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Topic: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms! (Read 12129 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms!

Reply #50 –
[ PWO Heather McMillan | Medical Bay | Precept-ship Versant ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
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Heather flushed crimson, and for a moment her eyes and face shone with a faint glow of reddish-pink light, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared when the girl felt a tinge of intensity and discomfort coming from herself just from generating that little bit of light, but she reflected her embarrassment when she realized how horribly she may have insulted a god. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid...she thought miserably to herself. Vinata was being really nice about it, telling her that it was a common misconception, but memories were flooding back into her mind about the Ovri. The ones that looked female, or had large round breasts were actually male, and vice versa. And the colours were another stark contrast. Somehow she doubted anyone else made the mistake of misidentifying the siblings.

“Y-yes, of course,” said Heather, and she stood still while the Ovri nurse did his work, “I'm so sorry. For confusing you with your sister...my mind slipped. It's no excuse, please forgive me.”

When he asked about how she felt and if she knew what happened to her, she blinked and gave a small start, “F-feeling?”

He might come to wish he hadn't asked, because she went into a spiel, “I feel...well, you see...I-uhm...that is, I died...sort of. I was reduced to atoms, I think...it's sort of fuzzy, and like an intense pain that you know you're ex-experiencing, but at the same time, it's not there. And then when I woke up, I was, well, like I am now. I...I don't like it, what I am, and I don't think I'm remembering everything correctly. I feel tired, nauseated, and disoriented, l-like I can't tell if I'm up, or down, and I'm tingling all over, not in a good way, at least, it doesn't make me feel good, and-and...”

She finally paused to take a breath, lick her lips and said, “I'm terribly sorry, I'm babbling aren't I?”

Re: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms!

Reply #51 –
[ Vinata Vojona | Bridge Module | Precept-ship Versant ] @Triage
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Hearing her apologise again, Vinata smiled and gestured in a dismissive way with the four-fingered hand that held the scanner.

"I am not offended," he chirped, resuming his scan. "Not in the slightest." Hylota was the one who might have bouts of rage and strong emotions about peculiar things. As frustrated as he might become sometimes to be thought of being a female of his species, he seldom held it against the non-Ovri. He had learned the differences, and what to expect. In his current state... he really had less to be upset about, since they were correct. He was female, in their eyes, while in Ovri eyes, he would be seen as something in-between.

Speaking of in-between... the readings were two-faceted on his tricorder. Of course it told him that Heather was weary, that chemical levels seemed unbalanced, as if her body wasn't adjusted to a day's rhythm. Such readings were often found in infants, but in adults? It was puzzling, to say the least, until Heather said that she'd died, which caused him to raise his black eyes from the small display and blink at her. She was telling him that she'd been.... reassembled? Like materialising from a transporter beam? Was the difference that she'd been reduced to atoms by some other means than a transporter? How had her particles been preserved? Surely there had to have been some kind of buffer?

"By the stone mother," he chirred, shaking his head nad turning his display towards her. "Whatever happened, I am picking up Xenexian readings from you. Is there anyone here who may know more about what was done? It's... The Savi appear to have Corrected everyone besides you to be one species only, whereas you appear to be a hybrid instead. It's almost like you were... repaired? The composition is not like how hybrids are born, but... other. I cannot explain these readings."

Perhaps there was someone there who could help him, because Vinata was at a complete loss.

[ Captain Ives | Bridge Module | Precept-ship Versant ]
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Hearing Isley bring up the fact that they may have antagonised the Savi in taking command of the ship, Ives didn't quite understand his objection at first... until she realised that he had rushed into one of the side rooms together with Heather McMillan and the Teslyliac duplicate doctor. Isley had only heard that call to arms, without knowing what preceded the development.

"While you helped Doctor Saugn," she said, turning her head and seeing her help with the injured at that point. She also noted how the woman had strange hair and paler skin, but that was another conversation best held with her, "there was a development you missed. I don't know if the Endeavour officers told you at some point, but there are Borg in the Azure Nebula. This could only mean a pending invasion, and I need not tell you how many ships Starfleet lost just one cube last they breached Federation space."

Saying this, Jien turned her head to look at how the Tactical officer was faring against the Savi interceptors. "I made the demand that our crew were to be returned to the Theurgy, and requested that the Savi aided in repelling the Borg threat. The Antes did not wish to help us in either regard, since they wished to resolve the internal dispute between themselves and the Scions. As for the Borg, they preferred to not let the Collective know they existed - remaining observers even when all the subjects of their experiments may perish."

Then, Jien turned to look towards Thea, who was hooked up with her brain to a console on the other side. The A.I. seemed distant, focused entirely on the challenge of keeping them all alive and the Savi from reaching them. "I do not blame Thea for taking the initiative when she could, overtaking the command of the ship's systems for us. I may not have given the order, but Lin Kae unshackled her, so she has the ability to choose. She exerted i today... in response to the Borg threat to the Federation and the protection of her crew. Moreover, I think, in a need we all share after these days. To get back aboard her."

