and then there was no going back to what the shallows had been. Not that his islands had ever experienced true peace from mainland politics and the civil war, but at least he'd known what to expect from the previous government. This one had more unknown.

Then there was the Infested.

He had not meant to find them interesting. The mechanism was the thing — the integration, the use of an existing neurological architecture as a substrate for something that was not its original occupant. Biologically, it was among the more elegant forms of horror he had encountered, and he had a longer list than most. Whether the host's own systems could be turned against the parasite. Whether there were signatures that preceded the observable behavioral changes. Whether the detection problem was tractable at all, or whether the only reliable method remained autopsy.

His mind had kept returning to it the way it returned to problems that had no current solution. It was a twisted kind of pleasure that he took in these types of problems, challenges to occupy the whole of his being.

If he stayed on Romulus, he was present for the thing he had worked toward his entire adult life, in the specific place where it would be decided.

If he stayed on the Theurgy, he was at the only active investigation into a category of threat that operated identically to the Tal'Shiar and could make the D'ravsai Coalition irrelevant before it finished its first session.

He had not resolved this, which he wanted to pursue. He was going to Romulus to help in that decision.

The shuttlebay held its quiet. Recycled air, the faint charge-smell of systems idling, deck plates that would have been cold through different shoes. Footsteps at the far end of the bay. He did not turn. He straightened slightly, which was the only acknowledgment the situation required.
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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Lt. Enyd Isolde Madsen | Intensive Care Unit | Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ] @RyeTanker @Griff

The corridor outside Sickbay had that particular quiet that meant the worst of it was over, and nobody had decided yet what came next. Enyd stood at the entrance a moment longer than she needed to. Her PADD was still in her hand — she'd been reading orders off it in the turbolift and hadn't put it away, which meant she'd been holding it for twenty minutes. She tucked it under her arm.

The nurse at the front station looked up. Enyd held up a hand. The nurse settled back. She moved into the ward slowly. Most of the lights were dimmed for the patients sleeping, which meant she had to read the name tags at the foot of each bed by the low glow of the biobed monitors. She'd already pulled the casualty reports. She knew most of what she'd find here. Knowing and seeing were different operations and she was doing both now, one bed at a time.

Callax. She stopped. Asleep, or close enough. Biobed steady. She stood there for a beat, filed him under alive and in the right place, and made her feet move. She did that four more times. Four more names she knew. By the time she reached the ICU threshold, her jaw ached, which meant she'd been holding it tight.

She saw Alistair before he heard her. The set of his shoulders told her enough. She crossed to him and put her arms around him from behind, pressed her face between his shoulder blades, pressing her face between his shoulder blades and held on. Then she looked up and saw Zark. Her arms tightened.

"She pushed me." Her voice came out wrong — too thin, too careful, the voice she used when she was managing something her face hadn't caught up to yet. "On Donatra's ship. There was a blast and she—" She stopped. The monitors cycled. Something beeped once and went quiet. "I didn't see it coming."

Zark lay on her back, smaller than she had any right to look, the white hair spread wrong against the pillow. Enyd had watched Zark laugh that morning. She was almost certain it had been that morning.

"The infiltration team got to the weapon. Just before Donatra triggered it." Her thumb moved against Alistair's arm without her deciding it would. "Which she did. Trigger it. And then when it didn't fire she—" A short exhale. "Ritual suicide. Rather than deal with losing." She thought about Donatra's face in those last seconds. She thought about the underground leader who had gone the same way. "Both of them. Their own hands." She wasn't sure if she was talking to Alistair or working it out. "I keep thinking about whether there was a version where I—"

She let it go. There wasn't, or if there was, she hadn't found it in time. She pressed her mouth to the base of his neck and stayed there for a moment, breathing. Then she moved to stand beside him, her shoulder against his arm, and looked at Zark's still face.

"How are you holding up?" The question was directed to Alistair, but she had an inner hope that Zark would miraculously wake up in that moment to answer her.
7
Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: EPI S: The curious case of Humpty Dumpty [Day 03 | 2330 hrs]
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Specialist Hirek tr'Aimne |Main Sickbay | Biolab 2 | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy] @Dumedion

He had read the literature on Vulpinian physiology. The literature had not prepared him for this.

He watched without speaking. The transformation was not dramatic in the way that spectacle was dramatic — no flash, no sound beyond the biological. The architecture of her body reorganized with a certainty that made the previous state, the weeks of wrongness he had already grown accustomed to, look like what it had been: an interruption. Fur resolved where there had been exposed misaligned tissue. The muzzle settled into its proper proportion. The hands — no longer the knotted, indeterminate things they had been — became paws. He watched the timber wolf markings clarify across her shoulders and forearms.

Thrai, he thought, the Romulan word for what the Terrans would call "wolf" only with the added elements of a wolf in humanoid form. It fit better than whatever the Federation taxonomy would have reached for.

When she spoke — rough, the consonants pulled through a phonology built for a different register, the hiss running underneath the sibilants — he noted the voice matched the form in a way her previous vocalizations had not. Everything was, at last, of a piece.

