Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on May 30, 2021 14:03:39 GMT
Douce-Amère, Part 2 (Joint log with Soule, Hamlet and Cre'el, and a guest appearance by Arun)
Timestamp: Shortly after returning to Earth, and a few days before the 602 Club incident.
<<Incoming Message to Lieutenant Commander Hamlet, CSO USS Chiron>>
<<Sender: Dr. Isabelle Rousseau, CMO USS Zorya>>
“Hamlet?” Izzy’s face appeared on the screen, her expression holding the tension of several days of worry.
She wasn't in their usual quarters on the Zorya. Behind her, the sun streamed in from an open window and the boom of the ocean rolled in from the background; the idyllic setting in direct contrast to the message.
“We need your help.”
"Soule’s in trouble, and there’s going to be a court martial in two weeks, and he… he could go to prison. Starfleet has released him to my custody until then, but he's not allowed to leave Earth. If you're able to, please call us as soon as you can."
She reached forwards and hit a button on her console, then looked offscreen, speaking to someone. "I hope he's not too far away..." and the screen went black.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beeeeeeeeep Beeeeeeeeeeep!
Beeeeeeeeep Beeeeeeeeeeep!
"Mmmmm, you get it..."
"You're the senior officer.... you get it... nnnnnnnn..."
Beeeeeeeeep Beeeeeeeeeeep!
Beeeeeeeeep Beeeeeeeeeeep!
"Oooooooooooh...." Hamlet finally rolled over and out of bed, lumbering passed the small table in his and Cre'el's room and grabbing his dressing gown; throwing it on as he left the room to the quarters' main console.
Beeeeeeeeep Beeeeeeeeeeep!
Beeeeeeeeep Beeeeeeeeeeep!
"O'rite go'Damn it. I'm here!" He pushed the button, the face of the gamma shift OPS appearing on screen. "Its 3 in the bledy mornin, lad... Whadda hell do you want?
"S...sorry to wake you, sir. We have a priority transmission from Earth; it's commtags state its to be brought to your attention immediately." She wobbled her hands in the air. "Figured it was probably important enough, to wake a slumbering Klingon."
Hamlet let out a sigh, before taking a deep breath to wake himself up. "Ooooookay. Thank you, Lieutenant Mirus. Patch it through." He pulled up a seat, as the Ops officer was replaced by the stressed visage of Izzy. The old Klingon watched on at the message's content; his eye widening as he gasped. "WHAT?!"
He cut back to the Mirus. "When did this message come in?"
"Uhhh..." She looked at her console in a panic, at both the changed tone of his voice, and the fact she wasn't expecting him to reappear on the screen. "Exactly seven minutes ago, sir."
"Open a long range subspace channel back to it's source." Hamlet ordered with a clear need for haste carrying in his voice.
"Aye, sir."
Lieutenant Mirus' face was again replaced, this time by the Starfleet insignia, spinning, as the communication was aligned and rerouted. Hamlet quickly rushed to the bedroom, his giant feet clomping with each step, as he grabbed a few things out of drawers, and fetching his slipper out from under the bed.
"What is it?" Cre'el groaned, rolling over to meet Hamlet's eyes. "What's happened?"
"Soule's in trouble." Hamlet scooched his slippers on, put a padd and some kind of tin in his pocket, then was lit up in an orangey glow, as he wrapped his lips around the head of a pipe and began to light it.
"He's always in some sort of trouble." She moaned, before yawning. "Heeee....he runs headlong into it."
"They’ve never wanted to put him in prison before..."
Cre'el's eyes opened wide and she sat up in bed. "What has he done...?"
"Call's routing now..." Hamlet replied, getting back to his feet.
"You get back..." She grasped her hand in the direction of the table, signalling Hamlet to fetch her her gown. "I'll put the kettle on."
"Oh... you're my highland blossom, love."
As Cre'el rushed to the kitchen area of their quarters, Hamlet sat back down, as the communication finally connected. "Isabelle... what's happened? Where are you? Are you and baby ok?" He barraged her with questions, the moment her face appeared.
Izzy still looked somewhat harried, balancing Arun on her left shoulder as she sat in front of the comm unit. “It’s good to see you, Hamlet.” She managed a relieved smile of greeting, before jumping into the answers to Hamlet’s questions.
“We’re back on Earth, we’re ok for now... and there was an incident on Cestus Three. We’d gone there for a conference with the Gorn and some of the other non-federation races to discuss the attacks that had been happening in the past few months. Long story short, they took us prisoner, almost destroyed the Zorya with the same ships that were used in the attacks, killed half the crew, we escaped from Cestus, and then Soule killed the Gorn Warleader because she was still trying to force us to surrender, even after we took her prisoner.”
She paused for a moment to let all of that sink in, looking off camera to see if Soule had heard the incoming comm beep. “Chéri, Hamlet’s on, do you want to speak to him?”
Soule had been... off... ever since they got back. Sat around, staring off into the distance, before wandering around the house, nattering to himself. The only time he acted normally was when he was playing with Arun, or if Izzy was talking to him. If anything, he was acting more like Ilaihr, than his usual self. He looked up from his current line of thinking, nodding to Izzy, before coming and kneeling down at the console beside her, resting his head on her shoulder.
"Hey, Professor..." He said wearily.
"Well then..." The old Klingon examined the young family, his eyebrows betraying the concern he felt for them. "Seems you's had an eventful mission." He tried breaking the ice, nodding and smiling at them. "I'm glad you're all ok."
"So, I'm gonna need ya's to take me through this step by step, kids..." Hamlet continued to look at them, as Cre'el walked back, passing him a cup of tea.
"Isabelle... Soule..." Cre'el nodded to the pair, pulling up a chair.
"Cre'el, it’s good to see you also." Izzy gave Hamlet’s wife a relieved greeting also, and leant her head on Soule’s as he kneeled next to her.
"So…" she began, "The conference started out peacefully enough, but that didn’t last long…" She went through the events in order, with as much detail as she could remember, pausing from time to time as some of the more painful memories were brought to the surface. “We did what we had to do to survive, but Starfleet only wants to see that Soule killed a helpless prisoner... even though she wasn’t helpless, and would have caused more damage if she was still alive.”
“The trial is in a little less than two weeks, and if you’re able to, he’s going to need a good solicitor. I can send you the official reports from Starfleet, to prepare.” She clasped her hand around Soule’s, giving Hamlet a pleading look.
"They would be helpful." Hamlet nodded at her over the comm, stroking his chin.
"Takin' the obvious; guilty, off the table..." The old man tread lightly. "Cuz I have a feelin' y'd ne take it, ev'n if there was a plea bargin."
"Absolutely not, Hamlet!" Soule straightened up, almost angry at the notion. "Starfleet isn't just my job, it's my life... I..." He was cut off.
"Ayyyyyyyeeeyyyyyyy...." Hamlet held his hand up, taking a sip of his tea before continue. " D'ne bite ma head off. I know lad. That's why we were takin' it off the table."
"I'm sorry Professor..." Soule rested his head back on Izzy's shoulder, going quieter and more sedate.
"I know..." The Klingon sighed. "Just to get the elephant in the room outta th'way; ya killed a prisoner." He held his finger up to the screen, preemptively preventing Soule's gut reaction. "So, they've got ya bang t'rights there. It's definitely a bad thing. Do you understand that?"
Soule went silent for a moment, before sighing sadly. "Of course I do, but..." He was cut off again.
"Good, we have some avenues we can take. But I'm no' gonna lie to ya, they're gonna wanna nail ya t'th'wall at every turn." Hamlet stroked his chin some more, as his scientific mind converted itself to judicial settings; and he began postulating a defence. "Our first step, is I'm gonna need everything. So again, those reports. I'll also have to get a hold of any security footage from the whole incident, particularly involving Soule and the Warleader, just to fully establish a timeline. And eyewitness reports and uh..." He sighed. "Did you record it Soule?"
"The whole day is... in my auxilliary optical storage..." Soule shifted uncomfortably.
"Then I'll... I'll need the whole unedited feed. The HUD and vitalsigns and everything..." Hamlet looked at his former student with a sad look in his eyes.
Soule nodded in response, his eyes looking over to Izzy, talking to her as much as Hamlet. "I'll... need to uplink to a neural interface. It's a lot of information, and the uh... the cortical readers I usually use won't be able to transfer all the data properly... I'll need to hard interface." He lifted his hand up to the back of his neck, rubbing just where it meets the bottom of his skull. "The jack is just under the skin... Izz'll have to help me... access it."
“Most of the senior staff was in the raider at the time of the Warleader’s death,” Izzy added, “There will be plenty of eye witness reports, we all had to make statements in the week after we were rescued.” She paused, going quiet for a moment. “That was a rough week, Soule was in the Brig for most of it, although they did let him see Arun once we were able to get him from the escape pod.”
She shook herself out of those memories, nuzzling Arun as he slept on her shoulder. “Sure, uh…” she turned to look at the back of Soule’s head where he was pointing. She palpated the skin over the interface, it appeared to be just under the surface of the skin, with a little bit of thickened scar tissue covering the small round disk at the base of his skull.
“Here and now?”
She looked to Soule for confirmation, and he nodded back to her. “Ok. I’m gonna need a laser scalpel and a field kit. Let me go put the baby down… ” She stood, disappearing with Arun into the bedroom, and returned to the comm unit a few minutes later with a medkit.