Jien turned her oaken eyes back to Isley then. "Right now, all the Antes without armour are sedated, and transported to safety far away from here. I have no doubt that they will find a way to restore neonox for their leader soon, waking her up, but this call to arms I made was to protect us while we use the Versant to get a lift. The Savi are inventive, Antes and Scions both... but they'll have their ship back as soon as we're in transporter range to the Theurgy."

As vindictive as she felt towards the Infested Scion that had held her captive, Isley and the others had already dealt with that threat. The experience would haunt her, even though the pain had been lesser than solids might have felt, but Jien felt she acted in the best interest of the mission and the crew.

She just hoped there were no Borg cube where the Theurgy would be at... She really didn't want to expose the Savi. She could sympathise with not wanting the Collective to know about them, after all.

Re: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms!

Reply #52 –
[ Nathaniel Isley | Bridge Module | The Versant ]

It didn’t sit right with him. It wasn’t just. Ultimately it was Thea who made this decision, and it wasn’t quite right. It made sense, but....

“There wasn’t any way to negotiate out of this one?” His tone had softened, less judgemental, more problem-solving. “I mean. This is one hell of a first contact.” He commented and shrugged. For as much as he’d like to uphold the Federation ideals...damn. He was only one guy, and there was a reason his job was to sit in a fighter and shoot stuff. That’s where he was talented, not….this.

It was a shitty decision, really. Nothing Ives chose would sit well with anyone. He had to question though, and he had to because...well. He didn’t really know why. It was an impulse--he acted on it.

“...It doesn’t seem right.” He admitted defeat, because he didn’t know what else to do. Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t in a captain’s position, as much as he sometimes dreamed about it. “I know you didn’t fully have the choice, Thea did, but...We’re risking lives of people who never asked to be a part of this. People who were just following orders from leaders they thought they could trust. And now we hijack their ship to get back to ours and leave them stranded in the nebula. When I say it like that, it sounds like we're a bunch of pirates..."

Re: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms!

Reply #53 –
[ PWO Heather McMillan | Medical Bay | Precept-ship Versant ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
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“I d-don't know,” said Heather, with a small shake of her head, “I...I remember...how I used to look, how I felt...and now...”

She looked down at her hands. Then she glanced up nervously at Vinata, “You're saying I have...that I am...half-god?”

Her purple eyes shone, for a moment, brighter in hue, then lapsed back to what it was. She processed what the Ovri was telling her, and she tried to put together the parts that were beyond his ability to fathom. “I feel...heavier, and...and stronger too...but so...” She looked at herself, then placed a hand over her heart, “This...body...I think I lost too much mass, too much...of my old self...I think so anyway...there were these people, these gods who tried to test me, and-and one of them, I think he...yes, I think he killed me. I felt pain, and then I was lost. I can't remember what happened. Then I...I came back. I think he used a Xenexian template to...perhaps to repair or replace what was lost? I don't know...”

She pondered on the words Vinata used. Not born, repaired somehow. It made as much sense as anything, and she held on to that. “Yes,” she said, a distant look in her eyes, “I was repaired, not born. But in a ways, it was like being born again, isn't it? I did die. I'm sure of it. I went...somewhere...saw...something...”

Re: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms!

Reply #54 –
[ Vinata Vojona | Bridge Module | Precept-ship Versant ] @Triage
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The scientific feat of what was suggested was mind-boggling for Vinata as he closed the tricorder and crouched down, returning it to its socket in the med kit. He couldn't quite wrap his mind around it. He had no idea what she was speaking of either, gods and half-gods.

"You say you saw something?" he chirped and picked up a hypospray, carefully calibrating it while he listened to her. "What did you see?"

While she spoke, he calibrated the dosage of an inoculation that might help balance her body's chemical balance, but he had never treated a Radiant before. Much less a Radiant hybrid. Would the hypospray do her fragile body harm? Better not inoculate her. Not without knowing what level of air pressure was within safety parameters for her. So, knowing that she had some experience in the field herself from Hylota - her sister having said Heather made her arm useless for a time the first they met - he finished calibrating the dosage and handed the hypospray over to her.

"You better do this yourself, else I might harm you. It's just a shot to help your body catch up with it's everyday tasks."

[ Captain Ives | Bridge Module | Precept-ship Versant ]
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Ives understood how Isley felt, and she nodded.

"Unfortunately, It did not seem Sclergyn qi Versant was as reasonable as the Voice - the one who fought the Scion alongside you. She did not honour the accord made with us like he did. She would not return us to our ship, that's all I know. If there was some way to convince her despite how her priority was their domestic war, I - as a former Diplomatic Officer - did not see it," she smiled faintly and put her hand on Isley's shoulder, actually gratified that despite what he had been through and what had been done to him, there was still a deep sense of compassion left in him, not to mention his loyalty to the tenets of the Federation. Good man.

"Thea's solution didn't risk the lives of Savi, neither Sclergyn nor any others. Like I said, Thea sedated them and removed them from harms way. We may have hijacked their ship to get a lift, but we certainly won't leave them permanently stranded afterwards. I regret how we must defend ourselves now, but at this point, we have no choice. I wish we had, and that Thea could keep them from getting this close to our position, but I am confident that she - if anyone - is tirelessly doing her utmost to find non-lethal solutions. Already she has beamed away far more Scions and Antes than we had to defend ourselves against, and she's been raising force-fields as soon as earlier ones have been deactivated. Soon, we'll be back on the Theurgy, and the Versant will be theirs again."

