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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 03 [ 1330hrs ] Back Channel Operations
Last post by Eirual -
[Ens Mia Dunne | Civilian Freighter Merchant's Folly \ In Transit - Triangle Region]
ATTN: @Ellen Fitz  @Krajin  @Hans Applegate  & Pertinent Writers

Ens Dunne once again wondered what the hell she was doing on the freighter. From what she’d been told, there was nothing scientific on the shopping list that Cross apparently had received. And add that to the uncomfortable feeling she got from the freighter’s Tellarite captain every time he passed her seat, made her wish that she’d turned down this assignment. It also didn’t help that she’d been asked not to wear her uniform, but something with a bit more, shall we say viewing area. Every time that captain walked past, she had the urge to find a jacket and cover herself.

Other than Cross, she really wasn’t familiar with the others from their ship except in passing. Meaning she may have seen them, but she didn’t know them. Well Maybe she knew Knox a little better than the others. Which wasn't saying much. She just hoped that whatever they were getting themselves into, the others would keep it from going sideways. But the way life had been lately, she figured that sideways was almost guaranteed. She let out a heavy sigh. Maybe she should have kept searching for more vole. Even if only one had been in the lab. But two days of crawling through the tightest spaces on the Theurgy was more than enough for her, and they had found the repugnant rodent.

Mia looked around at her travelling companions. Lt Cmdr. Cross seemed to be absorbed in his work, barely looking up from the PADD, if at all. Knox appeared to be enjoying the outing, although Mia could not fathom why, it wasn’t like this was a glamorous ship to be on, nor was shopping high on her list of fun things to do. But, to each his own! She glanced at the Ferasan officer. She remembered seeing him once or twice on the Theurgy, even if he was dressed in more civilian clothing. He was sort of hard to forget.

She gave him a brief nod when he had introduced himself “Hello Thane,” she smiled in greeting, even those his sharp green eyes made her nervous, “I’m Mia, Mia Dunne.”

2
Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 02 [ 1015 hrs ] Calcium Deficiency
Last post by TWilkins -
[ Sylvain Llewellyn-Kth | Mainsickbay | Deck 11 | Vector Two | USS Theurgy ] @Ellen Fitz

The stand-off was intense.

Despite his absolute best attempt to skirt around the facts of the situation contained within his hands, Sylvain, even with his woefully inadequate brand of insight, could tell that the Vulcan woman remained unconvinced. Her eyebrow had risen to deck ten, maybe nine, and her lingering silence buffeted Sylvain’s composure like an ion storm; the Ensign was perfectly fine with silence, it was his preference in fact… But an uncomfortable silence was a different kettle of fish entirely… It gave him no distraction as her expressionless stare bore into him like a drill, whilst he stood stalwart, clutching the wicker sphere between his pale hands as though his life depended on it, the Vulcan’s dark eyes remaining affixed, unblinking, upon his honey coloured ones, a silent interrogation that seemed to push through his entire nervous system. It was perhaps only a few seconds of stillness, but it was enough for emotional discomfort to begin to wrack him, his body begging for surrender as it began to writhe under the torture of an unpleasant social interaction... For a few moments, Sylvain began to feel as though his composure wasn’t enough to outlast such adversity…

“That is not the typical function of sickbay. I would suggest that…” The relief of winning his apparent battle of wills arrived, but his hope that the situation would be resolved crashed down all the more violently, as the Vulcan began to decline his reasonable, albeit unusual, request. His mind cried out for mercy, as the conversation now yawned out before him like a stint at warp five; a slow and cumbersome ramble that nobody would be advantaged by. The Ensign knew what was coming. He braced himself for some rather succinct remark about how the Theurgy had a xenobiology lab, for which he had prepared the rebuttal that there was not currently a xenobiologist held within the crew manifest, for which he had no doubt the Vulcan would no doubt have another response about the personnel on the space station beign available to assist, for which he would need to remind her that the creature had been tampered with by Savi technology, and thus the Prime Directive could apply… And the conversation would go around and around until one of them accepted defeat, and despite his adamance that he would get Potato examined today, Sylvain knew that he stood little chance against the tenacity of a Vulcan receptionist... Even pulling rank as a department head would probably fall short; a Vulcan would almost certainly be familiar with some sort of obscure regulation to undermine any authority he tried to exert…

But thankfully, despite the singularity that had erupted within his head, and was rapidly dragging the hope out of his soul, the arrival of a new voice appeared to turn the tide in Sylvain’s favour.

A handsome man approached, the low tone of his voice cutting underneath the otherwise fairly busy sickbay, nodding first at the Vulcan woman who manned their reception desk like Calamity at the gates of the underworld, and then a second time to Sylvain, causing a flop of tousled hair to effortlessly bob upon his head. His facial hair was somehow neat and scruffy all at once, thick and dark against his jawline, whilst his piercing blue eyes stared all-too intensely at Sylvain, who exerted all of his composure not to bawk under their gaze. The man introduced himself with a certain firmness to his words, a timbre beneath his tone, as Ehfva Feynri.

