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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: EPI S: Two sides, same coin [Day 03 | 0930]
Last post by Dumedion -
[Colonel Hauq | Diplomatic Suite | Deck 2 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Ellen Fitz

Hudson Marlowe, the Colonel echoed silently; the name meant nothing to him, yet its importance became evident as he listened to Madsen’s elaboration. Something very close to hunger reached Hauq’s eyes as he committed the name to memory; his duty was to the bodily preservation of the Chancellor, yes, but it was every warrior's oathed-bound duty to preserve the Empire – which was difficult to do if you were blind to that which threatened it. Reasonably reliable, he thought. Heavily muscled arms folded across his chest with a frown, considering, while he watched her. She knows, or suspects, much more. A hand stroked his bearded features before he offered a curt nod.

“It will be done,” the Colonel agreed.

Madsen bent to collect more stones as he turned away, only to turn back as she brought up another warning; Hauq didn’t try to hide his distaste at the prospect of dealing with more Starfleet on the home-world. He couldn’t imagine that going over well with Martok, and certainly not with the High Council – the political situation alone was already volatile enough. This was not the time for off-worlders to “poke around”.

They may find our hospitality somewhat lacking, he snorted.

“Friction,” Hauq barked a laugh, “they wont like it when we poke back. I’m sure your people will be briefed on the shitstorm they’ll be walking into; I will do what I can to aid them,” he replied, then nodded at her invitation. “That can be arranged, I’m sure. The Chancellor has an…extensive…private stock,” he flashed his fangs, then unfolded his arms at her approach – eyes dipping from her eyes to the offered hand and back.

There was no hesitation; his massive hand gripped her forearm, bringing them wrist to wrist in the ancient warrior clasp of respect.

“I am honored,” he paused, searching for the words he could say around the ones he shouldn’t. “You found the strength to survive the carpet after all, it seems,” the Colonel nodded, the corner of his lips curled for only a heartbeat. “Purpose drives us, Enyd Isolde Madsen; it sustains us. Remember that, before you consider melting again,” he nodded a final time, then released her.

“Hunt well,” Hauq added over his shoulder, before crossing the threshold of the door and returning to his duty at the Chancellor’s side.

~FIN~
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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest
Last post by Griff -
[Lieutenant Alistair Leavitt Intensive Care Unit | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ]  @Ellen Fitz @RyeTanker

[Show/Hide]

As Alistair moved around the ship, dealing with various tasks, he couldn't help but notice an malaise. Everything had changed, and processing the events of the past few days was proving difficult for many. Some of the more recent members of the crew were cheerful, all smiles, while the older crew were more cautious, uncertain\, as if they were just waiting for everything to go crazy all over again. Alistair, meanwhile, was tired. Just tired. It was a bone deep level of exhaustion. The body was fine, but the spirit was flagging. He just wanted rest, for it all to be done. He'd done enough, right? Couldn't it be enough? Would it ever be enough?

Thus occupied. Alistair was a tad out of it as he entered Sickbay, needing a moment to remember why he was here.  A nurse looked at him in askance, but he held up a hand with a polite smile. Right. He remembered now. Alistair walked over to the recovery ward, with many of the beds occupied, most of the lights dimmed to help the patients sleep. Fortunately, the light above one particular bed was still on as the patient, a middle-aged woman with long blonde hair, typed lazily on an LCARS board that wrapped around her. Standing at the threshold of the ward, Alistair hesitated. There was something wrong with that image...something...

A bloodcurdling scream came through the comns, followed by shouting, disagreement, more shouting, more screaming.
"It's Conway! She's been...damn, cover me! Medic! She's lost her-"

Alistair hadn't been there, hadn't had the time to check on Conway. Now, he finally knew what she had lost: much of her right arm. His stomach squirmed. Nevertheless, with a deep breath, he walked up to her, and she clocked him immediately.

"Hi," she said brightly. Too brightly.

"Hi," Alistair said awkwardly, careful to keep his voice low.. "So...uh... "

"You look great?" Yvette said with a grin. "It's alright, boss. You don't need to do the whole rigamorole, you aren't my first boss to check on me. Oh, that, uh, thing earlier-"

"Real," Alistair said with a shrug, "I saw the president myself. I don't know much else, sorry. We're all adjusting to Captain Ives not being here."

Yvette shifted a little, pulling back up. "I guess a lot's been happening, huh? Hey, have you seen Lieutenant Zark yet?"