"It's just about there Imzadi... you should be able to see, it's just a tiny scar." Soule sighed, as he moved his finger a little.
"Ar'ya two, just about to perform minor surgery, whilst on call to us right now?" Hamlet gave an incredulous look, before slowly turning his head to Cre'el. "The kids these days... into some strange stuff..."
Cre'el just sighed at her husband, before addressing the pair. "Hamlet is just stalling. Gaining all the evidence is the easy bit." She turned back to him with a stern glare, mouthing the words 'Get on with it'.
"Alright." Hamlet winced slightly at the idea of watching this as he continued to talk. "There are a couple of defences, or defence paths, really... and sometimes they converge with each other. We'll have to use everyone of those convrgences to our advantage, and get some points with whatever tribunal or jury they throw at us." He cleared his throat. "They have everything they need; unabashed perpertrator, clear means, and obvious motive. But the circumstances will weigh very heavily. We need to establish Soule's character, his past, his thought processes... we need to..."
Hamlet blinked at the screen as Izzy sat down. "We need to dissect him... as a person." Everyone went quiet for a second.
Soule pulled his hair back, and leant forward, reaching underneath the console with his other hand for a moment, before pulling out a connector wire. "Ready when you are, Izz..."
Izzy nodded, looking to Cre’el for moral support, knowing that Hamlet’s wife, as an experienced doctor herself, wouldn’t even blink at the little bit of blood and gore that was about to happen. Then she dosed Soule with a hypo of local anaesthetic, ran her hands and the back of Soule’s neck through a small steriliser beam normally used for field surgery, and activated the laser scalpel.
One ‘u’ shaped incision later, and she carefully peeled back the flap of skin and inserted the cable under Hamlet and Cre’el’s watchful gaze. She dabbed the rest of the blood from the incision and looked to Soule and the others. “All set.”
Soule's left eye could be seen on the screen, rolling around a moment, the pupil and iris expanding and contracting; before he blinked both eyes tight, and cleared them. "Right... I'm in." A program started running in a minimised window on the screen, without even touching the console Soule expanded the window. It looked like a discordant mess of icons and images, strings of letters and numbers representing file names and an incomprehensible cacophony of lines interconnecting everything. Soule looked uncomfortable and as his eye waved over the screen, it began to scroll through all the selections, and highlight seemingly random ones green; the whole actual process seemed like a blur on the outside, but silently Soule knew this was going to take quite a long time filtering through all the files.
"There's uhm...." He sounded almost sedated, as his teeth gritted slightly every now and then. "About 12... no... 14 million... active files... uuuuhhh... about I'd say 900... thousand are pertinent to the... the... incident."
"Are ye 'rite there, lad? Is he o'rite, Isabelle? Hamlet asked, greatly concerned.
"There was a reason... I let the jack heal over..." Soule sighed, bracing himself on the desk, slowly falling forward.
“Oohhhkay… Just don’t go too fast, love...” Izzy braced Soule’s shoulders to keep his head from falling forward any further, then grabbed out her tricorder and began scanning, grabbing out a cortical monitor and a dose of neural stabilizer from the medkit.
“He doesn’t normally download this many files at once, it’s straining his neural pathways…” She dosed him with the stabilizer and attached the monitor to his forehead, keeping a close watch on him.
“His ocular implant was affected by a radiation pulse a few months back, I had to do surgery… there may be some residual effects from that still as well.”
The console display flickered for a moment as Soule began transferring the file; his head shuddering, and his face grimacing. "I went blind..." He said abruptly and quickly, reaching his arm behind him, and placing his hand on Izzy's leg.
"And yet, ya say it so casually." Hamlet looked on in a bit astonishment.
"I dont..." Soule juddered. "I dont think... that many people noticed..." He placed his other hand on his head, as his discomfort increased.
“The good news is that he’s holding steady…” Izzy grasped Soule’s hand, still tightly clenched around her leg, her eyes firmly on the tricorder readouts. His heart rate began to climb upwards, followed by a marked increase in his neural patterns. “He’s not gonna be able to keep this up much longer though.”
"I'm ok..." Soule grunted more. "I just dont like being hardlined in for too long. Call me paranoid... but my implants can get viruses, which would be bad, or someone could hack the damn things and then they'd be watching everything I do, which would also be bad." The file counter sped up, as he powered through it; myoclonic twitches wracking his body, until he gasped deeply, and rested his head on the desk.
Hamlet look concerned. "Is he... is he a'ight?"
“Soule?” Izzy instinctively felt for a pulse, followed quickly by grabbing her tricorder, her cheeks going pale with worry.
“Pulse irregular… clammy skin. I’m gonna have to give him a dose of Lectrazine, he’s starting to go into shock.” In the blink of an eye, she snatched a hypospray from her kit and had it pressed against his neck.
There was an uncomfortably long silence, with Soule laying still; the file transfer had completed and there was a gentle beep breaking the quiet. Then suddenly the console glitched, bars of static running up and down the screen, the beeping being contorted into an agonised whine. Soule's breathing hastened and staggered at the same time, as his heart raced, and his eyes rolled in his head; before he lurched up with a gasping scream, reaching his hand to the back of his neck and wrenching the cable out. He sat up straight, staring blinkingly at the wall, panting through his nose.
As he calmed down he slowly turned to look at Izzy. "What happened?"
She finally exhaled.
"I was this close," she held up her thumb and forefinger, "to giving you CPR and having you beamed over to Medical. Let's not do a file transfer again anytime soon, shall we?" She let herself relax and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. "I’m glad you’re ok, Imzadi. I really hope the information you downloaded was what Hamlet needs, because that was really hard on your system.”
"Ooooh, my head hurts... too much data at once." Soule slumped his head onto Izzy's shoulder. "It shoulda all transferred over... but there was some kind of error during. " He slapped his palm into his temple, metaphorically rattling his brain. "I might have to update my programming."
"Perhaps some new implants?" Hamlet replied firmly. "Perhaps, something not made by the shaky hands of a drunken Klingon."
"Heeeeey, Doc Vol'nik was a legend..." Soule groaned, in a sedate tone.
"Who clearli dinni have a fuckin' clue about yer hybrid neurology." The old Klingon looked to his wife. "Ba'k me up, luv!"
"My husband is correct; drunken Klingons should not be doctors. And you should get new implants. You are undoubtedly overdue for a replacement or an upgrade." She looked to Izzy over the screen. "Would you agree, doctor?"
"Nooooo... too much stuff happenin' at once." Soule moaned. "Wiiiiife, dont stick things in my brain!"
Izzy looked similarly uncomfortable at the prospect of putting Soule through another gauntlet anytime soon. “Well, technically, I already have,” she replied. “He had brain surgery a few months ago when his ocular implant failed. Long story, we ran into some weird radiation that affected it strangely. I’ve been in there, and the wiring isn’t pretty, all kind of jumbled together in places. I agree that he’s overdue for an upgrade, but… I’d only do it if he wanted me to.”
She held up a final hypospray. “I can take care of that headache, at least. We’ll worry about new implants when we’re through the current set of problems.”
"Yeah..." He exposed his neck for the hypospray, letting out a gentle sigh as Izzy pressed it down. "Let's worry about... y'know... court martials and rebuilding Zorya first. Before we think about routing around inside my head."
"And there's just so much else to do... I can't be off my feet for that long. We're probably gonna be called up again to some frontline or pressing matter, as soon as the last bulkhead is bolted down. Arun's gonna be crawling and maybe walking soon and being all kinds of handful; I dont want you to have to be taking care of me, as well. Its likely for a while, I could go blind again... or lose motor control and not be able to pick things up, or hold Arun properly..." He trailed off for a moment. "And replacing the whole goddamn network... thats... operations on my spine, as well as the ones in my visual and motor cortices."
Soule shifted uncomfortably at the whole idea, shaking his head.
Izzy closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his for a few long moments trying to soothe him, and thinking of the strange turn of events that led them to the need of preparing for a court martial. “Let’s, um… let’s not get too far ahead. We just need to get through the next couple of weeks first, the rest I suppose, will take care of itself.”
“Although...” she let a smile creep in, “I’m kinda looking forward to Arun crawling, seeing him grow and explore...”
Just by the way she smiled, Soule was reminded why he loved her so; how she found the good in everything, and how the slightest smile on her face brought light to his entire world. "I can't wait either."
Hamlet and Cre'el turned to each other with a knowing smirk, having had five children together, but letting the pair enjoy the thought; and the moment of peace that they had found. "Why dun you two kids, rest up." Hamlet finally decided to break the silence. "I'll look over the footage, go through the telemetry... uhhhm... ach I can co-opt a couple of people to help me really go through your neural data. And I'll start mounting a defence."
"Yes." Cre'el smiled at them reassuringly. "You enjoy some time with your son, and make the most of the time you have off duty." She held her hand up in salute. "Dif-tor heh smusma, young ones."
"Thank you Cre'el, Professor..." Soule looked to them thankfully, resting his head on Izzy's shoulder. "You guys are the best."
“Thank you Hamlet, and Cre’el.” Izzy echoed, leaning her head on Soule’s. “We’ll see you when it’s time for the trial… or maybe just to talk before that.” She gave them a smile of gratitude and extended her hand forward, and the screen went dark again.
