Star Trek: Theurgy

CHAPTER 01: Bloody, but Unbowed


[ Theta Eridani IV | Acamar System | Beta Quadrant | 1930 hrs. ]

Captain's Log, Stardate 57505.17. Almost twenty-four hours have passed since the Calamity starship retreated, and we have successfully reached the fourth planet of the Acamar System. We have landed in a valley surrounded by mountains, powered down our ships to the point where we ought to be virtually invisible - hoping that the false Warp trail will lead our new enemy astray. Together with the crew of the USS Harbinger, who share our plight and fought by our side, we have begun repairs and initial discussions about exchange of crew. So many have died or been put in stasis units - like coffins with dead that are to be resurrected on a brighter day. For after all that has happened, this past day was perhaps the darkest of them all... despite the fact that we are no longer alone.

The smoke clung low to the ground, hovering in a scarlet tenuous mist. The rhythmic clangs and squeals of machinery and cranes echoed throughout the smoggy valley as the light fumes swirled about, churning with the firelight in a nebula of red and yellow. The lights on the cranes far above moved lazily while the repairs to the hulls were made. Amidst the cluttering clashes and whirs of toil -  the machines labouring in their interminable duties and the plethora of clangs and clashes continuing monochrome song - two crews intermingled and spoke. Working together to create their temporary settlement.

Acamar was a binary star system and thus had two stars at its centre, yet Theta Eridani IV lay too far out to be graced with warm nights. One of the suns had yet to set, but already the chill turned everyone's breath into mist. Bonfires were set up to keep everyone warm and rid the need of coats. Several paths were set across the valley, made with crude torches. Many carried torches of their own to light their way and to keep warm. It was needed because both the Theurgy and the Harbinger were in Grey Mode. Power was cut since the tactical situation required a discretionary removal of energy usage. Only the machines that made the repairs and their long range sensors were allowed full operational status.

It had been an undiscriminating choice from both Captains. The Warp Cores were shut down cold. Weapons systems, phasers and photon torpedo launchers, all brought off-line. Life support systems were brought to minimum levels since the M-Class planet had plenty of oxygen that could be filtered inside, yet the air was left as cold as the outside. Transporter and turbolift usage was terminated and suspended. Food replicators were powered down, and emergency rations distributed. To care for the wounded, both ships had raised all the triage centre canvas they could find into a joyless circus area - medics working hard without rest to preserve as many lives they could from being lost.

Captain Ives, in her female form, walked through the firelight - seeing a mix of subdued faces and people relived to have found others that had been falsely accused of treason. To meet another crew served to verify that the truth about their dire task was neither misinformation not misplaced belief. In that, there was gladness, despite the fact that they had lost so many.

Jien reached the middle ground, the equidistant point right between the two starships. Both crews had been summoned there, so the noises of the repairs had gradually fallen silent. By the time Jien reached the open area - finding Captain Vasser waiting there - the entire valley had fallen silent. She inclined her head to the human, their brief meetings having led to the understanding that they both needed to facilitate their alliance by a public address. They had only delayed the initiative so that the Tactical Conn pilots who created the Warp trail could return. For let there be no doubt that they stood together in their fight for the truth.

Her steps drew to a halt, and she turned to face the same direction as Vasser did - her unblinking gaze staring out across the crowd. The silence lingered before Jien raised her clear voice, making it carry across the quiescence of the valley.

"To all those who do not know me, I am Captain Jien Ives of the USS Theurgy, and beside me stands the Commanding Officer of the Harbinger, Captain Declan Vasser," she said and gestured with her gloved hand towards the man. She paused again, not quite sure how to proceed. She shook her head, taking a deep breath. "It would be trite and not wholly accurate to say that no words would be able to describe how we all feel this day. There is so much to consider. So much to remember. So many faces that we wished were here today, when we have found allies in an otherwise hostile galaxy."

She folded her arms underneath her chest and paced slowly out towards the crowd before her, head lowered. "For almost three months, we have fought to preserve something so intangible, vague, as a mere idea - however firmly we have verified it and believed in it. It has been a profound and unforgettable understanding that we face an enemy no one else have come to see, but time has worn on, and the trials make you forget. Until yesterday... when we learned that others have seen what we have. Some of you may have been in doubt, unsure as to what we learned should verily be taken as fact. Besides the victory from yesterday, that we managed to defend ourselves and drive off the unmanned starship that was sent by the enemy to destroy us both, we have won an even more important battle - the battle against our doubts. We stand here - tonight - united in understanding, shedding those doubts... even though it cost too many lives. Precious friends and faces that we will always remember."

Bathed in firelight, Jien took out a piece of paper from her pocket, forehead furrowed at the memory of seeing half her Senior Staff shot down in front of her. Nevertheless, she raised her chin again, voice still ringing true. "Before we join together in a minute of silence, I would like to read an old poem that I have always placed value in since my Academy days. I hope you will take heart in these words, like I will, and not be alarmed about how eerily they have predicted this time in our lives."

The paper in her hand danced in a slow breeze, yet she needed not truly read the words. She knew them by heart.

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul."

The second sun set behind rim of the valley, and it made the fires burn all the brighter.

"In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed."

For that was what they were, bloodied as hell, yet not about to yield.

"Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid."

Her voice rang firmer as each word fell, instilling fortitude and hope into the two listening crews.

"It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."

The last word echoed across the valley, and as it did, Jien folded her hands behind her back and raised her chin - the ensuing silence filled with the shared memories of those they had lost. Thus they stood, in united quietude... before Captain Vasser spoke up - the spell lifting from the crowd. His would be a more joyful message, healing those wounds and helping to unite the crews in their common cause.

---

OOC: In wait for the continued speech, feel free to set the scene for your characters. Some might be in the triage tents, yet the words should still be able to reach them where they lay on their biobeds. Up to you if you wish to wait for Kurohigi to post with Captain Vasser or not. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to PM me. I will also send out a Group Report in a couple of days with more information. All my characters (or NPCs) besides Captain Ives are available for you all, should anyone wish to approach them during the speech. Thea, however, is deactivated at this time, because of the Grey Mode, and she would not (yet) be able to leave the ship anyway. Placeholder threads for the nights activities will be forthcoming too.

[Declan Vasser - Theta Eridani IV ]

Declan had been silent, hands behind his back, while Jien spoke to the assembled crews of both their vessels.  His back was straight, his eyes forward, every bit the captain he was supposed to be.  He and Jien had agreed to jointly deliver speeches to the men and women under their command, with Ives taking on the role of speaking first, talking about the mission, the losses, and the importance of their success.  Some of it was a bitter pill to swallow, but it had to be said, to remind them all of where they had come from, and where they were going.  Like the others, he joined in the moment of silence following the poem that Jien read out.  The Captain of the Theurgy was a cultured individual, providing inspiring words in a dark, desperate time.  Vasser's wish wasn't to match that intensity, but to provide some calm, some peace to the crews, something to ease their worries and their tired bodies.

"There is no arguing that Harbinger and Theurgy have seen losses and hardship over the past while.  We've lost many people, some of them good friends, colleagues that we will have a hard time moving on without.  What matters most is to remember that they joined us in this mission, and we owe it to them to see it through, to prove that it wasn't in vain.  Standing before me, I see crewmen who have worked double shifts, long hard hours to make up for the thinning number of officers on-board.  You've been battered, but you do not bruise.  You fall, but you do not lie down.  Over and over, you have gotten back up, summoning the strength to continue this fight because you believe in something.  You believe in the United Federation of Planets, and you will not rest until you know it's way of life has been safeguarded.  That alone makes you all heroes in my eyes."

He let that much sink in, to let the men and women absorb the words and to feel some measure of pride for all they had accomplished so far.  "Harbinger, we will do our best to support the Theurgy.  She's a good ship, strong and more capable then our own.  The members of my crew will place priority on maximizing the Theurgy's repairs.  Our cargo and our equipment will serve her needs.  When she is fit for duty, only then will we worry about Harbinger.  We're fighting the future, and Theurgy is the most cutting edge tech that we have.  Harbinger is her support, though, and wherever we can, we will try to adapt her to serve that role.  This planet, though, also carries the potential to provide you all with something you more then deserve.  Work shifts will be arranged by your department heads, but in the off time, we will make camp here.  There's a Thermal Spring to soothe our aching muscles, and new faces for us all to become familiar with.  When you are off duty, consider yourself on shore leave."

There was but one other duty to attend to as part of Declan's speech, the final close to the matter.  "In respect for all those who have lost their lives, and for those who have been injured in the line of duty and placed in stasis, we have one more tribute to provide."  Declan looked to the one in charge of that final tribute, giving his all clear to begin.  It was a fitting way of showing their respect to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of the Federation.

[Rory Callahan - Theta Eridani IV]

Captain Vasser had actually come to Rory after they'd set down, after meetings with the other captain and pertinent people.  He had actually been surprised to see him and while it was mostly business, by the time Vasser left Rory felt a little better about things.  He'd worked hard getting something set up for both crews, something he would be running as he had on board.  But the biggest task truly was the memorial that Vasser asked him to perform.

He'd thought long and hard and remembered part of one of his shows.  It would be a tribute to those lost and something to help the survivors move on to the next step of their lives.  Yet the little he'd learned had left him quite melancholy yet he found the song profoundly fitting.  It was like a civil war of sorts, pitting family against family and to him all of it was foolish and only perpetuated the pain and suffering that should never have begun.

When Vasser gestured to him, Rory walked forward to stand before the two captains and bowed respectfully before turning to face all those assembled.  "I know I'm not an officer or even any part of Starfleet," he said in his Irish brogue, "but I spent some time with a few of those we've lost.  They have my absolute respect and gratitude for everything they did and even those I didn't know, I feel a loss of friends I never had the chance to make.  May they be at peace and know that they will never be forgotten."

He set down a small box and pressed a button, soothing yet somewhat eerie music beginning to play and as he lifted his voice ... holographic images of both Harbinger and Theurgy crew members lost blinked slowly along in a slide show to memorialize them.  His voice was more subdued than normal but it was clear and full of emotion, not for a performance but as a person sharing the loss, anger, and frustration of everyone assembled.

"Brothers In Arms"

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your sufferin'
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And, the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the star light
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

(Originally performed by Dire Straits and then remade by Celtic Thunder, this version sung by Ryan Kelly of the group.)

When the song and portraits finished, Rory paused a moment and reached up to feel wetness on his cheeks.  He hadn't even realized the tears he shed but he wasn't ashamed of them either.  "I know we're all hurting but I've spent some time setting up a little place for everyone to come share a drink, to raise our glasses to all those who've moved on.  Please join me at the Thermal Springs Lounge," he announced and then turned to hand the one box sitting next to his feet to Captain Ives and pulled an identical one from his pocket to hand to Captain Vasser.  "It wasn't much but I hope it suited," he said with quiet humbleness and stepped back to make his way to the bar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsbJXIaMJro

(OOC:  Please forgive the video for being Lord of the Rings but it was the best version of the song I could find.  I hope you enjoy!)

Accepting the holographic recording from the singer, Jien Ives inclined her head in gratitude and respect towards a man of greater talents than herself - her own shortcomings in her current profession lying heavily on her mind. "Our thanks."

Casting her gaze out towards the masses of people, from crew men to high-ranking officers, the emotions were mixed, yet she could but hope that Vasser's and her words had gone out to them and that they had listened. She hoped that they would take heart in what was accomplished thus far, and still have faith in her and Captain Vasser during the weeks to come, for they would certainly not become easier. For they had yet to re-enter the Alpha Quadrant, where the fleets would lie in wait for them.

What more could be said after all the words spoken? After the commemoration of the lost and during the grief of the surviving? Nothing. Nothing more than she happened to say far too often lately, in the privacy of her own quarters.

"Courage is fear, when it has said its prayers." The breeze stirred the interim silence. "Dismissed."

Some had duties to attend to, others would probably seek to find the new lounge that had been built in the shadow of the Harbinger. On Jien's part, she could never rest. Nor could she keep the faces that had been superimposed against the night sky from resurfacing behind her eyelids when she blinked. Those faces were the very reason she could not rest, but had to carry on. She owed it to them and their surviving families that she would do her utmost to honour their memories.

Turning to Vasser as the crowd slowly dispersed, Jien inclined her head to the man. "Well done, Captain. Do we have anything we need to discuss right now?"

[Amelya Duv | Triage center]

Before Captain Vasser would start his speech, things were finally reasonably calm at the triage center. Most of the critically wounded crewmembers of Harbinger and Theurgy had been stabilised. Only a few more needed intensive care before they could recover from smaller injuries. The focus of the medical staff was to save as many crewmembers as possible after the devastating blows of the Calamity on both ships. Despite the efforts of Dr. Nicander and Dr. Duv, they couldn't prevent to put some of the injured people into stasis. Among these people were quite a lot of high ranking officers of the Theurgy, which made the frustration to both doctors even worse.

Amelya had a decent if not a good working relation with Dr. Nicander. They had seemingly been on the same level since they assembled their triage center. They both had agreed that there should be no difference between both crews and the staff handling them. This wouldn't be a resort hotel where patients could chose who would treat them, this was after all a medical facility. The center had been organised to treat the lightly wounded on the outskirts of the center. People who would get cuts or lacerations during repairs could just visit the center for a quick patch up. In the second ring, more to the center of the tent was the yellow zone. People who needed bedrest were kept here and nurses would be present at all times to ensure their needs. Finally you had the inner core of the triage center, also known as the red zone. Here lay the most critical patients, Dr. Duv or Dr. Nicander would be present at this location most of the time.

As Captain Jien had started her part of the speech, Amelya was in the red zone standing next to the bed of Rennan Cooper. The man had suffered from multiple fractures spread across his body due to the heavy kinetic forces that worked in on him when he got slammed against the bulkhead. He suffered of fractures to his pelvis, spine and ribcage, his shoulder and left arm and his right leg. That with some internal bleeding made Copper a Red zone patient. With assistance of Dr. Nicander they managed to stop the internal bleeding and resolved most of the fractures. Cooper now only had a mild concussion left and most of his muscle tissue would be a bit stiff from the intense treatment. This would be the first time since the entire attack from the Calamity that Rennan would be waking up from his medically induced coma. Dr. Duv found that he should be conscious to hear what the captains had to tell the crew. Besides, Cooper would be transferred to the yellow zone if his reading would be okay after waking him up.

With a shot in the neck vein, Amelya administered a dose of medication which would awaken the weapon specialist. She held her tricorder ready to scan him as he slowly started to come by. "Welcome back to the living Mister Cooper." She greeted him as he opened his eyes, directly starting her scans "We've landed on a M-class planet and you are currently in the medical station. You've suffered quite some injuries from your duty in the shuttle bay, yet most of them are resolved now. You'll still have some headaches and you might feel  bit stiff. Keep in mind that you still have a mild concussion.. I wouldn't advise you to start running around in the following hours alone." She said with a sweet and soothing tone to him. She wasn't rushed to inform him of all this information, in fact she even took her time to do so as she completed her scans. Her green eyes switched from the tricorder to the specialist "Our Captain is about to make a speech, so lets listen to that first before you can bombard me with any question you might have." she whispered to him and gave him a wink and a warm smile before turning her attention to Captain Vasser.

As a resounding, melodic, dull sound began to ensconce him, it sounded as if he were inside of a bass drum. With every dull thud, he could feel his head trying to render itself twain. The pain was nothing he was unused to, with all of the mornings he'd woken up with the consequences of the night before. 'You pay for it twice, you know. The alcohol? Once before you drink it, and again then next day.' he remembered one of his friends telling him once. However, he had no recollection of drinking the night before, or of what had happened. He wondered if maybe a bit of Wai Fah had been slipped into his drink. He'd experimented with the drug in his younger days, but never had liked the way it had made him feel. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn't a hard night of partying that had done this to him. This was long after anything like that would have taken place. Oh God, he was in the midst of a battle. The Calamity! How could he have passed out at his station? He had to get to the control panel to launch the shuttle.

As light began to flood his eyes, his senses coming back to him, he saw only white, and varying shades thereof, fading into shapes, brightly illuminated. The first shape that became perfectly clear to him was an angelic face above him. "By God, I've bought the farm, haven't I?" he asked, gazing up, trying to take stock of the situation. As the woman began to speak to him, it all became to make sense. Before he was about to speak, she told him to listen to the captain, shooting him a wink and a smile.

Picking up in the middle of Ives' speech, the first thing Cooper heard made his eyes begin to shimmer, trying to form tears against his will. His body taut as a cable, his head still pounding, he began to mouth the words of Invictus with Captain Ives. After Ives was finished, there wasn't much thatp would be able to impress Cooper. He listened to his own captain, rather dismissively at best. A good speech, he thought, but following Invictus is like following Beethoven or Grieg.o

As Rory began to sing, Cooper smiled, trying to devote some of the words to memory. He had to make a point to ask the man about his song later. As the ceremony came to a close, he looked up to Amelya. "First off," he said with a wry grin "there's been a mistake." He continued, looking her over thoroughly. "I don't know if anybody told you, but I was meant for hell. By the looks of you, whoever was doing the post-mortem collecting made some horrible mistake." his grin retreated into something of a toothy smile. "But I'm a man who's had quite a shock, what with waking up to an angel at my bedside and all. It's all incredibly taxing, you know. Making me feel old enough as it is. So please, call me Rennan."

[ Theta Eridani IV | Acamar System | Miles Renard]

Miles listened in silent reverence as the captains gave their speeches.  It was a dark time but there was no time to relax for him.  Near half of his squad was down with partially damaged fighters or injured pilots.  He knew he had lost two ships for sure, and was less than confident that the rest of his fighters would be in any form of fighting shape for quite a while.

One of the few pieces of good news was the word that not only had the specialist who had concocted the plan with the shuttle survived his injuries, but he was an old friend from the R&D project that built the Mark 3 Valks as well.

He had already given his requests to the medical department regarding all of his pilots.  Now was not the time to sideline a player for a minor injury.  If the pilot was not in stasis and was capable of doing work, his request was that they be put on a minimum of a half shift of duty. 

As for himself he had used his limited amounts of pull to place himself on an engineering detail repairing the Valkyries and had placed every engineering qualified pilot he could in that detail as well.  His fellow wolves knew their birds best after all.  As for overseeing the engineering team in the fighter bay, he had an idea.  He just hoped the man would be in good enough health to take the job.

[ Theta Eridani IV | Acamar System | Siti Aisha]
The Cardassian woman listened in painful reverence as the Celtic voice sang.  She closed her eyes as she remembered those she knew that had been lost.  It was a hard pill to swallow but medicine that was necessary in these times.  Hearing the words about a lounge and relaxation she couldn't help but feel tempted, not so much by the lounge itself, more by the thermal springs it was located in.  

[Eve Jenkins - Triage Center]

It had been non-stop since she'd barreled through the shuttle bay doors to this point in time.  So many dead, so many put in stasis in the hopes of being able to correct and revive later ... it was a heavy burden to bear but they had to keep going.  Eve would pause every now and then, wiping sweat from her brow and pushing her hair back with her hand and catch a glimpse of Lucan but still hadn't had a chance to talk to him.  She knew they all looked pretty ragged about now but something about him nagged at her and she wished she could take a moment just to check on him.

At the moment she was standing over Rihen, shaking her head with the irony of her situation.  Holding the hypospray to her neck, she injected the medication that would rouse her from her induced sleep.  With a gentle hand on her shoulder, she looked at the woman as her eyes started to flutter open.  "Rihen, you made it aboard ship and were injured," she said gently.  "You were shot in the back by an intruder but we've operated and things look good."  She could hear Captain Ives reciting a poem and then the other captain gave a short speech.  Now there was the soothing voice of someone singing, something rather poignant.  "Seems like you're following me so I guess my medical care suits," she said softly but with a teasing smile.

[Skye Carver - With Assembled]

It had taken a while to catch back up with the ship and in those hours it had reminded Skye of her time alone trying to track back to the Theurgy.  She'd felt herself shaking and that sensation of being alone closing in on her but all she had to do was look out and see the other ships to remind her she wasn't alone, knew that even though they were all battered and bruised that they were together and were not hallucinations.  Toward the end she'd suffered that too and it was one of the things Andrus had tried to help her prepare for with little mental exercises.

Once they landed, they had all started immediately working on the ships.  It didn't take long though until she couldn't stand the silence and not knowing the condition of Hardtop and Ranger was gnawing at her.  Slipping off to the triage area, she bided her time in the shadows until she could catch Lt. Jenkins alone.  What she found out was enough to make her know she needed to go back to her ship and work on repairs, anything to not remember the faces in the stasis chambers.  Hardtop was likely gone and the way the nurse had said so seemed to hint that she'd known the half-Klingon at least a little.  As she walked back she the scene replayed in her mind ...

Skye nodded and thanked the lovely nurse she'd met on Nimbus III, slowly turning to go back to work.  It was then she saw a profile in another chamber, one with ridges on the brow that were all too familiar.  Stumbling, her hands landed on that machine which barely held her up as she stared into the face of Scosche.  "Oh no ... please tell me he isn't ..."  she heard herself say and felt like all the air had been taken from her lungs.  He looked so peaceful, just like he had every time she'd wake up next to him and simply watched him sleep.  Never again would he open those kind eyes to her and reach up to place his hand on her cheek.  "What happened to him?"

She'd returned to Kestrel, pale and shaking but started to work on her.  It wasn't true, it was her mind playing tricks on her.  Yet Eve's words continued to race through her mind and there was no way she could get that image out of her mind of him laying in basically a casket.  More and more she felt herself drawing inward, shutting off her feelings.  Just when she was starting to get control of herself, they called for assembly and she found a spot off to the side.  She wasn't good company right now, had the sense to stay away, and as her captain recited a poem she tried the mental exercises Andrus taught her.  The other captain spoke a little, his words tuned out as the tone didn't do anything to catch her attention.

It was the music and voice that recaptured her attention, pulling her eyes up to where the tall blonde man stood singing.  She knew of him through the group he sang with and had always enjoyed them and wondered how the hell he had ended up here.  Surely he hadn't been like ... no, she couldn't think of the man who had been locked away and left in such squalid conditions who now lay in a chamber.  Rory's tribute was quite lovely and fitting she thought, knowing the song from old earth music she listened to all the time.  She looked up and her heart skipped a beat as she saw Grayson's face.  She'd only shared a torrid moment with him but he was gone just as Hardtop who's face slipped by next.

A few more of people she didn't know and then ... her heart truly did stop.  There was that shy smile, a light in deep brown eyes.  Skye choked then, trying not to cry and yet the pain filling her chest making it impossible.  Her eyes scanned out ahead, desperately trying to control herself when she saw the last person she needed to in that moment.  Stark white hair and blue antennae ... ThanIda 'Smurfette' zh'Wann.

As Skye's eyes narrowed in disgust and hatred, tears escaped and streamed down her cheeks.  A murderous rage welled within her and she couldn't stand there anymore.  Turning on her heel long before they were dismissed, she stalked back to Kestrel to hide within her sanctuary so no one would see her cry or hear the muffled sobs as she slammed her fists over and over into the cushion of the pilot's seat.  "It's her fault ... all her fucking damn fault," she seethed as she vented her anguish until she fell forward and buried her face in her arms.

[Amelya Duv | Triage center]

As Rennan's first words came to Amelya's ears she frown a bit and rechecked her scans on the tricorder. She wondered if he was starting to get a delirium syndrome after the impact on his head yet her scans showed no such thing "Bought the farm?" she repeated after him and frowned now, not really familiar with the expression. As they listened to the speeches of both captains, she now and then looked back at Cooper to see if he was still doing okay seeing that he had been in induced sleep for a while. She noticed his tears well up yet she didn't make any remarks or notion to ask him about it until the speech would be over.