Sylvain felt some of the dread lift up from his shoulders as the stranger began to introduce himself. Ehfva had been recused from the Erudite himself, some time prior, and if the Ensign could have hoped for anyone to be sympathetic to his, albeit, unorthodox choice to rescue a creature from the Savi vessel, someone who had seen their exploitation first hand would certainly have been a stellar choice. Next came a rather heartfelt, if not intense, affirmation that rescuing the creature from the Savi was commendable; the duration of the eye contact made Sylvain feel like someone was trying to push a phaser into his mouth, but he did his best to endure the hardship. Given the options available to him, which was either accept Ehfva's aid, or to continue arguing with the Vulcan receptionist, Sylvain decided that he could endure a little eye-contact. The lack of any sort of formal education in the matter was also neither here nor there, given that the man had allegedly been studying the subject independently for almost triple Sylvain’s lifespan, but it did raise the question of what species he could be… He resembled a human, but even the best Bolian skincare range that latinum could buy, wouldn’t keep a sixty year old looking quite so youthful... But it wasn't as though Sylvain had any room to start questioning the poor man; after all, Ehfva clearly wanted to help, and goodness grief if Sylvain didn’t need it on this particular matter…

Give him a spatial anomaly anyday, over a foot-long white blob that drank bones, and seemed to be both highly intelligent, as well as utterly without thought. At least it has stopped trying to eat him now…

Though Sylvain still closed the door to his bedroom when he slept.

“O-of course, thank you so much.” Sylvain replied earnestly, turning his full attention to the handsome man, adjusting his posture to make himself look as professional as possible. “I’m Ensign Llewellyn-Kth, Chief CONN Officer…” It was somewhat out of character for him to punctuate his position, something he tended to prefer to keep under wraps, lest he face an uncomfortable conversation about his youth vs running an entire department, but a lingering needle of spite for the unhelpful Vulcan couldn’t help but shoot out from his mouth; he doubted that she'd give it a second thought, but at least he felt like he'd achieved some small victory over her maliciousness... “I’d normally shake your hand but as you can see…” Sylvain gestured with the orb held in his grasp, whilst he lied through his teeth; Sylvain would sooner request an emergency transport to the brig than shake a stranger’s hand in public…

“Oh, and this is Potato.” The Ensign added, moving on hurriedly from his meagre feat of deception, gesturing with the orb in his hand once again. “I was admittedly coming off of some rather strong anesthetic drugs when I named him, but it’s very potato shaped… In hindsight Mochi might have been a good fit, but I’ve never been a great fan of the texture…” Sylvain caught himself in his own nervous ramble, before clearing his throat as a pang of awkwardness seemed to catch him in the gut. “But that’s hardly important… Every precaution sounds great.” As always, Sylvain changed the subject with the dignity of a camel in ice skates. “I don’t believe it’s dangerous as an individual due to the Savi’s tampering, but as a species, I do believe that they’re apex predators.”

“Moopsy!” Potato chimed in agreement, from within the wicker orb.

“Ah… Anyway…” Sylvain awkwardly glanced down at the creature contained within the orb, who had clearly gotten excited by the conversation, and was now running around in small concentric circles, drooling enough that Sylvain could feel the liquid begin to drip down through the wicker and onto his fingers. The Ensign considered that a perfect sign that they should make their move, before Potato started leaving a trail… “Thank you for all of your help, Crewman.” He quickly turned back towards the reception desk to express his appreciation before he left, and whilst Sylvain most certainly didn’t mean it, he was polite to a fault, and sass didn’t sit all too well in his stomach, so his thanks, empty as they were, left his mouth regardless. He didn’t need to lower himself to her level, after all.

“Right then…” With etiquette out of the way, Sylvain turned back towards Ehfva with a less uncomfortable expression than he’d wielded before. “Lead on, I’m sure Potato is as eager to get out of this makeshift container as I am to stop holding it; I’ll have wicker-marks burned into my hands for days at this rate…” He attempted to politely joke as he turned back to the man, and began following close-in-step, as they departed for whatever destination Ehfva had in mind.
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [2100hrs] When All is Stretched Thin
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Hirek tr'Aimne | Private Transport, Submerged | Barrier Reef, Uuluma Chain | Romulus ] @Dumedion
He came back in pieces. Pressure first — the deep ache of it in his sinuses and behind the teeth, which told him where he was before his eyes did. Then sound: no rain, no wind, no engines. A tick of cooling metal. Something spitting. Then pain, arriving late and comprehensively, a hot line above the left brow and a bar of it across the collarbone where the harness had done its work.Then a hand on his sternum, grinding.

"—come on, darling. Please!"

Even with his eyes still closed, he could sense the darkness of the cockpit except for the emergency strip along the deck and the arterial red of the depth column and the myriad colors of the console monitors. He could also feel that Talia's face was very close to his. Three separate alarms were competing for his attention. Darling. He smiled before he did anything else.

"Darling." He tasted the word. "It took a blunt-force head injury to shake that one loose. Had I known the price, I'd have hit a console on purpose. Somewhere around the third day we met." He opened his eyes and caught sight of her face as it began doing something dangerous. "And the shouting. All that please don't do this, all that furious insistence on my continued existence—" he got his thumb under the blood coming into his eye again, cleared it, "—a less careful man might conclude you'd developed a fondness. A small one. Nothing to alarm the Diplomatic Corps."