Little did Ives know about some of the sabotage that the vengeful abductees were making...

Jien's eyes fell on the back of her hand as it lay on Isley's shoulder, and she saw the skin rippling a bit - her morphogenic matrix yet to have stabilised after the time spent in the quantum stasis field. Moreover, she realised she'd lingered a bit too long with it on Isley, looking into his eyes. She cleared her throat and folded her hands behind her back. It had been good to have some kind physical contact with another... To make up for what the Scion had been doing to her. There was shame certainly, but most of all, there was pain in her memories of the past three days. Had she been a mere human, with normal pain receptors, she would surely not have been herself any more.

"Thank you for saving me," she said, a bit more quietly. "I wish I could have warned you about Semathal's nature, so that you'd known what you were getting yourselves into when you breached the Scion's Nest. How... are you holding up?"

Re: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms!

Reply #55 –
[ Nathaniel Isley | Bridge Module | The Versant ]

Something didn’t feel right. He wasn’t articulate enough to identify it. Even as Ives’s hand laid on his shoulder, he couldn’t amend his feelings and his words. More than that, his comfort had been removed. Her hand, off his shoulder. He hadn’t realized how badly he missed some sort of kind touch.

When his eyes met hers they showed it. They showed how tired he was. How badly he needed just a rest. How he was dragging ass.
“I’m fine.” He told her, and he told himself, because he refused to let himself feel the exhaustion. There was still work to do. They weren’t safe yet, and wouldn’t be until later. But little cracks showed in his armor, just as they did now.

He was watching her face, her body, remembering what she looked like in that containment cell, how she was just covered in blood and so much fucking blood, was she even alive...
“...And you?”

Re: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms!

Reply #56 –
[ PWO Heather McMillan | Medical Bay | Precept-ship Versant ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
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When she saw the hypospray, Heather recalled the first time she met Hylota and Lucan, and the embarrassing moment when she'd tried to help the Ovri, but her lack of understanding of the woman's biology left her with a useless arm for a duration, and the Radiant blushed, her cheeks pulsing with a glow of pinkish light which soon vanished. “Of course, I understand...thank you.” said Heather. Gingerly grasping the device, she looked at her arm, and nervously pressed it to the skin, and felt the spray pressure itself in.

She still felt sick and nauseated. Perhaps more than ever, but she remained steady.

She then remembered that the Ovri had asked her something else, and she shook her head slowly, “I only remember...fragments.”

She glanced down at the floor, frowning in concentration. “It was like...seeing the universe...” said Heather, “...and there was somebody, or something...with wings? It was like an angel. Meta...Metadyne? Something like that. Maybe it was a hallucination...or the afterlife...I do not know...”

Re: CH04: S [D06|1005] To Arms!

Reply #57 –
[ Vinata Vojona | Bridge Module | Precept-ship Versant ] @Triage
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On top of everything else, the very notion that Heather would have seen something - even someone - post-mortem and before 'reassembly' was almost too much for Vinata. He began to think that the Radiant must have imagined it. A hallucination?

"I think you need to rest," he chirped, nodding slowly. "Yes, much rest. Please, lie down for now until we get back on the Theurgy. There, we'll have better equipment to run full scans on you. At least it appears like there are no ailments or conditions in my scans that suggest you are in any medical danger. That shot you just get should stabilise the chemical imbalances of your... reassembly, and make you feel a lot better."

There were more patients among the abducted, but Vinata stayed with Heather until she was comfortable, and he could move on to the next that had been hurt in the crossfire with the Scions and the Antes.

[ Captain Ives | Bridge Module | Precept-ship Versant ] @FollowTomorrow
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The question was simple, but Jien feared the answer was more complicated than she had time for.

"Thank you, Isley," she said with a faint smile. "After so much time in the quantum stasis field, it feels like I have trouble shifting between my forms. It is how I remain healthy, by shifting, and regardless the form I was allowed to keep, I have not eaten a lot. I need to sustain myself by having the forms I wear eat, since I mimic human metabolism in order to sustain myself as well. Do you... have any rations?"

She looked down at the hand she'd touched Isley with, and the skin still rippled a bit. The request was no diversion, exactly, but the rest of the answer was something she wasn't willing to bring up right then. For while her pain receptors were not like that of a solid man or woman, and she had fared far better than such would...

...there was still that deep fear, that she was only dreaming, and that she was still in that stasis field. She knew it couldn't be so, rationally, but whenever she closed her eyes, she could see the creature stalking around her in the darkness. She could see it's gleaming body come closer, illuminated by the shimmering field. The things it did to her - in both her forms - would never be forgotten. Perhaps it was her training in Starfleet Intelligence that kept her sane? Those torture training sessions suffered being of merit?

Yet in the darkness, she knew the memories would remain, and she was not prepared to to face them.

Not when she was finally free.

- FIN
 
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