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Nov 8, 2021 23:44:30 GMT
12110.04 -- A Mother’s Instinct
(with Paul as Truman and Babs as Anais Rousseau)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Hi Isa, it’s seven in the evening and we’re just trying to find out when you're getting home, Your father is making dinner for everyone. If you’re in a meeting, no problem, just call me as soon as you can."
~~~~~~~ "Hi Isa, we were expecting you home four hours ago. I’m putting Arun to bed now, we’ll stay with him until you get back. Please call when you get this message."
~~~~~~~ "Hi Isa, I hope everything's ok, it's midnight and we haven't heard from you yet. Please get back to me."
~~~~~~~ "Isa, It's three in the afternoon, we heard from you or Soule yet. We're getting worried. Please get back to us."
~~~~~~~ "Dr. Isabelle Rousseau, please." --
“She's still not available? I've been leaving messages for two days, with no word. This isn’t like her not to call." --
”Can I speak with someone who does know then? Who’s her superior?” --
”Yes, I’ll wait. I’m certainly not going anywhere.” --
Anais Rousseau paced in front of the comm unit while the Starfleet insignia twirled frustratingly for the umpteenth time. She didn’t want to assume something had gone wrong, but the last time she hadn’t heard anything from them for days, Cestus happened.
The twirling insignia blinked out, and a face appeared on the screen.
“Finally,” Anais huffed, locking steel blue eyes with the person in front of her.
The person staring back at her had a weary and aged look about him. Once upon a time in his youth she probably would have described him as rugged but the years had left him more tired than handsome. He looked like someone who carried a lot of weight with a stern resolve, but the voice that greeted her was not an unkind one.
"Ms. Rousseau," he bowed more than nodded, "I apologise for your wait. I'm Commodore Truman. I understand you're trying to contact your daughter."
“Commodore Truman. Yes, I remember you. You were with them at Cestus.” The older woman nodded, cooly acknowledging the man in front of her.
"I’m sorry to bother you, normally I wouldn’t interfere with her job, but Isabelle left her son with us before she went to work yesterday, and neither she or her husband came home last night or this evening. I've spoken with several of her colleagues at Starfleet Medical, including her head nurse who's practically a member of the family, and no one has been able to find her. She was supposed to start the phage research project yesterday, am I correct? Even if she was stuck in a quarantine lab somewhere, she should at least be able to get to a comm unit.”
He listened attentively but paused for a moment before answering.
"I am afraid that your daughter is off world at the moment. She's on an assignment that may have restricted her access to comms for a few days. I'm terribly sorry that she didn't have time to inform you before she left."
“Off world?” Anais’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “And is Soule with her also?
I thought that he couldn’t leave Earth before the trial.”
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss it," he said with a hint of annoyance, although she could tell it wasn't directed at her, "If I'm completely honest my own information on the subject is limited."
“Of course.” She sighed, nodding. “Commodore, I do understand that we’re not always going to be privy to all of the details of the missions that those two are sent on -- but I’m sure that you can at least appreciate how much we worry about them, and how much we want them to come back safe, and sound. And I’m sure they would also both want someone to let their families know if they weren’t able to. Can you promise me that, at least?”
"Normally I would insist upon it. My understanding was that all families had been notified," his irritation seemed to be growing. Towards the chain of command maybe? Another department? "Again, you have my apologies, Ms. Rousseau. I unfortunately cannot say how long the Commander's mission may last her."
Now that was interesting. He used her rank instead of her salutation as protocol usually dictated. Wherever she was it wasn't in the capacity of a Doctor.
And, it was becoming clearer now that this man she was speaking to, wasn’t actually in solid control of the mission in question. Which meant that whoever was actually in charge, was someone Starfleet didn’t want at the forefront of things - or was too high up in the food chain to be speaking directly with a civilian, that unfortunate job had been given to Truman.
“If this was an ordinary mission, Starfleet would have been less opaque about it, would they not have? Instead, they tell her she’s on one assignment, but she’s sent on a completely different one, with no time or opportunity to notify anyone… not even her colleagues at Starfleet Medical. And her husband is probably there too… otherwise you’d probably say he’s in meetings or some sort of work project. Or, he’d be home with his son.” She gave Truman a pointed look.
“I’m sure they were both chosen for… whatever it is they’re doing, for a good reason, Commodore. I’d ask you to guarantee that they come back in one piece, but I know better than that by now. If it’s a classified mission, it’s probably also dangerous.”
The Commodore's expression was grave, but there was just the slightest lift at the edge of his mouth. It wasn't a smile. No where near. Maybe just a veiled acknowledgment that he was impressed with her, or perhaps just a satisfaction that she understood his meaning.
"I couldn't possibly comment on that, Ms. Rousseau, as you said," his hands, clasped in front of him on his desk, made a slight shuffling motion. She could tell he didn't want to leave it at that, so she waited a moment in silence for him to consider his next words carefully.
"What I can say," he continued, "is that Isabelle Rousseau is possibly one of the most capable officers I've come across in my career. And if Soule Douglas has one redeeming quality in my mind despite his… issues, it's that he will do anything to protect those he loves."
He leaned forward just an inch, straightening his posture. It was a subtle change but the fatigue she saw at the start of the conversation seemed to melt away in an instant, leaving behind an officer with nothing but conviction in his voice.
"So purely hypothetically, Ms. Rousseau, if the two of them are in danger, I would still put my faith in them coming back safe and sound every time."
“Thank you, Commodore.” The expression on Izzy’s mother’s face grew less harsh towards Truman. “I’m glad you have such confidence in them. I agree, they are both very capable, and have managed to survive several other situations that probably should have killed them. Not that it makes me worry any less about this particular situation, but at least now I have a decent idea of why they’re not here. Thank you again, for taking the time to speak with me.”
“It’s been a pleasure, Ms. Rousseau. When I hear they’re on their way home I’ll contact you personally. Please try to have a pleasant evening.” He nodded to her once more before the screen cut out and returned to the rotating icon of Starfleet Command.
Anais reached over and pressed the ‘off’ button. Shortly after, her husband came in, cradling their grandson, who was sleeping fitfully in his arms. “Any news?” he asked quietly.
“Not as much as I’d hoped,” she replied. “It doesn’t look like they’re going to be back for at least a few days, and their commanding officer can’t tell me exactly when, or why they were called away. In fact, he doesn’t seem to be the one actually in charge. It sounds like they’ve been sent on some secret mission or other. I guess we’ll have Arun for a few days longer than we expected.”
“Should I call Admiral Mendosa?”
“I’m not sure that Soule’s mum is going to know much more than this Truman,” she looked at Guillaume helplessly.
Guilaume nodded. “Probably not, but we should let her know what’s going on, at least. You go and get some rest, Cherie. And I’ll let you know if I hear anything from Isa.”
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Nov 19, 2021 19:26:31 GMT
12111.08 Breadcrumbs
The morning of their departure, just a few days before the court martials were to take place, the missing crew of the Zorya did not attend their normal assignments that Admiral Raif had given them. Instead, they went to their daily briefing at Starfleet Command to find that they were scheduled to attend a routine holodeck training session.
If someone were to look for them, they could start with the comings and goings from the holodeck where they were assigned. This person would have found out that Commodore Truman had interrupted the simulation just before the group completed it. Shortly after, they would have been seen on security feeds leaving the holodeck. Later, a security feed at a transporter pad would have shown them, minus Truman, transporting to... somewhere.
Their destination was probably inaccessible in the Starfleet database. Erased, or maybe redacted. The trail might stop there, unless this someone were persistent about finding and highlighting things that didn’t quite make sense.
Further digging in a lateral direction might reveal a test firing from an orbital defense satellite. If they were lucky enough to snag the information about the test before it got deleted or redacted, they would find that six torpedoes were ejected away from Earth. Except, these torpedoes never exploded.
A study of the torpedoes' rough trajectory might show that approximately half a day from Earth at warp, a Defiant class patrol vessel, the USS Percival, paused on it’s course to Rigel and activated it’s transporters. Lifesigns on the ship increased by six, despite the fact that the ship was not in proximity to another ship, planet, or space station at the time. And the ship’s telemetry, which would normally have included the transporter records… probably showed a strange blank spot in the files that were normally sent to Starfleet Command.
The official reports would have next shown that the Percival arrived at Rigel. Lifesigns on the ship decreased by six. Transport records, again strangely dark. The ship, on patrol, remained in Rigel’s orbit.
A short time later, a few strange events would probably have stuck out like a sore thumb in the normally placid Rigellian news cycle.
A burnt apartment in the capital city - the fire burned so hot that it left no remains, or any organic matter at all.
An exploded house in the suburbs, quickly followed by a report of a security guard vaporized by a man dressed in civilian clothing - even though civilians were not allowed weapons on Rigel.
Further examination of local communications might have found that several people saw a torpedo strike on the suburbs from orbit. An orbital defense satellite, or a ship, perhaps. It also was probably found that the house in question belonged to a bajoran named Ezia. How she fits into this picture, is anyone’s guess. Except, there was an incident a few months back involving this Ezia that was connected with the crew of the USS Zorya.