She drew breath as if to answer, but he did not let her. He caught her elbow with one hand and her wrist with the other, drew her the short distance required, and set his mouth against hers — barely. Less than a kiss. The suggestion of one, the way spray touches skin before the wave arrives. Then he pulled back far enough to find her eyes in the red emergency light.

"I had no intention of dying tonight," he said. "I have considerably less intention of dying at the hands of the Tal Shiar."

The console chimed. Letting go of her wrist, he got his left hand onto the pitch control and found the craft answering, sluggish and heavy-nosed, still descending. The depth column read one hundred and ninety and climbing. Rated hull tolerance was three hundred and twelve. The descent slowed. Two hundred and four. Two hundred and six. Held. Then slowly tipped in the opposite direction as he angled the pitch to ascend again.

All this took seconds, during which he enjoyed holding her against his side, relishing the fact that even if it was for a brief time, she’d initiated a genuine touch of concern, and had not been doing so to garner anything from him in return. Except, of course, his consciousness.

"And no. We don't call DB." He turned his gaze back to hers, letting go of her elbow long enough to draw a finger along the seam of her lips, pulling it away to show her the remnants of her blood. "Consider what you would be transmitting. A Romulan national on personal leave, in a rented craft, with an unsanctioned Starfleet officer who has no clearance to be outside the diplomatic compound, no filed itinerary, and no explanation for how she left a diplomatic compound during the first official talks between the Federation and a government eleven days old." He glanced at her. "Whatever's happening to us tonight, that signal would be the greater weapon. Somebody would build a war out of it."

An incessant beeping caught his attention, and he sighed. Of course…

"Ah." He let go of her and turned. "Forgive me. I'd have preferred to linger in your arms basking in your attention. However,” he unceremoniously pushed her out of his lap back towards her seat, “there's a torpedo looking for us." He nodded toward her seat. "Sit — strap in—"

He returned his attention to the controls and quickly began evasive manuevers. The engines came up out of a near humming silence in,to a whine, and the black outside the canopy stopped being empty. Sensors gave him almost nothing: a smear of returns, a wall of noise where the storm was beating the water into froth sixty meters above them. Enough. Ahead, a reef tower rose out of the dark like a drowned cathedral — a column of coral and rock four hundred years old, mapped in his head before he could read.

He flew straight at it. The proximity alarm started shrieking at two hundred meters. At forty, he rolled the craft hard onto its flank and banked out, hull plating groaning, and behind them the torpedo went into the tower with its guidance still convinced. The shockwave shoved them sideways through the water like a hand.

"That," he said, correcting, "is what the reef is for."

He took them down into it. The Uuluma barrier ran ninety kilometers along the chain, and the inner labyrinth was a warren — towers, arches, collapsed galleries, channels that closed and opened with the season. He threaded it at speed on instruments that were spotty at best and on a memory of the place that was thirty years stale and still, apparently, load-bearing.

"Their targeting has to distinguish coral from hull. In this?" A channel narrowed and he put the craft through it on its side. "The storm is aerating the water column all the way down. Every return is noise. It buys us time — nothing more. This edge wears out, and then we are back in open sea, and they'll be waiting where the reef ends because that's where I'd wait." The channel opened into a gallery, and he cut across it.

He took a reading — position, drift, depth, the little the sensors would still admit to — ran the course in his head because the navigational computer had been part of the right-hand column that folded, and keyed a burst into the encrypted local band. Clan frequencies. Older than the Republic, and never once written down where the Tal Shiar could find them.

"I am also not an idiot, and I have no ambition to be a lone hero." Another gallery. He held the craft steady through it and set his jaw. With a subtle movement, he punched the SEND key. “If they aren’t jamming the immediate vicinity, we should have support here in a few minutes.” The transmission light died. "And my apologies — that told them precisely where we are."

The alarm went off again. He broke left through a coral arch as the second torpedo came through it behind him, and it detonated against the gallery wall a hundred meters back, and the reef came apart.

Not water this time. Mass. A slab of four-hundred-year-old coral the size of a shuttle came out of the dark on the concussion wave and took them across the dorsal plating, and the craft went end over end and slammed into the reef floor, and stopped. Hard. The engines cut themselves. Somewhere aft, plating shrieked and kept shrieking. Then everything went very quiet except for water finding its way in somewhere behind the bulkhead, patient as arithmetic. He got his eyes onto the readouts before the ringing stopped. Structural integrity: failing, slowly, in a way that would not stay slow. Power: minimal. Life support: yes, for now, on the reserve cell, and he did not look at the number long enough to let the figure become a sentence in his head. Depth: thirteen meters.

Thirteen. That, at least, was a gift. Because thirteen meters was nothing. Thirteen meters meant that if it came to it, he could flood the cabin deliberately, equalize, blow the canopy and take them out — and the island that this barrier hung off was a mile north-northeast, and a mile was a swim. Hard in the dark. Vicious in a storm, with the surface breaking apart and the current running the way it would be running tonight. But survivable, for someone raised in it. He had done longer at eleven, for a wager.