He agreed with Leux's suggestion that she return for monitored transitions across all forms. He did not say so aloud because Leux had already said it, and repetition served no purpose. Whether he personally needed to be present for those sessions was a separate question. He was curious enough that he likely would be, if scheduling permitted. He was also aware that there may be forms Vulpinians kept private in ways that had no clinical justification — whether her culture drew that line, and where, was not something he intended to ask in an operating room. He would find out eventually. Things of that nature became apparent over time, or they remained private.

Leux extended his hand. Hirek looked at it for a moment — the gesture was Human in origin, and he had encountered it enough times to recognize it, though his first instinct when someone extended a hand toward him was still a brief and automatic assessment of intent. He identified the intent, registered mild amusement at his own reflex, and took the hand. Shook it once.

"The work was its own reward," he said, and meant it, and accepted Leux's follow-on offer with a single nod. He did not add anything to it. Leux was already leaving, already hollering for the nurse, already on to the next problem.

He turned back to Ehfva. He looked her over with the same neutral attention he had given the scans — noting the proportions, the way mass distributed across the frame, the particular quality of stillness she had now that her body was no longer arguing with itself. She was shorter than him. Smaller in stature. Though he would not have described her as small.

"In my opinion," he said, "you are adequately clothed. I assume it is Federation propriety that requires anyone already covered in it to add a second layer on top."

Ehfva's muzzle shifted. The expression that crossed it — not quite a smile, but in the vicinity — showed teeth. Good teeth.

"Pinning the combadge directly into the pectoral muscle," she said, the words rough-edged but clear, "would be less than pleasant. Even after everything."

"A fair objection," Hirek conceded.

The door opened. Nurse Kitty entered, took in Ehfva at her full and proper height and dimension, blinked once with the expression of someone who had revised their working assumption and not yet decided what to replace it with, and left without a word.

Hirek glanced at Ehfva. Ehfva's ears shifted. They both declined to comment.

He watched her stand. She came to her full height, and he noted, without sentiment, that the mass on that smaller frame was not decorative. He had fought alongside her. He had seen what she was capable of when the situation required it. Whatever she could do in this form, with the claws on both sets of limbs and the teeth she had just demonstrated, he had no interest in being on the wrong side of. The literature had mentioned combat capability in the feral form as well, which he had filed without fully appreciating until now.

"Things still don't feel quite right," she said. Not a complaint. A report. "But I'll take this over what the Savi left me with."

Hirek made a short sound, not quite a laugh. "That's the instructive thing about torture. It recalibrates the baseline. Afterward, you're grateful for sub-par. You consider it a victory." He said it the way he said most things — without self-pity, the way you cite a fact you've had long enough to stop finding remarkable.

The door opened again. Kitty, this time with a folded uniform in the medical department color, sized — from the look of it — with more consideration than a standard requisition would typically produce.

"The doctor," she said, to no one in particular and both of them simultaneously, "failed to specify which form you'd be in. Your different forms will likely need different tailored uniforms." She set it on the nearest surface and looked at Ehfva. "Do you need help?"

Ehfva shook her head.

Kitty turned to Hirek. Her tone shifted — not unkind, but businesslike in the way that suggested she had run this particular errand on behalf of Leux before and had developed efficient methods for completing it. "The doctor left a list. A few patients where he thought your background might be useful, if you have time."

"I have time," Hirek said.

He did not move immediately. Ehfva was pulling on the uniform — no particular modesty in the gesture, simply the practical management of clothing.

"There is a term in Romulan," he said. "Susse-thrai." He said it in Romulan first, then translated: "She-wolf." He considered the uniform she was wearing, the bare feet on the deck plating, the set of her shoulders now that they sat correctly. "Having fought alongside you, I have revised my view of the term from its original form. For female Vulpinians, I think it can be used accurately." He inclined his head slightly. "It has been an honor to come through this alongside you. I expect we'll continue to be useful to each other."

Ehfva was quiet for a moment. The tail moved once, settling. "I hope we have less fighting ahead of us," she said. "I've lived through enough battles to value the routine of peacetime."

Hirek nodded. "On that, we agree entirely."

They left the lab together and separated at the corridor junction without ceremony — Hirek toward Kitty and the list of patients, Ehfva in the direction of wherever an executive officer kept themselves on a ship that had, in the last several days, had rather a lot to keep track of.

FIN
8
Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job
Last post by Dumedion -
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit, Wolf-04 | Outbound Lane Beta Near Starbase 234] Attn: @RyeTanker  @Brutus   @Ellen Fitz   @Nesota Kynnovan  @Stegro88   @Krajin  & anyone else
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Talia listened to the coms chatter with a shake of her head; behind the helm’s digital HUD overlay projection, dark chocolate eyes narrowed with a frown of annoyance. She checked the void on their assigned vector, visual and instrumentation – the heavens were wide open, literally. Nobody even gave a flying fuck about min-safe distance since Kirk stole the Enterprise and peeled-out all over the Excelsior’s face – which occurred practically on ESD’s doorstep.

Talia snorted at Atlas’ comment, then sucked her teeth as somebody right next to their shuttle convoy warped out, which fit the narrative spun by whoever ass-hat was in the Tower perfectly.