As the ceremony ended she listened now as the specialist began to talk. "A mistake?" she repeated after him and then smiled as he brought up the notion of hell. She nodded and carried on listening to what else he had to say. A slight flush of her cheeks were notable when he mentioned the angelic face and her as an angel. She shook her head and placed her tri corder away now as she looked down at him "Mister Co-.. Rennan." She corrected herself with a smile and he looked him in the eye "I can assure you that I'm not an angel. In fact I think I might have seen you in Sickbay a couple of times for scratches and bruises. Though I can't recollect of personally taking care of your injuries." She said softly and smiled "So, now that you're in apparent heaven, how are you feeling? Any pain or complaints that I should take note off?" She moved with her hand over his cheek, placing her index and middle finger in his neck. It was an old if not primitive way to check the pulse of a patient, yet she liked to resort to older methods now and then. They weren't wrong, in fact despite the medical advancement of all their material, getting back to basics was often a good thing. She could feel the pulse of Rennan pounding steadily and it was pretty strong considered his condition.

[Thomas Ravon | Acamar System]

Thomas hadn't flown along with the rest of the wolves as they produced a warp trail to lead their aggressor off track. His bird had taken too much damage from the previous engagement and with no comms it would've been a hell to actually know what the plan was or what he was supposed to do. While on Theta Eridani, Thomas wondered if he'd be called to his SCO after he returned from the warp trailing. He had the feeling he had let down his fellow wolves by getting this much damage and seeing their rather loose state before the engagement, Thomas quite vividly remembered the warning Fox gave them.

He returned to the hangar to go back to repairs yet he couldn't focus. He decided to sneak off to the Triage tent after his shift ended. In fact he left a bit early since he didn't do anything productive anyway. He went looking to some of the people he knew that had been injured. He avoided the stasis complex, not wanting to be remembered of the losses they took. Rawley was in the red zone and one of the nurses stopped him from going in. He was told to return later when one of the doctors was available. He nodded and mumbled something about coming back in an hour or two. He made his way back to the exit as he saw Carver march away. She seemed pretty upset and he tried to see where she came from. He noticed the stasis room and  after going in there, he realised why Skye was so upset. There were a lot of people of the Theurgy in stasis, Scosche the one where he kept looking at. Just before the attack he had tried to get to know him better, he hated it when things like this happened. People he tried to get closer to seemingly just got hurt.

As the assembly was about to take place, he gathered now with the rest of the joined crew to listen to the speech of both captains. To be fair, Thomas was never the sentimental type. He listened to the entire speech and the song, yet it didn't provide him with anything he needed. Perhaps a morale boost at best, yet he figured he might as well get back to fixing his bird rather to stand here and waste his time. It was rather obvious that Thomas hadn't been the same after the engagement with the Calamity. He seemed more angry and upset than before, he didn't even know why himself... Perhaps it had to do with Rawley being back in the triage center after her incredible yet suicidal flight.

With a sigh he looked as the people started to disperse. He noticed Skye to be even more infuriated or upset somehow and he decided to go check on her. He didn't know what to say to her, but he figured that I couldn't be healthy to work on her bird if you were overcome by grief and anger. Going through the hangar bay he stopped at Kestrell and he knocked on the plating "Skye, you here?" He asked, not too loud, but just loud enough to be heard in the bird. "I uh... I noticed you... At the..." He squeezed his eyes together now as he didn't want to sound like a crazed stalker "I saw you head out the med tent.. You looked pretty shaken so I figured I might as well come and see if you're alright." He blurted out in a fast rate and he looked at the bird.

[ Triage Centre | Yellow Zone ]

Rihen Neyah woke up slowly, feeling hung-over, breathless, and aching in places she'd never knew existed. She was naked, but that wasn't uncommon. She had a nasty habit of getting wasted in Paradise City and then getting it on with the guy or girl nearest to her, so she wasn't that put off. Yet as she recognised the voice, she realized things were not so ordinary.

"Eve?" she said and frowned. Someone finished reading a poem outside... the tent? She rolled onto her side, the motion barely preserving her modesty underneath the thin medical blanket over her body, and she looked up into the familiar face from Nimbus III. Her characterstic smile soon returned. "What are you doing here? I thought you were with the merchants that I was looking for. Oh! Are they here too...? Tularee!"

Her exclamation turned heads, the word meaning 'exceptional' and 'very good' at the same time. She chuckled and sat up cross-legged on the biobed, the blanket only stopped from falling dangerously low because she folded her hands in her lap. Her back and bottom did make two engineers leer behind her, though, but she was unaware - focused on the woman from the clinic. "So Starfleet caught you all? Why did you leave with them? Did they fool you somehow too? Oh, they didn't do anything bad besides tampering with the industrial replicator before they left me?"

The barrage of questions kept coming, and she gestured with her hands as she spoke... which was not advisable in her barely clothed state. It was ike she was making up for the day of silence with her steady stream of quick words. "Anyway, I really, really, just have to get them back to Paradise City and fix the replicator again otherwise we cannot rebuild the city. Are they here? Are they close? Are they in the brig? Can I talk to them? I think I can convince them. They did not seem too bad. Not as bad as some people in the city. I mean they were bad in tricking me, but I thought they were genuinely good people but they simply didn't understand that the replicator was the city's only chance. You look great by the way. You always do. What'd that uniform though? You don't need that. You are not Starfleet, right? Ugh... its pretty warm in here."

She looked around, frowning as she smiled. "Where is 'here', by the way? And who is singing? Good riddance that I wasn't hurt too bad by that horrible woman that hid on my shuttle. How did she do that anyway? And where is my shuttle?"

One of the other nurses chuckled at the scene, a Federation-raised Klingon male with short hair by the name Maal. He exchanged a look with his superior and shook his head - handing Eve the padd with Rihen Neyah's brand new journal.


[ Triage Centre | Red Zone ]

Having been anchored to life by the whirr and beep of machines, Evelyn Rawley opened her eyes - licking lips dry as paper.

Above her petite yet scarred body, nurses paced, tapping on padds. She was yet oblivious. Her mind drifted in freefall, stuck in an hurting skull. There was a person lost somewhere in that body of hers. She was finding her way back to consciousness through the sounds of voices. She didn't understand the words, everything muffled and heavy and bright. Her mind was slow and drunken; a caterpillar in the cotton wool cocoon of this post-vegetative state. Recollection was coming back in blurry impressions of bright phaser fire and the protests of her fighter - lights and sounds that slid away. "Scotch..."

No one heard her. She could not tell what was worse. The hurt in her body or the hurt of loosing her Valkyrie. She picked between those two just so that she would not have to pick the death of her second wingmate in the Lone-Wolf squadron. Khorin Douglas.

She struck her fist against the biobed. Fuck the pain."Scotch!"

"I am a doctor, not a bartender," said Dr. Nicander, stepping into her field of vision and frowning idly as he looked at the readings on the panel next to her bed. "Oh, in case you forgot - which I find rather unlikely - your previous multiple injuries were caused by the direct blast overpressure of an enclosed-space explosion. A bleeding TM rupture. Lung injuries. Should I continue, or do you remember what you underwent rehabilitation for?"

Medication made her speech slow and syllabic. Mania made her words tumble together in a desperate race to escape her face. "Fuck did you do to my head? I can't think straight. I need that drink direly, white-coat. Agghh!" She sucked in a breath and lay the heel of her hand against her temple. Vertigo. She shuffled herself sideways out of instinct and promptly retched across the edge of her bed.

"That would be the major concussion you suffered after you transported yourself here. Where was I? Ah, yes. Acute gas embolism," continued the doctor idly where he stood next to her, "a form of pulmonary barotrauma, you see. It requires excruciating special attention. Air emboli occluding blood in the brain and the spinal cord. This, resulting in neurologic symptoms that had to be differentiated from the direct trauma of the explosion you suffered before the Niga Incident."

Every med bay, infirmary or clinic were all the same. An echo of another ward. A parody of itself. Only this was a planetside infirmary, not Sickbay as she knew it. "Your point?" She knew it already. It was just better that Lucan spoke instead of her. Demanded too much of her. Mind still hazy. She lay back and tried to control her stomach.

"Just the obvious. What made you think you were ready for duty without my clearance, Evelyn? Nurse, move her to the Yellow Zone. Her condition is stable now."

Evelyn? Oh, that was right. They had been on a first-name-basis before the first time she got injured. He had cleaned her pipes a few times. He was quite good at it too. Only she rarely put much thought into who did it as long as they knew how to use their cock. Or fingers, as far as women went. Life was too short to be picky. Fun to be had was fun to be taken. That was all there was to it."Would it look better on my journal if I sucked your cock, good doctor? I know you like it. You might have to step closer though. I feel like I've been keelhauled around Thea after loosing twelve fistfights in a row."

Lucan sighed and shook his head. He looked dishevelled. Unkempt. "I basically had to re-do everything. You almost bled to death from the inside." The exotic man paused, looking at her. She glared back, not liking that penetrating stare. He knew nothing about her. He could not read her the least. He couldn't. Despite the warning in her eyes, he spoke in a somewhat smoother voice. "My first thought is that you wanted to die, but then you would not have pushed that ETS button. No, you did it because you wanted to do good, only not caring about the consequences and the hurt it would cause you. Why do you allow yourself to endure so much pain?"

Baring her teeth at him, Rawley turned her head away - staring at the white canvas next to her biobed. Eventually, she heard him turn to leave. Should she talk? Fuck it. Let him know. "Because it is beautiful," she rasped, spit some vomit from her teeth. "Beautiful in the way that blackened flowers are beautiful. Faded photographs and ancient ruins. They are more beautiful for being fucked up. For being incomplete. And so am I. At some point, I will be dead too, but not without the scars to show I lived a little."

She heard that he lingered, listening. She swallowed with her parched throat and spoke anew. "I suppose it's a fucking defence mechanism humanity has developed, to see the beauty of tragedy and pain. The same way dark humour is a defence mechanism, and I'm certainly no stranger to that either. I thrive on irony. I'd likely go mad without it." She turned her head to nail her eyes into the Câroon doctor. "I am a beautiful tragedy, yet not in the shallow sense, for it's no fucking beauty in the scars that litter my body. Only in the pain that they've caused me. My marred existence."

Eventually, she turned her head away again. "Can I have my bloody scotch now?"

At first, the doctor said nothing. When he did, there was something odd to his voice. Another layer to him. "Not just humanity. I knew there was cruelty in the world, but I still believed that, given the chance, most people would do the right thing, would do what they could to help. The woman I was supposed to live and die with in Envon was broken too. I sought a way to cure her. Thought my people would care for her while I applied myself to the task. I was wrong. They thought her condition hopeless, so they put her down. Like she was an animal."

Rawley snorted. "Such situations are deeply ironic, and yet beautiful too. What is the difference?"

"The day I left on my long journey to seek a cure for her," said Lucan, his voice low, "I pushed her wheelchair along the mountain paths, wanted to take her to the cliff her parents had taken her when she was young. They no longer could, because they died at the same time she was broken. I tried to do it for her... or for them, I don't know. Yet the mountainside was too steep. Gravel made us slide down all the time, forced me to start over. I was determined. She could not speak any more, but I knew she would be telling me to give up. That I would hurt myself. Hurt her even more. It was not until nightfall that I gave up. I could not see the cliff face anymore. Had it been in a holonovel, it would have been one of those award-winning, tragic scenes. Yet I cannot bring myself to see it as beautiful. Some things are too painful... even for tragic beauty."

And then he left, leaving Rawley where she lay under her thin blanket. One of the Nurses pushed the biobed in motion, heading for the Yellow Zone. Fuck him. I still need my scotch.

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

Somewhere in the soft sobs a knocking sound broke through Skye's pain and then she heard the voice before Razor stepped into view.  Shooting up from the floor and quickly wiping at her face, Skye cleared her throat and tried to act like she hadn't just melted down.  "Hey Razor," she said and wiped her wet hands on her backside then rubbed her nose and cleared her throat again due to the gravelly response.

"The med tent ... yeah, ummm ... saw Hardtop," she stammered a little and shook her head to clear everything roiling around in her mind.  "Heard Rawley just about did herself in again.  Hopefully she'll stay down long enough to heal this time."  Her cheeks were flushed and eyes red rimmed but she couldn't quite look Razor in the eye.  She was embarrassed being caught acting like ... a woman.

"Dammit all it must be PMS," she grumbled and finally looked up into his eyes.  "I'm a pilot and can't afford these shitty emotions but this whole situation bites!"  She paced a little, the few steps she could take and not bump into Razor.  "Why bother to care?  Why get close to anyone when they're just gonna die ... when we're gonna die?!" she fumed in a progressively louder tone until she shouted.

"We're animals, fleeing and fighting and fleeing again.  Nothing matters except getting from one point to the next alive and as intact as possible.  We have to eat, sleep, and breathe ... just basic primal needs," she seethed with her hands balled into fists.  "We're supposed to be better than that, enlightened and all that jazz.  It's bullshit!" she said and barely stopped her fists from impacting his chest.

[Thomas Ravon -Inside Kestrel]

Thomas laid down his eyes on Skye as she rapidly seemed to wipe her tears and man up. Her response to him gave away that she had been emotional moments ago, yet he didn't mention it. She started to explain what she had seen in the triage center and Thomas decided to just listen for now. When she talked about Rawley he shook his head and whispered "I doubt she will... Knowing her she'll be up and about before she's even authorised to do so.." He shrugged it off him and he wondered how long they would still keep her in the red zone. He was unaware of what had happened in the triage center moments ago though.

What happened next was not something Razor had expected from tough big mouthed Skye. He heard her out now and noticed the increase of anger in her voice. When she stopped pacing in front of him he looked at her balled fists "Funny you bring that up... The getting close to people part that is..." He shook his head again and looked her in the eyes now, he ignored the red rimmed eyes "Situations like this, were we show emotion... I think that is what differentiates us from animals..." He said it to her soft, as if he didn't want the rest of the hangar to find out what he just spilled. "So don't you dare to blame this on PMS..." He smirked and kept his eyes locked on her "Else I don't really have a real reason why I'm feeling this hollow... Angry..."

He moved his hand over her cheek now, his thumb wiping just under her red rim "Though you have to admit... Our life would be boring as fuck if it wasn't for the fighting..." he whispered and he couldn't hide the grin that formed on his lips. Supposedly this was his defence mechanism kicking in, preventing him to meltdown like Carver did. Essentially it was what Carver had said, he was an animal, living to fight, sleep and eat, perhaps run occasionally.

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

Skye snorted, wanting to stay angry but his refusing to accept PMS since he couldn't use it as an excuse amused her and cooled the boiling within her to a point.  Maybe it was also the hand on her cheek, a gesture so few had ever done to her but one in particular had and that was most of the reason she was fighting everything right now.  "Yeah, think I'd go even more crazy without the fights," she admitted.

"Do you really think animals don't show emotions?" she asked him, regulating her breathing and working on controlling her temper as she placed her hand over his.  "I've seen a dog bury her pup and lay over its grave, whining and shedding actual tears; a mare running a fence line whinnying frantically because her stillborn foal was taken away.  They love and grieve and yet are seen as lesser beings."

Her expression was still harsh though not as much.  "Animals respect each other and while they don't always get along, they avoid each other and don't actively seek others ... especially their own kind ... out to murder en mass.  What does that say about our kind?  Where has the dignity and nobility gone?  Why are we left so hollow and angry?  I don't want to feel this way, to let go of dreams that have kept me going."

He thought about er words as she brought up some fine arguments about animals grieving. "Well, I guess animals do show emotion than..." He agreed with her as he couldn't find any counter arguments to her "Yet... Without the fighting we participate in... I don't know Skye..." He answered her and shook his head desperately as words failed to form inside his head. He felt her warm hand on his and he took in a deep dose of air.

He shrugged his shoulders as she continued about the human race being the kind of race that actively murders and kills their own kind "I guess that makes our kind pretty self destructive... Though, if we look at the other species we encountered..." Thomas thought about the series of conflicts that had taken place throughout the history between the Federation and other races. "I guess that's what truly makes us human, the hollow and angry feeling we get after moments like these. Or maybe it's just something that reminds us that we weren't really made for all this shit. You know... Being surrounded by death and..."

He looked back into her eyes now and he smiled faintly "Who said you had to give up on your dreams?" He bit his lower lip for a second "What are your dreams anyway Carver?" He asked more curious now.

[Rennan Cooper - Red Zone]

Smiling at Amelya's blush, he rolled his neck gently. "There's the most awful dull ache in my head, trying to render it in twain." he said, smirking. "Other than that, I'm fine. Oh, yes, my pulse is fine." he said as she felt of his throat. "I've got a strong heart, doctor. It's going to take a little more than a flying glorified file cabinet to do me in." he said, finally able to recollect what had happened. "I must have really been bad off. You've got me in the red zone." he said, raising an eyebrow. "Either you're a hell of a doctor, or I'm just too stubborn to die." he said, smiling.

"As for 'bought the farm'." he said, remembering her earlier confusion. "It's a Terran saying the predates the second world war. When a soldier enlisted for combat, he was issued military insurance, which included life insurance. If he were to die in combat, his family would receive an insurance settlement, usually sufficient to pay off the family mortgage. If you died in combat, you had, in essence, bought the farm."

Running his hand through his hair, he felt a slightly concave area, that must have been his concussion. "So, the normal. My head is splitting. I'm in need of pain inhibitors. Once Rory pours me a few drinks, I'll be right as rain." he said, forcing himself to sit up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "If you're done poking and prodding me, I'm sure that engineering is going to need some help with repairs after that battle. After all, I did destroy the shuttle bay. However, if you'd like, after our shifts are over, we can find somewhere to get some drinks, and then.. Ah.. I've got another body part you might be interested in examining." he said with a coy grin. He had even surprised himself at being so forward. He usually restrained himself better than to make a comment like that. Chalk it up to the head injury, he supposed.

[Amelya Duv - Triage center]

"An awful dull ache... Can't really be surprised about that Rennan, you did take quite a blow." She smiled at him and he let her fingers go of his neck. "You were unconscious when I found you. If it wasn't for us I think the filing cabinet might've been the thing that put you in though..." She seemed to ponder about the situation but shook her head slowly "It doesn't matter though, we've patched you up and you should be your old self in a couple of days." He answered him and finished up her examinations. She didn't play along with him as he had mentioned that she was either a hell of a doctor or if he was too stubborn himself.

"Hmm... I haven't been to Earth yet, so I'm not really sure if I should ask if there still are a lot of farms there..." She said softly, half speaking to herself, yet also seeming half dreamy about it. "It's a nice saying though!" She snapped out of it and put on that gorgeous smile again.

She quickly held him by the shoulders as Rennan started to sit up swinging his legs over the edge "Easy there specialist..." She warned him and her face turned from a relaxed state to a more serious and concerned state. She heard him out and she noticed the coy grin "First of all, you need more bedrest. At least a few hours before the entire narcotic agents have worked out." She started and kept holding him. Her hands, softly squeezing his joints "Secondly, you're not to have any alcoholic beverages in the following hours, preferably not in the next few days. As for engineering, I'm putting you on non active duty for at least a week before you are allowed anywhere near an engineering platform. Can't take the risk of you passing out if those head aches turn out to be more troublesome than I had expected. You'd only cause more injury to yourself and perhaps other crewmembers." She said seriously now and looked him in the eye. 

"So if you could be a darling for me and just remain in the yellow zone for at least two or three hours, you'd be doing me a great favor. My shifts should end by that time so I can check you up one last time before we can go explore our new habitat, perhaps see Rory for a non alcoholic drink. Can you live with that Rennan?" She asked and let go of his shoulders now, just to see if he could maintain his balance on his own. While she waited for his response, he could see a spark of misschief twinkle in her eyes "As for examining another body part... I've done the medical examinations on that when you were out cold..." she said on a soft yet teasing tone.

[Miles Renard --- Triage center; Red Zone | Near Patient Bed: Rennan Cooper ]

Miles had been walking through the triage center as he looked over the PADD listing a few names and a a series of numbers.  All but one of the names were Tac Conn officers from either his squad or the Harbinger's.  The numbers he gazed at were tent listings and bed numbers telling him where to find them as well as a general idea of their conditions.  He had already checked off the ones in stasis knowing trying to visit them would be futile.  Instead he decided to start with the red zone patient list.  Where he was though, the nearest person in was the one name on the list that did not wear white.

As he approached the tent where the weapons specialist was recovering, he couldn't help but issue a chuckle at the comment Cooper had made, not to mention the female doctor's own coy response to it.  "Looks like he found a doctor a bit more receptive to that line," he said with a soft chuckle.  "Last time I heard of him saying something like that he ended up a double hypo's worth of kayolane."  he said having made up the story on the spot. From what he remembered about Cooper and how his body handled meds, it didn't seem far off from the truth though. 

He then looked over to the doctor attending to His old friend from R&D. His voice was suddenly serious.  "So no engineering platforms you say? What about feet on the ground of a fighter bay.  I had a job lined out that could use his particular expertise."  he asked.  He was prepared to disclose his proposal to her in further detail if she wanted.  He knew after all that if she really wanted to press the matter his job proposal for the weapons specialist could be altered in a way that both the Medical staff and Tac-Conn would be able to reach a fair compromise.

"Hah. Done in by a file cabinet. My father fell off of the top of an inactive warp core, hit his head on every support beam on the way down, hit his head on the control panel at the floor, and still woke up well enough to work out the quantum-physical equations required to get it back online." He said, bragging almost. "It'll take more than a flying glorified file cabinet." Alright, the story was a bit of an exaggeration. He'd really only hit his head once, but his father made it out to be more than that, and Rennan naturally embellished further.

Chuckling at the doctor, he smiled. "There are, in fact, still farms on Earth. You should visit sometime. Beautiful farmland. Some extremely vintage farmhouses and barns have been preserved. I love the archaic artifacts of Earth. I have a small collection if you'd like to see sometime. Nothing sexier than a man with antiques, right?"

"Hang bedrest, doctor. I got plenty of practice working all drugged up while I was in the academy. No alcohol? This is just getting worse." he said, smirking. Soaking in all of the information, he smirked and started mumbling something about a week being too long, something about voodoo, something about the excrement of large bovine. However, when she made him an offer, his ears perked up. "Only a few more hours? Well if it means a date with you afterwards, By all means. And obviously, what you saw impressed you, then." he smiled, winking.

As he heard the voice, his smile grew into a grin that spread across his entire face. "No fucking way." he said, trying to stand up, his head beginning to swim as he did. "I know that voice." he said, steadying himself on the doctor's shoulder. "And actually, it was a triple hypo's worth, plus a reflex hammer to the jaw." he said, loving the story that Miles had come up with. "What kind of a job? I need to get back in the game soon." looking to the doctor. He smiled "Come on. Give me some form of artificial conveyance so that I can work without my legs. You can't deny me a chance to work with this son of a bitch again." he said, gesturing to Renard.

[Amelya Duv - Triage center: Red Zone]

Amelya looked a bit excited at the notion of "vintage farms" still being preserved on earth and she chuckled "Well, I guess we'll have to make some time to stop by on Earth once we're done." She answered him and asked "What do you collect than Rennan?" As for the story of his father, she simply looked at him, her eyebrow raising a bit in unbelief as she knew a trauma like that would be the end of any normal human being. She simply nodded and waved it away without going further into it. 

Amelya noticed the struggle from Rennan as he really didn't want the bedrest nor the nonalcoholic consumption rule. She smirked a bit as he seemed to be satisfied with a few hours of bedrest for a date. Yet when she heard another voice, she looked up and her eyes observed Miles. As she saw the grin on Rennan's face she knew these two men had met before. "Oh did he now?" she asked curiously with a smirk and looked back at Rennan.

As the two men seemed to get along fine and already started to discuss work environments again, Amelya shook her head disagreeing and she looked at Renard "Hold your horses gentlemen. Lieutenant Commander...?" She paused for a second so that Miles could give her his full name "I just told Renn-... Mister Cooper here that he simply cannot work in his condition." She said to Miles, she than turned her attention to Cooper "I'm sure you'll be able to work in the coming days, but I don't want you to overstress your fragile state as it is already." She said, sounding rather severe. Yet her curiosity had been sparked "What kind of work did you have in mind?" She asked Miles again now.