Then he looked at her, and the arithmetic changed. She had never freedived in her life. He knew that the way he knew the depth column: she had grown up in cockpits and corridors. Put her out there in a night sea running six-meter swell, with no rig and no training and no instinct for what the water was about to do next, and a mile stopped being a distance and became a verdict. He was not going to say that. He was, however, going to find another answer, because the one he had was not acceptable.

"Thirteen meters," he said instead. "And there's power for a while yet." He wiped his eye again. "My cousins keep the reef watch on a rotation and they have been waiting their entire lives for something interesting to happen on it." Aft, the bulkhead groaned and found a new note. He turned in his seat to face her fully, and the teasing had gone out of his voice. "Talia. Your exosuit." He nodded toward the tote wedged behind her seat. "Is it pressure-rated for water?"

He detached from his seat and opened a few compartments until he found what he was looking for: two devices shaped much like a torpedo, only they could be grasped with two hands and attached with a strap to the torso of the person operating them. Turning back to face her, body hunched over in an uncomfortable crouch thanks to the low ceiling, he held up one of the devices for her to see.

“This is a landing buoy. It takes readings when activated and automatically makes for the closest landmass to assist with rescue. If we have to flood the compartment and make a swim for it, this will make the difference between getting lost in this dark froth and being carried to shore.” He demonstrated where to activate it and how to operate it in quick succession before squatting next to her seat. “I’m not saying we flood the compartment right away; there is still the possibility that my cousins arrive in time to chase away those bastards and descend to tow us out.”

As if to argue with him, the transport groaned and shuddered as more hull buckled against the weight of the water and the failing shields. “But we may not have the luxury of deciding such things either as it may be the sea decides for us.”
4
Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 | 2200 hrs | The hunt is on
Last post by Pierce -
[ Lt. JG Ashley Kerina | Access Tunnel to Forward landing Strut | Vector 3 | Deck 31| USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Nesota Kynnovan @Eirual [Show/Hide]

Ashley finally made her way down the corridor as she attempted to navigate the massive starship. She'd never been on one this large before. It was truly a marvel of modern engineering that left her in awe. But one that left her consistently lost. The turbolift was ahead and she entered as she went to Deck 29.

As the turbolift opened with the hiss, a blast of hot air hit when she exited. She found an access tunnel closed with minimal light nearby. And the heat was kicked up 9 degrees Celsius which was higher than the upper decks. Thankfully, she was used to it between the Orion and Romulan blood coursing through her veins. She tied her hair back into a pony tail to prevent it from coming into her face. She was curious why she and others in the science department were tasked for vole duty when there were likely others or even the ship's AI that could have done this in record timing. Something she'd have to ask Frost about later.

Ashley opened the hatch seeing minimal light. "Hmm... the lights aren't kicking on..." She pondered. Ashley looked for the nearest ODN conduit which she then traced back to a simple computer console interface. Tapping the controls she found the source of the issue. Being it wasn't tied to the modern LCARS systems due to lack of normal traffic, the automations didn't kick in. She toggled a few systems on and back off before finding the one accidentally that turned the lights on in the pathways.

Turning around it lit up bright like a warp core breach and she quickly turned the lights down to 24% before looking back to see it was much more of the normal tones to the corridors but slightly dimmer. This was a workable option she decided. Closing the console out, she turned to the tunnel and began her descent into it. She wasn't sure who else was tasked with this hunt, but she looked forward to meeting them.

As she descended there were sounds up ahead, likely one or two additional officers? Kerina hoped that's what it was at least. Her mind began a little racing as the excitement built a little in her. Her arm thumped an arch in the tunnel and a loud thunk as she yipped. A slight tear in her jacket saved her flesh from any residual damage but she'd need to be more careful.

"Anyone in here? Is there an access hub ahead so we can sit and discuss the plan?" She yelled into the echoes ahead of her. Her voice warm and inquiring.


""
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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Epi S: [Day 03 | 0900] Changing lanes
Last post by Pierce -
[ Lt. Commander Alana Pierce | Central Intelligence Suite | Deck 5 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Krajin
[Show/Hide]

Alana sat back in her chair as she awaited Lt. Va'rek's arrival in the suite. She knew it'd be a quiet day at the moment with a lot of the Intel department scattered. Some on assignment and investigation, and unfortunately others had shifted off their mortal coil. Regardless, she had someone clearly interested in the department and that curiousity and investigative research is someone she could use. Likely mold into the role in the event something ever happened to her or she needed trusted eyes somewhere she couldn't be.

Drinking her cola, she set the glass back down on her desk as she pulled up a PADD with his service record. She remembered behind her was a display of some of her favorite 23rd century tech. The communicator, the tricorder, and the phaser. All hers from a different life...a different time. It seemed like a lifetime ago since she held those devices. On the adjacent side of her was a model of the USS Eagle. Her home for years, that she'd just recently had the opportunity to serve on once again. Although she met her end in that battle, not that she would have survived it, she had given Pierce hope for the future. A rebirth. Something she hoped to pass on to those she worked with. This crew had been through a lot and together their motly cru were doing all they could to cope. So a little 23rd century optimism was just what the doctor ordered.