“Yeah,” Shadow drew the word out in a bored drawl, “sounds like somebody pissed in Control's cereal. Typical male ego trip.” A sigh followed, before an alert chime signaled clearance to warp-out from the Maslow. "Finally..."

“…And we’re off,” Shadow deadpanned as she throttled up and her Valkyrie leapt into the dark alongside them.

[Earlier, during Gramp’s mission brief…]

Talia stood next to the giant man-cat who – even seated – was still taller than her; the pilot’s arms were folded, a hip cocked to the opposite side. She appeared equal parts annoyed and impatient, waiting for the gaggle of crew to organize themselves. The wolves still had a list of tasks to do before launch – get flight ready, mission prep, armament, brief flight ops, drop the flight plan for Janus’ approval (although honestly, Talia doubted the old man could even be bothered with paperwork), suit up and preflight....

In short, they all had shit to do.

“Why are we here, hours before,” Talia huffed quietly between her teeth, wolf-like without conscious intent. Almost as if he’d heard her, Chief Arnold promptly began, which caused the pilot’s face to drop as the engineer’s eyes swept the group; Shadow feigned interest in her feet suddenly to hide a grimace of embarrassment.

The mission seemed straightforward though, that was a relief; Talia’s brow arched when Atlas spoke up, but made no further commentary – sure, they could do all kinds of crazy stupid stuff – that didn’t make it advisable. Still, a shoulder lifted and fell in a half-shrug; they were coming along as escorts and back-up force projection – if Gramps needed them for other tasks though, so be it.

Once the briefing concluded, Atlas tapped Talia’s shoulder (mostly paw and some PADD) which left behind more than a few loose strands of colorful hairs upon the grey fabric; which she ignored – at the time. Her eyes scanned the tablet quickly with a nod of approval.

“I’d get the same if we weren’t running low on torps,” Shadow sucked her teeth. “Clusters will do, with a single rack of photons; I’ll keep the tet cannon as well, that thing’s fun to shoot,” her lips pursed in thought for a moment. “Yeah, that should do, plus standard compliment,” she shrugged as they made their exit. The pair looked quite comical; the giant was forced to take extra slow steps while the dark haired woman marched at a brisk pace to keep up.

Her head barely reached his waist.

“Oh, hey,” Talia called up to Atlas just before they reached the turbolift back to the FAB. “Make sure you sync your wrist PADD to your ship before you go EVA; remote play options abound. I did it with a shuttle once – was fun. I can walk you through it while we’re bored and waiting for something to happen, if you like.”
9
Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: EPI S: The curious case of Humpty Dumpty [Day 03 | 2330 hrs]
Last post by Dumedion -
[LT Arven Leux | Main Sickbay | Biolab 2 | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Ellen Fitz
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He'd never witnessed a Vulpinian shift forms before.

Even knowing what to expect based on hours of research, (which, to be fair to the various authors of said material was rather bland), Arven couldn’t help but stare in abject fascination as it happened. The entire ‘episode’ lasted mere moments, but for the duration the Doctor stood transfixed just outside the force-field with only his eyes moving in a rapid series of glances; every few seconds, he'd check Ehfva’s fluctuating vitals, reading the changes in her body’s topography in-transition. It was quite extraordinary to witness; certainly more so than reading the scientific and medical analysis – an impressive display of unusual biological evolution – and he was thoroughly pleased about the fact that his patient wasn’t turning into a pile of biological ooze, or losing her mind due to pain induced psychosis, too.

In the end, Arven released the breath he’d been holding in an audible sigh of relief, then paid close attention while Ehfva tested her range of motion; the muscle tremors had ceased, apparently, yet there was no telling how much lingering pain would remain post-shift.

He lowered the field surrounding her once the Vulpinian spoke, her speech far more easily spoken and understood; still, the wet edge to her words would take some getting used to. She sounded like something that stalked the shadows, eternally hungry – Luex made a mental note to try not to piss her off anytime soon.

“Yes, that would be prudent, I think,” Arven nodded to her suggestion after waving a tricoder over her head, to verify that Hirek’s modified stimulator was still functioning properly. A series of beeps confirmed that it was. “I’ll begin replicating more pheromone injections for shift-initiation in the interim. Once we have transitions to all forms without any hiccups, and given time to analyze the data…I think you’ll be good to go,” he shrugged, blinking in equal parts relief and wonder.

Arven turned to Hirek, then – a hand extended. “This was very educational. Your expertise was invaluable,” he spoke in a rare tone of honest appreciation and respect, meeting the Romulan’s eyes with humility. “Should you ever require mine, you have it.”

The Doctor nodded, then clapped his hands together before turning back to address the semi-naked werewolf in the room as he made to leave. Now that the urgency and direness of her circumstances had changed, Arven’s cynical, deadpan tone returned without a second thought. “Right. First things first – let’s get you some clothes before you go prowling off through the ship in search of something to eat, shall we?”

Arven didn’t wait for a response; the door closed behind him as he hollered loudly for Nurse Kitty so she could deal with it.
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