That threw Alistair off, swiping his hand over his bald scalp. "What? You mean she's here?" At Yvette's nod, Alistair's eyes widened in alarm. "That can't...I saw the casualty reports from Hobus, she wasn't-"

"She was hurt afterwards," Yvettle explained gently. "I don't know when or how bad, but she's in the ICU right now, if you want to check on her."

"Right. Yeah," Alistair said, clearly still processing. He hesitated, feeling a moment of real shock and guilt. Why hadn't he checked? Why hadn't he confirmed-

"Lieutenant Leavitt?" Yvette interrupted quietly with a small smile. "Please get to the ICU before I ask Security to carry you there."

Alistair smiled back, nodded in gratitude, then promptly strode over to the ICU, immediately identifying Zark. Unlike Yvette's biobed, Zark's space was packed with innumerable sensors and other medical equipment, all monitoring the patient. Lying on her back, unconscious or worse, Zark looked smaller, more vulnerable than her usual aggressive charm. Her white hair was a mess, a gown and blanket protecting Zark's (non-existent) modesty. Alistair looked up at the monitors, but struggled to parse them, save that Zark was in bad shape.

He sighed, hating seeing the normally vivacious Andorian like this. It just felt...wrong. Completely wrong.

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Parallel Universes - "What if?" / Re: [2376] Entanglement of Chaos
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[Ens. Enyd Isolde Madsen | Casino | Cardassia Prime] ATTN: @RyeTanker

Long enough.

Ryzit had been gone long enough that the possible outcomes had narrowed down to two: she was in, or she'd been caught. And since no alarm had ripped through the casino's carefully curated atmosphere, no Cardassian security detail had materialized with tense shoulders and hands near weapons, Enyd was operating on the working assumption that the Andorian cop had somehow talked, charmed, or bludgeoned her way through.

Which meant the next useful thing Enyd could do was make herself impossible to ignore from out here.

She'd just lost another hand—genuinely, this time, through no effort of her own—and she let it land with full theatrical weight. Her face crumpled. Her lower lip pushed out. She stacked her remaining chips into a neat, mournful little tower and stared at it with all the existential devastation of a woman who had never needed to learn the value of money.

"Oh, that's simply not fair," she announced to no one, loud enough for everyone.

The dealer's expression remained professionally neutral. The Orion bodyguards flanking a nearby table didn't react. Several other patrons did.

Enyd pushed back from the table. "Zark." She turned to look at her bodyguard with the particular pout she'd been privately workshopping since the hover car. "I want to dance."

Zark's face did something complicated.

"I want to dance," Enyd repeated, louder. She straightened her gown with both hands, something petulant and restless working through her posture. "I have just lost—" she checked her chips with exaggerated dismay, "—an unreasonable amount of money, and I refuse to stand here and be boring about it."

"Zark." Enyd widened her eyes. "I just want to dance with someone. Sexy. Is that so much to ask?" She let that sit for two full beats, then tilted her head with the air of someone arriving at a perfectly reasonable conclusion. "If you won't, perhaps someone here will."

She turned before Zark could answer. There was no strategy in the way she moved across the floor—that was rather the point. She drifted like a woman following impulse rather than intention, fingers trailing lightly across shoulders and elbows as she passed, offering up a smile here, a lifted brow there, a beckoning curl of two fingers at a broad-shouldered Bolian who seemed thoroughly delighted by the invitation, a Cardassian woman in an extraordinary amount of jewelry who laughed in surprise before setting down her drink.

By the time Enyd reached the edge of the dance floor, she had acquired something approximating a small procession. The music was the loud, driving variety that left no room for conversation and every room for spectacle. She walked into it like she belonged there. She danced badly for approximately four seconds. Then something in the rhythm clicked, the way it always did when she stopped thinking—and Enyd Madsen, Federation diplomat and professional catastrophe, started actually dancing. Her grandmother had liked to say that the body remembered what the mind forgot, and apparently what Enyd's body had remembered was that she'd spent three years at the Academy sharing a floor with a Risian roommate who had strong opinions about movement and no patience for half-measures.

People noticed. She encouraged this. Hips, shoulders, the slow roll of her spine—she let the music do exactly what it had been designed to do, which was make rational thought an inconvenience. The Bolian whooped. The Cardassian woman clapped. Others drifted in from the edges, drawn by the particular human chaos of someone refusing to be embarrassed. And then—because the opportunity was simply *there*, because the musicians' riser was unlocked and unguarded and just barely within reach, and because Enyd had good reason to emulate lack of restraint, she climbed up.