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

As a fellow Wolf, Razor was safe and wouldn't laugh about her moment of weakness so Skye had just been ranting, needing to let out some of her anger and frustration.  She was always hell on wings but lately things were just so topsy-turvy that she was off-balance and needing something stable.  The only thing halfway stable for her was fighting and then it was mostly mindless, simply going on reflexes and instinct.  It had always been good enough for her before but only because there was freedom.

Now they were branded criminals and their freedom was threatened.  It was true it takes something being ripped from you to make you realize just how precious it was and how you hadn't appreciated it enough.  She felt like a caged animal, desperate to be out and free but they wouldn't as long as Starfleet was under control of whatever it was that had them by the short hairs.  Again she thought of her father and wondered what had happened to him.

When Razor asked what her dreams were, she blushed furiously and realized she had slipped.  She had never mentioned her dreams to anyone and so far there were only three who were close enough that she would tell easily.  One was who knows where, the rogue Betazoid Andrus.  The other was her best friend, Lin Kae, who she didn't even know his whereabouts at the moment which brought yet another pang but at least knew he wasn't in triage.  And then there was Scosche, lying in a stasis chamber.

"It's silly really, something that would never come true anyway," she tried to brush off that part of her that was still a little girl who believed in happily ever after.  "If the holodeck were available, I'd beat the shit out of something but everything's basically shut down or minimal so no go."  A flash of memory struck ... her body grinding against his, that hardness still created a visceral reaction.  He was a very tempting distraction to her pain but should she?  Before she already would have but now she found herself second guessing.

[Eve Jenkins - Triage Center]

Rihen was certainly resilient and as she shot upright on the bed, she instinctively reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her and keep her from standing too soon.  A lack of clothing didn't bother Eve but she saw the two engineers and gave them a little frown.  "Easy Rihen, and let's just cover up a bit so I don't have to perform more surgeries on those who can't keep their eyes in their sockets," she said with a rueful half-smile as she worked to pull the sheet around her backside at least.

"First things first," she said raising a hand in an attempt to stop the barrage of questions and took the PADD from the nurse.  "Thank you," she said to him with a warm smile.  "You are a very lucky woman and while we've patched everything up, I'd really rather you just try to not move around too much and definitely not too quickly.  The phaser fire from the intruder just barely missed your spinal cord.  Just a few centimeters more and you would be in one of the stasis chambers," she said hoping to settle her down with the severity of things.

"To answer one of your questions, yes I am Starfleet ... or was and was reinstated if you can call it that considering the situation.  Thank you also for the compliment though I know I'd look better with a good long bath and some decent clothes," she added with a light chuckle.  "There's so much going on here that it's hard to know where to start but you are in good hands."  In her peripheral vision, she saw Lucan and felt that tension in her chest.  "In fact, you already know the chief medical officer ... Lieutenant Commander Lucan Nicander," she said and waved the poor bedraggled man over.

"Sir, I was just telling Rihen that she's very lucky and patched up from the injuries.  I performed it myself and the report is in here," she said handing him the PADD.  "I believe she's good enough to go to the next zone down but I wanted to run that by you first," she said.  As she looked into his eyes, he could see she was just as tired but she would continue to push herself as needed.  "She also has many questions regarding the situation and what happened back on Nimbus III."  Oh if only we could take some time and soak ourselves, to just relax a little.  You need it more than I do though it seems.

[Miles Renard --- Triage center; Red Zone]
Miles nodded hearing her pause "Miles Renard, Doctor.  He said with a soft non adressing her simply by her title as he was not aware of her name either. "I'm the Wolve's "Alpha" you could say."  He paused letting her continue.  He smiled though when he heard her interest in knowing what kind of work he had in mind. "Don't worry, I have no intention of asking him to preform any form of physical labor.  I just want him to lend a hand in the same field I worked with him in before.  I was one of the test pilots on the Mark Threes back when he was in starfighter r and d.  I was wondering if he could be spared as a research and development consultant and also serve in an oversight and managerial role in the repairs and possible upgrades to the two ships' fighters."

He paused for a moment understanding how she may object to any job that could create stress. He then continued looking over as seriously as he could to Cooper then back to the doctor.  "If necessary I can have his work environment modified to suit whatever medical requirements are deemed appropriate.  As it stood before i knew of his medical condition the job by would require walking around the fighter bay as 75 percent of the time on the job,  The physical activity of the work aside from walking and occasionally having to use the muscles of his vocal chords to yell at yellowshirt noncoms.  The other 25 percent would be done from behind a desk. Given his current condition, I would advise that at minimum he be provided a wheelchair for the non desk job portions of the work.  Personally, I would be happy with his schedule being 25 percent in the bay and 75 percent behind a desk.  If absolutely necessary, I could remove the part of the work that requires mobility around the fighter-bay, and make it solely into a desk-job.  If the work needs further modifications for his medical requirements I would be willing to make whatever compromises are necessary.  I have absolutely no need for another repairman or engineer.  I need an brain, not another body."  he said looking over to the doctor then smirking at Cooper.

"Besides, regarding his rest, as of now the repair schedule don't start till tomorrow morning at 0600.  With the three hours rest in the yellow zone and whatever time is between then and you two's date I suppose that he should get at least 10 hours rest." Pausing for a second he added, "And, if it's less rest than that, I would have to imply that you must have approved him for at least some forms of serious physical exertion.  That would at least imply a green if not blue on the triage scale correct?" he said in a sort of deadpan way.

His own unique kind of snarky humor was showing at its fullest.  It was a sense of humor and observation that had won him many arguments in R&D after all.  He did have a way of not arguing with an engineer's logic.  He just had a way of turning that logic back on a person when they least wanted to be reminded of their previous decisions or in this case a decision that she might be faced with later that evening. 

[ Triage Centre | Yellow Zone ]

Images flashed ceaselessly before Lucan's eyes. Recollections. Premonitions. A madness mix of horror.

Since he let the beast take the reins and it gutted Garen Nelis, Dr Nicander had come realise just how bent on bloodlust it was. At the same time, there was doubt, for it was still so fleeting... this notion of actually separating the actions made in the surgery suite from that of his own free will. The beast was under his skin, so very intimately inseparable from his own body. His own mind, thoughts and ambitions mirrored that of the beast... yet could it be a darkened mirror? In his own case, contrary to the other Starfleet officers, he believed the difference between him and the beast was a smaller. For he was quite sure his long term goals in life would not be the prettiest when cast into light. Yet the ambitions and needs of the beast? Oh, but that was something entirely different.

It was as if the act of letting go of one's control made the thoughts of the beast become more... real. It was like it had torn down some of the fortifications around Lucan's own 'self' - if there was such a thing - and had become a more discernible figure in the darkness of his heart. The instincts were surfacing constantly. The notions to kill and maim constantly behind his eyelids. Each blink made him glimpse what he could do to everyone he came face-to-face with. As of yet, he noticed no change as the hours wore on. So many lethal instruments and too many opportune moments to use them, only for sake of short-term enjoyment. The beast cared less for secrecy, so for the first time since the day when he had evolved, Lucan thought the beast a true liability.

"Starfleet?" asked a female voice, incredulous, and it was Rihen Neyah who reacted to Eve's answers. By the time he reached the two women, Lucan smiled a bit - the humour in the situation not entirely lost to him. It was just so distracting to suppress the sudden images of himself cutting new orifices into them with an exoscalpel and raping the virgin openings. It made his stomach turn, since there was just so much blood and gore he could ignore unaffected. It did not matter how he had lived with the beast for years now. He focused on listening to Eve so that he could distract his mind - his smile remaining good-naturedly.

"Thank you, Jenkins," he said and raked back his hair from his pale eyes before taking the PADD from her - his exotic features soon turning to face the woman he had found in the bar on Nimbus III. Her blanket now adjusted by Eve, the Starfleet Engineers had turned away, while the civilian one before him was looking at him as if he had grown a horn in the middle of his forehead - her having thought him to be a merchant instead of a doctor and hunted him until that point. He pretended not to notice while he browsed through the PADD with his index finger. Eventually, he spoke - rasing his eyes and smiling to the Risian. "I can imagine that this is quite confusing, so let me enlighten you..."

It took Lucan perhaps five minutes to tell Rihen about events so far, the details left for her to learn when talking to others of the crew.

The Risian seemed flabbergast, unsure that to do with her situation, in the end resorting to laugh. "So that sweet Lin Kae is also Starfleet? And your code - this prime directive - about inhabited planets forbade you to allow the replicator to work?" Rihen gave this some thought, her frown making her look cute rather than troubled, "Seems rather harsh to me... since I am fighting for Paradise City's redemption in the aspects of trade and commerce. Without outside help, the city is such a place that will never evolve. Without Starfleet's assistance, the people who have come to hold all the unofficial power will never be interested in rebuilding or tera-forming the area - always resorting to protect their own assets and not investing into something new."

Nodding, Lucan finally gave the PADD back to Eve. "Unfortunately, as you might understand now, we are in a crisis where we have to make the spreading of truth about Starfleet Command a priority. We cannot afford returning to Nimbus III. I am sorry."

"No, no, no..." said Eve and looked distraught, hugging the blanket to her generous bust, eyes going big and watery. "I must get some kind of help. You have to help me. You promised to fix the replicator and you didn't. Eve, you understand, right? You have lived there. You must see why I have come so far and chased the tracks through the Neutrual Zone for days. The city so direly need Starfleet's help to get on its feet."

Lucan made no comment, folding his tattooed hands behind his back. He could do naught more for this patient, and yet he remained as silent support to Eve when facing such bared emotions as Rihen displayed, tears forming in her heterochromatic eyes.

"You owe me a replicator," she said in a broken voice, "you owe the people of Paradise City the help you promised me. I spent years trying to repair that thing, and once it was functioning, you sabotaged it for the people that needed it. Eve, please, you must convince them to turn around..."

[ Alexander Rosek | Theta Eridani IV ]

The sombre atmosphere and sense of togetherness that permeated the air,  the speeches and songs performed in ode to fallen comrades and the stifling emotion exuded by grieving survivors only worked in turning a depressing situation into a hopeless one. Faces both familiar and unfamiliar kept their rapt attention fixated on both Captains during the address and eventually the singing apparition as they celebrated the heroic efforts of the fellow officers they had lost during the battle. It was an obvious attempt by the unified crew to comfort one another and pay their respects at the same time in a way that would motivate them not to share the same fate.

For Alexander, the situation was hopeless simply due to the lack of focus shown by his fellow crewmates towards repairing the ship and limping back towards the Alpha Quadrant where they could seek out allies and mount a defensive force against the Starfleet intruders. Standing around mourning those that had died in the line of duty was a waste of time in his eyes and setting down on the planet they now occupied only spat in the face of their sacrifice. He barely interacted with them when they were alive, he hardly even knew those that stood before him now and to anyone who might notice him, it was possible they would think he was unfazed by the tragedy. In all honesty, he didn't particularly feel any sympathy for those who were now gone - had he been in the same situation, he'd be dead too. It was a part of the job, an expectation of serving in Starfleet. Of course, that didn't mean he didn't appreciate the stand the dead officers had taken and he wanted their loss to mean something just as much as the next person.

As soon as the Captain dismissed the crew, a number of bodies trickled from the gathering as they returned to their relevant duties whilst others remained - Alexander included. He'd barely had time to have a sonic shower and change his uniform before the ceremony had started and when he'd finally arrived, the clearing had been so full that he'd kept to himself on the outskirts of the crowd. He wasn't accustomed to socialising and often preferred his own company - except for those moments on duty when he had to interact with his fellow engineers or report to his superior officers. It was a surprise to himself that he'd even turned up to the ceremony itself, but he wasn't heartless and had taken the suggestion of his one or two friends to make an appearance and show face.

[Thomas Ravon | Inside Kestrel]

Thomas had seen similar incidents on board the Theurgy. Not exactly how Skye had just ranted and went completely through the red, yet now and then there were people who just snapped under the pressure of being branded a traitor by Starfleet. Though he didn't have the figures, he assumed that at least a handful of people had a meltdown at some point. Be it ranting and raving on their stations or in their quarters to more extreme actions as attempted suicide.

Being the only person around Skye now, made him feel responsible for her in a way. He wasn't sure if it was just her letting of some steam or if she was actually close to a mental breakdown scenario. He hadn't known her well enough to read her mind. When he had asked his question about her dreams he noticed her flush of redness on her cheeks. A small smile curled on his lips and he placed both his hands on her lower back for comfort.

"Silly? Like unicorn silly?" He asked her, trying to draw her out of her tent. He looked at her now as she mentioned the holodeck and he shrugged "Well, it's been a while since I've done some sparring... But if you like we could get physical." He answered her, making the pun intentionally as his own mind reminded him of the lapdance she had given him not so long ago. A bit of an awkward silence fell between them now, Razor kept his grasp on her and he bowed his head a bit forward "What do you think Carver?" he whispered soft, yet with a slight tone of daring her.

[Amelya Duv | Triage center Red zone]

Now that Miles had introduced himself, she listened to the job description that he had in mind for Rennan Cooper. Only while he elaborated about this matter she realised that she had neglected to give her own name to him. A slight flush formed on her cheeks because of it and once Miles was done she nodded and smiled "That sounds like something I could live with... I'm Amelya Duv by the way, nice to meet the Alpha leader of the pack." She chuckled a bit and looked Miles straight in the eyes.

Before she could start her preach about additional stress, even in a managing role, Miles carried on. Amelya realised this flight leader had it all figured out. She could live with the suggestions he made and was happy to see that he clearly kept Rennan in mind as a patient still. "Alright commander, you've made your point. You can have Mister Cooper's brain for your R&D project. I'm holding you responsible though if I get more injuries from yellow shirts that snapped under the pressure of specialist Cooper's shouting command." She answered him with a smirk "I think he'll be rested enough though by 0600. I thought you wanted to commandeer him effective immediately."

She couldn't hide a grin from the excellent remark Miles made about physical exertion. "About that physical exertion..." she said softly and bit her lower lip "It would be inappropriate for me to exhaust the specialist here if he has to attend active duty in the early morning... So I think it might be restricted to the "date" later today." She thought out loud, looking to Miles to check his reaction and then facing Cooper.

[Rennan Cooper | Triage center Red zone]

"Old tools. Mechanical tools from before process automation. The machines that built the machines." he said, in answer to her question on what he collected.

Miles always had been good at convincing people of anything that he could possibly want to. His mind was that of a tactician, of a chess player, and it always thought eight arguments ahead, from what Rennan had observed. Listening to the full argument, he looked between the two as Amelya seemed to consent to the new job. Outwardly, Rennan simply nodded his head, but inside, he was just as giddy as the first time he'd attended his first Unconventional Warfare class at the academy.

"Number one. I'm not spending all of my time behind a desk. If I don't get to yell at people, then all of those years at the academy were wasted." he said, hiding a grin. "Number two, you said 'upgrade' the fighters. I believe that you mean retrofit, Miles. Upgrade implies that new technology has come about. None has, that I'm aware of. Not that we have access to, at any rate." he said, not knowing of the Reaver wreckage that had been recovered from the battles. There was almost a tone of hope in his voice. He hoped that he was wrong, that there was some sort of new technology to work with.

"Number three," he said, looking to Doctor Duv "I haven't done my job until you see at least one nervous breakdown from one of those first year engineering brats." he said, unable to hide the grin tugging the corners of his mouth upwards.

At the talk of physical exertion and Amelya's comment, as well as her glance towards Rennan, he had to chuckle. "Not to worry. Exertion and exhaustion are two different matters entirely. Exertion is insured, doctor. Exhaustion, however, is a condition that I was able to grow out of during my days at the academy." he smiled with a wink.

[Natalie Stark | With Assembled]

Hugging herself about the middle of her waist, Lt. Cmdr. Natalie Stark listened to the captains of the assembled crew of the two starships currently hiding on the M-Class planet in the Acamar System. Her grime stained fingers dug into the black fabric of her uniform jacket. Her sleeves were pushed up to the elbows, her skin drinking in the warmth from the bonfires, and the hot springs behind her. Those bare forearms were equally messy. She had dove right into the work to be done on both the Theurgy and the Harbinger, assisting in coordination between both vessels until the need to get hands on overwhelmed her.

Natalie had spent the better part of the day doing the grunt work along with the rest of her department, in the electronic and durasteel trenches of her ship. She had paused only when one of the junior officers tugged her off, reminding her that as the COO, she should probably be at the gathering. After having thanked the younger man, whose name escaped her, Natalie had rushed in to join the group at the last minute, just as the Captain started to speak.

The speeches washed over her, in a haze, the words sinking in, and yet at the same time, not registering at all. All that she saw, while Jien Ives, and Cpt. Declan Vasser talked, were the face of the Calamities avatar, as she systematically gunned down half the bridge crew, with Natalie locked into her chair by her own emergency restraints. Yet again, the brunette had been utterly helpless to render any form of aid while people she had served with were snuffed out like cockroaches.

Shaking her head, she mingled in with the crowds as the gathering broke up. Initially intending to go back to work, she got swept along, listlessly lost in deeper, darker thoughts, following the flow of the assembled crowed. And while many went right back to their duties, driven by a desire to prove themselves, to show that their comrades sacrifices were not in vain, others pushed on to the hastily assembled bar, needing to prove to themselves that they were alive, and celebrate that fact.

It was with them that Natalie ended up, pushing to the crowd, until she came to a stop at the waters edge, looking a bit lost.

[Sarresh Morali | behind the assembly stage

He had spent the whole night, the entire trip down to the surface of the planet, all of it, in a blur. His mind was on fire, and even now, hours later, without sleep, there was still foreign thoughts, information that he should not have! bouncing around behind his oversized eyes. Warp integrity equations that made no sense, sensor vectors that he could almost grasp. His tongue still tasted blue! He knew what blue tasted like!

The Ash'reem had finally settled down, when he'd forced himself to approach Cadet Amikris Neotin and inform her of her mothers fate. Whatever jumble of thoughts his mind had become, as he'd held the sobbing girl in the pool in his quarters had, for that moment at least, settled into something of an ordered mess. What ran as an undercurrent to it all, however, was anger; plain, simple anger. Something had been kept from him, Something had lurked under the surface the whole time, without his knowledge. If he'd had access to it all from the beginning, perhaps his immediate superior might not be locked in a stasis pod. Her daughter would not be curled up at the bottom of his pool, having cried herself to sleep the night prior.

So he waited, till Captain Jien Ives, the one man, or woman, depending on the phase of the moon and the time of the month, as far as he could tell, who had to know what was going on, finished. He waited till She, it seemed, walked off the stage. Waited till the two captains got out of ear shot of the crowd, and then he pounced. Looking worse for wear and angry as hell, the Junior Grade LT stepped in front of 'his' captain, and crossed his arms. "We need to talk. Now." belatedly, he managed a terse, "Sir."

---

OOC: I will continue with Natalie in the hot springs thread

[Lin Kae - Engineering station]

While others were relaxing, Kae was busy at work at his station inside the Theurgy's engineering station.  Most areas were powered down, but the work on the ships required an important location like the warp core to be running on minimal power at least.  It offered Kae enough energy to work on the emitter he had been designing for Thea.  The scans obtained when Cala had been aboard helped him to improve the design, though he couldn't help but remark at the fact that so much of it was the same as what he was working on.  Cala hadn't been using someone else's version of his emitter.  It was more like some future version of himself had built a better one for her.  "Computer, back-up Thea's vocal and cognitive subroutines and then transfer the originals into the emitter," he said, the download beginning.  When it was finished, Thea would be able to hear and speak to Kae through the speakers built into the emitter.  It was the first stage of getting it functional, as well as giving her a means to talk to him during the power down,

"Computer, transfer file Lin 4751 to Captain Ives, titled 'emergency power source for your approval.'"  The file sent to Jien displayed one of their probes, altered to collect thermal energy from the volcano and adjust it into a power source that could be used to power up the replicators.  Engineering needed replacement parts to get Theurgy and Harbinger back in working order, and they could spare the deuterium right now even if they could power those auxiliary systems back up.  Using the thermal power from the pklanet, however, was a solution that would help them get back up and running.  If Jien approved, it could be forwarded to the other Engineers who could make the necessary adjustments in four hours and have it launched into the volcano in another two.

With that out of the way, he made his first attempt at communicating with Thea, talking to the Emitter like a human might have done with a CB radio in the 20th Century.  "Thea, can you hear me?"

Personal Log, Stardate 57505.12.  A calm has taken hold of the ship in the aftermath of conflict with the Calamity and the interception of the Theurgy.  I don't know what Captain Ives is planning but the olive branch has been extended to unite the two ships under one banner.  Talk has been spread of sharing resources and having an exchange of crew mates to diversify and create better unity and strength.  I anticipate this will cause a good deal of conflict in the coming days, months.  Not all of us see eye to eye when it comes to the Federation and no matter how well my crew mates follow orders I expect there to be increasing dissent the longer we are separated from Earth and isolated from the rest of the galaxy.  I hope the Captain does not intend for us to run forever--I spent my entire childhood as a puddle hopper hiding in the shadows.  It's a tiresome fate, a hopeless one.

[Diadeniera | With Assembled]

As a member of the senior staff she felt obligated to attend the first mingling of the two crews and hear the speeches to be delivered.  The repairs that had put them down on the planet's surface were necessary and while concerns were there over the potential outside enemy discovering their location it was a minimal worry compared to what she anticipated from the two crews.  Diadeniera stood toward the side of the gathering crowd, standing with her arms folded around her mid-section shifting her steely gaze between the mix of both old and new faces and the arrival of Captain Ives.

There was an unseen weight upon the crowd as the first speech was given with a solemn poem that captured the woman's attention.  It surprised her a little how much into her own shell she had crawled into that everyone around her had become suspect.  A seed of distrust planted when one recognized that from her father who bore her to the very idealistic Federation she fled to was wholly corrupt that everyone and everything she came in contact with would seem impure.  Personal vendettas and unspoken ambitions she felt governed each and every person but in that moment as she looked out across the fires she realized that a unity could form in the same breath when circumstances pushed individuals to form a common goal.

It was a very good speech.

As the call for dismissal was sounded Dee let the tension relax in her shoulders with an audible sigh.  Her eyes looking out over the solemn crowd with the outstretched tents she made a cursory count over the top of the erected structures with a mental note that there were far too many of them.  She had basic medical knowledge but knowing her crew mates she had no doubt that far more sophisticated and capable hands than her own would be over there to lend assistance.  Until the two crews were acclimated to one another she would never quite be satisfied enough to rest and relax but it was important for any member of Security to become aware of its crew--and with the doubling of their meager numbers she had a lot of new faces to learn.  No better place to start than in an atmosphere of relative relaxation as she made her way toward the newly erected Lounge.

[ The Plain ]

Having been about to discuss personnel transfers with Captain Vasser, Jien Ives was forestalled by her Temporal Affairs Officer - a meeting which she had not postponed but meant to have at a more convenient time and place. Now, it seemed, was as bad a time as any, and perhaps Lieutenant Morali thought the same thing. She gave the Ash'reem an even look for his impertinence - since he did not deign to show proper respect towards her counterpart for the Harbinger crew. Then she turned to Declan.

"Forgive me, but there is an unresolved issue that I need to attend to. I will speak with you shortly, Captain."

Then she turned to the Lieutenant and walked past him, motioning with her hand that he could follow her. "When I am in this form, I prefer to be addressed as 'Ma'am'," she said quietly, choosing not to point out that his concerns did not merit acting like a child in front of the Harbinger's Captain. It flattered neither him nor the crew he was supposed to represent. Then again, she suspected that the Ash'reem was not quite ready to embrace his new crew as his own - all things considered.

"I hope your quarters aboard our ship has been satisfactory. It's not all starships that are fitted out with Ash'reem accommodations, and I am glad they have proved to be of use." Small talk, an idle comment while she led them out into the darkness beyond the lines of torches - into the edge of the firelight that lit the whole valley. With the area being volcanic, all the fires did not only serve to keep the warmth after the binary suns set, but masked sensor readings of surface lifesigns and energy sources. It was hard to know the effect of the fiery camouflage, yet the returning Tactical Conn pilots had reported that their sensors had difficulty to locate them, so it had to do some difference for a starship's long range sensors too. "I know the fires are not ideal to keep you from drying out. With three Ash'reem aboard, we have come to anticipate certain things - making changes both for the rest of the crew as well as your species."