The door chimed finally as she'd finished her thoughts. "Come" she stated as the door swished open and the lieutenant stepped forward with his arms behind his back. She calmly observed his posture and ability to dutifully wait. But she was old fashioned and honestly formality wasn't something she needed a lot of these days. She lifted her arm and gestured to Thane to sit down in the chair across from her desk.

"Please, sit. Can I get you anything? Tea? Cola? Coffee?" She asked kindly still seated with her legs crossed beneath the oval desk with PADDs strewn about.

"It appears you've been out of commission for some time. Something unfortunately I too can relate." She paused taking a sip before continuing.

"It seems we've been interested in learning more about each other Lieutenant. I'm a little honored and curious. What interested you about my personal profile? Any questions I can answer?" She smirked a warm smile as she folded her hands on her lap getting comfortable as she continued to assess the situation further.
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Day 01 [1100 hrs] New Stars
Last post by chXinya -
Day 01 [1100 hrs] New Stars

[Ens. Irnashall “Shall” ch’Xinya | Stellar Cartography | Deck 15 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy] attn: @TWilkins

As dark as the welding goggles looked to an observer, for the user they were actually quite transparent. Unlike the archaic lenses Shall had seen in museums, modern technology allowed him to see right through these goggles with an effect little more than light sunglasses up until he triggered the welding torch. A blessed spot of complete darkness snapped into being the moment the torch activated keeping his vision safe while still letting him see what it was he was doing. At the moment that was finalizing the join in the EPS conduit that he was almost done replacing.

For once Stellar Cartography had been spared the worst of fighting: no major system losses, no bulkhead collapses, no Borg nanoprobe injections, just a simple EPS conduit rupture that forced him out and into the arms of a Romulan boarding party. It was a miracle he’d survived that (and his side still twinged a bit even though Sickbay had cleared him), and now it was time to get back to work. Humming to himself, the Andorran’s blue hair reflected the welding torch’s light as he reached the end point, and switched the torch off. A close look was followed by a nod in approval and he stood up from his crouch, tossing the torch back into the kit and pulling off his gloves. “Thea, run a level 2 diagnostic on Stellar Cartography’s EPS system, and if everything checks out reinitialize the primary power flow.” The positronic woman was always so helpful and within moments the wall-sized screens snapped on with their standby pattern and the holo-generator in the ceiling hummed to life. Sighing in contentment, Shall looked up and gave Thea a well-earned thanks. A few moments was all it took to get the bulkhead cover back into place and sealed, and with that his lab was good as new.

Setting the toolkit aside, Shall strode out to the control panel sitting at the circular end of the walkway, plopping down into his familiar seat with practiced ease. Fully comfortable and overjoyed to be back in his element, long fingers tapped the control board to start up the boot sequence. Various blocks of text and code flew across the screens wrapped around him as the computers did their thing, local buffers and data flows synching back up with the main computer, various sensor platforms connecting with various levels of compatibility and priorities, and a multitude of other automatic tasks all done in the background to allow the lanky Andorian an unparalleled view of the galaxy around him.

Even more exciting for the chan though, he wasn’t just back in business after a day of healing and repair work, for the first time in months he was due for an upgrade! Now that at least some level of official status had been restored to Theurgy, he could finally access the Starfleet databases and get an updated set of charts straight from the source. Glancing at the chronometer, Shall dared a small smile as it was just about time for them to be delivered. For the first time in a while, his skin was prickling with excited anticipation…
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [2100hrs] When All is Stretched Thin
Last post by Dumedion -
[Ens. Talia "Shadow" Al-Ibrahim | Private Transport, Inbound | Uuluma Chain, Romulus] Attn: @Ellen Fitz

She'd made the mistake of leaving the harness loose, yet again; it was a bad habit of unknown origin, something overlooked once too many times until it had become accepted as normal. The bruises earned during the three-day sequence of running engagements and dogfights that had just been discussed still hurt, and were all due to Talia’s solitary slip in an otherwise methodically — and this was not an exaggeration — perfected pre-flight routine.

There was no warning; no alarms, no flashing prompts, no damage reports she could decipher — the ship heaved, then the nose rose as it started to roll.

Talia met Hirek’s eyes for a split second, long enough to shoot a glare of ‘what-the-hell-are-you-doing’ at him; nothing more.

“Ah, shit — here we go,” she grunted, mostly to herself; arms and hands shot up to the roof of the canopy, legs braced instinctually. Years of training kicked in by muscle memory — Talia clenched her core, and held on for the ride. “Why cant we just have a normal day together?” That came out in a growl of effort as the roll continued, and everything fell from below at the mercy of gravity: her hair, with the hastily braided locks coming apart in a drape of black — the slitted hem of her dress, the front part anyway — her whole body, thanks to the loose harness — even her tits decided to flop free. “Fuck sakes,” was added in, during the struggle to situate, cover, and move everything out of her face at the same time with minimal success.