Not gracefully. She grabbed the edge of the platform, stepped on the bassist's monitor wedge with a murmured apology, and hauled herself up with enough effort that the maneuver was more earnest than elegant. But she made it. And she was up. The musicians, to their credit, didn't miss a single note. Enyd stood for one half-second at the back of the riser, looked out at the floor below her, and decided quite firmly that Ryzit was going to owe her an extraordinary amount.

Then she started moving again, and the crowd below shifted like a tide, and every set of eyes in this half of the casino swiveled toward the human woman making an absolute scene of herself on the musicians' stage.

Look here, she thought, arms lifting, expression radiant and uncalculated in a way that was entirely calculated. Look here, look here, look here. Not there. Not wherever Ryzit is. Here.
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Main OOC Board / Re: Main OOC Thread
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
Greetings again, my family and I will be gone from June 17 through to June 26. While I will be taking my computer, I'm not sure how much I will be able to respond during that time. Thank you!
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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: EPI S: Two sides, same coin [Day 03 | 0930]
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Lt. Enyd Isolde Madsen | Chief Diplomatic Officer's Office | Deck 08 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] @Dumedion

She was quiet a moment longer than the question warranted. Not hesitation, exactly. The kind of stillness that happens when a mind runs through a calculation it already knows the answer to and checks its work anyway. Her thumb moved across the stones in her palm, one after another, and she looked at them rather than him.

There was more. There was considerably more. Names, factions she suspected was assembling near that border — assembled from fragments, yes, unverified at the edges, the kind of intelligence that could do damage in the wrong hands if presented as fact before it had earned that classification. And the Klingons had their own fires burning closer to hand right now. She knew what it was to be handed someone else's problem when you were already bleeding from your own.

She made her decision.

"Hudson Marlowe." She said the name like a heading at the top of a report. "Doctor. Recent occupant of the Federation brig on Qo'noS, an old friend of mine, and why I can trust to give it to you." She met his eyes. "Some of what we have came through him. He runs an unofficial network — extensive, reasonably reliable, and entirely unattributable by design. Whatever is moving near that border has range to it." She held his gaze long enough for the implication to land. "I'd suggest Martok hear that name."

She crouched for another sweep of stones, deposited them, and straightened.

"One more thing." The half-smile she gave him was not entirely cheerful. "Starfleet — through the President — has already indicated they'll be sending personnel directly from headquarters. To Qo'noS. Ostensibly to assist Martok. To assess the situation." She tilted her head. "And, as one does, to poke around." She watched his face. "I'll have my own people available to Martok should that group start creating friction." She glanced down. The stones were mostly gathered now — the room no longer looked like the aftermath of a particularly aggressive game of marbles. The broken chair was still a loss, but that was a problem for tomorrow.

She shook her head, something fond and tired moving through her expression.

"Nothing else to pass to the Chancellor." Her voice settled into something simpler. "Only gratitude." She set the last handful into the pouch. "And the standing invitation — when this is all done, or at least temporarily less catastrophic — a drink. A real one. Something appropriately strong and probably inadvisable." She looked at Hauq. "You'd both be welcome at that table."

She tied off what remained of the pouch's cord and set it on the desk.

"I can manage the rest." She nodded toward the remaining few stones scattered near the wall, then extended her hand — not a diplomatic formality but the straightforward grip of one person acknowledging another. "Thank you, Hauq. For the honesty. And for the stones." The ghost of something wry. "And for coming yourself."
6
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 wasn't entirely listening. He was aware of Leux talking — the cadence of it, the shape of the sentences, the technical back-and-forth with Thea. He caught enough of it to know he didn't need the rest. The workstation was unlocked. The canister was open. The device sat on the clean surface in front of him like a thing waiting to be finished properly, which, in Hirek's view, it was.

He turned it over in his hands once, assessed the casing, and got to work.

The mechandrite array first. The deployment mechanism had to be re-keyed at the base level — the trigger architecture was designed to find and disrupt, and before anything else could be altered, that impulse had to be removed the way you removed a hook from a line before re-threading it for a different catch. He worked with a tool from the kit on the counter, something Federation-issue and adequate for the purpose, and kept most of his attention on the interior contact matrix, where the reprogramming would either hold or it wouldn't.

Leux was looking over his shoulder. He could feel it the way you feel a change in wind on water. Hirek didn't look up.