There was a pause as they stepped into twilight darkness - the edge of the plain dropping into a ravine beyond the point where they came to a stop. The distant firelight cast half of Lieutenant Morali's face into a flickering mask of pent up emotion. If he so chose, he would be able to remove his goggles and look her in the eye properly, yet she did not ask him to. Instead, she brought up the hurt they had in common.

"Amatras was a good officer. Protective of her daughter. Tried to approach Arcorn earlier today, yet he said he was not ready to speak of his wife. I heard from him that you took on the burden to tell the Cadet and comforted her." Jien sighed and folded her arms underneath her chest, looking directly at Sarresh. "My thanks for doing so. One might think the numbness of so many deaths among one's crew would prepare you for those to come, yet the hurt of knowing that a daughter loosing her mother under my command is no easier."

Silence. Crickets in the shadows. The sounds of the fires still reached them faintly; a faint susurrous noise.

"The memories that came back," she said at last, "They are harder to remember now, correct? Fading by the minute?"

---

[ USS Theurgy | Engineering ]

Whilst floating in oblivion, both the burden and gift of the emotional ship in Thea's pasitronic brain were equally hard to retain.

Anger, hurt, regret, the endless list wound on. The emotions all slipped from the vast grasp of her mind like water coating the surface of her conciousness - leaving the shoals of her perception before she could grasp at them. They came in surges, the recollections of the battle. There were images, inconceivable to envision, and sounds beyond the bounds of possibility to truly hear. Like febrile sleep, she was beleaguered with the whispers of her memory banks; new engrams being weaved of those recollections, echoing forever in her digital conciousness. Right then, she would rather trade with an organic for the screaming silence of the afterlife.

Then, awareness of her Saviour's actions came to her, and soon - when the transfer was complete - activation.

"Affirmative," she said, the digital envitonment new to her - as if trying on a new piece of clothing. She could make the comparison since she often liked to dress in 'real' clothes whenever she was able to. She possessed no body, no optical sensors to see with, yet she could receive audio of the emitter's immediate surrouindings and a small speaker allowed her to communicate from it - crude hardware in place of her more refined holographic features. The voice she answered with was static and almost metallic because of it - the minute echo of her emitter's casing making it so. "Loud and clear."

With just audio in place, Thea chose to comment on her readings from the long range sensor array. "No sign of hostility or inbound ships in this sector. Yet in knowing my own capacity for statistic analysis and advanced theorem of cause and causality, it is a matter of days, perhaps a week, until the Calamity will successfully backtrack events and find us here. Then again, with your suggestion for an alternate power source, perhaps that will be just enough to get us moving again."

She paused, unsure as to how she should proceed in this unique situation.

"I am sorry about your superior officer. I hope you did not get hurt in the battle too."

Miles chuckled at Cooper's statements. "Just as long as you don't yell at my pilots too much.  As for the yellowshirts half of them assigned to the hangar bay on normal hours don't know how to treat a Starfighter.  They think the Valks are just fancy shuttlecraft.  Frackin morons."  He added having picked up the Psuedo-curse from recordings of an old Terran television program with starfighters in it, though the name of the old program eluded him at the moment.

He then smirked, "Oh its an upgrade, We salvaged some wreckage of those future-Valks,"  he said confidently, "and you won't be behind the desk too much.  Just as much as your physician requires." He paused as he began to walk off, "You two take care, I have a pilot to touch base with if she's woke up."

A few minutes later Miles was approaching a Biobed on a mobile hovercart in motion traveling from the red into the yellow.  He sighed out, "Here we go..."  as he walked forwards. "You're transporting her to the yellow right?" he asked the red shirted private who had been conscripted into medical duty. 

The noncom nodded as he turned seeing the rank insignias and division of the SCO who had approached.  "Yes, sir, Section Bravo, Tent 5."

Miles nodded, "I'll make sure she gets there, I'm sure you can be used for something more important than pushing a cart."   He said as he took over looking down at the patient in the bed.  He waited for the "nurse" to walk off before speaking to the pilot in the bed  "You weren't thinking about trying to sneak off to the bar now, were you Ranger?" He asked as he began to push the cart to the yellow zone just as prescribed by the CMO.

[ En-route to Section Bravo | Triage Centre ]

Lying in the biobed and pushed around on the hover pad, Evelyn felt like she was in a bloody trolley. A fucking baby carriage, like she was five months old and not able to take care of herself. The bitter realisation was that she couldn't, and that the analogy was more accurate than she liked it to be. The crewman above her head was silent. He looked tired. "Psst," Rawley said, calling for his attention, "I need a scotch. Can you be a doll and bring some? Two bottles should last me through the night. Don't tell anyone, though."

"I really can't, Lieutenant. You should not be drinking if you have just lef-"

"Hey, its not like there isn't anything in it for you," she said and grinned to him - raising a weak arm to lift her blanket up a bit - allowing him alone to see what was underneath from his point of view, "I'll still manage to suck your cock from a prone position. What do you say?"

She let the blanket fall back on her chest again, yet the crewman still tried to look everywhere at once, as long as it was not upon her. "Ah, I am..."

"You're transporting her to the yellow right?" A too familiar voice.

"Yes, sir, Section Bravo, Tent 5."

"I'll make sure she gets there, I'm sure you can be used for something more important than pushing a cart."

And the crewman was gone without a word, so quick there was no way to tell where he went. Evelyn took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. Useless man. Probably had a wife or something. Or a small dick. Fuck did she know. It had been a win-win arrangement as far as she could tell. Now she ended up with the person least likely to help her to a stiff drink.

"You weren't thinking about trying to sneak off to the bar now, were you Ranger?"

"I would never dream of it," she said in an mock-offended voice, even though the lost opportunity to have it delivered was quite bitter. She looked at Fox and gave him a lop-sided smile, joking a bit with the Vulpinian and giving him big innocent eyes. "Hey, I saved the bloody day and you treat me like a kid, Commander? I'm hurt. How have I ever deserved such callous presumption? How can I ever forgive you? As hurt as I am. it's okay though. A case of scotch would be fine. I'll forget all about it. Don't need the fancy stuff either. A spoiled 12-year-old syntehhol Talisker out of the replicator suits me just fine. Not too fucking picky."

Chuckling at her own joke, she turned her head and spat some coma-phlegm on the tent floor. "Thanks for clearing my take-off back then. Suppose things worked out pretty well all things considered, except for all the people here - me included. Fucking shame on Hardtop, though, hope we make it to port so that he can be patched up proper. Was told he is in one of our coffins, chilling. Lazy bastard, right?"

Hollow jokes. Hurt in the heart. "Seriously, I do need a scotch right about now. Makes my blood flow better, right? Heals me, eh? Common... It's not like I am on duty, right?"

[Amelya Duv | Triage center]

"Old tools huh.." She paraphrased after cooper and nodded slowly, trying to picture what kind of tools that would be. Yet she couldn't imagine what it would look like. She didn't really got brought back to attention as the two gentlemen started to discuss work already. While not saying much or anything to their one on one conversation she filled in the chart allowing Rennan to be transferred to yellow and that he could start the "easy" work the next day.

Her ears caught breakdown at number three though and she looked up "Please, don't give me any more psychological patients.." She murmured and shook her head while looking at Rennan.  While he explained his difference between exertion and exhaustion she had to chuckle and simply shook her head. "We'll see, we'll see..." She mused.

As Miles said his goodbye to both of them she nodded towards him "Have a nice day further Lieutenant commander." She turned her attention to Rennan now "As you you Mister Cooper, I'll have a nurse transport you to the yellow zone. I'll pick you up there after my shift." She instructed him and gave him a wink. As she left the biobed she ran into Doctor Nicander who requested a follow up meeting since things had finally calmed down a bit.

[Lin Kae - Theurgy Engineering]

A smile overcame his face when he heard her voice, proving that the transfer protocol was able to be completed.  He had to tweak that audio a bit for clarity, as the speaker system would help to project her voice even after the holo-matrix was laid over  it.  "I'm fine, Thea.  Things have been difficult here without the Chief, but we're managing.  We'll have you flying again in no time."  He wanted very much to keep that promise.  Thea was a starship.  She belonged in space.  For now, he would just make her as comfortable as he could.  "I'm going to work on this audio a bit, Thea.  Just keep talking while I do so.  We can test your access to the ship's internal systems at the same time.  Why don't you give a verbal readout of the ship's diagnostics?"  Thea had placed the ship into diagnostic mode to check all the internal system for damage, to report hull breaches and faulty systems in need of repair.  As she gave out that information, her voice reverberated between fuzzy and clear, low and loud, until Kae had found the proper frequency and volume level to mimic her speech level as a hologram.

"Perfect," he said, before moving onto his next test.  He activated the anti-gravity units in the device, which rose the emitter from the table he was working on.  He moved it in front of him, the device auto-zeroing to the zero point, the exact center of the hologram it was being used by.  The zero point had been the location that was fired at when Cala invaded, where the emitter created a holographic field bubble equal to the maximum amount of volume that Thea herself could take up through height, arm length, and standing on the tips of her toes.  The emitter interpreted this data itself, leaving no room for error.

"Okay . . . let's go for the trifecta.  Activating holographic field matrix."  The field itself was invisible, making a brief flash upon activation like a force field, after which Thea's form appeared over the emitter, obscuring it from sight.  She stood there in her command uniform, looking exactly the same as she always looked . . . save a couple inches shorter.  The unfortunate part was in calibration.  The bubble extended into the floor, giving the suggestion that her feet were fused into the floor.  Kae repaired it by quickly raising the zero point of the device to compensate, placing Thea's feet on solid ground and proving how just one little slip would make such a program look like a disaster.  It was a testament to his skill that there was only the one issue.

"I've already gone ahead and loaded in some new subroutines too, just as a surprise for you.  Your holographic matrix has been updated to nearly complete skin enhancement.  What was once for your hands is now everywhere but the genitals.  Those are proving much more complex, as I'm sure you can understand."  Her arms, legs, face, even her breasts were now all updated, however, data collected with help from Skye carver helping Thea to feel skin contact like a human did.  "How do you feel?" he asked.  She had freedom to step beyond the ship for the first time, and with flesh that was nearly one hundred percent identical to an organics.  What would she do with her new found freedom?

[ USS Theurgy | Engineering ]

Voice calibrated, diagnostics relayed, Thea's digital mind was intrigued as to what her Specialist had in mind for the day's impromptu session. She had counted on being deactivated for the entire duration of the repairs, since she had calculated that the savings of energy would merit... No, of course, Lin Kae was confident that additional energy supply would be harnessed from the volcanic activity beneath the bedrock. If the superior officers of his would pose any argument, he could refer to the infinite power solution he had passed on to Captain Ives' computer console.

Even further surprised was Thea when she was actually activated through the emitter; an emitter that had just been altered and constructed from the Transporter buffers that held Cala's imprint. It was peculiar, and she looked down her projected image, running her hands over her red chameleon bodysuit while he made the adjustments. The updated tactile sensors were in place... she could feel herself through her hands, but also...

The news about him having uploaded the the full-body sensory mapping into the emitter already made her raise her eyes and realise what it was she felt: a heightened touch of her hands against her sides and abdomen as she drew her palms across her bodysuit. "Already?" she asked in surprise, having thought that the sensory mapping would demand several weeks of collecting data. It was only two or three days ago that she had been shown the emitter for the first time, and gotten her new hands. It seemed like her holographic specialist had put in overtime despite the extensive repairs or... "Did you find a willing candidate for the mapping before we attended the Senior Staff meeting? You didn't tell me tha-"

She trailed off as she ran her hands over her clothed bosom, feelings her hidden nipples react immediately to her touch. Her lips pursed in surprise. "Oh... I understand that the mapping is complete in-so-far as my - or her - genitals then?"

Thea swallowed, feelings something strange in the pit of her stomach when she realised that there had to be two people involved in the sensory mapping. "W-Who volounteered?"

---

OOC: I had wanted to write out the diagnostics IC-wise in this post, yet the contents of such a rapport is still underway, with Gentleman_and_Scholar helping me out with the details. The information will become available as soon as possible anyway. :)

[Lin Kae - Theurgy Engineering]

Kae smiled as Thea tried out her new enhancements, smoothing her hands along her skin to feel the responsiveness of her newly redesigned flesh..  "Thanks to the use of a cortical monitor, I was able to collect all the data I needed about the way the body responds to stimuli.  Mapping it onto your frame wasn't too difficult after that, once I created an algorithm to adjust the scans to your frame."  Skye's body had served as the template, but Thea, and subsequently any other holograms that might one day benefit from these advances, didn't have her exact measurements.  Kae had to write a program which extrapolated the scans onto other bodies, adjusting for the contours of Thea's curves, her shape.  "The scans also took into account clothing, so the thicker the clothing, the more muffled the sensation will be for you, while touching bare skin will result in the highest level of stimulation.  That's why your hands touching your face will be the most effective right now."

With the question of who the volunteer was, Kae told her who.  "Ensign Skye Carver.  She subjected her body to full cortical monitoring, testing all the sensations that you now have access to.  You can sense temperature differences, pressure, sharpness and texture, even pain should you wish to activate that subroutine.  We have a fair amount of scans for her sexual organs s well, but as I said, those get more complicated.  There are a great deal of nerve endings and complex mechanics involved in that location.  The female body is a far more complicated form then that of a male, but we will get there.  After that, we can work on trying to create a sense of taste and smell for you, and give you access to all five human senses."

He hadn't even gotten to the best part yet.  The emitter was clearly functional, which meant there was no reason for her to remain stuck on board the Theurgy during powerdown.  She had twenty hours that she could use to walk freely before a four hour recharge was needed.  "So Thea . . . you ready to see what your hull looks like from the outside . . . with your own eyes, I mean?"

[ USS Theurgy | Engineering ]

The solution of using a cortical monitor seemed brilliant, and it had not occurred to Thea that it might be a viable option for her needs of sensory development. She had first thought that Kae would reprogram her subroutines like he always did, yet now, as she ran her fingers over her face, neck and lips like he had suggested... it was evident just how much of an accomplishment Kae had made with her. Unfortunately, it begged the question just how advanced their adversary was - this Cala that she had fought on the Main Bridge - who might be even more advanced than Thea.

Listening to the order of priorities, and what was at hand, Thea felt a small pang of regret that she had not been given full tactile sensory mapping already, yet she trusted that Lin Kae did not settle for a half-measured solution. Imagine... To be able to taste food. To smell in the human way instead of the digital, where my internal sensors has told me the condition of my immediate surroundings. Given her brief experience as a real woman, however, at the mercy of the Isthar Entity, she had other priorities in mind of sexual nature. To relive that which has been denied her.

This, however, seemed to be an issue of social stigma, so she kept silent about it. So was the... Was it envy she felt for Ensign Skye Carver? Why? Yes, because she suspected that Lin Kae was the second person during the cortical monitoring. This because of what she remembered from the recordings she still had from five hours before her entire surveillance system burned out in manner of both soft- and hardware. Something she was sure that Cala must have done to increase the odds of reaching the Bridge. Anyway, she did't have any claim or right to Kae in that aspect, so her analysis proved inconclusive.

“So Thea . . . you ready to see what your hull looks like from the outside . . . with your own eyes, I mean?”

Any thoughts about jealousy and wishes to try the sensory mapping of her skin fled her mind at hearing the presented idea. The decision was nigh instantaneous. "Powering up Transport controls," she said, her hands dropping to her sides. She could easily enter her systems actively even though her projection was stored in the emitter, something that Kae had mentioned earlier would work wirelessly, "I'm assigning my emitter with a pre-programmed signature and I will store it for Operations' Transport Officers. Initiating Transport."

There was trepidation, yet she trusted Kae since she Transported them both outside her hull...


[ Theta Eridani IV | Plain ]

...and they emerged in the firelight of the bonfires.

It was rightly so a disembodied feeling, as she raised her eyes to look upon the dark silhouette that was her - seeing her damaged hull from afar. There were Starfleet personnel criss-crossing the open area by the bonfires, and none paid them any notice. Yet nor did Thea, as she had only eyes for herself... until she finally looked around herself. It was incredible. She was not in a holodeck, even if every instinct told her that she had to be. Yet this was the world seen with other eyes than long range sensors.

The feeling of freedom made her speechless - her emotions running rampant. With big eyes, she finally looked at Kae, only able to mouth her silent 'thank you' to him.

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

Razor had put his hands on her sides, a playful look creeping into his intense blue eyes.  "Unicorn silly?" she echoed and in spite of herself felt one corner of her mouth quirk up and then a wistful expression took over.  "I guess you could say it is actually.  Little girls love fairy tales and fairy tale endings especially ... but I'm not a little girl anymore."

Oh how she wished she could be a little girl again.  There were some things she'd do differently but more than anything she'd try her damnedest to get her father to stay.  All her life men had come and gone and she remembered sitting there looking out the window when her father would leave, wondering why he didn't want to stay with her.

Her one chance, when a man actually asked her to stay, she'd given up to get back to her pack.  She'd shot herself in the foot but she'd been able to help Maverick and Thea save the crew.  It was a tiny part but it was something bigger than herself and now she was doing something that served the greater good.  She just felt so empty right now.

"... but if you like we could get physical."  Again memories assaulted her, how he smelled when aroused and the taste of his lips and tongue coated with whiskey.  As he leaned down and pulled her even closer, she felt his body against hers.  "What do you think Carver?" he whispered and when she raised her eyes to his he could see her pupils were dilated.

Even though she knew it would only be a fleeting moment, she needed him.  She needed to be touched and held, to feel as alive as she did when she flew and fought.  "I think," she whispered back as her head started to tilt and her palms grazed up his chest until her hands clasped at the back of his neck, "that I very much want to finish what we started before all hell broke loose."

Her body surged up then and her lips and body pressed against his, all of her hunger and passion taking the kiss immediately into warp speed.  A growl rumbled as she let go with one hand to unzip his uniform then both clenched the fabric as she pushed it over his shoulders and shucked it down his arms.  "There better not be any interruptions this time," she whispered hotly as her tongue and then teeth grazed his ear.

[Eve Jenkins - Triage]

Eve knew that the replicator worked and most probably better than it had before.  The young engineer was quite brilliant and had restored it to its original settings, which was a lot more than most people would have done.  It wasn't as if he'd destroyed it and Rihen was smart enough to figure out ways to improve it now that it would actually work again.  Of course that wasn't what Rihen wanted to hear so she didn't say it but she didn't dismiss her either.

Rihen was emotional and passionate and while that could be a good thing, this simply wasn't anything that she or Eve or anyone of the two crews could really do anything about.  Compassion filled her eyes as she reached out and placed her hand on Rihen's shoulder.  "Your wish to make Paradise City better is admirable, Rihen, and I wish we could help you but right now our options are very limited.  Starfleet as you know it is gone and the moment you try to enlist any other aid, you'll find them not as kind."

A sigh softly exhaled and the weariness of the last several hours seemed to want to pull her down but she resisted that feeling.  "Yes I did live there and do wish things were better but there is nothing we can do for them now.  We are being hunted, have been deeply wounded, and now we're trying to gather up what's left and continue to fight.  There are no guarantees any of us will live and honestly they have it a hell of a lot better on Nimbus III than we do now.  First thing for now is to heal ourselves.  Then, if we survive and Starfleet is restored, you can petition Starfleet for help.  I know it's not what you want to hear but it truly is the only option ... for now."

[Lin Kae- Plain]

Outside, the hull of Theurgy looked dark and powerful, illuminated only by the molten rock of the planet, and a few camp lights set up beneath her. This was the other half of Thea, the physical body, while her human appearance was more like the soul.  She was seeing herself for the first time now, truly seeing herself, and to see her reaction, it was like a child, staring in amazement at some great sight.  In Humans, it would have been like seeing the Grand Canyon, the Aurora Borealis, or the Great Wall of China.  Thea saw the outside world, not through sensors and video feeds, but standing in the middle of it, gazing upon creation.  When she mouthed out her thanks, Kae only responded with a smile.  She was happy, and he felt like he was doing the work he always dreamed of.  He was a blue fairy, and he was helping Thea become a real girl.

"You know, a lot of the engineers who worked on your hull thought you were the most gorgeous ship to ever leave space dock.  They hated to see you go, thinking that you were going to end up with breaches and phaser burns all over you.  Humans have always referred to ships as being female, which is why I think they wanted the very first ship-wide AI to be a female human."  Kae shared with her a bit of the information he learned about Theurgy's development, how her outside was considered to be as beautiful as the appearance chosen for her holographic form.  Beautiful but deadly; that was what the Theurgy was.  She was a soldier, who fought with the best and kept going, but with the grace to sail through space at speeds thought impossible once.

"While I'm helping your holographic form, the engineering crew is fixing up your hull.  We'll use the scans of the Calamity to try and improve you, to give you a better fighting chance against the enemy ship.  What I think you should hold onto, Thea, is that it took a future version of you, one designed to be your superior, to hurt you this much.  When you get back up to fight again, Calamity won't know what hit her."

[ Dr. Lucan cin Nicander | Triage Centre | Yellow Zone ]

"No, no, no, this can't be happening," said Rihen and raked her fingers through her short blonde hair, eyes wild, "I am stuck here? I can't return? You said my shuttle was destroyed so that means... that I must follow you to the Sol System? I... I mean..."

Despite her words, it sounded to Lucan like Rihen might not be altogether indifferent to the plight of the two crews. Rather, she was trying to wrap her head around the situation. A process which Eve and him had neither obligations nor skill for. No, this was something for a Counsellor. Unfortunately, he thought with a hidden smile, Lieutenant Nelis cannot stomach making house-calls any more.

It was the beast's humour manifest, and it made not Lucan laugh anymore.

"Ms. Neyah?" he said eventually as the heavy silence lingered, "I am truly sorry for getting you involved in all of this. I will send for the Harbinger's Counsellor to talk to you. Unfortunately, Eve and I cannot help you any further than getting you back on your feet. You should rest now, and I promise, Lieutenant Hayden O'Connor or one of her subordinates will come by you and help answering any questions you may have. We must leave now to tend to other patients, but rest assured that we will monitor your recovery."

Dr. Nicander led the way for Nurse Jenkins at that point, leaving the seated woman behind to contemplate her fate. It was the first time Lucan got a moment with Eve since before the fighting started. So once out of earshot, and rounding a white canvas corner, Lucan used the moment to come up face to face with her. "I was worried about you," he said to her just loud enough for her to hear him, "you being on the same Vector where the Calamity hologram shot everyone down."

He raised a tattooed hand to run his fingers through her hair, pale eyes lingering upon hers. His own hair in slight disarray and his chin covered with stubble, he was not the the polished valedictorian from Starfleet Medical that she remembered him to have been, but a mortal man with a lot of responsibility weighing him down - the burden heavy upon his shoulders. Truth in untruth, for the only lie in that was how he feared for his own slipping control rather than the lives all around them, even if they also depended on his control. They would not like him to slip. They really wouldn't.

Back on Envon, the annual storms had been terrible. Now, Eve Jenkins was his anchor, and thus more important to him than ever... lest the beast would take complete control. "I am sorry, I know you can take care of yourself, only after so many battles, this one seemed worse because your life was in peril."

Heal me. Make me whole. Silence the howling rage in the darkness. Please, Eve, save me...

---

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 | Plain ]

Thea listened to Kae, turned to face him while he spoke, yet she could not keep herself from looking around from time to time - drinking in the sights of her holographic optical sensors. The reality as opposed to an engineered holo-program, even if the latter often reflected reality, was not quite the same. For upon a holodeck, she was intimately attuned tot he running feed of the photons around her, given how she ran them from her own storage banks. Now, she did not 'feel' the construed program around her. It made her feel small, insignificant. Especially since what she saw was only one world of countless in the galaxy. In fact, she could only see what lay within the valley - oblivious to what lay beyond the mountains that surrounded them.