Fortunately, Hirek was too busy to notice; Talia shot him a look that turned into a double-take, eyes widened in shock, mid-roll, at a literal wall of blackness approaching at a speed her brain couldn’t quantify. The warning left her lips as something entirely too calm and rational for the situation, and really wasn’t much of a warning at all: “Um, wave.”

Somehow, she managed to point at it.

There wasn’t much else to do after that than hold on; the ship spun like a top, albeit in the slowest, most terrifying way imaginable. Talia’s eyes stayed open and her mouth stayed shut for most of it, due to how hard her teeth were clenched in equal parts fear and control; they darted to Hirek, the controls she had no hope of understanding, then to the storm and waves — in a repeating circuit.

Hirek recovered control gradually, with visible effort. ‘That was not the sea,’ he stated, then twisted around to look behind them.

“Huh,” Talia huffed as she threw her hair back out of her face, then followed his movement with a grunt of effort; it really sucked being smaller than everyone. While in possession of remarkably sharp vision and the situational awareness to track multiple targets at distance, as much as she strained against the harness, all she could see was the ass-end of the ship, streams of rain, and the worst flying conditions beyond that she’d ever witnessed.

Then the glow and flash of incoming fire registered, and with it, a hissed line of rapid-fire Arabic curses. “I cant see the bogey — can you shake it? Who the hell are they anyway?”

Hirek responded with what he knew and what he guessed, which was better than what Talia could manage; her eyes narrowed as they both turned back around. “No ones killing you today — certainly not the fucking Tal Shiar,” she promised; a hollow promise, perhaps, but she meant it all the same. “What can I do? I need to do something!”

He told her to tighten her straps, as the nose of the craft pitched down — towards the churning depths. Talia complied, post haste; tightening each individual harness with an audible screeched of protesting fabric.

‘You’re about to find out how deep this hull goes.’

“I’d really rather not — doesn’t this thing have weapons?” Talia’s eyes stayed fixated on the waves, growing larger by the second; she felt the blood drain from her face. “N-no — no way, this is insane, Hirek!”

‘They’re better armed. Considerably. They bought it by cutting hull mass —'

The nose pitched further, diving towards the rolling mass of water; Talia visibly squirmed in her harness, head shaking rapidly. “Nope — noooo, no-no-no,” she protested over the rest of Hirek’s explanation; everything that followed out of her mouth was a rapid deluge — a high pitched, incessant plea: “I don’t like this, I don’t like it, no! Please listen to me — we can evade and call for backup! DB is in a Valravyn, we’re less than a hundred kilometers out, she-could-be-here-in-minutes-and-vape-this-asshole-HIREK-PLEASE!”

The waves had become a textured tapestry of imminent death; crested with foam, rolling, blue-black in the near darkness. She could see the reflection of their running lights on the surface — a bullseye that grown exponentially. Amidst the panic that threatened to undo all her training and supposedly impenetrable will, Talia clenched her eyes shut. Her entire existence had fallen away, reduced to a terrified version of herself with only the capacity to drone the same words over and over; a pleading mantra.

“Please-don’t-do-this, please-don’t-do-this, please —"

‘Brace.’

Every muscle in her body was already locked rigid; arms crossed over her chest, straps clenched in fists. There wasn’t a scream; Talia’s jaw was locked beyond the capacity for speech — the sound that left her started as something in her chest, near the back of her throat: a growl that rose in pitch, in octaves, rapidly. By the time of impact, it had the same intensity and whine as the over-worked engines; a screeching whine — something produced when nails raked over chalkboard — nothing intended to be produced from human vocal cords.

The impact itself was a bone-jarring assault on every sense; a roar of protesting electronics, matter and energy. It was a traumatizing clash of physics. Talia felt herself bodily thrown forwards, then back. It knocked the wind from her; blood registered in her mouth — pain flared through her entire body. Red flickered in her vision, even though her eyes refused to open. Her chest rose and fell with great heaps of breath, and she had no hope of slowing it.

Something hissed — crackled; a power conduit? One eye opened to peak. Yes, something underneath her seat had shorted out, spewing sparks up at her bare legs.

Darkness surrounded.

Her gaze drifted to Hirek; his head was leaned back, body limp — unconscious. Talia disengaged her harness instantly, hands reached out to cradle his head. “Hirek,” she croaked — voice hoarse, dry, and painful. A gash bled freely from above the left brow; the same blood marked the console in front of him. She acted without hesitation and ripped a length of fabric from the hem of her dress, then quickly wrapped it over the wound.

“Hirek, wake up,” Talia insisted — as the ship drifted, deeper and deeper into the black. On instinct, one hand gripped the control stick, while the other forcefully — but purposefully — knuckled his sternum.

“Hirek — wake up! Wake up — come on, darling. Please!”
8
Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 | 2200 hrs | The hunt is on
Last post by Eirual -
[Ens Mia Dunne | Access Tunnel to Forward landing Strut | Vector 3 | Deck 31| USS Theurgy ]
ATTN: @Pierce, @Nesota Kynnovan

“This is not what a scientist should be doing,” Mia grumbled as yet again she was squeezing through the tight confines of the access tunnel on a search for the Zoologist’s mistake. The tight confines were aggravating and more than once she’d had to tug her uniform free from something it had snagged onto. It didn’t help that her damn breasts were much larger than average. In some cases, their size was a hinderance, like now. Still she was doing what she’d been ordered to do, but next time someone lost their pet projects they could leave her out of it, Thank you very much!