Security feeds from the suburb -- if any of the neighbors or the security forces had cameras focused on the event - would have shown several humans, an orion, a trill, and a very underdressed bajoran running from the house right before it went up in a gigantic fireball. Security forces would have been seen surrounding the group shortly afterwards. One of the people in the group lifts his hands as if to surrender… and a light flashes from his palm, immediately followed by the guard in front of him disintegrating into dust. Then, everything dissolves into a jumbled chaos of shouting, and shooting, and the perpetrators running away - including a man whose hand appears to be badly injured, being supported by a woman running away from the camera - their faces not quite visible in the darkness.
At this point, both the local comm chatter and the news would probably report a manhunt for the terrorists at large. Somehow, the security forces know that they are Starfleet - despite the fact that they were wearing civilian clothing and had no identifying starfleet insignia.
From there, the trail goes dark.
But, if someone were to recognize the people in the images, they would probably realize that they are the missing senior crew of the Zorya.
And that their classified mission has probably failed.
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Nov 21, 2021 14:34:30 GMT
12111.08 Meet the Spider
They had been framed.
The mission was to find Volkova, who was on a special assignment for SFI, because she'd missed a few check ins and then gone dark. Then they were supposed to help her complete her mission, of tracking down an El- Aurian criminal who had killed four Starfleet officers.
Only, when they did find her, laying low in Ezia's bedroom, Volkova claimed not to have heard of the El-Aurian. Then, they found they were being tracked, through the spy implants that SFI had given them as part of their special ops equipment.
They had about 30 seconds after they realized this, to grab a very naked Ezia, run outside of the house for safety, and take cover before an orbital strike decimated Ezia's house in a gigantic fireball.
When Rigellian security forces showed up a few minutes later to check it out, they somehow knew they were Starfleet, and accused them of blowing up the house. That was when Soule tried to stun one of the security guards who was trying to arrest them. But, even though SFI told them that the hand phasers were set to stun only, when he activated it the guard disintegrated in front of their eyes.
For all intents and purposes, it looked as if the mission had failed, and spectacularly so.
But maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed….
After escaping the Rigellian security forces through an underground maintenance tunnel, they managed to make it into the federation embassy without being followed, or getting arrested. Soule was treated for his injuries at the infirmary. The rest of the group were allowed to try to contact someone for help. The embassy staff didn't ask too many questions about how Soule got injured or why he had a hole in his hand ... and oddly enough, no one seemed to know about the incident in the suburbs.
Yet, when they tried to contact Starfleet Command, they were given the runaround. And when they tried to directly ask if anyone had heard about an explosion, the yeoman became scared, and wouldn't say anything.
And then an older gentleman in antique glasses, wearing a Starfleet uniform, walked right up to them and introduced himself.
Their mark. Sirio Tosan. The El Aurian criminal that had been eluding SFI for more than a century by changing his face.
One of the founders of Section 31.
Maybe the mission had not failed after all.
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Jun 30, 2022 17:38:17 GMT
ISS Zorya, Stardate 12204.11 ~Long live the Empire!~ (Joint log with Chris as the Death Guard, various npc's, and Myles Halo) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Give me a full briefing. Name, race, rank, crime, and standing within the Empire. And, personal details that I can use against the prisoner. Don't leave out anything important."
Dr. Rousseau strode beside her hulking black armor-clad escort, passing through familiar, yet unfamiliar corridors, to a location she could only guess. Her demeanor projected confidence, perhaps even a bit of arrogance and possibly a bit of boredom. She gave the cyborg security guard a steely gaze, expecting him to answer without delay.
"Yes Doctor. The name is Commander Myles Halo, Human, Traitor conspiring to assassinate Captain Douglas and the Emperor. The Commander, for his long career, kept to himself and not much was known in his file; the Emperor's Intelligence Teams have suspected that he is a conspirator to an attempted rebellion. We do not have the names of his conspirators." The Death Guard says in his robotic filtered voice. Every step the 7ft tall hulk takes makes a large thud on the deck plating as the large boots slam into place, the steps sound like the marching of 20 men. Imagine what the entire force on the Zorya would sound like marching together. On the armour there are symbols of the Terran Empire and certain symbols that seem to depict the Emperor and what group they come from.
As Isabelle and the Guard walk down the corridor the colour scheme changes to lots of black and red as they walk along; there is another Death Guard holding a large Phaser Rifle guarding the corridor.
Isabelle nodded. The name Halo didn’t ring any bells… she’d never heard of him before. That it was a possible assassin gave her pause, although it was more than likely that assassins were a dime a dozen here, given the cutthroat environment. Her outward expression turned bored again."Very good. And has he admitted to anything yet? And what methods have already been used to get this information?"
“This prisoner at your request has been left for you to extract information from. Though, they have had one or two torture sessions.” The guard escorts Isabelle further into the everchanging corridor until eventually they come to a what looks like a door to a cargo bay but instead of it saying cargo bay it has odd symbols on the side and opens two hulking Death Guards holding the same size Phaser Rifle from the guard they saw earlier. The Rifle, that is too large for a normal human to hold, almost looks small in their hands.
She nodded. “Of course. The extra sessions should have made him more malleable..." Her tone turned to impatience as she stepped through the door, throwing a hasty salute to the new guards as they passed. "Let's get on with it. Captain Douglas will want the results as soon as possible."
“Ma’am.” He says as the doors open, revealing screams of the prisoner inside a torture chamber. People gathered round look on with happy faces as they enjoy watching the person in the torture chamber. The person inside the tubes is in a suit that seems to conduct the properties of the tube and make the torture even more painful.
She sucked in a breath in an attempt to hide her horror and revulsion, struggling to maintain her illusion of nonchalance. Her thoughts raced. There had to be a humane solution to this nightmare.
Her glance fell on a particularly obedient looking officer, and she waved him over.
"You there. Take him out of that chamber. I’ve got something special in mind for Mr. Halo.”
“And the rest of you can go now. You’re done for today.” She turned to the black robot. “You too, I've no need of you for this, you can wait outside.”
Everyone in the room nods and turns around and exits the room. The large door shuts and seals behind them. The prisoner quivering has already quickly scurried to the corner of the room away from, who he presumes is the tyrannical and maniacal Doctor Rousseau, famed torturer of the Douglas conquest. At which point he finds a cup on the floor and throws it at Rousseau.
She stepped aside, and the cup just missed her head, sailing over her left shoulder. She let out a sigh as it clattered to the ground next to her, shaking her head at the prisoner as if ‘tsk’ing an unruly toddler.
"Computer, erect a level 10 restraining field around Mr. Halo." The computer bleeped and complied. Halo crouched immobilized, staring with wide eyes as she calmly walked towards him, seemingly sizing him up.
“So, you have some spirit left after all. Let’s get to know one another, shall we?” She crossed to a medical cart nearby, laid out with an array of instruments as if for a surgery. She examined a few of them, considering each one carefully before making her selection - a couple of wicked looking instruments and a few hyposprays.
Then she looked around the bay, noting the location of wall consoles and sensors. “Computer, cut audio and video feed from this room.” The computer bleeped again, and a few of the blinking lights on the consoles went out.
“There, that’s better.” She moved towards the prisoner, and knelt down in front of him. Now that she could speak freely, her demeanor changed. Her tone became softer, the arrogance and boredom disappeared.
“First, let me help you with the pain.” She pressed a hypospray to the man’s neck.
The man goes through a range of emotions from perplexed to mistrust. Not knowing if this is some kind of trick, “So you can double the pain again? Is this some game you're playing?” He says as he looks around the room of equipment set out just to do the things he worries about.
She pulled another instrument from her pocket, a tricorder that she’d grabbed from the Captain’s quarters earlier, and began a scan of the man’s body to find the extent of his injuries. “Dehydration, malnutrition, internal bleeding, damaged nerves, scarring. Bones broken and rehealed… They’ve put you through alot, haven’t they.”
“And no, it’s not a game. I'm not going to hurt you. I’m not who you think I am. I'm not her."
He backs away as much as he can within the constraints of the forcefield. “No, you're not going to trick me again. I know who Doctor Rousseau is, and you are not her.” His eyes showing just what he has been through, trickery, punishment and much worse, “You are a heartless monster who wants nothing more than to get information from me.”
She tilted her head in surprise. Either the torture had completely muddled the man’s brain, or there was a riddle yet to be solved. "No, I'm... Wait, what did you say? I’m not… Who? The twisted, evil torturer, wife of Captain Douglas… or someone else? And if I were her, why would I have just risked my neck to take you out of that chamber, when I could just continue interrogating you and torturing you?
“Because you have done it before. Healed my wounds just to break me again. But you're not going to get anything that I haven’t already not told you and the stuff that I can tell you.” He says keeping on the defensive, though he smirked when she said Captain Douglas.
“So, you’ve been here for some time then..." she inferred. "And you seem to know something about another Rousseau? And maybe… another Douglas?” Her light blue eyes gazed steadily into the man’s face as she searched his expression for a flicker of recognition, anything that might confirm what she was now beginning to suspect.
His expression seems to lock up tighter than a Ferengi holding onto his Latinum.
“Hmm…" she hazarded. "Maybe I’ve hit on something after all, or you’d probably have just denied it and thrown more insults at me.”
She hesitated, thinking over what to say next. “Listen, I know it’s alot to expect you to believe me, after everything they’ve put you through. But you said you know who I am?" She cocked her head in curiosity. "That is, unless there's yet a third Rousseau floating around the universes somewhere that I don't know about… and it’s possible you also know of Commander Douglas. Thing is, I’ve never met you before, until now.”