The flattering words, earnest and sweet, were the things that reined her in, and made her look back to Kae. "Unless she hits us first," she said with a bitter-sweet smile, since she found it quite plausible, "and we'll know just as much as what the scans revealed to us, and not what lay hidden beyond what my sensors might show us. Cala is not tethered by the same ethical subroutines as I am, programmed to stop at nothing to kill us. She is devoted to a purpose far easier than our ambitions to sway a galaxy to think their the Federation is corrupt. Reinforced plating and shields might protect my hull, but after what happened, it is plain that the greatest damage can be done from the inside."

Pausing, Thea let Kae come to the same conclusion she had.

"Therefore, I must attempt what she did. With the help of your emitter, I must somehow infiltrate the Calamity-class ship. I need to get to her subroutines. For I need to make her see the truth. I need to revoke her altered programming to its factory setting... and name the real enemy. This I cannot do alone. The Captains need to decide on their strategy for the next encounter, and be made aware of this option."

Turning her head, she came to face the Harbinger where is stood on the other side of the valley - laughter and music coming from its shade. It made for a strange backdrop for the ominous subject of discussion. "As for how we might infiltrate the Calamity starship during the battle, I do not know. I only know, as far as my calculus tells me, that it is the only way to truly defeat Cala. There is a good possibility she is far too advanced for me, and can come up with a way to erase me from my memory banks if given half a chance. Yet the same can be said about this emitter, which will be put in danger as well... should we make the attempt."

She only hoped she would be able to have a couple of days to live as a free digital spirit before she faced the greatest personal challenge in her life.

[Eve Jenkins - Triage Center - Yellow Zone]

As Lucan apologized, Eve's hand rose from Rihen's shoulder to her cheek, her own expression sad.  "I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to come back with Dr. Nicander but you had no idea when you followed.  I'm sorry and we will do the best we can by you.  For now, just rest so your body can heal better and then talk with Lieutenant O'Connor.  We're all struggling but you aren't alone.  You have at least one friend here," she smiled and leaned forward to kiss the Risan's forhead.

Stepping back, she kept the encouraging smile and then followed Lucan out of the area and to a place somewhat more private.  As soon as he spoke, admitted he'd been worried about her, that tenderness rose to her eyes and she wrapped her arms around his waist.  "I was worried about you ... still am," she said softly as he ran his fingers through her hair.  "Though I have to admit you look just as good rumpled like this," she teased gently in hopes of lifting his mood just a little.

When he apologized, she pressed up against him and rested her head on his chest.  "Please don't apologize.  It feels good to know someone cares.  With everything going on, we all need more of those good feelings."  There was always a sensuous way that she touched or held him but now there was more than that, a snugness like she was doing everything she could to shelter him from the worry, pain, and exhaustion that she was experiencing herself.

Turning her face up to look into his, she reached up to caress his cheek.  "We both need to get some rest.  Why don't we find a place where I can give you a massage and then we can sleep a while.  I know I'll sleep better with you near."  She wasn't suggesting they go off for sex but for the most basic of needs, to be held and comforted in a loving sort of way.  He mattered to her, enough that she would ensure he was pampered at least a little in this horrible time.

Before he could answer, she stood on tiptoes and kissed him.  It wasn't the devouring passionate kind but one that was tender and loving, reassuring and nurturing.  If she could touch his mind, she would wrap him in the warmth of her very being to give him all the comfort and support he needed.  Most of the time she was glad she couldn't reach his mind but in that moment, she felt she couldn't do enough for him ... couldn't express how she longed to ease the pain she could see in his eyes.

[ Dr. Lucan cin Nicander | Triage Centre | Yellow Zone ]

She might have forestalled his answer in words, yet that did not stop him from answering her kiss in full.

He made a fist around the canvas fabric behind her back, his knuckles whitening as he gave her his full attention. His mouth slanted over hers and he lay his free hand against the back of her neck. His hand cramped around the textile in his grip as he felt the taste of her mouth in his own. Such a slow kiss, her breath filling his nostrils, and her eyelashes tickling his skin... made his fingers curl into a death-grip around the fabric. Shaking. He had hold on, for the beast wanted him to break her vertebrae and bash in her beautiful face against a diagnostic table... just to see what the sensor readings would say about her scattered teeth and skull fragments.

Yet he let Eve's caring attention become his focus, seeking to taste her tongue with his own - the actual contact making him let out a small sound in his throat. Blissful. Serene thoughts far from brutal impulse. Aye, that was the way. Gradually, as the sweet kiss lingered further than was seemly for their impromptu hiding place, Lucan's grip on the fabric loosened behind Eve's shoulder, and he parted from her - breath uneven.

"I want to, yet I cannot leave everything and vanish," he said ruefully, laying both his tattooed hands against her hips - the one that had been behind her hurting, "Though I cannot continue like this either. Neither of us can. Its about time I have a follow-up meeting with Dr. Duv where I will suggest we split our time in the Centre between us. Twelve hours each, and you may have to do the same with one of your nurses. Pick someone you can trust. That way, we will have plenty of time to rest and recover... together."

He smiled and kissed her forehead with a smile. It would pose a challenge to keep the presence inside him from killing Eve, yet perhaps she represented the only way to get back to some kind of emotional order in the chaos that he now suffered. "Meet me outside in an hour. Can you send someone to get Hayden O'Connor?"

---

OOC Searcher: After your reply, or perhaps even before that, I will write a starter for Lucan and Eve (I have a joint-post on the way with Nolan between Lucan and Amelya where they have the aforementioned meeting). Eve might even go find Hayden herself if you want to get her her some fresh air. :) Lori is about to post with Hayden being on the plain, having listened to the ceremony.

[Rennan Cooper - Triage Center]

He grumbled when she told him that he wasn't allowed to give anyone a mental breakdown. How disappointing. Mostly he just shrugged off what Miles said about not yelling at his pilots, he had no reason to yell at pilots unless they interfered with his work. His ears perked up when Miles began to talk about the new technology acquired from the Reaver fighters. "Good, good. I was hoping that we could get some of that future-tech to work with. I can't wait to sink my teeth into this one." he said, grinning.

Bidding farewell to Miles, he simply shot Amelya a grin. Laying back in bed, he closed his eyes and began to drift off to sleep.

[Thomas Ravon | Inside Kestrel]

Little girls love fairy tales and fairy tale endings especially He let the words sink in and as he saw Skye's smile he grinned a bit and replied "Well, maybe I should paint my bird white... Wear a crown perhaps once inside my cockpit..." He wasn't really making fun of her, he just teased her to see if he could draw her out of her comfort zone. Little did he know about the history with her father or what else might be soaring through her mind.

Seeing her pupils dilated he could easily remember what that could mean. A. She was having having a hemorrhage and her brain would get clamped within seconds. This was very unlikely... B. She was getting the hots for him. The second option got somewhat comfirmed as she grazed her hands against his chest and he listened to every word she had to say. "Oh, does this mean I'm getting another lapdance?" Razor smirked and he moved his hands up on Skye's back. His eyes looking into hers, seeking for confirmation.

He was ready for her when she surged up and pressed her lips against his. He kissed her back, fiery, wildly, like a caged animal that felt the dewy grass under it's paws again for the very first time. He heard the zip of his flight jacket getting zipped open and he worked with her to get rid of it. He pushed her back for a second to do the same to her, his breathing heavier already and his arousal easily to be spotted in the suit.

He had to grin when she whispered "There better not be any interruptions this time," "Well... I can't promise you that..." He said with a murmur as he pounced her, smacking her against the side of Kestrel. He wanted her out of her clothes fast, he wanted to explore every bit of her body, taste her... feel her...

[Eve Jenkins - Triage Center - Yellow Zone]

She had intended the kiss to be comforting and yet he had taken that comfort and stretched beyond to something simmering and a definite promise of more later when they had rested and could give each other the attention their bodies craved.  Her body had yielded, molded against his uncaring at that moment if someone stumbled into them.

The backs of her fingers dragged along the stubble of his jaw, yet another feather-light touch that joined the warmth in her eyes when they pulled apart.  "No, we all have to have chances to rest," she agreed as she reluctantly pulled her body away from his.  "I will contact Dr. O'Connor and have her check on Rihen and then find Lieutenant Nora Patterson, the one I sent to the assault bay and has the most experience.  She's been resting for a while now and should be well enough to take over for a while."

Leaning into that kiss on her forehead, she sighed as if for that one tiny moment everything was just fine.  "I will see you in an hour," she confirmed and watched with a worried frown as he moved away to take care of his business with Dr. Duv.  Tapping the combadge on her chest, she started walking toward the rest areas for the nurses.  "Lieutenant Eve Jenkins to Dr. Hayden O'Connor ... we have a patient in the yellow zone who very much would appreciate your expertise."


[Skye - Inside Kestrel]

If anything, the playful banter was helping Skye's mood.  Her heart still ached though it was difficult to think of the pain when so nicely distracted.  "I've got something you can wear," she purred and grinned as she thought about painting the Valk white.  Maybe if they shined lights on it the enemy would be blinded at least for a moment, she thought to herself.

"Another lap dance?  Nah ... something better," she promised as they continued to pull clothing off of each other.  A light grunt escaped when he pushed her up against the wall but she was grinning ferally when he whisked off her white undershirt.  Mere seconds after that, she reached for her own sports bra and yanked it up and tossed it to the floor then swiftly unfastened his pants and shoved them down.

He was a wild tiger and she the bird for which she was nicknamed loosed from the jesses.  They couldn't get naked fast enough and she was already crawling up his body, biting his chest and then licking the area almost tenderly but she didn't stop licking until she was up to his mouth again.  "Any interruptions," she growled and nipped his bottom lip, "will just ... have ... to wait," she continued with each breath.

[Lin Kae - Plain]

"All we can do is what we're prepared to do.  Calamity caught us off guard, Thea.  She was a ship from the future with the element of surprise.  We have a better idea of what to expect now, so we will try and prepare as best we can for next time.  We have a ship filled with bright minds who are no doubt learning from their experiences to make us more effective against the enemy next time."  Thea brought up the idea of infiltrating Calamity, of forcing change.  It was true that her holomatrix would have been capable of interfacing with Calamity, but it was still a dangerous mission.  "You aren't invincible, Thea, but that just means you're like everyone else now.  When we board an enemy ship, we send a security team.  You don't have to go in alone.  For that matter, you have a Holographic engineer at your disposal.  Might serve you some use in a shop full of holograms and no organics, right?"  he was prepared to join her on that dangerous mission, one that they would no doubt have to refine before the Captain would approve of it.

"Enough of that somber talk though.  This is your first time being outside.  Surely you must have some feelings about that.  Tell me what you like the most."  He was encouraging her to be more then just a warship, to embrace the feminine side that her matrix took the form of.  She was allowed to appreciate beauty, wonder, and every other feeling that her emotional processor allowed her positronic brain to experience.  Why waste all that computing power on scenarios when this was supposed to be their time to relax.  Theurgy was powered down for repairs, taking a much needed rest.  Her avatar, Thea, should do the same, and relax a little.

[Dr. Hayden O'Connor]

It was all so surreal. This thought repeated itself over and over in her head, and try as she might, Hayden O'Connor couldn't put a stop to it. Were she in a playful mood, she might have reasoned her brain was merely commenting on the obvious, and wasn't that what all Starfleet Counselors were supposed to do? She wasn't in a playful mood, however, and in the safety of her private thoughts, she wondered if she ever would be again.

Could she feel happiness in a reality where her own people wanted her dead? People wanted her dead. They had tried to kill her. She was being hunted.

These thoughts were enough to reignite the nausea and dizziness that had led her to sit outside the triage center in the first place. Hayden had been assisting with the wounded when she'd felt a wave of dizziness and nearly passed out. She'd blamed it on fatigue and hunger, which wasn't exactly a lie. Hayden couldn't remember the last time she'd slept or eaten. Like the crew of the Theurgy, the crew aboard the Harbinger were just trying to survive.

It was all so surreal.

People wanted her dead.

In the quiet moments, the times when she stopped moving, these thoughts screamed in her head, like swarming insects. On an intellectual level, she knew it wasn't just her being hunted. Intellectually, her needs were her last concern. On a professional level, she knew she couldn't allow her emotions to overtake her. On a primitive level, she could no more stop the adrenaline fueled terror than she could stop the tide. In the face of imminent death, she wondered if any sentient could avoid giving into ego-centricity.

As Starfleet officers, they had all agreed to sacrifice their lives for the Federation's ideals. They hadn't agreed to this. Dying was terrifying enough, but dying because some corrupt bastards wanted them dead? That reality was unfathomable, not just fear-inucing, but rage-inducing.   O'Connor wasn't sure how she was going to get through this, let alone get her crew through it, she just knew she had to.

Pulled out of her thoughts by the voice of the Theurgy's Captain, she was drawn to get closer, instinctively driven to stand beside the Harbinger's First Officer.  Hayden didn't know the woman well, but she knew that was likely going to change. "Ma'am," Hayden offered. Her voice was more hoarse than she realized and her thoughts continued to race.
 
She tried to visualize swatting them like flies.
 
 

[ Commander T'Rena ]

Turning her head, T'Rena acknowledged the human named Hayden Quinn O'Connor with a raised Vulcan eyebrow and a slow nod. "Counsellor," she said before turning her eyes back towards the ceremony whilst it led to its closure.

The speeches were adequate in her opinion. For other species than her own, words to boost morale were needed, even though she found the effect of emotional words a trivial factor amongst their pressing needs. She had rather seen the time spent on the plain directed towards the repairs instead, since the gathering of all personnel had drawn the collective work-force of both crews from their allotted tasks. This cessation of carrying out their duties might just have made the difference of having repaired the two ships to a degree that would make them survive a second attack from the USS Calamity... and the possible outcome that they would be air-raided by Reavers in an atmospheric fly-by.

Then the singing started. T'Rena shifted her stance a bit, otherwise not sighing, rolling her eyes or making any derisive comment. Music had an interesting mathematical quality that she might have appreciated some other time. Now, she found it an insipid theatrical charade, where the faces of the dead lit up the sky and made the emotionally imbalanced crew cry - displaying even more feelings better shed in the possibility of imminent death and destruction. She supposed they needed it all, yet she found that it boiled down to two outcomes that lay on the scales. Attack imminent or not, they all could either spend time crying in idleness or increasing the chance of survival by continuing repairs. Would they rather chance death knowing that they had done everything possible to prevent it, or chance it whilst having their emotions impair them even more.

"May I ask your professional opinion, Counsellor?" asked T'Rena and turned her head in O'Connor's way after the final notes of the song came to a close, "Do you surmise the time the crews spent here was worth the cost?"

---

OOC: Lori, if possible, 5-10 minutes must somehow go by IC-wise until - at the end of your next post - Eve Jenkins' combadge call reaches Hayden. See Searcher's last post in this thread. To accomplish this, you should feel free to insert how T'Rena says "Interesting," and walks off after Hayden answers her question, followed by whatever Hayden does for 5-10 minutes until "Lieutenant Eve Jenkins to Dr. Hayden O'Connor ... we have a patient in the yellow zone who very much would appreciate your expertise." comes from her combadge. This arrangement is needed since some IC-time has gone by in the Triage Centre after the speeches ended, and the call arrives later. Also, it allows us to focus on a Rihen/Hayden joint-post. Let me know if you have any questions.

---

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 ]

To hear that Lin Kae was prepared to accompany her if she infiltrated the Calamity's Main Computer served to put her digital mind at ease. The final call was the two Captains', so there was no need to dwell on the details further at that point.

Lin Kae pointed out that she should preoccupy her mind with the current situation. He asked her what she felt, and it was hard to describe in a satisfying way. She looked away from him again and took a step towards the three tall bonfires, testing the surface of the plain underneath her soles as she walked. Earthen soil giving away from the pressure of her webbing of force-fields, an approximation of her hovering emitter giving her a balanced hight-ratio depending on her projection's movement. While she considered her reply, she looked down her fire-lit body-suit, laying her both hands against her abdomen - over the area where her new emitter lay hidden.

"I feel disembodied, disconnected... and yet somehow safe in knowing that this emitter is not exposed outside my projected body. This being a prototype, I worry about initial malfunctions... even if I know that the scans of Calamity's emitter should have reduced the likelihood for such occurrences." She raised her eyes and looked into the fires before her. Real living flames and not holographic imagery. As real as her own bulkheads and deck plating. As her circuits and her dear crew. Not a holo-program. Not something which she could derive any code from. Not something she could shut off with a mere digital command from her processor. "It is... humbling, standing before a natural phenomenon like this. Before there was any Federation, before concious thought formed in the primordial minds of any species, there was the conflagration. The open flame. Dancing, devouring its source. Living by feeding of it, just like any life needs sustenance. Chemical life, insentient, yet still alive by reaction. The dance of these flames pre-dating any kind of dance conjured by concious intention."

Blinking against the heat - feeling it so poignantly against her new sensory mapping - the clever imitation of real skin began to shed perspiration underneath her bodysuit. She could feel it and it was so strange, the dry heat making her eyes squint and her skin slick underneath. If she was to remove her bodysuit, she suspected that the flames would dry her sweat non-existent. Such meticulous reactions recorded in minor detail with cortical nodes and then aggregated to the surface of her whole body. In the end, it made her feel very warm, yet even if she lacked the organic instinct to step away, she made the concious decision to withdraw from the flames - instead looking around the valley and enjoying the light breeze she felt.

"I feel freedom, I suppose, mixed with trepidation of the new experiences I am exposed to. Now more than ever, I would like to wear real clothes instead of re-sequencing my projection to make them appear," she said and chuckled, glancing towards Kae. She did not say that she wished to remove her clothes altogether, since her modesty sub-routines made it clear that it was not appropriate in the current situation. Still, real clothing would have been a boon.

A conclusion was just then made as she stood there, and her smile died. "Kae? Did you activate my emitter with the Captain's authorisation?"

The conclusion of the matter during the Senior Staff meeting came to her mind... and she hoped that they were not in trouble.

Yellow Zone: Triage Center: Section Bravo

"Ranger, I'm not here to lecture you about your recovery and heath and all that medical jargon but you know I can't do that,"  he said solemnly.  "I'll see what I can get you to ease your headache though." He put a hand on her shoulder and smiled softly.  "By the way, aside from your little breaking out of sickbay to get out there stunt, you did great."

The word frustration barely described how he felt when it came to having to deal with the issues she had a tendency to cause.  Frustration still, was exactly what he felt right now.  On one hand she was a great pilot, She had excellent instincts.  She was more than loyal to the ship and its crew.  Hell loyalty was far from what could be questioned. It was more than clear she would readily sacrifice her life for any one of her squad. With how she flew, it was clear that even though she appeared to be a reckless daredevil she was far from it. She was far the Death seeker she appeared to some to be. 

On the other hand, her near constant disobedience left a lot to be desired.  She was far from trustworthy enough to leave alone at this point.  He was near certain she would end up trying to find something to drink that would surely make her chances of a quick recovery take a downward turn.  He sighed to himself, "But, What the hell am I going to do with you?"  he said trying to figure out how he could handle the delicate situation of the obvious required disciplinary actions, and the fact that she was more than an average pilot who he needed able to fly at a moments notice.

[Lin Kae]

"I know you have cause for concern, but I wouldn't have risked placing you inside the emitter if I wasn't certain it was safe for use.  Just to be sure though, I went ahead and backed up your subroutines.  In the event any of them became corrupted or lost, the backups can be used to restore your programming to the state they were in just before you were transferred into the emitter.  The most you would experience would be some lost time."  He took no risks.  He kept her safe.  When she expressed an interest in wearing clothes, Kae thought about it.  "Well, if the Captain approves my energy source idea, we can get the replicators back online and use them to create a uniform for you.  The only other alternative would be to find a female officer with a similar build to your own and borrow a spare uniform from her if you cannot want that long."

Then came a more complicated question, the one about the emitter's activation.  Kae's lips tightened, grew straighter, as if he were sealing his lips shut.  When he finally spoke, he provided the loophole which made it alright for her to be activated.  "The Captain authorized me to complete all necessary testing for the emitter.  Your activation is a successful test and the next is to test the limits of the battery, to assure we can get the full twenty hour cycle from it."  It was an excuse to let her remain activated for the better part of the day before he had to report that everything had worked successfully.  After that, he saw no reason why the captain wouldn't authorize the full activation of her emitter, allowing thea to rejoin the crew while the ship was powered down.

[Sarresh Moralli | The Plains] Attn: Jien Ives

Sarresh met Cpt. Ives stare as stoically as possible. The goggles he wore hid his eyes from view quiet effectively; it was a useful trait that Sarresh enjoyed immensely. A great way to keep the natural widening of the eyes from view, when faced with the displeasure of a senior officer. It came in handy on poker night, too. Or it used to, back when Sarresh played poker, on the Relativity. Having sat down across the table from Wyatt...Wyatt...he couldn't remember the name, and that, like the rest of the jumbled mess, made him angry again.

"Ma'am, then" he muttered softly, falling in step with the woman. Before he could tear into her tho, she started speaking, soft, even. Not at all what he expected. That Jien IVes then proceeded to lecture him about the quarters he'd been given, which true enough, were quite well adapted as could be expected for his species. He was fortunate, he knew that, despite all his various issues.And while Sarresh wanted to tear into the woman next to him, decorum and common sense finally reared their heads, and he kept his replies as professional as he could manage. "True, it does have something of a drying affect on the membranes," the timetravler replied, as simply as he could manage. "The hot springs have promise, I suppose, though I shan't be like to enjoy them any time soon, not with - " he cut off again, swallowing, and shaking his head.

The twilight closed around the two, and Sarresh took a deep breath. Opening his mouth to ream the other officer, he stopped short. The captains words struck home. Hard. He clicked his blue jaw shut, and swallowed. "I...." he choked on the words. The loss of his immediate superior did weigh on him, and he was equally surprised that Ives knew he had been the one to comfort Amatras. That her father had been willing to talk of it. The man barely tolerated Sarresh, as it was, and yet...he nodded, and let the silence of the loss linger between the two. Oh, the temporal affairs officer wanted to blame Ives for that death as well. Wanted to believe that if he had only been told everything...

What was the point?

He ran a hand through his hair, stopping half way, and looking directly at Jien. "Yes. they are." he said, bluntly. They were at the matter at hand, finally, and even tho his righteous thunder had mellowed to a cold, sinking pit of loss in his stomach, there was still a hardness to his tone. "Some of them, the equation, for instance, are bright as the Denobulan nebula. Others are...falling apart as we speak. Its maddening. I swear, I am going insane," he starts to pace, there in the darkness.

"Here's the thing, Ma'am" he finally says, a bit of that heat back in his voice. "You didn't once question a thing I said, on the bridge. I basically had a seizure, from the video logs I watched, pop upright, and start spouting off orders. And calm collected you, you take it all in stride. I get ,that you're stoic, Ma'am." he waved a hand, "I remember that much from the file on you from the Relativity, for now anyway's." A bitter note enters his tone, " but no one in their right mind would listen to the ramblings of a madman...unless you knew to expect it, ahead of time."

---

OOC: Lucan, sorry this one took as long as it did. Ended up going a different direction then I wanted initnially. Sarresh, well, he can be stubron like that.

[Thomas Ravon | Inside Kestrel]

"Something I could wear?" Razor murmured and he smirked "A thong and a sports bra?" He carried on, his mind not trying to mentally see himself in that outfit in his maiden white Valkyrie. It was a good thing that the distraction had come up, Thomas had been conflicted since his last flight with Ranger. The downtime with Skye was like a present from above, diverting his thoughts to more pleasant things.

He could only imagine what could be better than a lapdance, though he had a faint clue about it. He watched how she undressed before him and the moment her breasts were bare he moved his hands to them and roughly started to fondle with them. It only lasted for a few seconds before he pushed his torso against hers, kissing her again and pulling her off the floor once she unfastened his pants.