"Only child," he said, by way of explanation. His voice was even, unhurried, pitched not to interrupt his own concentration. "My parents tried for more. But by that time, my mother had already crossed the wrong Tal'Shiar operative and was sterilized." He paused, isolating the first of the color-coded pheromone markers — the same markers Leux had cracked and that he had noticed on the biochemical display before either of them had finished discussing it. He began threading the first sequence into the output transmitter array, slowly, the way you worked a net when the mesh was fine and the knots had to hold. "I learned young to keep myself company. I had the island, the ocean, the lab my parents kept. I did not require assistance to find something to do with the hours." A quiet moment, focused entirely on the threading. The marker seated. "This translated, as these things tend to, into later habits. Brewing and blending the ales our islands are famed for, without a by your leave from a committee." The corner of his mouth moved. "The same applies here, generally."

He began on the second marker. This one was more complex — the layering had to account for variance in the shift pathway, which meant the thread had to run at an angle through the matrix rather than straight, and if he pulled it wrong the sequence would snarl. He worked slower. His breathing steadied.

"I don't pretend to omniscience. My suppositions have gaps." He said it without particular humility, the way a man reports a fact about the weather. "There are problems that require someone else in the room, and I recognize them when I encounter them. This ship is full of people who know things I don't, and I have already found that more useful than I expected." He paused, working. "But there is a category of problem — not all problems, not even most of them, perhaps, but a recognizable category — where I have the knowledge, the access, and the means, and the only thing standing between the beginning and the completion is the ritual of asking permission. I find that particular ritual exhausting. So I skip it."

The second marker seated. He moved to the third.

"I should note," he said, after a silence that had contained several minutes of precise, unbroken concentration, "that I am aware of what this device was doing to me, six hours ago." He did not say it for sympathy. His voice was the same measured register it had been since he sat down. "And I am equally aware that Feynri is sitting behind us in a state that the available literature describes as terminal without intervention." He looked at the array for a moment, at the fine lines of reconfigured architecture beginning to take the shape of something that would help rather than destroy. "I don't feel anything so uncomplicated as delight about the conditions that have put this back in my hands." He pulled the third thread through and tested the tension, gently, as a fisherman tests a new knot against the pull of the current. It held. "But I would be performing a variety of dishonesty I find genuinely distasteful if I claimed I wasn't enjoying the work."

He kept his eyes on the device and said nothing further, his hands steady, the threading continuing with the patience of a man who had once built boats from raw wood and understood that the quality of the finished thing depended entirely on what you did not rush.
7
Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 02 [0815 hrs] We're Good, For Now
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[Lt. Enyd Isolde Madsen | Chief Diplomatic Officer's Office | Deck 08 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Brutus  @Stegro88  @pertinent writers

MacGregor. Enyd had been so caught up in pondering the Romulan question that she'd briefly forgotten about MacGregor.

"MacGregor is a good choice. Especially given the fact that we recently helped establish her claim and much of the MoKai rebel action is as much against her as it is against Martok." She reached across the desk and retrieved the PADD. "For security and intelligence, I'll defer to your read. Some of the names I would've given you are...no longer available." They both paused as the weight of the dead pressed on them. "Take who you need from our department as well. One, two — use your judgment on fit and discretion."

She set the PADD down again and picked up her coffee instead, cradling it. The bowl of bloodstones caught the light again. Enyd watched the red scatter across the ceiling for a moment without comment.

"As for your other question." She set the mug down. "Yes. The Federation will send people. Now that they have eyes on us, there will be observers. Personnel from ships with clean records and clean reputations. Ships that were never on the wrong side of this, at least on paper." Her mouth curved, not quite a smile. "They'll mean well, most of them. That's not the problem." She folded her hands on the desk. "The problem is that the Infested are still out there, and we have no reliable way of knowing which 'officially sanctioned' personnel showing up alongside us have been properly screened and which haven't been. Theurgy crew have been — or close enough to it. Anyone else? Unless they come through channels we can verify, they are an unknown quantity." She let that settle. "Be collegial. Be professional. Don't hand them anything load-bearing until you have a reason to trust them specifically, not just their rank or their ship's record. You'll be walking a line between functional cooperation and careful compartmentalization."