Halo seems to go into a trance as if he is protecting himself, “Commander Myles Halo, Starfleet Serial 45832DN3, Starfleet Fleet Operations.” There is a pause and he repeats it again, “Commander Myles Halo, Starfleet Serial 45832DN3, Starfleet Fleet Operations.” And he continues to repeat it in a more mumbled tone.
"So you are Starfleet…" she whispered. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Isabelle Rousseau, Starfleet Serial number 40814FM9, Chief Medical Officer, USS Zorya. You must have fallen through the same gate we did. We're going to get you out of here, Commander."
He stops his mumbling and pays attention to the serial number and the job, “The Zorya is not stationed near the gate research station, the Zorya is stationed at Earth for repairs. How can you have come through a gate?” He says querying the Doctor. “You can’t be here. I have only been here for 1 week. The Zorya was 3 weeks from finishing repairs when I came here.”
She had to think about that for a moment. "I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for you. The Zorya left drydock for Bravado Station as soon as the refit was completed, just a couple of days ago. We were supposed to test the gate, but something seems to have gone wrong, we were never supposed to end up in an alternate dimension… or whatever this is. Maybe time runs slower here, I don't know."
"But, tell me, how did you get here? Did you find yourself falling through a void? I was still on the Zorya when the others on the senior crew went onto the station, but it seems that I was pulled through along with everyone else somehow. We fell for what seemed like forever… and then we ended up here."
Deciding to trust her, because before when the Doctor acted kind he got stabbed after a few minutes, “I was asleep in my bed on the station as I was taking an early flight to go on leave. Next thing I knew I woke up on this ship in what I assume was the Brig. I was then dragged here and interrogated.” He evidently has been traumatised as well as having a few scars from injuries that were not properly healed by the mirror Rousseau.
"Funny, I was asleep as well. I was off duty, and my son was finally asleep in his cot next to me… he's six months old now, teething, we had a rough night…" She closed her eyes, holding back a rush of emotion, then reopened them again, focusing back on Halo.
"Listen, as far as we could tell when we arrived, our counterparts are no longer on this ship. We have reason to believe that they may have switched places with us when we fell through the gate. I think we actually have an advantage here, if we play it right. I trust my crew to find a way out of this. And no one will harm you anymore, I promise you."
She’d held off asking him about the assassination plot. If he really was here only a week and he’d been captured the entire time, it was doubtful that the man in front of her was behind it; he probably knew nothing about it. And the other Halo was probably no longer in this universe…
A small glimmer of hope appears in his eyes as he starts to slowly believe Rousseau, “Okay, but how do you expect to take me back with you? I’m stuck here, not like they will let you take me once they probably find out you're not one of them when you try to return to our universe.” As he says that he now shows a more panicked expression.
“Well, as I said, I think we have an advantage here since we seem to have essentially replaced the other senior officers aboard this ship - although we still have to keep within the bounds of this reality, mask ourselves until we know we’re safe. I have to return to the Bridge after this, but… “ She chewed her lip, thinking of what to do next. “From here, I can send you to a private room in sickbay to make sure you’re given rest and fluids, and your wounds taken care of properly. I can make sure that no one else but myself and Commanders Douglas and Feyna have access to you. And then, when the time is right, we’ll get you out of there. Will you trust me?”
He seems to think for a few minutes, “If you can do what you say. I will.”
She nodded, giving him a reassuring smile. “All right, Commander. Just… play along. We have to make this look good.”
She stood and undid what she’d done earlier, releasing the restraining field and restoring the audio and video feeds to their normal states. Then she opened the door to the corridor outside, her demeanor shifting back to haughty arrogance.
“Guards! I’m done here. He’s too weak to withstand any more questioning. Take him down to sickbay, isolation room two, have them restore him, prep him for the next session… Access restricted to high level Command staff only - myself, the Captain and Feyna. I’ll go down to check on him as soon as I’m finished on the bridge.”
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Sept 15, 2022 1:51:50 GMT
Stardate 12209.05
In the Middle of Nowhere
The lights pulsed, the bass boomed. The singers on stage sang melodiously, the drinks flowed freely. And it was… kinda fun. But, it would have been even more fun if it had made any fucking sense at all.
Izzy was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be here. Wherever “here” was.
At least, maybe not? Or then again, maybe this was supposed to happen…? It was impossible to tell at this point. She had completely lost track of which reality they were in, anymore.
She was mostly sure they were in their proper universe again. Except for the fact that the space just outside of the Zorya was of a consistency very much between fog and pea soup. And the life form inside the sphere where the away team had gone to investigate, had inexplicably decided to throw them a party for no discernible reason. In fact, this whole bizarre 'discotheque inside of a random giant sphere' thing, wasn't really working for her.
She figured she might as well enjoy it, before things got even weirder… or she woke up in her alter ego's torture chamber or something. Best not to think about that, though… She threw back her drink.
And who knows. This discotheque could be an elaborate portal home.
Picard and Worf singing a duet though. A once in a lifetime performance. Yep, might as well enjoy it.
She ordered another drink.
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Nov 28, 2022 19:20:45 GMT
Gravity and Blood -- a joint log between the Tempest and Zorya crew, with Annie as Penny (Dr. Penelope Evans) and Pezz as Commander Exeel. Takes place just after the battle of the Azure Nebula, and shortly after Zorya's re-emergence into the Prime Universe.startrekab.proboards.com/post/3500/thread
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Mar 6, 2023 17:11:02 GMT
12302.27 To find a way through the darkness (Joint log with Izzy and Soule) ~~~~~~~~~~~~
They were alive. Battered, bruised, severely injured. But alive.
Izzy couldn’t wait even a second longer. Now that they’d recovered the away team and Captain Truman from the mining planet, and the Zorya was en route to the nearest starbase and out of danger, she insisted on a site to site to the ICU.
She shimmered into place, looking around to locate Soule and Feyna who were both lying prone in biobeds nearby. Captain Truman was not there, he’d been taken to a private room as she’d requested earlier. The reports that she’d already seen of his condition were even worse than the others.
“I’ve got this, Doc.” Nurse Dedoja approached Izzy, noticing her worried expression and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “They’ve been stabilised, and there’s a team assigned to each of them. Go, be with Soule.”
“Thanks, Dej.” Izzy nodded numbly, and approached Soule’s biobed. She sucked in a gasp when she saw his injuries up close… She had seen him get blown backwards in the explosion as she watched helplessly from the bridge viewscreen, but that still didn’t prepare her for this. She picked up his chart, knowing it would be bad even before she’d read the details.
“Imzadi, I’m here.” She sat next to the bed and took his limp hand in hers. She didn’t know if he could hear her right now, but she had to try.
He simply laid there, deathly silent in his biobed, the only sounds were his laboured breathing and the machine tones monitoring his vital signs. The colour of his skin had already started to go a pale and pallid colour, his lips a light blue, his prone form devoid of his usual strength and defiance; he looked weak and broken.
His eyes rolled inside his head, his facial muscles periodically twitching in a pained grimace, despite his unconsciousness and the anaesthetics coursing through his veins.He went on like this for hours, to Izzy what must have felt like days, before he started to stir. At first it was a slight pant or gasp, building to shuddering groans, his head lolling side to side, before his eyes started to flutter open. It took several more hours before he finally spoke.
“Where… am I?” He rasped in a low, powerless whisper, his eyes darting frantically around the room. He then let out a long string of sibilant sounds, using what little strength he had available to practically spit the sounds, whilst bearing his teeth.
“S…Soule? Thank god…” The hours had passed with Izzy nearly frozen in place next to him, lost in a dark well of anxious despair. She lifted her head at the sound of his voice, sitting up from her slumped position with renewed hope, gripping his hand in both of hers.
“You’re back home, on the Zorya… in sickbay.”
“Iz-zy…” He turned his head towards the sound of her voice, letting out a relieved sigh for a moment, before his head started flailing in panic. “Jo!” His voice scratched. “Where is she? Where’s Jo? Is she ok?” He visibly strained, his neck craning up but the rest of his body not following. He looked confused and distressed. “Why is there a security field? Why is it so dark in here?”
She put a gentle hand on his cheek to try to calm him. “Jo’s here, she’s a couple of beds over. She was caught in the blast also… she’s still unconscious and just got out of surgery.” When he mentioned the security field, and the darkness, she got a sick feeling in the pit in her stomach. Even though his readings had suggested that this might be the case, she hadn’t quite wanted to let herself believe it just yet.
“There’s… no restraining field.” She steeled herself for what she needed to tell him. “When you were thrown backwards, you hit your head and neck hard. What you’re seeing… not seeing, is feedback from the damage to your ocular implant, and there was damage in your visual cortex. And… your spine." She hesitated and her voice cracked, but she made herself continue. "Your C7 vertebra in your neck was fractured, and the spinal cord was torn. Until we’re able to repair it, you may be unable to walk… and move most of your upper body.” She stopped there, just holding his hand while he processed the news.
The fingers of his left hand started to rattle and clink on the biobed, before he started trying to push himself up and growling at the struggle, before roaring in pain; the change in position disturbing his injuries. He fell back to the bed, his nose wrinkling in anger and disgust at his own weakness.