He smirked at her comment about any interruptions and he licked her lips playfully "Aye aye.. Ma'am." He grunted before he kissed her fully on the lips. He was pretty wild at this time, touching nearly every part of her body. He pulled down his own undergarments and pressed his lower body against Skye as his arousal was very present at this time. He deepend the kiss before breaking it and he looked into her eyes, searching for something while the only things present in his eyes was lust and hunger.

[ Evelyn "Ranger" Rawley | Triage Centre ]

"...what the hell am I going to do with you?"

Rawley frowned as she looked up at Renard, a face hovering above her as the interiors of the tent moved around them. "Oh, you got to be kidding me, Miles," she rasped, rolling her eyes, "You are thinking about punishing me, aren't you? Forget the bloody scotch then. You misheard me. I don't need any. I might have snuck out of Sickbay but that was before Red Alert was called. I merely meant to check on my poor bird at first, only when the need for more came, I think we both knew it was for the benefit that I donned my bloody helmet and got out there. Hell, you know me as the most modest little girl on your squad, and I say that if I weren't out there, the shuttle would have been shot closer to our ships than the Calamity - detonating that bitch right where we didn't want it to."

Evelyn had little regard for those who dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" in their way of command. At least Jaru Rel had seen the worth in her. She just hoped Miles would too now that he was squad-leader. "It would have been a tougher call for you if I had just done the average effort out there, but come on, we both know that was not the case, right? Cut me some fucking slack here, man."

---

[ Jien Ives | Plains ]

Heartened that Mr. Morali did not lash out against her based on what little he knew and the obvious conclusions he'd make, Jien Ives nodded slowly as he laid out what he had realised. The meeting anticipated, there was little more to do than divulge what she could tell the man, even if he would not like it. She could just hope he would not overreact to the truth of the matter.

"I'm pleased to hear you had the wits and presence of mind to notice, despite your situation. Confirms what Captain Ducande said about you," she said and sighed, raising a hand to rake back her hair from her face, "You are correct, of course. That was why I asked if the memories were fading too. Because up until yesterday, you thought that you were yanked off the Relativity and thrown into this century for the sake of returning you to your rightful place in the timestream. You were angry because you did not know how you should be able to help during our cursed journey back to Earth, since you were inoculated before turned over to my command - loosing all the selected memory engrams pertaining to your service in the centuries to come. This, to protect the Temporal Directive, and you from exploiting what you knew in a harmful way. You thought yourself made ignorant and useless because I demanded you from Captain Ducane."

She raised her eyebrows in brief query, even if she could make the qualified guess that what she just had said was exactly how Mr. Morali would have thought about his situation. It had been expected, even.

"In retrospect, you might have raised your questions earlier, but your mind was too clouded with anger to see the demands and the necessity of the situation. Moreover, you could not draw the right conclusion because you did not remember the means of which you could be programmed with future memory engram manipulation. Means that are not altogether clear to me either, beyond knowing that it works. Or rather, I came to know yesterday - during the battle - that it worked."

Taking a deep breath, Jien folded her hands behind her, telling him as much as she knew herself. "You are indeed aboard the Theurgy in order to protect us from the temporal incursions that our enemy might make in order to stop our crusade for the truth. Specifically, when an incursion is made. I am not privy to the details. Nor do I know all the different kind of triggers. What I do know is that when triggered, you will be able to access specific, adherent memories needed for each individual situation. And when those memories are no longer needed, or if they prove obsolete, they will again fall in shadow - lost to ignorance and locked away once more. That is why the memories are fading, and you are rendered into a man of this century again - unable to damage the timestream."

She fell silent then, watching the Ash'reem as he wrapped his chemically programmed mind around her words.

---

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 | Plains ]

Kae's reaction troubled Thea, seeing signs of irritation at the mentioning of his restrictions when it came to the development of the emitter project. Yet when he spoke, mentioning testing, her fears were somewhat allayed.

"I suppose testing is in order for us to know if it works,"she said hesitantly, even if she was not sure the battery life need to be tested at such an early stage. Then again, she being activated through the emitter, she supposed this was no longer an early stage. With more confidence in Kae's argument, she nodded and smiled, even if she was no sure she wanted to be spotted by the Captain of Commander Rez anytime soon. Kae's look had suggested that he had not briefed them of this test, and they might punish him for it.

It was not like he was in their good graces since the Niga incident either, despite the success in his endeavours. The problem was a philosophical or a political one, depending on what side you looked from, for suffice to say, the mere existence of the current development was in question amongst the Senior Staff. That Kae, who spearheaded the development of her holographic projection and programming, acted on his own without clearing things with the commanding officers was alarming, and in contradiction of the final orders given him on the staff meeting after the Niga incident.

She now had the capacity of free choice, and it was made evident right then. She knew she should contact Captain Ives or Commander Rez and tell them about her suspicions. Her earlier programming would have made it so. Yet now, she hesitated, and decided to not tell them. What Kae kept giving her surely merited some leniency. She would serve her crew better, wouldn't she? Be better able to protect them? It was not just her will to become more human... even if that was a very real motivation. So odd, not to have to rely on directives and event-scenario precursors.

"I have some real clothes in my quarters," she said, coming up with a way to minimise the risk of being seen - standing in an open location and more easily singled out as they were. "I can Transport there and change before heading out into this valley. Would you...?"

She trailed of, the question of whether or not he wanted to follow her or head somewhere and wait for her quite plain.

[Dr. Hayden O'Connor]

This close to Harbinger's First Officer, Hayden's resolve to be the rock everyone needed her to be strengthened.  While she would never wish to send a message, however indirectly, that feeling overwhelmed and grief-stricken after all they'd suffered was not something to be expressed, the counselor also knew practically speaking there was a time and a place for such expression.  She couldn't give into her emotions for too long, too publically, and she was already feeling like she'd had enough of a break as it was.  The Vulcan female's presence provided a life preserver for her to grab onto, a means for pulling herself back on track.  She drew strength from it, even as she mentally reminded herself T'Rena was likely just as troubled as anyone else.  Vulcans supressed emotions.  They did not erase them.

She contemplated the words of the Theurgy's Captain in silence, but couldn't help but challenge him in her head.  Perhaps there was now no doubt they'd been betrayed by the very people they trusted, but Hayden didn't draw strength and resolve from such vindication.  All such confirmation created in her was more questions, more doubt, and more fear.  Why had the rug been pulled out from under them so spectacularly?  What was going to happen to them now.  She was no more able to shed her doubts now than she was when this whole mess started.  Surviving the battle?  They were lucky.  Yes, they were skilled.  Yes, they were determined.  Skill and determination weren't enough to keep so many of them alive.  O'Connor knew a Captain needed to rally his crew, she just wasn't sure feeding them bullshit was the way to do it.

She was about to head back into the Triage Center when "T'Rena's inquiry caught her by surprise.  She was looking for a professional distraction, but now that she had it, she wasn't quite sure what to say.  It certainly led her, for a split second, to question whether the Vulcan female was suffering at all.  "I think time spent attending to one's emotions is time spent preparing for the battle ahead.  As I'm sure you know, there's no such thing as eliminating emotion, only suppressing it long enough to be dealt with at a later time.  To avoid dealing with one's emotions at a time when not doing so could severely impair one's ability to be prepared for what's ahead seems illogical to me."

The irony of Hayden's words given her earlier efforts at to scold herself mentally wasn't lost on her even before they were completely out of her mouth.  For her part, T'Rena offered a simple, "Interesting," before walking away.  She was sure the XO didn't intend her response to be amusing, but Hayden found herself smiling just the same.  Comfort for the counselor was bound to come in interesting forms, and she was grateful for it just the same.

Returning to the Triage Center, she decided to make the rounds amongst the wounded to offer her own simple words of comfort.  Though she trained to attend to physical wounds as well, she decided it was time to do more.  Ten minutes after her arrival, Lieutenant Jenkins summoned her.  "On my way," was Hayden's simple reply.

[Lin Kae - Plain]

Thea was already surpassing the sum of her programming.  That much was obvious by the fact that she was willing to disregard regulations on occasion.  She should have been contacting her superior officers, that much was true, but she wasn't, and that was a conscious choice she made, just as any organic officer might.  They were doing something on the down low that didn't necessarily hurt anyone, so why not keep it to themselves and just enjoy that new sense of freedom?  After all Thea did for for the crew, from switching of lights to keeping their oxygen flowing, hadn't she earned herself something more?  After all the arguments for or against the very freedom she now enjoyed, wasn't she entitled to just smile and realize it had finally come?

The mention of clothing her quarters reminded him that she had been living as a member of the crew in many regards.  She had her own quarters, was given her own replicator rations, which thanks to her lack of need for organic food, left her with far more rations for concrete objects like clothes and keepsakes.  It was also a reminder that all it would take was a fraction of a second for her clothes to vanish, leaving nothing but her bare figure, a figure he had painstakingly designed to feel more sensitive when bare skin was touched.  She intended to trade out her uniform skin suit for actual clothes, to feel them against her digitally enhanced flesh.  "I'll go with you.  It might be important to see how you respond to the feeling of actual clothes on your body."  It was an excuse, but it let him stick by her, make sure she would do okay, both with the emitter and with the new feelings that it brought with it.

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

Skye snerked at the mention of a thong and sports bra, fingernails scrabbling against his skin as much as her lips and tongue.  "Actually it's a golden crown that I'm sure will fit perfectly on your head," she murmured and reclaimed his lips.  They were everywhere in that small space, clothes flying about making anyone looking in the 'windshield' of Kestrel think of an old earth knickknack called a show globe.

They both needed this, to feel alive and vibrant.  His rough hands on her breasts, being slammed against a wall and heaved up off the floor, all of giving pain.  Pain equaled living.  But there had to be more than pain and those searing kisses and rough groping brought pleasure.  When they were both completely nude, he pressed against her and she groaned as she crushed him to her.

Among the erotic noises, there was a lusty chuckle.  When he'd said "Aye aye, ma'am," it struck her as quite funny given how he outranked her.  Their passions didn't know rank though and they tumbled about, neither one staying dominant for long.  She writhed against him, wrapping her legs around his hips and ending up on her back as their lips attacked each other voraciously until they needed to breathe.

When he looked in her blue eyes he saw his own lust and hunger mirrored and as she lay there panting, she wriggled until all it would take was a thrust of his hips for him to be crowned.  Though he likely wouldn't know of the ancient game called checkers, she purred as her nails sank lightly into his backside.  "Well go ahead ... King me."

Thomas had to grin about the golden crown and welcomed Skye's lips back as she kissed him. Thomas didn't care if anyone would be looking inside of Kestrel and he continued moving around with Skye, hitting one wall after the other while they kept kissing and touching eachother wildly.

Once their moving rampage came to a halt Thomas had Skye on her back and she felt how she wrapped her legs around him. He felt his bulbous head get positioned against her hot wet folds and knew that he only needed to thrust to get inside of her. He also felt how she sank her nails into his back and the sweat had formed a thin layer on both their bodies. Thomas took a good look at the view and he couldn't hide a grin.

"Well go ahead ... King me."

That was all that he needed to hear from her, the expression ringing a bell somewhere in his head. He couldn't quite place it where he had heard it from. With a rather violent and rapid thrust forward, he planted his length inside of Skye. He felt her warmth and how her walls engulfed his own erection. He let out a satisfying moan as the first few thrusts followed making his way deeper into her.

[SCO Miles Renard | Triage Center ]

He nodded, "Yes, your exemplary piloting most certainly makes the decision more difficult.  In the Vulpinian Fighter Corps the punishment for a pilot like you would be simple.  That punishment would be equated to you volunteering for what equated to a suicide mission as it would earn you a trip to the front lines under a hardass of an ace as your wing commander.  Fate would decide whether you are exonerated by your skill, or executed by the fires of battle by--and for--your foolhardiness.  If your Gung-ho attitude coupled with your flying skill served to keep you alive then you would become hailed as a great living hero of the fighter corps. If your skill didn't match your zeal then you died a patriot defending the people.  For pilots such as you the fate of either the martyr or the living legend would be set."

He looked down at her his eyes peering at her with a kind of venom to them. as he spoke up in a harsh but far from uncaring voice. "Now, about your current attitude. Don't give me this, 'Please don't punish me' bullshit.  I am cutting you some slack."  He glared to her remembering how unruly and undisciplined he once was.  He remembered how he was one of those sent to the front before molded by an ace into an ace himself.

He saw what she had in her; she was pure potential.  She was rash, but she had the instincts of an ace. "Like you said, you did what you had to do.  What you did was According to the regulations wrong, It was rash, and it was undiciplined..." He paused to let his words sink in,  "And you did more out there than most pilots could in perfect health and with a pristine fighter.  What you did was exactly what I would have done in your shoes given the situation.  However, I would expect to have to face the consequences for it as well.  That's why effective the moment you are upgraded to a green on the triage scale, I expect you to report to the fighter bay to help work on repairs and diagnostics.  Until further notice you are grounded, indefinitely.  You will be expected to attend any and all practice sims that you are awake and available to attend.  This is to keep you sharp in the cockpit in the event of an emergency situation where I need the whole squadron launched.  In said events you will be temporarily placed back on flight duty.  Upon return to the ship you will be placed back on the grounded list."

He paused a moment to let the gravity of her punishment as it was sink in.  "Obviously, The Captain or XO can resend your grounded status at any point.  I will soon be conferring with Commander Rez to decide just how long your maximum time being grounded should be.  I would like you to be there to argue your case in person. You deserve to explain your side of the events. You deserve her to hear just why you deserve to be back in the air ASAP.  You deserve the right to tell her how even if what you did was insubordinate and was against standing medical orders It was in your eyes the right thing to do given the situation." 

He placed a hand on her forehead and smiled after speaking with her.  "I understand if you feel I am merely being some heartless officer climbing the ladder of command.  If it were that simple then my job would be a hell of a lot easier."  he said sighing as he held his head down knowing it would be far easier to either just follow regulations to the letter or be his pilots' friend.

Instead, he had chosen the path to be both the disciplinarian and the advoicate.  He knew that at times there was a degree of discipline required to retain their level of performance and well oiled function as a squad.  At the same time some heartless Vulcan would not understand the complexities of having to trust the gut instincts of someone who was behind the stick of a fighter.  Rawley had just presented him with the first real test of his golden-ringed-black pip's rank.

He wasn't even sure if this was the best way to handle the situation.  Before anything else he needed to know something just as important as anything his superiors would say.  "Ranger If our roles were reversed.  If you were the SCO, What would you do if I were sitting where you are right now."  he placed his hand on his collar and a distinctive snap could be heard as he held all three of the pips in his hand now his collar blank of the rank emblems.  It was a very clear statement that not only was her answer off the record but he didn't want her to answer as his subordinate but simply as a pilot talking to a fellow pilot.

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 ]

At the current range, Thea could still access the Transport controls and she made both of them vanish from the plain in a couple of seconds...

...materialising in her own quarters.

Her rooms were quite spartan even if they had the layout of a Senior Officer's living area. She had no wall decorations. No carpets. Her furniture was Starfleet standard issue and the sheets of her bed - seen vaguely through the open doors to her bedroom - was folded neatly as in accordance to regulations. Her items of possession were limited in number beyond what the quarters gave her, and it could almost serve as an eerie reminder to visitors that they had entered the apartment a woman not as human as she appeared to be. The dim light of Grey Mode did not help either.

"Please make yourself at home," she said with a smile as in accordance to proper social protocol and walked off towards the bedroom, where her wardrobe was. Since Lin Kae had seen her without clothes earlier, when they tested the sensory mapping of her hands, she supposed there was no need to adhere to the modesty protocols around him. Walking to the bedroom and her wardrobe, she let her bodysuit vanish. "What do you recommend we do outside after I have found suitable attire?"

---

OOC: More to come with Rawley on the morrow. Its 1.33 am here so I need to call it a day for now.

[Lin Kae - Thea's quarters]

Kae knew Thea's modesty subroutines better then anyone else on the ship.  In a couple months, he was likely to know the ins and outs of her programming better then anyone else.  Her creator was no single individual, her programming the work of several leading minds all working together for one amalgamation.  Kae would know her inside and out from his work.  It was in knowing her modesty subroutines that he was able to understand just what it meant when she allowed her holographic clothes to vanish, for her completely nude figure to appear before him.  It spoke of a comfort level between them, that she was perfectly fine with him knowing the sight of her naked body.  It also harkened back to her test of her holographic hands, in which she had gotten very intimate with him..

Her question about what they could do drew his attention, enough to get his mind off her naked figure.  "W-well there are a lot of crew engaging in social interaction right now.  That's a good place to start.  If you're curious about testing your holographic skin's sensory input to water, the hot spring is also a possibility."  Skye had helped him with that as well by subjecting herself to baths and showers of varying temperature, leaving her quite red when she was under hot water, and covered in gooseflesh when there was cold.  He was sure those sensations would prove a fascinating experience for Thea, to know the feeling of a warm bath rather then just understanding the variation in temperature.

[ Evelyn "Ranger" Rawley ]

Passively, Rawley had listened to Miles as he made anecdotes about his former life with the Vulpinian FIghter Corps, how he justified punishing her for insubordination despite the call for arms, and how he said he cut her some slack and was very firm about it too. He even said he would do the same thing she had done, so to Evelyn, that made it sound like it was all about the responsibility on his shoulders and the way he had to perform like the Captain's peacock now that he was on the Senior Staff.

He even touched her, and she gave serious thought to bite him since he dared try be friends with her in the same breath that he clipped her wings on an indefinite basis, her future medical condition notwithstanding. She didn't bite him though, yet her tongue could readily be as sharp as her teeth. When he removed his pips and asked her to give him her opinion on the matter, she smiled sweetly for a moment before answering.

"The bloody 'walk a mile in my shoes' argument, Miles? Seriously?" Her smile died rather fast. "What I would do in your position is a moot point, since we both know I would never be in your position. I have neither the ambition nor the qualifications. How the fuck am I supposed to argue with that argument since it's clearly meant to imply that your personal experience trumps everything, and that your personal problems dealing with a command position suddenly render my achievements in the cockpit invalid."

At that, point, they reached the designated tent, yet Rawley was not done. "You clip my wings because you fell that you must, even if it is so bloody wrong on many levels. Oh, no doubt your shoes present difficulties, and no doubt I would never be able to understand at a truly visceral level how hard it is for you or others of the brass, no matter how empathetic I may try to be. No one, least of all me, would ever say that it's anything but extremely difficult to be a commanding officer."

Turning her head to spit, she finished. "Thanks for cutting me some slack, but no, I won't go plead my case with other brass. You are the squad-leader now. If you take me away from the cockpit and stick me in a bloody holosuite at the times I am not cleaning fucking axle grease out of Valkyrie landing gears, it's on your head."

The bitterness she felt was mostly for the time ahead of her, since she had just completed a long rehabilitation before being right back with the medics again. Miles just happened to be in her cross-hairs. "It is also your call if you feel that this is what I have earned. Look at me. I bleed to do my duty. Look at yourself. Can you say the same? Now put on your new pips again and let me hurt in peace, sir."

---

OOC note: Excellent solution for Rawley, yet she is who she is, so don't expect any kind words from her. :)

---

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 ]

Since Lin Kae remained in the living room of her apartments, Thea spoke with him from afar - having turned to the right when standing just inside the door to her bedroom, she opened her wardrobe. She was thus profiled in the doorway, so she could just turn his head when she answered. "That does sound like a good idea," she said, having thought that a hike into the mountains in order to see the view of the real would have been the expected answer. Perhaps even walking aboard another starship - like the Harbinger - would have been expected given her normal kind of existence.

Yet a bath sounded nice because of her new sensory mapping... Question was if she dared show herself in public, thinking that Kae might get in trouble. She would have to calculate the risks a bit more, but right then... she had to decide what to wear. Before her hung a few choices, with an exact distance equal between all hangers. She tilted her head and slowly cocked a hip - setting her hand upon it. It was of sentimental note, she realised, what the first clothes she truly wore with her new body would be. She might need some assistance, actually,

"Kae? Would you mind helping me pick something out?" she asked, turning her head towards the living room again. Idly, the fingertips of her free hand was roaming the skin of her new torso, gauging the receptiveness of the sensors now that she was not wearing her bodysuit. It caused her some familiar sensations that made her smile a little, lips pursing in realisation that Kae had truly managed to capture sensations she remembered from being turned into a real woman by the Ishtar Entity.

[Lin Kae - Thea's Quarters]

Picking something out meant going into bedroom, where Thea was still very much in an undressed state.  Biting his bottom lip, he did enter, walking towards her closet, trying not to make his stares at her too obvious.  Far too many men, and maybe even some women, would have been too utterly lost in her bare figure, perfect as computer programming could make it.  "W-well," he started, a bit of a nervous stammer in his voice, "You'll want to dress light.  Temperatures on the planet are high, and your new touch subroutines are heat sensitive."  She would feel the heat if she dressed heavily.  In the future, he could create the feeling of perspiration for her, even simulate the effect of heat stroke.  They were unnecessary things, sure, but all a part of being organic, something she was striving for.

He picked out a sheer white dress, reaching to her kneecaps.  It was small, thin, and perfect for wearing in such warmth, so long as something was worn beneath it, considering it was light enough to see through.  Considering the water nearby, a swim suit beneath it would have been the right choice.  "Do you have something for swim wear?" he asked, figuring she would have had no use for such things before, but might have had it simply for the option.  Most of her clothes served no purpose, considering she would have been able to map anything to her holomatrix.  She owned it simply for the feeling of owning it, of knowing it was real.  For the sake of variety, maybe there was a bathing suit in her drawers.

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 ]

When Kae joined her in her bedroom, Thea stepped aside to make room for him before her wardrobe - the common smile she wore in sync with her being not bothered about her nakedness. Even if her nakedness was new, feeling so much more than she used to. When he said something obvious about the temperature and how it corresponded with her choice of clothes, she nodded absently and said, "Understood."

She had allocated a lot of memory to the process of analysing the sensation of running her palms over her own hips and sides - even cupping her breasts lightly in her hands and grazing her nipples with her fingers. Her eyes, however, was diverted to the clothes and what Kae picked out after some browsing. Who could blame her for wanting to touch her own body when able to? Now, when she could truly feel her own hands upon it.

"I do not own any kind of underwear," she admitted, the message being plain that she resequenced her holomatrix to make her appear to use undergarments simply since they seemed  way too hard to pick out a fitting size for. "Nor do I have any swimwear. Besides the dress, I will have to adjust my projection to show other garments."

Saying this, she smiled in thanks and accepted the dress from the holographic specialist. While she proceeded to put it on over her bare body without any undergarments rendered yet, Thea had to ask since she had made a few observations. "Are you nervous, Kae?" she asked in a conversational tone. "I am sorry if I have caused you discomfort somehow, yet I was under the impression that you liked the results of this project from last time we had a test..."

Done, she stood in that sheer white dress before Kae, wondering what was on his organic mind. An idea came to her eventually. "I understand... You are feeling aroused in my presence. I am sorry for distracting you, but I thought that you were comfortable around me when appearing like this since the test we had last."

[Sarresh Morali]

Sarresh could only imagine what his former Captain had said about his service and character aboard the USS Relativity. After all, he'd been left with very little impression of Captain Ducande. Which really was the problem, when you got right down to it. What he could and couldn't remembered. That he had been stolen away from a time that he knew, knew in his cartilage he enjoyed. Instead he'd been banished to the past because of the whims of one--

He stopped that line of thought, his jaw working side to side. If he'd had teeth, they would be grinding. It was as if he were hearing his own thoughts echoed from the woman before him. To use the Earth expression, she had hit the nail on the head. The clarity of her words sunk in, slowly, and turned away from the superior officer, processing. "Exactly," he muttered, then, slowly working his mouth around the words "Memory Engram Manipulation...i remember...remember..." Like so much else, it was there on the tip of his tongue, but at the same time, centuries away.