The wrist lamp lit up the access tunnel enough for her to know no damaging creature had made its way here. Just about the only positive she had was that it was a bit of a straight line to each of the landing struts. And there was a small space at the end that allowed her to turn and head back the way she came. She sat in the small area for a moment to inspect her uniform. Thank god for replicators, since this uniform had more snags than a latch hook rug. “If Frost doesn’t kill that jerk who brought that thing on board,” She said hotly to herself as she began the crawl back to the Jefferies tube, “I am going to do it myself!”

Once again having to tug her uniform free from whatever it had caught on she heard it tearing and she let out a loud frustrated growl, “Oh they are soooo going to suffer!”
9
Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [2100hrs] When All is Stretched Thin
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Hirek tr'Aimne | Private Transport, Inbound | Uuluma Chain, Romulus ] @Dumedion

"You didn't."

It was a lie, and he told it to the console, because the console was not currently the problem. But her fingers had traced his jaw, and the craft had bucked, and she'd pulled back apologizing. The gooseflesh had already gone down his neck to the shoulder by then. It was still there. The whole line of it had lit like a circuit closing, from a contact that could not have exceeded the weight of a wet leaf, and it was not obeying any instruction he gave it.

The dials, then. The dials were the argument he had left. Altitude, heading, rate of closure on the outer bands — and the barometric column falling faster than the descent accounted for, which he noted, and corrected for, and could not make himself care about in the way the number deserved. He drew breath to say something else, something dry enough to file the moment down to a size he could carry.

The transport went over.

Not a drop — a shear, taken low on the starboard flank. The horizon rolled up past the canopy and kept rolling until the sea hung overhead and the storm ran beneath it, and the harness bit into his shoulder hard enough to make him wince. Then a wave took them across the dorsal plating, all of it at once, several thousand tonnes of water arriving at a decision. The hull screamed. The engines came back howling in a register he hadn't heard out of this class in forty years.

His hands had the trim before the thought reached them. Full over, power fed against the roll, boot braced on the pedal rail. The craft came round the long way, groaning through the recovery, and settled upright with the deck plates still ringing in his teeth.

"That," he said, "was not the sea."

The second shudder came up through the drive shaft, and it came from behind him. He twisted against the straps, far enough to put his eyes past the aft coaming. Two hundred meters back, thirty low, running dark — beacons off, hull glow suppressed, riding the trough where clutter off the wave-faces would swallow the return whole.

It fired while he was watching. The projectile came slow. That was the entire craft of the thing: slow enough that the deflector geometry read it as debris and let it walk through the envelope unchallenged. It struck aft. External sensors folded down the right-hand column one after another, and the vibration coming up through the deck from the shaft had a frequency he disliked immediately and on principle.

He dropped back into the seat.

"They'll keep firing. The shields won't stop it." A third impact rang the frame as though answering him. "I don't know who they are, but I have a suspicion. Tal Shiar — what's left. The ones with no cell to report to and nowhere in particular to be." He glanced at her once. "They want me dead about as much as I want them dead."

The wave-tops came up through the rain, black and moving like country.

"Straps. Tight — tighter than you think is necessary." He was already trimming the nose down. "You're about to find out how deep this hull goes." Another round went past the canopy, close enough to see, slow enough to insult him. "They're better armed. Considerably. They bought it by cutting hull mass." He pushed the nose over and the sea came up to meet it. "This craft takes pressure. Theirs folds at a third of it. So either they follow us down and are crushed, or they stay up here and try to track us through sea and storm till when we surface again." The canopy sealed. The vents shut with the sound of a held breath. "Brace."

The water took them, and the storm went out like a lamp.
10
Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [2100hrs] When All is Stretched Thin
Last post by Dumedion -
[Ens. Talia "Shadow" Al-Ibrahim | Private Transport, En Route to the Uuluma Islands | Romulus] Attn: @Ellen Fitz

There was no answer from him at first, and when one came there was little surprise when it took a path she hadn’t expected; so Talia had sat, and listened, and allowed Hirek’s voice and the shape of his mouth and the comfort in his eyes to distract her from what they were flying into.

It helped — truly — until it didn’t. The anxious knot in her gut refused to abate because the patterns and names were recognized for what they were: a rotational cumulonimbus system, a massive one; the main column stretched nearly 10 kilometers tall, easily. At its foot, the monster sucked in stratocumuli in all directions, devouring them, eating their energy to fuel its own. There was more than one term humans used to describe such a phenomenon on Earth, depending on which side of the planet one lived on: hurricane and typhoon.

…And they were flying straight into it, or, more accurately, beneath it.