“How long…” His head shook, as his body couldn’t. “How long will I be like this?” His eyes scanned around, hoping they were looking at her’s. “Am I gonna be stuck like this?”
“Don’t… don’t move your neck too much right now.” She leaned forward, readjusting the brace around his neck and shoulders. She was glad that he couldn’t see the pained look in her eyes, but she was sure that he could tell it from the tone of her voice. “Not.. forever, hopefully. Your spinal cord was torn, but not crushed. It can be regenerated but it still may take time for you to regain function again.
"There’s still swelling around the injured portion of your spine even though they regenerated the broken vertebrae already. Right now, the extra fluid there is impeding what little nerve signals are able to get through, but there's a chance that once the swelling reduces, you may regain some sensation in your right arm and upper body."
"May…" He fell silent, his face contorting into a rictus of pain and rage, his eyes pinched closed and his jaw clenched tight like a vice. The biomonitor began bleeping faster, before building into a frenzy of alerts.
Her eyes widened as the monitors continued to beep, his heart rate and blood pressure spiking towards red.
Her doctor’s demeanor crumbled, she wanted to give into the guilt that stabbed her in the gut… she should have been down there with them. Why was she left unscathed… she pushed back the unbidden thought with difficulty, it would have to get in line with the rest of the dark worries that this terrible day had brought.
“Soule, listen to me, please?” She eyed his biosigns and moved over to the opposite side of him, taking his prosthetic hand so he could feel her grip. “I know this sucks every way possible, and you have absolutely every right to be angry, at all of it…. “ Her voice faltered and she hesitated, closing her eyes for a second. “And it’s ok if you’re angry at me, I get it. It's not easy news to hear…." She trailed off and became quiet, unable to continue for a few moments as she held onto his hand, watching the monitor tensely.
"But it's not hopeless…" she whispered, a realisation coming over her with the twitching of his prosthetic fingers.
He called out like a wounded animal as a torrent of thoughts rushed through his mind and the emotions flooded out of his body, joined by the sound of crumpling metal as his hand gripped the arm of the biobed like industrial crimpers. “How… How can I protect you, and Arun… how can I protect this ship when the Gorn come back?” He shouted angrily at her, before starting to hyperventilate; he’d never shouted at her before.
The readings on the monitor began to slow, along with his breath, which began to shudder, as he tried to control himself. “Because I wasn’t strong enough… I wasn’t fast enough to stop them… again…” He opened his eyes, and looked around aimlessly, unable to see a thing; the only thing he could feel was the sensation of her hand on his being simulated by the implants in his brain that were still functional.
“How is anything ever going to be ok, if I can’t walk… if I can’t even hold your hand, or our son with my real hand?” He went quiet for a while; believing her to be crying, maybe angry at him in turn for shouting at her. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do, and it horrified him more than any of the terrors he’d ever seen.
She went absolutely quiet, listening to him release all of his anger and pain and frustration. A few of her staff stopped in their paths through that area and redirected themselves, suddenly having somewhere else to be. But she stayed through it, holding his hand, despite the tears that were welling up behind her eyes.
"It's not hopeless." She repeated finally, louder than a whisper this time. Though she knew by now that his anger hadn't been directed at her, there was a hoarse edge to her voice from the effort of holding back the emotional exhaustion of the last several hours. "Your prosthetic arm still works. Which means, the main implant in your brain that it’s connected to, still has enough function to get out a neural signal. If we try something like the device that we built for Mordecai, it may help you walk again, until the spinal cord regeneration treatments are complete. This isn't forever. I think there's a chance… a real one, that you can heal from this. But it will take time. Are you willing to try?"
Images of what the Terrans had done to their version of Arun flashed through his mind, how they had turned him into little more than a machine, they had stripped him of his childhood and humanity and forcefully converted him into a weapon; because they were monsters, and monsters sacrifice others.
He slowly turned his hand around and gently clasped her’s, his breathing unsteady, as he looked up at her with empty eyes. “I would do anything for you, Izzy.” He left the rest of that thought unsaid, about just how far he would go for her and Arun. “What do… I… we need to do? Would you use nanoprobes?”
She sniffled back a rogue tear, using her other hand to move some of his hair aside that had fallen across his eyes when he’d been moving his head earlier.
“No, nanoprobes shouldn’t be necessary. Spinal cord regeneration is alot like repairing nerves, but more complicated, it takes more cellular energy to create new axons and neurons… It’s going to take several sessions, over a few weeks or possibly months, you’ll be tired, and it may be painful as you start to get feeling back. The progress is slow, to allow proper regrowth of the neural tissue over time. But if we can also use the technology that we used for your brother, it may help you in between sessions to rebuild your muscle strength, and get some motor function back. It may shorten the recovery period.”
“And.. then there’s your ocular implant, we have to figure out how to repair or replace it…”
"Ok Izz…" He replied sadly and exhaustedly. "I'm sorry…" He squeezed her hand gently and went quiet for a long while, his head fidgeting as his eyes started to flutter closed. "I love you." He whispered, as he began drifting back unconscious.
“...which we can figure out later…” she said softly. “I know it’s alot.” She stopped, and lifted his prosthetic hand, kissing his fingers before he completely drifted off.
“I love you too, so much. We’ll get through this.”
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Apr 3, 2023 15:16:42 GMT
From Within the Ranks
(joint log with Babs as Rousseau, and Chris as Elise and Admiral Raif)
Takes place about a week and a half after the Zorya’s return to Earth, following the events of Stardate 12302.27
Vice Admiral Gaius Raif, the Head of Fleet Coordination, and what a lovely, paperwork filled, job it is. Sits in his office at Starfleet Command behind his giant oak wood desk and as usual a mountain of PADDS at the side of his desk, while he reads progress reports on his main holoscreen in the centre of his desk. How he wishes he could be up in the Dispatcher away from all of this, why did he have to send Cordan off on a training cruise with the crew to Vulcan and back.
Outside the office is the usual red headed Commander, Elise Wilson, working away at her desk enjoying a bit of the peace and quiet as her fiance is off among the stars. The outer office she occupies is a lovely welcome waiting area complete with flowers, a replicator and a view of the bay.
Izzy rode up the turbolift to Raif's office, counting off the floors nervously as she went. It had been about a week and a half since the incident in the Tellarite mining caves where Truman had been captured by the Gorn, and both the away team and Truman had barely escaped with their lives. She couldn't help but wonder what Command wanted with her, and her alone out of the whole crew. A half dozen scenarios played themselves out in her mind, most of them involving possible discipline, or worse; she had been the commander on the bridge when the away team was in the caves.
The lift arrived at the correct floor, and Izzy stepped out into the sun filled lobby. She walked up to the front desk with the air of someone going to a trial, taking a PADD with the meeting request from her uniform pocket.
"Good morning, I've got a 9am appointment with the Admiral." She offered Elise the PADD so she could see the details.
Elise looks up from her desk and smiles and accepts the PADD, “Hello Doctor Rousseau. Of course, the Admiral needs a moment.” She places the PADD down, “How are you all doing in your recovery from your ordeal? I can’t imagine what it must have been like.”
Izzy nodded, taking the PADD back. Her face may have betrayed how utterly exhausting the last week and a half had been. “Commanders Feyna and Douglas are improving day by day, but the Captain is still in long term high level care. I wasn’t on the surface, but I understand it was an intense experience down there… and we still don’t know all of the details.”
Elise puts on a sympathetic smile, knowing all too well what is going on having seen all the reports about everything from the entire fleet so she can put them into easy reading piles for Raif. “Take a seat Doctor. I know how tiring it can be to get here from the arrival bay to here, especially when you're walking. We have some good replicators or, I have a pot of freshly brewed coffee.”
"Thank you, coffee sounds perfect." Izzy helped herself to a fresh mug, finding a seat on the sofa to wait, burying herself in thought. She didn't much feel like discussing the details of that day with Admiral Raif's assistant, even though she'd replayed almost every second of it at least a hundred times in her mind already.
Through the closed doors, Raif is finishing up some important classified paperwork and logging requests to certain parts of the fleet. Once he is done he buzzes Elise to let her know he is free now and gets up from his desk to get a fresh cup of coffee. At her Desk, seeing the light she looks up from her work, “Commander, the Admiral will see you now.”
Izzy nodded to Elise, lifting herself to her feet. Whatever the Admiral wanted, she was ready to face it… despite the sinking feeling in her stomach that wouldn't go away. She took a deep breath and moved to Raif’s door, pressing the door chime.
“Come”, he announces to the door and watches as Izzy walks through, “AH, welcome Doctor, do come in and have a seat. I’m just getting myself a cup of coffee, probably my 10th today, would you like one?”
“No thank you, I’m fine, Admiral.” She held up the mug that she had poured herself earlier. “I think this must be my fifth one today, myself,” she added, chuckling wryly. “I don’t mind telling you, it’s been a long week, as I’m sure you’ve seen by now in the reports.”
He takes his cup and sits down at the opposite side of his desk, “Indeed I have Doctor. I must commend you and your staff for an amazingly well done job under extreme circumstances. Now, shall we get down to business?”
She blinked, not really expecting a complement, she and the rest of her crew had merely done what anyone would have, to get everyone to safety. "Thank you, Admiral.” She offered him a small smile, still unsure of what exactly the Admiral needed to speak with her about. But the bright tone of the Admiral's voice didn't seem to suggest any disciplinary action, at least not so far.