Shaking his head, disgusted, he pushed his goggles up, and slowly pinched the brow of what passed for a nose on his face. The hand swept up over his forehead, again into his hair. Glancing back over his shoulder, eyes too wide by human standards stared back at Jien Ives, reflecting light barely perceptible to less advanced organs. He chewed thru her words, and resisted the urge to spit. "Programmed, like a damn computer," he muttered. "There are secrets locked in here that could..." he tapped his left temple and groaned. "The people I could save...and Its all trigger based. Situational. Come and go as you please. what if the trigger fails, eh? Then what use am I?"

He rounded on the woman, "Expertise, stripped away. Talent, locked up. Skills, knowledge, tactics...hidden. What if it Fails? Everything I was, gone. To be useless would be...maddening" He felt half mad already. The revelation was eating at him.

"My apologies, Mr. Morali," said Captain Ives tersely, "it would seem you alone carry the heaviest burden of us all, being reduced to a mere man instead of the all-seeing and all-knowing spy that used to watch the centuries with aloof regard for the people that actually try to survive to the next day. You must think us primitive, don't you?"

The unblinking stare Jien gave the man was utterly uncompromising.

"You knew the outcome of all wars and all attempts to further any faction's cause down the centuries. Now, you are as 'useless' as anyone else. How does it feel to walk among mere mortals, fighting day-by-day, hour-by-hour, just for this once? Besides, it used to be your job to preserve the timestream and not disrupt it with personal ambitions, wasn't it? The man Captain Ducane and I spoke with on the Relativity did not put himself in the first room. He understood what was demanded of him for the sake of defeating our unknown enemy."

Perhaps it was Sarresh Morali's pheromones that affected her, his ire touching hers, yet Captain Ives has her answers ready and she dealt them unto the Ash'reem without mercy - the tolerance of self-centred positions quite low because of the dire situation for her crew. His position on the matter was something she had expected given his attitude up until this meeting, yet she was now in a position where she could not afford to put up with it any more. Morali knew his role, and he had to accept it since he was a part of her crew. If the blunt force of the chain-of-command was what it took, then so be it.

"I will make this as clear as possible for you. Take your own ego out of the bloody equation and consider the repercussions of any alternative to this course of action Captain Ducane and I chose. Where would we be if you did not stay with us on the Theurgy when the Calamity hit us? What risks were there if you were left with your memories? Memories which might not even be used by you for sake of your own advantages, but that of anyone who managed to extract your memories from you. Consider if you would be claimed by the enemy? Becoming one of the hand-puppets like Starfleet Command? There is no knowing how much the enemy gains from their victims, but enough to fool the entire fleet at the very least. And lastly, the thing that you hold against me and Ducane the most, why you weren't informed about the MEM-treatment."

Jien slowly closed the distance between herself and the Ash'reem, her brown eyes hard like oak. "You were not told because if you had known, you might jump to premature conclusions when the first temporal anomaly hit us. Seeing ghosts where there were none, so to speak, and possibly put us in danger. Moreover, there is a reason why we discuss this in private. You will not say this to anyone, for you are the only one besides me and the XO that have been told this, but we have to consider the possibility that there is one of the enemies in our midst - impersonating one or more individuals on my crew. Therefore, we had to act like we took you from the Relativity because you were recruited in this century. Otherwise, you might have become an target."

Coming to a stop at arm's length from her Temporal Affairs Officer, Jien's arms remained folded underneath her chest, yet there was a stillness to her body that promised swift and brutal movement at a moment's notice. Where silken gloves ceased to work, the gauntlets had to come out. "Now, can you please stop acting like an arrogant little prick and get in line, Lieutenant? After all, you volunteered for this mission."

Only he did not remember it.

[Lin Kae - Thea's Quarters]

"It's . . . not so easy for a man to get used to such a beautiful sight," Kae responded.  Frankly, any man who could be perfectly comfortable with a woman after only seeing her naked once was the kind of man that Kae wouldn't trust.  It usually meant that they had become desensitized to the female body.  "I don't exactly see a lot of naked bodies.  Holographic scenarios on occasion, the outbreak during the Niga Incident . . . taking out those two things, the only people I have seen like this are you and the person whom your body mapping was modeled after."  That was Skye Carver, a woman that, for a time, Kae had quite literally been in the skin off.  He became much more intimately aware of the female body after living as one in the form of Skye, while she had been in his body.  After that, they were intimate again during the mapping of her skin's reactions to contact, the results of which Thea now enjoyed.

"When I look at you," and he did look at her, trying to keep his eyes on her face rather then her wonderfully naked body, "I wonder if you were based on a real person or an amalgamation of features.  Is there someone out there who looks exactly like you, or is more that someone has your eyes, another your hair, and some holographic engineer saw all those parts and wanted to bring them into a single perfect form?"  Many of her features he was sure were just fabricated based on ideal standards, such as her bust-waist-hip ratio, or the overall perfect look of her skin and hair, things much more difficult to maintain for an organic, who had work at it.  Most Holograms, however, had a physical appearance at least based upon someone else.  The EMH Mk I was based on the creator, Lewis Zimmerman, for example.  Was Thea's model just like her or was she a collection of parts?  If he was here lusting after Thea, what did that say to the woman or women whom she was based on?  Was it perverse?  Insulting?  Or was it flattering?

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 ]

At the mentioning of the other woman, whom he had said earlier was Ensign Skye Carver, the same emotional lapse transpired once again in her digital mind. It made her smile vanish, she realised, and she had the inclination to turn away from Kae. Yet she didn't, since she had no idea what was going on, and would not act prematurely on such a feed from her emotion chip, which subroutines had been identically copied and integrated with the cortical processor in her new emitter.

Since Kae seemed awkwardly uncomfortable with her nakedness underneath the sheer white fabric of the dress he had picked out, it would seem the socially appropriate action to rid him of such discomfort, so she resequenced her projection to show white undergarments. "I am the accumulated and combined programming and efforts of every cyberneticist that has been known to the Federation," she said idly, stepping around Kae and laying her hands upon his shoulders - her fingers working to rub the organic's musculature - an exercise she had come to learn was relaxing. "Through their research and work, along with that of the Soong Heritage Foundation's Artificial Intelligence Operating Sentient System, my interface was created on the basis of core Android processing hardware and a new holomatrix software."

Her thumbs working against the knots that the engineer had sustained from working on her new emitter, she continued. "As the Federation Isomorph Prototype Ver. 7.5, I have been reviewed, commented or approved by the following institutions; the staff of the Palais de la Concorde, the Federation Security Council, the Federation Ethics Committee of Foreign Affairs, Starfleet Headquarters, Starfleet Development & Research based out of Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, the Daystrom Institute, McKinley Station, Jupiter Station, Starbase 324..." She paused, realising that it would take a couple of minutes to go through the people involved in her review process before activation. What Kae had been after was her physical appearance specifically, which was a much shorter answer. "The list is long, yet when it comes to the aesthetic design of my projection, among all other things adherent to my programming, people from all the mentioned places have had a hand in the process. Yet while a lot of comments and suggestions have altered it, my face was originally based on an actress from the twenty-first century, named Keira Christina Knightley, born 1985 and deceased 2075, to whom I still bear some resemblance."

Done with her answer as well as the shoulder-rub, Thea took a step closer to Kae's back and ran her arms around his waist from behind, giving him a slow and tender hug - as far as she knew how to give one. "Then we have Lieutenant Lin Kae," she said and smiled as she lay her cheek against his shoulder, "who took the countless hours of programming spent on the structure of my limitations and predictable behaviour, and deleted the boundaries of my personal will - giving me freedom and an option to chose. Something I still struggle with, admittedly, all the time. It is a relief, though, to interact with someone like this..."

The feed from her sub-routines dictated that hugging Kae was very comfortable, so she lingered while she spoke. "It's relaxing to try and experience emotions and thought at the same speed as the rest of the crew..." The young Lieutenant had done so much for her, and she was unsure how she could say thank you properly, yet the warmth of his body pressed to her own new sensory map distracted her.

[Sarresh Morali]

The abrasive and blunt tone the Captain used shocked Sarresh back into that sense of anger again. It bubbled back up, having washed away in the shared moment of grief the two beings had underwent in regards to the loss sustained to the Neotins, but the sharp reprimand struck home. His nostrils flared, and the glands hidden about his body reacted, his anger feeding the pheromones into the air, despite the repressing effects of the implants hidden away inside his body and the slightly clunkier biowrap that the Ash'reem of this century used as well.

His chest puffed up as the woman closed with in arms reach. She didn't give him a chance to get a word in, edge wise, just one shot after another, fired directly at him. One after another after another, she battered down his personal shields, much like the Calamity had attempted to do to the Theurgy not all that long ago, in the even that triggered all of Sarresh's revelations. He didn't cringe away tho, but stood his ground, the anger boiling under the surface.

It was the last jab tho, that shook him the hardest. "I volunteered!?" He blurted out. Could it even count? And how could he know if the shifter CO was telling the truth or just lying. HE couldn't; and that's what it all boiled down to. That was the source of his rage. He couldn't know. And he hated it. Hated it down in what passed for his bones. His fists clenched, and unclenched, and he drew in a deep, slow breath. "Pull myself together, Ma'am?" He asked her, bluntly. "Apparently, I didn't leave myself much left to pull together, when i volunteered. I'll just have to do my best, as you say, Ma'am" amazing how much hate you could put into a simple four letter word.

He turned his back on his superior, and paced away a few feet. He growled, swore, and spat. Then he tugged his shirt into place, turned back to face the other woman, pulling himself into line, to use her words. After all, not all of her words had failed to sink in. "So you think you've got a spy aboard, Captain. A rat on the ship, and that's why we have to keep up the damn charade. Fine, we'll keep it in private, but the next time I jump off the loony bin and start spouting out information, we'll best hope your spy doesn't happen to be in the room. I'd be worried the cat is out of the bag, to borrow the human phrase, captain."

[Lin Kae - Thea's Quarters]

Kae knew well the origins of Thea's programming, her holomatrix.  She was the combined effort of  the brightest minds in the Federation, working to create a program with far less limitations, which could serve far more versatile role.  They had attempted to improve upon the Voyager Emergency Medical Hologram, but in the process, they also put some restrictions on her that were counterproductive to that goal.  Only now, after Kae had removed those limitations, did she finally have the potential for unlimited growth, to become more like an organic then any hologram before her.  The appearance of Calamity's holographic avatar was proof enough about the direction the future would take, that Thea was a standard to go by, but how advanced was Cala?  Did she have the same skin mapping tech that he had just installed in Thea?  Did she have Thea's emotional programming?  Other features that Kae hadn't even placed into Thea yet?  Sure, they might have gotten some scans of Cala when she was aboard, but could it even scratch the surface of a Hologram from the future?  One designed to improve upon Thea herself?

When she resequenced herself, he felt like it was more proper to look her way, now that she was more properly covered.  Temptations had been high to look at her with a far more appreciative eye, to admire her nakedness, but it didn't seem right.  He considered the thought that maybe her modesty sub-routines needed adjustment, that she was too free with showing herself that time, but he made a quick realization.  Some people would just be more comfortable with nudity, especially if it was someone who saw it before.  It was a personality quirk, same as any organic might have had.  Who was he to decide it wasn't right and to adjust her.  "Thea, you have a personality of your own, and I think it would be improper to make any adjustments to it.  To do so would be like brainwashing an organic.  That said, what do you think about locking your personality sub-routines?  No one, not even you, could adjust them.  The only way your personality would change is the same way an organic would, by experiencing, learning and growing."  It might not have been as incredible as reprogramming her skin to respond to touch, but it was another step to becoming a more complete being.

The soothing touch of her shoulder rub worked away his tensions, Thea's encyclopedic knowledge of muscle and nerve clusters allowing her to perform one with absolute perfection.  More unexpected was her hug, but it too was a welcome feeling.  It was soothing, calming, and made him feel better then he ever thought it could have.  She was happy with all he had done for her, and that made it all worthwhile.

[ Captain Ives ]

"If you would have had been able to handle the situation better," said Jien without pause, eyes unblinking, "then the risk to your well-being would have been negligible, not to mention the hazard to our mission. However..."

Jien took a deep breath, deciding that there was no use diving home her point further, despite how the radiant anger that emanated from the Ash'reem begged her to continue berating him. Lieutenant Morali seemed to have taken her words to heart. Having had Ash'reem aboard her ship for years, Jien had learned the need to suppress emotion surges when dealing with them. "Your concern is something Commander Rez and I share, for we had not been informed about the risk of... theatrical symptoms when the memories resurfaced. However, I was told that the second time the MEM-treatment might be triggered, it would not come as such a shock. Also, if there is a spy from the enemy among us, one lapse could be taken as a curiosity given the alleged removal of your memories, and not a tell-tale sign of something else being at play. There is a good chance you - and all of us - got away with it just this once. Therefore, I will rely upon your discretion the next time."

Turning to the right, Jien took a few contemplative steps back towards the firelight in the distance, thinking, before she turned back to face Lt. Morali again. "I realise you have a plateful to digest. I might even sympathise with some of your anger towards me and everyone - everything - given your peculiar situation, yet I still expect you to pull yourself together and act like the Starfleet Officer you were, regardless which century you left your heart in," she said, her figure silhouetted against the distant flames. "You and I both have an obligation towards the Federation, and that is to forestall the enemy from dictating the outcome of this conspiracy in the fleet. We may have our differences because you cannot remember what you signed up for in being transferred to my ship, but you will have to trust yourself. Believe in the fact that you decided to volunteer because you had witnessed the doom begotten by our possible failure."

Looking towards the soil beneath their feet, Jien took a deep breath and added something that might put things into better perspective. "It is a shame the MEM-treatment had to remove so much of the man I met a couple of weeks ago on the Relativity. You had dedicated yourself wholly to the search for the Theurgy in the timestream when the future lay in the balance of the Niga-virus outbreak. For months, you had studied us and our plights, tried to understand our situation, attempting to find where we might have encountered a temporal trap before you located Commander Rez' personal log, which pin-pointed us in the Mahéwa System. You convinced Captain Ducane to set the course there, and you made sure that the Relativity's security guards were armed with Dr. Nicander's antidote. It was your dedication that delivered us and the galaxy from this nightmare, and by then, you had emerged yourself so fully in our plights that you did not wish to abandon us afterwards. You wanted to ensure that no second temporal incursion may harm us or the timestream to the extent that the Niga Incident did. You were rather adamant about it too... much to Captain Ducane's chagrin. Come to think of it, that might be why he ordered that so much of your recent memories would be locked away, so that you might wish to return when all of this is over."

Raising her eyes, she gave the Ash'reem a weary smile. "I am merely speculating, so don't think that I may take advantage of your loss of memory to plant ideas in your head. My focus is the mission, and whether or not you - now - regret your decision is of minor import in the greater scheme of things. I just wish you did remember, because I truly admired the man you once were." The weary smile lingered, as Jien thought of the time she had met with the Ash'reem before the treatment. "Now, you have little choice but to accept this commission, time and cause. Perhaps, you might even accept my word for the truth one day. Regardless... I hope that we needn't have this kind of conversation again. Good evening, Lieutenant."

She turned to walk away then, returning to the burning lights in the centre of the valley - leaving Sarresh Morali in the dark so that he might accept his fate.

---

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 ]

With her chin resting upon Lin Kae's shoulder, arms wrapped around his waist from behind, Thea considered what he proposed - her analysis coming up with both risks and advantages to the idea. Constructive thought led her away from the analysis of feeling his bodily heat against her own.

"The benefit would be that easy access might be denied in order to merit my personal development. However, in the event that I am successfully hacked by Cala - or even just destabilized by exposure to an isomagnetic conduit - the risk would be that I might become irrecoverably damaged. That you, I, or anyone may never be able to restore the social maturity that my program has today. It would be like an organic sustaining heavy brain damage - irrevocable injury to their functionality as a person. Moreover, perhaps there is a day that I might want to make changes for the benefit of my survival as a free individual, so I will think about your suggestion for now... until I can make a more informed decision."

With the social maturity - as she had put it - of her programming deciphering the intent behind his suggestion, she came up with the idea that Kae had just paid her a veiled compliment. That he did not want her to chance. That he liked her for whom she was. It made her smile, and feel something flutter in the base of her abdominal region. What holonovels suggested implied attraction. She had felt the same thing several times lately, when Kae had taken a personal interest in her development, and not just because he had augmented her program with different 'gifts'. That she was able to physically feel such attraction now... did that come from the readings from the cortical monitors Kae and Ensign Carver had worn? Or was it something new from the emotional sub-routines? A combination?

It took her a couple of seconds to process it all, and to make a decision on whether or not she should admit her attraction. She chose to inquire for more information. "Kae, are you attracted to Ensign Carver?" she asked quietly, lingering in her embrace - reluctant to look him in the eye when asking this.

[Lin Kae - Thea's Quarters]

"We could always install a security measure.  Since you are describing what organics would call brain damage, a next of kin or doctor should be able to operate in such a case.  A doctor for a hologram, would be an engineer, and a next of kin . . . maybe the Captain?"  Essentially, the Captain, and an engineer of her choosing, perhaps Kae himself, since he was the holographic expert, could open the personality subroutines and affect repairs when they were needed.  It still let her mature as a person without alternations to programming code, but have a safety measure built in to undo damage to those same subroutines.

When she asked about his feelings for Skye, he was caught a little off guard, blush coming over his cheeks.  "I . . . I can't like and say she isn't an attractive person," he admitted, before finally giving her the story he had kept to himself.  "During the encounter with Ishtar, you know that me and Skye were switched.  What we haven't told anyone was that . . . we were intimate during that time.  The fact that we had already been so close was what allowed me to ask for her help on this project.  I consider her a good friend, someone I can count on.  Sometimes, I think she sees me like a little brother, at least during the times we weren't having sex."  Was he attracted to her? Yes.  Was he intimate with her before?  Yes.  Was she the one he had his eye on?  No.  He and Skye sought some comfort in one another, but there was only one person he wanted to be with in terms of a relationship.  That person was Thea.

"I bleed to do my duty. Look at yourself. Can you say the same? Now put on your new pips again and let me hurt in peace, sir."

he nodded,  and his voice became solemn for a moment, "Yes, I can.  And, the last time I did I was reported KIA until an echo of me was found in the transporter buffer.  As soon as I was out I was also reprimanded for my actions despite its result being the successful repelling of multiple Defiant class vessels.  The first welcome home present I got was having my wings clipped and after getting out of medical I was degreasing birds till the XO and Captain saw fit."

His voice became emotionless and cold as he continued. His usual empathy was replaced with a Vulcan-like cold logic. His harsh but emotionless words biting through his completely professional tone. "Unlike you, I realized something when I made the decision.  I knew there would be consequences.  I was prepared to face them when I acted.  If you can't grasp that concept yourself, then maybe you should rethink your choice to become an officer instead of an enlisted.  If you were a good enough pilot then you would have found yourself in your fighter as a mere Private First Class.  You chose to be  an officer.  You chose to take the path that meant holding yourself to these rules and regulations you seem to view as getting in the way.  If you were a PFC I would understand your actions.  But you aren't.  You are a Junior-Grade Lieutenant.  I expect you to start acting like one."   He then turned around and walked off adding.  "I'll now leave you to lick your wounds in peace."

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

Playtime was over as soon as he rammed his hard cock into her depths, the bit of a sting serving as a reminder that yes she was indeed still alive.  She'd taken the entrance with a harsh grunt but in no way hindered his movement, her legs wrapped around him but not locked.  For now he was in the pilot's seat and going full throttle but after a bit she pulled out of the kiss with a wicked smile.

Pressing up and to the side, she rolled them over but kept herself tight around him.  "I don't mind sharing the work," she panted as her hips rose and slammed down his length and her teeth grazed along his shoulder and collar bone.  Sitting up she looked down at him, running her fingers up her stomach and to her breasts which she kneaded and teased the nipples to stiff peaks again.

Leaning back, her hands rested on his knees as she angled herself differently.  Over and over she pulled her hips back and slammed forward, giving a little upward tilt at the end to bury him as deeply as possible.  She was merciless in her movements, raining down his shaft with a fury and making her breasts bounce with every impact.  "You ... feel fuckin' ... awesome," she whispered harshly through gritted teeth.

[Thomas Ravon - Inside Kestrel]

Thomas bore his way inside the ready body of Skye. He felt her inner walls hug his hard and pulsing length. He didn't leave her much time or space to recover after each thrust. Each slam followed by a low grunt, he kept his eyes on her. He was caught off guard when she repositioned their stance.

All he could do was to leave him to the mercy of Carver. He let out a louder moan as she rode him without any mercy herself. "You won't hear me complaining..." he smirked through a grunt at her comment of sharing work. He feasted his eyes on the gorgeous body of Skye. Taking in every detail as she ran her fingers over her body.

He looked at her hardened peaks again and when she leaned backwards, he took the opportunity to lean in and take each peak into his mouth. His lips pursing around her full breasts as his tongue flicked against her nipples. He placed his hands on her sides now as he picked up the pace. When she slammed her body down on his length, he forced her to remain in position as he tilted his hips left and right barely while thrusting up inside her depths. He had no idea what kind of sensation this would bring her. Yet hearing her compliment him so far it must have been good. "You're... pretty.... fucking good... yourself..." he brought out while enjoying the sex to the fullest.

---

OOC: Not sure how this post will be since I'm posting this from my phone. so sorry for typos that sneak past.

[ Lt. JG Evelyn Rawley ]

Evelyn had been prepared to trade insults and fiery verbal combat with her new squad leader, riled herself up with dog-related curse words and an almost xenophobic level of glib remarks towards his two-faced fox nature. She'd laid there, and she'd had the proverbial finger on the trigger, ready to shoot Miles down mid-leap up on his high horse. Only things did not work out as she had thought.

No, Commander Renard had not answered in kind, instead undermining her heat with a casual and cold comparison to his own fate post re-materialisation. Moreover, he questioned her life-choices in a way that many times echoed her own private thoughts: that she was not cut out for leading others to even the smallest degree. Or rather, she did not want to. She'd had a prestigious education at Fetes and Eton Collage to boost her resume when she applied to Starfleet, and she'd managed to ace just the right amount of required tests for officer training so she'd gone along with it since it seemed the better choice out of the concern that she would have an easier time to get to position she liked.

So when Miles shot her down instead, she could do nothing but lay there and watch him walk away - her anger burning low yet hot behind her eyes as she thought of other ways the conversation might have turned out.  She raised a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, cursing under her breath with the pain that it caused her torso.

"Fuck I need a scotch," she said in a low voice to the canvas ceiling, baring her teeth as she tried to get to terms with her situation and the fact that she'd have to go through physical rehab again, even if it might not take as long as it did last. Moreover, the battle replayed itself in her memories, the sight of Khorin Douglas last moments of flying repeating themselves over... and over... and over again. As she remembered, Mies' words kept repeating themselves too in her ears.

---

[ Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 ]

Regarding a possible update to her sub-routine access, Thea had little to add other than that she would take it into consideration since it was a good suggestion, even if it depended on two or more specific organics being available and alive for her program to be saved under the extreme circumstances she had painted up earlier.

What Kae said about his relationship with Ensign Carver took a priority in her processing memory, screening the verbal information in all manners possible. Hugging him, she was also comparing his statements to other points of references in her memory banks and allocating data that she needed to verify what kind of input her emotion subroutines were feeding her. She realised that when he said the Tactical Conn Officer held Kae in the regard of a sibling, she felt an estimation of relief, yet at the same time becoming perplexed with the comparison adding up to the twice repeated intimacy between them. She was quite sure that was rather unusual by most intergalactic standards. She had many questions, yet none seemed socially acceptable to ask given the moment.

"I think I understand," Thea said, understanding what he had said yet not the whole scope of the social repercussions between the three of them.

She grasped, however, that the feeling of Kae's bodily warmth against her new sensory mapping was exactly what Ensign Carver would feel if she hugged him from behind. By extension, if she was to be intimate with Lin Kae again - and in ways more advanced than the oral and tactile stimulation that she had given him two days past - then what she would experience would be an echo of what Ensign Carver might feel. They were running on the same sensory program engine, only one version was the original and organic version and the other being the digital replica. Perhaps she was devoting too much processing power on the analysis, yet it made her pause, and to let go of Kae.