Talia also knew that wasn’t what had rendered her speechless: Hirek had. If it had been easy to sit, listen, and absorb his account — delivered in calm measured tones as if he had spoken about nothing important at all — processing how it all made her feel proved extremely difficult. Even so, there was no attempt to hide it behind a carefully constructed mask; there was no time and zero preparation for that. All too late she realized, in that moment, that a part of her that had always been guarded finally slipped the leash, broke through its own battlements, and refused to follow all the rules so carefully maintained — and she didn’t waste a heartbeat fighting it.
 
She wanted him to see her: to see the concern, the worry, the anguish about what the Tal Shiar had done to him. Behind that, she wanted him to see the outrage, the anger, the desire for vengeance. Deeper still, she wanted him to see how much she valued him, how wrong she had been for everything before, and how sorry she was; if only she had known what he could have faced, what had been waiting for him before…

That didn’t matter — what she chose to do about it did.

Her hand reached out for his arm; the body moving on its own to communicate the words and emotions the voice couldn’t. She squeezed, pouring in everything she felt, everything her eyes carried, everything she wanted to say but didn’t possess the language for.

The moment passed; Hirek’s attention returned to the controls and the weather — out of necessity or something else? Talia couldn’t tell. The ship bounced again, nothing dramatic, but enough to break her mind free from the emotional soup, but her hand stayed where it was just above his elbow, nestled against the curve of bicep, like that was where it had always belonged.

‘How did the last mission go for you,’ he’d asked; Talia inhaled a breath, then chose how to respond. Truth deserved truth; trust deserved trust. There were a dozen reports he could read on the matter — she had written some herself and attended several review sessions to listen and read the others. Instinctually, her mind pulled that file up for recitation: almost an hour-by-hour account of the previous three days: what happened when, why, how. What mistakes had been made and what lessons had been learned. Her mind slammed the file closed though; she could do better than that.

He deserved better than that.

She told him what she felt instead; something no after-action-review contained — something no one knew, and likely never would, beyond the two of them. The words didn’t come easy, and didn’t come clean, which he almost certainly noticed; Talia pushed on, even as she watched him for reactions, and discovered that his patience and presence offered her a different kind of courage. He’d offered the gift of a space for her to simply be — to be heard and seen. She refused to waste something so precious.

The carrier scrap went first:

Talia spoke of how the sheer size and shape of the thing had inspired both awe and dread; how painfully powerless she’d felt losing Ghost, how the entire affair seemed to happen so fast in hindsight, but had felt the complete opposite at the time. The sheer agility and aggressiveness of their opponents had shocked her — how the simple fact that it had taken entirely too long for her to realize that they were, in fact, trying to kill her — had shaken her. But it had been the end, when she’d broken; seeing the wreckage on the deck — the fires — the bodies. She'd carry that around for a long time.

The convoy op followed, after a pause that lasted longer than it probably should have, due to a series of bumps and shimmies that forced her eyes closed.

When the ship settled, her eyes opened, and Talia told him how they’d found the colonists, devoid of escort and on the wrong side of any border — unaffiliated with anyone, with their only intention set on finding a new home. It had felt good to try to help; that was the Federation she believed in — the one she fought for, you see? But then everything went wrong in the form of a flying-electromagnetic-disruptor-wielding…mechanical squid, from the future, apparently; a drone, sent back in time to destroy its own creators.

A pause followed, broken with a brief chuckle; the math hurt her head and didn’t make sense no matter how hard she tried, so she asked him not to press the issue. In the end, the day was saved by the unlikely arrival of an antiquated vessel of the Vaharran Navy — which also nearly killed her too, by the way, when it came out of warp right on top of her — but enabled the civilian convoy the freedom to pursue their own ends. Yay, happy ending.

That part ended with a lopsided smile; a dash of humor sprinkled over near-death — just as Hirek had done. Lightning flashed abruptly, close enough to make Talia flinch; the thunder that followed was an audible assault, a rolling cacophony that silenced the rain for several seconds. In its wake, she let the moment draw out unintentionally; because so much had been said already about the Triangle — and so much had been left unsaid.

She didn’t describe the battle itself; anyone with eyes and a viewport had seen it. She didn’t bother with details of combat tactics, or how her coms had shorted out, again. All of that happened, and she’d talked about it ad nauseam.

She told him about the parts that hurt. The parts she hadn’t had time to let herself feel properly, never mind come to terms with. When the words left her lips, they began as little more than a whisper: how she couldn’t accurately account for how she’d survived, when others with far more experience and skill hadn’t. How hollow it felt after; her hands bloodied, conscience in tatters. How she’d puked her guts out almost immediately, and couldn’t stop her hands from shaking for hours after that. Nothing and no one could have prepared her for it, and that was no ones fault but her own; she should have known better. How the entire thing had been saved by the sheer stubbornness and courage of Klingons, and the last minute fortune of a stolen prototype fighter – whose pilot she owed a drink, but had not yet found the time to hunt down and properly thank.

“I owe Dr Leux one too,” she added quietly, and Talia left her account to linger in the space between them; even as she raised her hand to trace Hirek’s jawline with the back of her fingertips without conscious thought.

The craft almost instantly bucked, more violently than ever before, forcing her to snatch both hand and arm back to grip her harness with a surprised hiss of effort.
 
“Shit – sorry, didn’t mean to distract you!”
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