Once Faye had all the data, encouragement, and insight she needed, the attache left to accomplish the mission. Enyd had every confidence in the woman but she also had every confidence in the fact that things tended to go sideways and she dearly hoped Faye was good at rolling with the punches.
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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Epilogue: Sit Rep After Hell [ Day 03 | 2130 ]
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Lt. Cmdr. Cross | Conference Lounge | V. 1 D. 1 | USS Theurgy ] ATTN: @Brutus   @TWilkins   @RyeTanker   @rae   @chXinya  @P.C. Haring @joshs1000   @Dumedion   @Nesota Kynnovan  @Eden  @Pierce   @Tae   @Stegro88   @Griff  @Nolan   @ob2lander961   @Eirual   @tongieboi   @Hans Applegate  @Krajin

Cross's expression remained unchanged when Stark took a moment to update them further, that the Theurgy was to immediately head to Starbase 234 for repairs. Though they'd all been basically killing themselves for this opportunity to "sail" back into the fold, Cross doubted it would be smooth sailing.

Cross then looked at Leux for the length of time it took to determine that the man was correct, which was not long. As much as he believed the spooks should take a look at it too, for the moment, any Savi tech/info that could be scrounged up to assist in medical or science would help heaps more than seeing what the Savi's opinion on lowly beings (basically anyone not Savi) was (which Cross supposed was probably shoved in there too). They were opinionated bastards.

"Agreed on both counts," he said when Stark didn't immediately comment, but only after he caught a subtle nod from her. "The data goes to Science and Medical within the hour. Doctor Frost, Doctor Leux — coordinate directly." He hid the twisted amusement he got at the brief mental image of those two men working together. "Intelligence gets access once preliminary review is complete." His eyes moved to Pierce, not offering an apology or option to argue.

He then looked at Llewellyn-Kth. The ensign had the look of someone braced for a consequence that had not arrived yet. He briefly explained the ensign's conundrum to Stark, watching as the man squirmed in his seat at having his "sin" spoken aloud again.

"Ensign." Cross redirected his attention to Llewellyn-Kth. "You acted on information you had, under circumstances you didn't choose, and you brought it to this table instead of a waste receptacle or keeping it hidden. That decision is noted." Cross set the Savi data device down flat in front of him. "We'll have the rest of this conversation when there's time to have it properly."

He let his eyes move across the room.

"Summary." He kept it short because they were all tired and he was not going to perform thoroughness at the expense of their sleep. "We are barely functional. The distinction matters for the next seventy-two hours because it defines what we ask of this crew and what we don't." His hands came to rest against the table's edge. "Commander Stark's orders stand. Rotating rest schedules, department by department, beginning immediately. I want exemption requests on my desk by lunch." He looked at Arnold. Then at Lok. "Consolidated task force requisition list — materials, personnel, exosuits, fighter frames, medical staff — on my desk in forty minutes. One list. Arnold, you're coordinating." He looked at zh'Wann. "Deputy slot — 0900 tomorrow, my office." He looked at T'Less. "Those two open tactical positions. My inbox by 1400, flagged priority." He looked at Llewellyn-Kth one more time. "Routing options to Cayuga — 1500, as directed." He straightened and looked at Stark. Brief. An acknowledgement, not a question. "Dismissed."

FIN
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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 03 [ 1330hrs ] Back Channel Operations
Last post by Krajin -
[Lt. Cmdr Thane Va'rek | Civilian Freighter Merchant's Folly \ In Transit - Triangle Region] Attn: @Ellen Fitz Pertinent Writers

Thane's experience in underworld dealings and questionable ventures had landed him a spot on this mission to acquire specialist materials for the Theurgy and her crew. The Ferasan had dressed down and out of his Starfleet Uniform and opted for something more practical. He wore black slacks and boots, a black form-fitting shirt, a grey vest and a leather jacket. His personal phaser sat tucked in a holster under the jacket, and Thane looked like your average Ferasan out in the galaxy. Only thing that remained was his face paint.

Every time Ghovek walked by, Thane made a note of it, and on one of the final passes, he shot the Tellarite a side-glare in a fairly typical passive-aggressive manner that Earth felines mastered centuries ago. Once the Tellarite stopped coming by with every little excuse, Thane passed Cross what data he could provide from S.I on Merra, at least what was at the classification level that Cross had access to and a little extra from Thane's own access credentials. He checked his satchel for all its bits and a the few toys he had brought along, just in case, and retrieved a PADD. This one was a personal one and looked like it had seen some life. Chunky, older, not Starfleet issue. He pulled up a game to occupy himself on this long flight.

"To those who haven't met me, I am Thane. That is all you will know me by here. He was only lightly paranoid and careful about how much he shared and when. Hours prior when this away mission had been arranged, Thane had made it known to Cross that he was an active telepath and if needed, would ply his skills to their negotiations and to potential threats. Any edge is a good edge in his book, even if it was kind of against regulations.
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