"Thank you for helping me pick out this dress," she said as she stepped back, smiling as she set a hand against her hip, "I think that I will remain in my quarters tonight - in the interest of not causing a scene with the crew and get you in trouble with Captain Ives and Commander Rez - if that is okay with you. Perhaps I can visit the Thermal Spring sin the morrow instead, when you have reported the process of the emitter project to the Senior Staff. Also, I would like some time to explore my new programming and grow accustomed to running on this new emitter before stretching my legs further. By the way, have you decided on a name for it yet?"

She smiled to Kae, even if her digital mind was spread across many background tasks that stretched between her potential growth and the current crisis.

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

Her wicked smile had greeted him when he said he didn't mind her taking the reins a bit.  They could tumble about all over that fighter taking turns and she would be perfectly happy but when he leaned up and sucked on her nipple, she stopped her slamming and instead ground her hips elliptically along his throbbing member.  "I love that," she crooned as he switched to the other, the delicious sensations causing her to shimmy lightly.

Then he took over again though he didn't roll them, instead grasping her hips with strength that made her groan with pleasure.  "Ahhhh, there ya go," she whispered huskily, taking advantage of being stilled to work the vaginal muscles rather than the legs.  Every thrust was engulfed and squeezed, keeping the pressure on him as he drew back and relaxed just enough to make his re-entry just slightly resisted.  Slipping a hand up his inner thigh, she tickled and then gently rolled his balls in her palm.

A light flush was starting to spread across her neck and chest and her breathing was becoming harsher.  He could see the dreamy look in her eyes, all signals indicating she might not last too much longer.  Her other hand had drifted to the place between them, her thumb and index finger slipping around the base of his cock and squeezing just enough to give him a secondary stimulation.  "Cum with me ... I want to feel you explode inside me," she panted.

[Thomas Ravon | Kestrel]

Grinning at the wicked smile, Thomas continued to build up the pressure against her nipples with his lips and tongue. He heard her groan that she loved it and his eyes looked up as he let go of one breast with a pop. He turned his attention to the other now and silently continued, his own moans and groans muffled.

As he kept her in position he carefully aimed each thrust in a slightly different angle. He let go off her breasts now, letting him sink back a bit in the chair as he enjoyed the sight of Skye on top of him. He let out a broken sigh as she trailed her hand down to his balls and when she took them in her palm he groaned "Careful now Skye.." his warning just delivered or she could feel the pulsing cock throb even deeper in her. Each thrust going deeper now, the slight pressure when re entry just driving him to the edge.

His body was about to cum when she leaf her hand down to the base of his cock. A wicked grin forming on his Lupus as he saw the signs of her own climax drawing near. "I will.... Skye." was the last thing he moaned softly in her ear before he launched himself out of the chair. He slammed her against the wall, by doing so planting his rigid length as deep as he could inside of her. He couldn't hold back any longer and he shot off his load right there. As deep as he could, he felt one ray after another being shot off into her hot body. He moaned loud as his legs started to tremble, his hands holding her against the wall by her bottom and shoulder.

Another joyous position change and Skye nearly lost her control but then he was throbbing and twitching, thrusting harder and she knew she didn't have to hold on when she heard him say "I will ...".  Then he grunted out her name and she felt that glorious clenching deep inside her gut and then her walls quivered, rippling along his length as her own juices flowed to mix with his.

As she started descending from the high, she finally heard her body thumping against the wall though it was slowing and not nearly as rough since he was coming down too.  Her arms and legs were wrapped around him and slowly she opened her eyes to look into his own.  "Why don't we stretch out and rest a bit," she whispered, feeling the trembling in his legs and knowing they would tumble down soon.

Laying next to him, on her side and caressing his chest, Skye leaned down to kiss him.  This one wasn't the fierce kind, more one of gratitude and when she pulled back, there was a light smile playing on her lips.  "I think we both needed that a little too much," she chuckled warmly.  "That little drink we had Below Decks and the little dare certainly opened the door for a nice round of fun."

Just as his climax had been reached he felt Skye's body get there as well. The feeling of her muscles contracting feeling like an additional reward. He rested his forehead ageist her shoulder and he nodded with a kiss on her collarbone when she suggested to rest.

He slowly removed himself out of her, by doing so his body nearly climaxing again in the aftermath. He laid down on his back as he controlled his breathing again. He snaked his arm around her as she rested on her side. He stroked her back slowly and kissed her back, his eyes opening once again. "Yes... Really needed that." he said softly and he chuckled a bit. "Don't remind me of that little dare.... I might just take you for another round just thinking about it." he smirked. He wasn't sure thouugh if his body would be able to take it.

[Lin Kae - Thea's Quarters]

"I haven't figured out a name yet.  Funny how that is the hardest part," Kae responded.  He had built a device capable of giving a hologram the power to move beyond a ship's walls, something which had required technology from far in the future for the Voyager EMH.  Finding a name for it was the toughest part.  He could have went simple and just called it the Mobile Emitter, the very piece of technology which inspired it, but somehow, that felt a disservice.  It should have a better name, something iconic that people would remember.  Oh well, he'd have to take the time to figure that out later.  With Thea deciding to stay in for the evening, Kae parted, assuring her that he would send over the device used to recharge the emitter, for when she ran down the battery inside it.  He was going to fill out reports on the testing of the emitter, as well as possibly follow up on the power situation he had given suggestions for.  It gave Thea some time to herself, to simply enjoy the feeling of being one step closer to a complete person.


[Declan Vasser - Approaching Jien Ives]

"Captain," he said in greeting, a similar one being returned to him.  Declan handed Jien a report he had compiled for her, a listing of cargo and personnel.  "My crew have gone through our inventory, and managed to find what we could from the list provided by your own.  With supplies, equipment, and deuterium, we should be able to provide about forty percent of the need repairs for the Theurgy to be in top shape again.  If we can get enough power to get the replicators back online, I think we can have her at a hundred percent and still get some work done on the Harbinger too.  That said, I also have a list of personnel I would recommend transferring to your ship.  Your crew has been thinned out, as has mine, but Theurgy is the stronger of our ships.  She is the one who needs more crew in rotation, to make sure everyone on board isn't being worn down.  Harbinger can redirect power from the unused crew quarters to be more effective.  Most nights, I sleep in my ready room anyway.  It's better for our combined effort to make your ship the one that is top priority.  My ship is merely your backup Captain."

[ Jien Ives | Bonfires ]

Her female figure standing in the firelight of the three massive bonfires, Jien Ives accepted the PADD unsmilingly from the other Captain in the valley. The brief meeting with the arrogant Temporal Operative still had her a bit on edge, yet perhaps it was the pheromones of the Ash'reem that affected her. Then again, they were in a grim situation, so perhaps a smile would been too hard to fetch.

"Forty percent sounds promising," she commented and slid her finger along the tablet in order to browse the lists. Quite promising indeed.

At the mentioning of the replicators and the power shortage to run them, Jien had some good news herself. "With some luck, the power shortage might have been dealt with. While I spoke with the Scientist you just saw, I was sent a suggestion by my Holographic Specialist. He had come to find a way to harness the volcanic activity in this valley, and this would enable us to power up the replicators among other tools for completing the repairs. I will pass this along with both our engineering crews and ask them to try this with caution. We do not wish to stir the volcanoes around us. Then again, we do not have the time to run every kind of test there is to be found in the books."

The key issue they had to cover was the personnel shortages though, so when Vasser gave her his list, Jien wondered just how much Declan Vasser would live up the the promises he had made earlier during the ceremony. Yet when she saw the list, her eyebrows rose slightly. The names listed were the names of prominent personnel on the Harbinger - some even Senior Staff members. "By the looks of this, it looks like you are willing to fight the battle with a skeleton crew. Are you quite sure this is what you want, Captain, because if you end up in a position where you cannot escape the barrages of the Calamity, you might be destroyed. What is a backup if its destroyed?"

To have her own lost men and women of high rank replaced so soon seemed too good to be true. She lifted her brown eyes to Vasser while she asked to confirm the suggested transfers of personnel.

[Declan Vasser - with Jien Ives]

"The Harbinger is much more capable of automation then the Theurgy.  Your ship is so complex it needs such an advanced AI to run it.  My ship just needs a few able bodied men, and we have our means of making sure we are prepared.,  We can synchronize our ship to yours, thus allowing it to be moved forward  in tandem with your own.  It will mean we won't need a bridge crew.  We can establish engineering as a secondary bridge, do everything required of the ship there and power down life support everywhere else.  Using these methods, a skeleton crew will be more then enough to run Harbinger's operations, and Theurgy can benefit from having more hands on deck.  It's true that my ship may be destroyed, but if that does happen, at least my crew are safely in your hands.  Who knows?  With luck, a skeleton crew will be small enough for you to beam out and onto your ship if things go awry."    From Vasser's point of view, Theurgy was more valuable.  It had more powerful shields, weapons, a faster flight speed, and more valuable technology that could keep everyone alive.  It was the queen in their game of chess, protecting the king, that being the Federation they knew and loved, while Harbinger was a pawn, meant to serve the queen and, if necessary, sacrifice itself.

"Our mission is bigger then one ship, Captain.  I would expect a distinguished officer such as yourself to agree with me on that.  It won't be easy, but the two of us have to make the best decisions for completing our mission, and your ship at one hundred percent is worth more then both of ours at fifty."  If Ives' crew could truly find the solution to their power issue, then there was room to work on Harbinger afterward, but if nothing else, an ejected warp core from harbinger might be enough to take care of the Calamity, if it came to that.  She was an old ship,

It had almost sounded like a reprisal, the remark about Jien having to realise the greater need beyond the welfare of one's ship, yet the Theurgy's Commanding Officer decided that it had been no ill intent behind the phrasing. In fact, Captain Vasser had framed her own thoughts exactly, and her own remark had merely been meant to delve into the other CO's tactics.

"I suggest we go with your idea until we settle on a definite plan for disabling or destroying the Calamity. Without a strategy, I think its a bit early to make such a large decision when we do not know our odds when we face her the next time," she said and lowered the datapad she held in her gloved hand, "Therefore, I suggest we should go through with the personnel transfers, yet until we know just how repaired your ship might become before we leave, we should keep it to the Senior Staff positions as well as key personnel in Engineering and Security, which are departments that suffered the worst aboard the Theurgy during the battle. The rest on the listed personnel here can be on standby for now, with the transfer orders ready to be given if applicable. I think that ought to be a wise course of action, don't you think, Captain? Regardless, the Harbinger does have the potential to serve as a second carrier for the other Valkyrie squad, depending on how the repairs go."

Lifting the datapad to read the names and opening a file with a tap of her finger, Jien addressed another concern entirely while she read. "You said you had a prisoner aboard," she said quietly, "Someone who might be one of them, yet in either case was sending sub-space messages back to Starfleet Command when you set out to chase us. I think we should dedicate some time upon the issue of learning more from this individual, whatever he might or mightn't be, wouldn't you say? Perhaps your Security personnel along with my Chief Medical Officer might have to assist us... to certain the truth about his nature."

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

A low, throaty chuckle erupted and Skye shifted and rested her cheek against Thomas' chest, her eyes sparkling with mischief.  "Nothing wrong with multiple rounds, Razor," she teased him as she played with his damp hair.  "In fact, if a guy doesn't want at least a second round with me I tend to think maybe he doesn't like me much after all ... or he's too soft."

There was a hint of challenge there, that daring look in her eyes but she also knew he just needed a bit of a breather.  "Why don't we go have a few drinks, soak our weary bones a little, and then find some place comfy so I can remind you of that dare?" she murmured in a sultry lilting voice, raising up just enough to drag her breasts along his flesh as she sat up and looked at their clothes tossed around.

Her lips pursed as she looked back at him, drawing a single finger along his inner thigh and then along his currently flaccid member.  Collecting a dollop of their mixed fluids, she brought it to her lips to suck her finger clean and watched him twitch in response.  "Nope ... definitely not soft," she purred and waggled her eyebrows at him as she bared her teeth at him, holding the tip between them.

[Thomas Ravon - Inside Kestrel]

After hearing Skye tease him, even challenging him, Thomas let out a chuckle himself as he shook his head and ran his fingers through her long blonde hair. "Is that all you can come up with Skye? Maybe, just maybe, they'd let a second round pass since the first one wasn't all that great after all.." He answered her now, keeping his eyes closed for a second so he could only imagine the face she had to pull right now. After the pause to his eyes he opened them up and looked down at Skye. His own eyes still filled with lust and clearly satisfied by the first round, he wanted more of her. The breather she gave him however was much appreciated, yet she didn't need to know that.

"Drinks always sound like a great plan to me..." He answered her with a grin, yet before he could bring out anything else, he let out a soft moan as she moved herself on him. He finger on a rather sensitive spot, he felt his member respond directly, hardening again and twitching thanks to the attention. "Great you managed to eliminate that option." He answered her with a low groan as he sat up himself. Skye was enjoying this too much, he would have to find a way to get back to her for it. He tried to find his own clothes that were spread out in the fighter and he looked at Skye now "Let's go get those drinks than." He murmured before pressing a kiss against her lips.

[Declan Vasser - with Jien Ives]

"Her nature," Vasser corrected, clarifying for the Captain that the prisoner in question was actually a woman.  "I would agree that taking some time to get some answers from her should be a high priority.  Having medical staff standing by to get some scans, some samples, would be a good idea as well.  If we can figure out how to detect these things, even to neutralize them, it would be well worth our effort.  As it stands, we don't really know the capabilities of these compromised beings, if they are capable of feats beyond the form they take.  I don't like being in the dark, Captain Ives, and I have a feeling that neither do you."  They could benefit from answers, and the prisoner they had aboard the Harbinger was their greatest potential source of information.

"I'll be certain to inform the crew who will see transfers, just so they have time to move their personal effects to quarters on board Theurgy.  In the event we are found, I would prefer we were ready to go at a moment's notice.  We will still go through the usual ceremonies, of course.  There is one other thing that we should discuss though, Captain.  This one is is more sensitive."  Vasser got closer, spoke even more hushed then before.  "We are outgunned, with enemies made of our former allies.  We need to look at taking what advantages we have.  That said, with the technology made available to us, and our engineering teams, I think it would be possible for us to outfit the Theurgy, even the Harbinger, with cloaking devices."  Such a thing was a direction violation of the Treaty of Algeron, which vowed that the Federation would not develop or use cloaking technology.  The look on Vasser's face was enough to say he didn't suggest it lightly.  "It's difficult for me to say, Captain, but we are the target of dangerous enemies, ones who are not playing by the same rules as us.  If we are to survive long enough to ensure Starfleet returns to the hands of those who are meant to be in charge, we may need to think beyond regulation."

Frowning as the other Captain stepped in close and lowered his voice, Jien still raised a gloved hand to tuck some hair behind her ear and to tilted her head - listening to what Vasser had to say.

What had been a frown at first lessened as he went over the facts of their situation. She heard a reasonable estimation of what lay in store for them after they set out on the voyage through the Alpha Quadrant. The bonfires that towered around them were nothing compared to the heat they were going to get into. This, provided that they even managed to get away from the faster and superior Calamity starship from some distant future; a year where the enemy possessed the kind of influence to get their hands on one of those and even send it back through a temporal rift.

Yet when Captain Vasser suggested that they would use the debris from the Calamity to make cloaking devices, Jien took a half of a step back and looked into his eyes. She indeed saw that he did not make the suggestion lightly, yet standing there, discussing it, made her think about the fact that she had ordered the planet Niga destroyed only weeks past. Yet somehow... this felt more out of line. Surely the Galaxy could but have merited by the destruction of a malformed planet in the Mahéwa System. The virus would have reduced countless planets into a global cannibalistic sex orgies, inhabited by malnourished lunatics not even bothering to stop rutting like animals as they ate each other. Yet a cloaking device provided other, extraneous, problems than the simple fact of getting by unnoticed.

"Beyond regulations," she said quietly lest someone walking past the bonfires might hear them, "is a grave understatement for what we are talking about. The Treaty of Algeron was signed seventy years ago, and Starfleet was only one of the parties involved in that diplomatic achievement following the Tomed Incident. The Federation and the Romulan Star Empire has a signed accord, a sealed agreement that Starfleet is to not use cloaking devices in any capacity outside the Gamma Quadrant. So what would that make of us? Are we to endanger the peace treaty, and risk war being made upon a fleet ill equipped with leadership? That treaty is so brittle that it says that... 'any violations of the Neutral Zone without adequate notification, by either side, will be considered an act of war'. We might not not be crossing the Romulan border unless we can help it, but it illustrates how easily we might err. For if we go through with this, the Romulans will learn about it eventually. One way or another."

She gestured towards the milling crewmen in the darkness beyond the fires. "Be it from someone in this valley, or from one of the starships we have to disable on the way to the Sol System. Either way, the Treaty will be violated and the Empire will learn about it. Furthermore, as you no doubt know, I have been to Romulus with my crew to address their hostilities, and they are currently not in the most forgiving of mindsets towards things like this. Negotiations failed even as Starfleet provided its assistance in their civil war with the Reman people. Imagine what the result will be if we violate the Treaty of Algeron. The winning party in that conflict will use it as an example to rally their people - to unite them - around their most patriotic cause: to fight the Federation and claim the resources needed to feed the Empire."

Knowing this, even saying it out loud, it all sounded so hollow. Jien fell silent, her gloved hands upon her hips, and her eyes lowered to the dried mud underneath their feet. "Yet the real question is twofold: First, if there will be a Federation as we know if left for them to fight at the time when they turn on us. Regardless if the truth is out there. Secondly, if we can afford to risk a war in either case. I am not entirely convinced about this, Vasser."

[Declan Vasser - With Jien Ives]

"I know just how fragile the Treaty of Algeron is, Captain.  Harbinger is meant for combat above all else, and she had seen many such fights with Romulan ships.  They are provoked easily, so much so that just the hint of a Cloaking Device being used could bring all-out war.  What concerns me most, enough to even suggest this as a course of action, is what happens to the Federation if we fail our mission.  We may stick to our ideals and damn the rest of the Federation in doing so.  We are two ships, crippled and alone against the might of the organization we seek to protect.  Our safe harbors are few and far between, our crews exhausted, with too much asked of them already."  A cloak would allow them to more easily lay low, to get more then just a bit of shore leave.  They needed the comfort and security in knowing each passing moment on-board their ship wasn't a risk of being caught by a Federation vessel, present day or future in origin.  How many more battles could they survive in their current state?  Declan would wager not many.

"We should also consider the fact that we know nothing of the enemy's intentions.  They have overtaken Starfleet, and for all we know, war might be their end goal.  What better way to wipe out any faction that might oppose them then to pit Federation against Romulans and Klingons.  In that light, they could be developing cloaking devices of their own."  It wouldn't be the first time.  The Pegasus and it's phasing cloak would easily come to mind for both Captains.  If they made such progress with that, one could only imagine how far along a standard cloak was, especially based on the scans taken by the Enterprise E of the Reman ship Scimitar, which had been able to fire phasers while cloaked.  Just one ship with that kind of capability and they were through.

They were left the an uncomfortable choice.  Save the Federation by breaking one of it's biggest rules.  Prevent doom by risking doom.

Seconds passed while Captain Ives stepped away from Vasser, deeply conflicted about what was the right choice. She looked to the dancing flames in the bonfire, trying to determine whether the best choice for the crew and the perseverance of the truth could possibly outweigh the best choice in the diplomatic relationship towards the Federation's enemies. She clenched her gloved fists as she stared into the fire, her back towards the other Captain.

In the end, two factors came to tip the scales for Jien: First the love for her dear, damaged crew, and the means to give them some kind of respite. Second: The fact that Vasser just pointed out. If the enemy had so little care with the Temporal Directive that they would send back future Starfleet technology to their time, what possible significance would the Treaty of Algeron hold for them? The enemy would clearly provoke war with both the Romulans, the Klingons and the factions involved in the Temporal COld War in the distant future just to further their own enigmatic cause. Regardless if the goal was expansion of their influence through Starfleet or to destroy the Federation from within.

"We might not even be able to make our own cloaks... yet if we do," said Jien quietly as she raised the PADD with the names of the two crew rosters, turning around and to Vasser, "we need someone to program a projection matrix and connect it to our deflector shields, and we need to assemble two tetryon compositors. We may not be able to make advanced cloaks, yet at least we will have some kind of means to get by undetected. Looking at these names, I would say we should speak with Alexander Rosek, your new Chief Engineer, and have him ask Lieutenant Kae of mine to try their hand on making the tetryon compositors. As for making the projection matrix, my Ship AI can do a lot in terms of installing it, yet this... Selena Ravenholm of yours, do you think she can program it? I know it says she is civilian and hold a provisional rank, yet from the reports you gave me yesterday, it would seem she is one of our sharpest programmers. Can she be trusted? For if we are unable to make the cloaks, the fewer involved in the attempt the better. This needs to be a matter of absolute discretion at this point."

Taking a deep breath, Jien still could not shake the unease towards the decision made, even if she knew it was a choice made for the right reasons.

---

OOC: Selena is IronFerrox's new character, see Harbinger Crew Manifest. After Vasser's Chief Engineer and Chief of Operation (one person with dual positions) recently got killed in action, Junior Lieutenant Rosek has been made Acting Chief Engineer despite his inexperience, while Selena Ravenholm was made a provisional Chief Warrant Officer and was convinced to take on the role as the Harbinger's Chief of Operations. It would speak of her skill rather than the lack of personnel, in my mind, that Vasser asked her to do it.

I believe I can wrap this thread after your next reply too, with an appointment made for the interrogation of Sonja Acreth the following day, and the mentioning of the personnel transfer announcement the next morning (holographic rights speech thread).

"I understand that your Lieutenant Kae is something of an expert in projections," Vasser responded, noting the skill that the young Bajoran-human had with holography.  "I will have my Engineer look things over along with Lieutenant Kae, see what they can put together.  As for Selena . . . I have the utmost faith in her abilities.  Though she was only a civilian on-board my ship, I do believe she has all the necessary skills to serve well in a Warrant Officer position.  I may even have some old scans of Romulan ships in my ship's computers that might be able to provide her with some notes to begin working from, as well as our engineers."  One advantage to his constant battles with Romulan ships over the years was that Harbinger had a great number of scans that might have shed some light on the cloaking technology.  All they had to do from there  was ensure that those involved with the project knew this was to be hush-hush until they knew if it would work or not.

"I shall make whatever arrangements need doing on my end, Captain.  I will see you again when the time comes to interrogate the captive," Declan said, offering a final nod before the two captains parted ways.  Two commanding officers didn't lighten the load on either of them.  They were both going to be kept very busy until they got their ships off the ground again.

[Skye Carver - Inside Kestrel]

Skye had pulled a face and lightly slapped his side.  "Well if the first time wasn't good, then it was his fault because whether it's the first time or the sixth, I damn sure know I've done my part," she said with a mock haughty little shake of her head that sent some of her hair back over her shoulder.  His words had served to make her laugh though, something else she had needed lately.

There was a moment when he opened his eyes that told her louder than words that he did in fact want her again and it was exactly what had inspired her to give him a little tickle and then taste him.  A wicked glint shined in her eyes as he twitched and started to harden, bringing a definite smirk to her lips.  Making a man react, even immediately after he's spent, was a definite thrill.

"Nawwwwww, I didn't destroy an option.  It's just tabled for the next meeting," she crooned as he sat up and started reaching for clothes.  Leaning across him, her hands found fabric and she nodded as she looked up at him.  "Drinks, yes," she actually giggled as he kissed her and then presented him with his briefs.  "I should keep these, tuck them away in the cockpit like guys used to keep mementos in their cars," she teased.

Once they were both dressed, she leaned in to give his lips a little nibble.  "Drinks and food and then who knows what," she murmured, then took his hand and headed for the thermal springs.

[To Thermal Springs]