“Of course.” She sat opposite of Raif’s desk, taking a sip from her mug to calm her nerves.
“Well, I am unsure if you're aware about Captain Truman, and his current medical condition, the Captain has been transferred to a Starfleet Medical centre for his continued care.” While his face remains the same as he always does, the always professional Admiral Raif, his eyes show sadness at his friend & colleague being stricken ill.
“Yes, sir. I’m aware. I’ve been following his situation as closely as I could since we got back to Earth, along with the rest of my injured colleagues. And I signed off on his transfer to the long term care ward. ”
He nods, “Of course, as the Captain is in a coma with no idea when he will come out of the coma, it is the decision of Starfleet Command that the Zorya will need a new Captain.” He gives her a second to ponder this and think of questions she may have.
She sighed, thinking over the news. “That sounds reasonable, of course. I wasn’t sure, given the medical reports, what kind of state he would be in even if he did come out of it. Diffuse axonal brain injuries are tricky things. Some patients remain in a vegetative state for the rest of their lives. If I may, who are you considering? Have you spoken with Commander Feyna? Or is it someone from outside of the crew again?”
He nods, “I have indeed spoken to Commander Feyna and she has declined the position of Captain. Therefore we have had to look at our options for a Captain, which for the Zorya, is not easy.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s understandable, I suppose. She’s said before she wasn’t interested in being CO, she preferred being the executive officer. Did you find any good candidates besides Feyna?”
He takes a sip of his coffee, “Well, we have many good candidates for a Captain position across Starfleet, however finding someone right for the Zorya, is a hard task,” In his head, “Because every Captain either quits, goes missing, dies or gets injured.” He coughs and then resumes, “I know you know how interesting your ship is.”
"I... certainly do," she replied, as diplomatically as possible. "So are you saying that there isn't someone willing to step up? Or…"
If not Feyna, who else would it be? The next senior officer was Soule, and he was in no physical state to take on the job, even if Command looked past his previous transgressions…
But, there were the command extension courses that Truman had asked her to complete a few months back. But it couldn't be. How could Truman have known how this would turn out…
"Sir, is this why I'm here? Are you asking me?"
Raif chuckles, “Well, you certainly have the deduction and working out a situation down. Yes, I have asked you here to offer you the position of Captain of the USS Zorya.” He passes a PADD over to her.
"Sir? Th.. thank you. I, I actually... I didn’t expect to be right,” she stammered, looking at the PADD, her thoughts racing. “Admiral, this is a huge step. I assume you understand that I can’t accept this straight away… I’m going to need some time to think it over.”
He nods, “I understand. However, this is an offer that, as some would say, is a tad, time sensitive. I can give you 48 hours before I have to submit the new appointment. If I can’t find someone by then or appoint someone, I then have to go through the list.” He sips his coffee and sends the time limit to the PADD he handed Rousseau.
She returned the nod, her head still spinning. "Understood, Admiral." Her eyes flickered over the information in the PADD, letting all of this sink in. Then she stood, offering Raif her hand. "Thank you, sir, for considering me. I promise I'll have an answer for you in two days."
He stands and shakes her hand, “Your welcome Commander. Of all the choices I had available, you are the best and brightest option. I don’t know if you knew this, but Captain Truman had placed a permanent recommendation on your file for you to be entrusted with a command position one day. If you do accept, I’m sure you will do an amazing job.”
She felt her eyebrows go up at the permanent recommendation, but in reality, Truman had been preparing her for this for months now, once she thought about it. "Thank you, Admiral. It would seem that Truman saw something in me that I hadn't seen in myself. But there’s still alot to think about, and I assure you I won't make the decision lightly. But I will let you know as soon as I can."
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Apr 6, 2023 18:10:05 GMT
From within the Ranks, part 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <<Begin Recording>>
"Captain's Log, Stardate 12303.27.
"So. This is my first official log as Captain of the Zorya.
"This is quite a change. It's been a big jump going from Chief Medical Officer to Captain, from the teal to the red. I've had to learn a lot over the past few weeks, and I still have a lot more to learn.
"I can't forget that I'm in this position because of a difficult circumstance. We lost a good Captain because of the incident on the Tellar mining planet. It's only been three weeks since then, and half of my senior staff are still healing, and many others are still processing through what happened. And the Gorn… or whoever else is behind this, may be still out there.
"So when Admiral Raif offered me the job, it gave me pause. I didn't want to jump into the decision immediately, considering what we'd faced in the recent past. I asked for time to think it over.
"It wasn’t an easy decision or a light one… but in the end, I did accept Raif’s offer. I may not have years of command experience like some of our previous CO's, but I have been with this crew since almost the beginning. I know their strengths, their personalities, talents and skills. I've been through the same history that they have. And I understand the dangers that we face.
"Truman saw something in me that I didn't see in myself before all of this. He trusted me enough to put me through the command courses, and to recommend me to command the Zorya, and for that I'm grateful. I hope that I can be a good captain, and live up to his trust in my abilities.
"And so, we've just returned from the first shakedown cruise under my command. Granted, doing a training run around Jupiter was a little bit less than we're used to doing, especially lately… and possibly even a little bit boring, all things considered. But it went well, and each department passed their tests with flying colors. We've been given the green light by Starfleet to fly back out on missions again.
"I want to end by saying, yes we may have had some setbacks, but this crew is strong. They’re capable, smart, and they don’t quit when the going gets tough. They can handle nearly everything that’s been thrown at them, they know how to survive a crisis.
"So let’s face our next chapter with the courage and the curiosity that defines Starfleet. We are Zorya. And we are fucking amazing." <<End Recording>>
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Jul 25, 2023 14:43:15 GMT
Stardate: 12306.12 – Another Piece of the Puzzle
(Joint Log with Chris as Admiral Raif & various NPCs and Babs as CO LtCmdr Rousseau)
USS Zorya, Holodeck 1 - Private Session, Privacy Mode Engaged ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The door to the holodeck stands in front of Rousseau without a fault in its design or look. A computer panel on the right indicates that the program is active and running and that privacy mode has been engaged with a Code 47-A in effect.
Izzy stepped through the doors into the holodeck. She was by now familiar with the PIPS system of communication, allowing her to speak with the Admiral over long distance as if they were in the same room. She was curious about why he had chosen this over a simple call at the console in her ready room, but perhaps this was a situation that required more security.
She walked over to Raif’s holo-image. “Admiral, thank you for getting back to me. What can I do for you?”
Raif stands in the middle of a laid out room that looks like a large meeting chamber, slightly resembling the Federation Council chambers and seems to be talking to someone who she can’t see, he hears her and turns his head slightly to see her. “Just one moment Commander…. Doctor….. Hmm…. I will be with you in just a second.” He turns back around to finish speaking to the person. “Thank you Council Leader O’Frr for your moment of discussion. I will have the reports on the situation for you soon.” He makes a hand gesture and then turns back around and walks over to Rousseau. “How are things?”
She glanced curiously at the Council Leader before turning her attention to Raif.
“Things are going well, Sir. We finished assisting the First Federation vessel with their distress call. As it turns out, their power issues were caused by an infestation of ship-eating duranium insects.”
"Anyway, I’m sure you’ll read the reports, but we discovered that they could be fought off with sonic weapons, and the security team and Marines were able to hold them at bay long enough for the First Federationers to get rid of them, via sonic boom. We did have one casualty, one of the engineering team. He’s going to need some reconstructive surgery from the acid, but the medical team saved his life. So, overall it was successful, I think. How did it go with the task force?”
“It is …” He pauses for a second, “going. We are still in full swing in this murder investigation as well as fixing the structural issues with the station… wait, hang on, did you just say ship-eating duranium insects? It is good to see your marine detachment worked out as I wanted. It is also brilliant to see you help our allies resolve their issue. Thank you for meeting me via the PIPS system, I have been in and out of meetings so using this system helps with that. Just recently, I have been in a Federation Council meeting, that is why we are standing inside the council chambers, if you were wondering.”
She looked around the holo-chambers, taking it in before turning back to Raif. She had never been here before in any official capacity, but had visited as a student during a standard school tour of the Palais de la Concorde, the seat of the Federation government… it was smaller than she remembered, but no less impressive. "Yes the Marines did come in handy after all, even if Soule thought they could use a bit more personality… " she chuckled, and then became serious again. "Is there anything we can help with at the station, or do you need us elsewhere?"
“Yes, the marine detachment I assigned to you was thrown off other ships and stations for being… too out of the ordinary, which is sort of the MO for your ship. Yes, I will be requiring you at the station. As this murder happened here after the task force arrived I was wondering how your hus….. how Commander Douglas would feel about doing another murder investigation… this time he will be dealing with a state of the art facility with 80% Starfleet personnel and not local constabulary. We need an outside observer and investigator who is impartial, as anyone who was on the station at the time of the discovery is a suspect and I don’t really trust the Starbase 440 security chief to be impartial in this investigation.”
"I understand, and I do think he'll be interested. And as you said, using the Zorya's security teams would eliminate concerns with station personnel being involved in the investigation as a conflict of interest, at least until they're cleared."
“Perfect. What is your ETA to the Starbase?”
“We’re about a day out. We should be there tomorrow afternoon. Do you have any information for us to look over before we get there?”
“I will have a minor package that I can send over to you before you get here, the rest of the information is secure.” He pauses again to cough, “I have also sent separate orders to the marine detachment on your ship, they will depart your ship and provide extra security to the station while your ship is docked. Do you have any other questions for me Doctor?”
Izzy nodded, taking a moment to think. “I’ll look over the packet and then save up my questions for when we have our briefing, that will give everyone else a chance to contribute as well. Good luck with everything and we’ll see you tomorrow, Admiral.”
“Thank you Commander. You may go now.” As he waits for Rousseau to walk out he brings up a report in front of him.
She nodded and walked back towards the arch. As she walked through, she glanced back, noticing several more council figures in the background behind Raif. If members of the Federation Council were interested in the investigation, she guessed it must be connected to something significant. Now she had even more questions. Maybe tomorrow’s briefing would reveal more answers.
Raif turns back to the Federation Council to continue to provide them with information with the new information that has come to light and Rousseau hears the start of what he is saying just about as the PIPS system cuts out.
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Oct 16, 2023 16:29:33 GMT
12310.09 Rousseau and Reyes, Joint log with Annie Takes place a few days before the current mission at Starbase 440, probably in the 12 hours of travel time between leaving Earth and arriving at the First Federation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It would be a few hours before arriving at the location of the First Federation distress signal, even at slipstream speeds, they still had at least half a day left. Rousseau was taking a bit of downtime from the bridge, giving herself a chance to catch up on some work in her ready room. It had been less than a day since taking over as Captain, but her message box was already flooded. An hour or two would be enough time to deal with at least some of them, she hoped.
Daniela stared down at the padd in her hands, contemplating if she was making a mistake. She’d never wanted anything more than to be a pilot, much to her mother’s protests. The idea of leaving the Conn had her feeling conflicted, but she knew that she needed to consider the future. She sighed and stood up, heading out the door and toward the lift. It was only a few minutes later that she found herself in front of the Captain’s ready room. She bit her lip and hesitated for a second before pressing the chime
Izzy called out when she heard the door chime, glad to be distracted from a particularly dry astrometrics report. "Please, come in."
Daniela stepped inside and stiffly inside the door as it slid closed behind her. “Captain, I was hoping I could have a minute to discuss something with you.”
"Of course, Lieutenant." Rousseau gave Daniela a welcoming smile. "Please, have a seat." She gestured to an upholstered chair facing her desk.
She settled down on the edge of the seat across from the desk. Daniela cleared her throat, “I have been considering something that Captain Truman had encouraged me to think about back when he was here.” She tried to quell the surge of panic at what she was doing here, knowing it was a big decision. “With everything that happened to him–” she trailed off uncomfortably. She didn’t like referencing what had happened to the previous CO, he was the first CO she felt some sort of connection to and it had been difficult. She still checked on his status occasionally, hoping he might have regained consciousness.
Daniela shook her head, “Sorry,” she muttered, “I think it’s time for me to consider my future path in Starfleet. It would be easy to remain a pilot forever, and it is what I thought I wanted. But now, I think I might want more than that.”
Izzy remembered when she herself had been encouraged by Truman to follow the command path, and gave a wistful smile at the memory. She also had been making it a point to check on his healing progress at Starfleet Medical when she was able to in the past month since the accident. "I understand. What direction are you thinking of going? Are you considering switching departments?"
“Well, I was considering moving over to Ops. It seems like a natural move. It helps give a different perspective of sort of coordinating a whole ship that a commanding officer would need to cultivate. If you think there might be an opening for that?”
"Hmm, I believe so. We haven't had anyone permanently in that position for a while. The current Ops officer is just there temporarily because Cordan transferred over to the Admiral's office. But I'd need to fill the Navigation position before you can shift over. I'll send out some messages, and see who's available. With any luck, it won't be too long before you can make the switch."
Daniela gave Rousseau a tight-lipped smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Thank you, Captain. I appreciate the opportunity.”
"You're welcome, and I hope it works out well for you." Rousseau leaned over and typed a few things into her console, adding some notes into Daniela's file. "Meanwhile, I will authorize you for supplementary Ops training in the holodeck so you can get used to the position before you start. I hope you enjoy it, it's certainly an interesting job, a lot of moving parts."
“Thank you, Captain.” Daniela stood and was about to head out, but hesitated. What was the protocol here? This wasn’t a formal meeting, but it felt weird to just walk out. “Am I okay to go?”
Izzy gave her a nod, and a warm smile. "Of course. You're dismissed, Lieutenant. I'll see you on the Bridge."
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Nov 28, 2023 3:01:58 GMT
12311.27 It takes a Village
(Joint log with Pezz as the Zorya Security Team)
~takes place at the end of the day following the incident at the station vault~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was the end of a very long day, just after the mysterious duranium-based bugs had been eradicated on the Station. Soule was still over there, trying to trace their origin. He’d come back once in the past few hours to get a fresh battery pack and some food, and then returned to continue the search.
Izzy sat in the ready room, just staring at her console without reading anything, unable to concentrate on her work. After today’s incident at the station’s high security vault, she was deeply worried about Soule. He’d nearly gotten himself arrested when he’d tried to get into the vault, getting into an argument with one of the marines who was guarding it, threatening to blow open the doors. She’d managed to talk them down from taking him into custody… and almost against her better judgment, she’d let him go back to trace the origin of the bugs, provided he stayed out of the vicinity of the Vault. She was tracking him this time, to make sure he kept his promise.
So far so good… It’d been several hours without incident by now, and she hoped to keep it that way.
Soule’s attitude about almost everything had been very troubling lately. He’d refused some time ago to see a counselor… and she was hesitant at this point to give the order to make him go, because it could have the opposite effect of what she intended. But something had to be done.
Soule had been spending alot of his time in the presence of his security team, and she knew he would listen to what they had to say, even if he wouldn’t listen to someone like a counselor. L’zek, the Ferasan on his security team, had been there today with him when she’d gone over the station to find out what had happened. Soule seemed to trust him… he’d be a good person to start with.
She tapped her badge. “Captain Rousseau to L’zek. I need to speak with you for a bit… it’s about Soule.”
It only took a few minutes, before there was a chime at the ready room door. L'zek waited for a moment taking a deep calming breath before being beckoned inside. He stood stiffly at attention, trying to hide the discomfort on his face at being summoned to the ready room, something that had never happened before. "Captain." He said tentatively, in his whisper of a tone.
"Lieutenant, thanks for coming. And have a seat…there's something I wanted to ask you about." She smiled and indicated the chair in front of her desk.
He frowned for a moment before ambling toward a chair, sitting down uncomfortably; shifting slightly, then with a flick settling his long black tail over his shoulder. "This is not about my augmentations is it?" He paused before continuing. "There were certain… corners… that were against my sponsorship in Starfleet. I know the Commander took a lot of heat when he requested my assignment. But that was… years ago…"
"Not at all, actually." She gave the Ferasan a reassuring look, before continuing. "It's about Commander Douglas. I was hoping that you and the team could look after Soule… after what happened today, I need someone to check him, to keep him on track and make sure he is sticking to protocol. And more than that, I'm sure you and everyone else have noticed his moods lately… Make sure that he's got someone to talk to, make sure he's doing ok."
Her request made him visibly more discomforted than he had been before, and he rested a paw on the desk; one of his claws reflexively tapping. "I should… summon the others, ma'am. They will want to speak with you on this matter. I am… uncomfortable speaking about the commander openly without the others… and some of them have known him much longer than I."
"Of course, I understand. And it makes sense to speak to them as a group." She nodded to L'zek, thinking for a second. “The conference room is available, we can all meet in there.”
"Aye ma'am." He stood up, nodded to her and left the room like a wisp, tapping his commbadge as he turned a few corners off of the bridge. "This is L'zek, to all Team Leaders… The Captain wishes to speak with us in the conference room. It's about the Commander."
"Shit…" "Fuck me!" "On my way." Replied Soren, Koval and LeClerq in quick succession
"What about the Jocks? And should I bring Gessen and Evans?" Replied Mingna.
"I'll wake the Flight Lieutenants. And… you probably should, Ming… I don't think this is going to go well." He cut the comm and gave the same message to the Wing Leaders and then again to the Quartermaster, before mulling around in the shadows until the whole group arrived.
Standing outside of the conference room, they wordlessly shared looks between each other, before entering en masse, filling up both sides of the room. Geralt, Mingna, Gessen and Evans stood before the first four seats, Koval, Soren, LeClerq and L'zek in the next four, with Takihara and Lay'wyk, and Earhart in the bottom head, taking up the final three. They all stood to attention, waiting for the Captain to speak.
Captain Rousseau stood and waited as the large group filed in, impressed that they were all able to make it on such short notice.
"At ease, everyone. And welcome, thank you for coming. Please, get comfortable, and take advantage of the replicator if you would like something to drink." She waited for the dozen or so people to settle themselves into their seats before starting the conversation.
"I'm sure that many of you can guess why I need to speak with you. I need to ask a favor of you all. As I said to Lieutenant L'zek earlier, I've been concerned about Commander Douglas lately… and especially after what happened today. I’m sure you’ve noticed that he hasn’t been himself. Some of it’s a normal reaction to his physical condition, but it’s also more complicated than that, and it’s been getting worse.
"As the team that works most closely with him, I need you to keep an eye on him. Keep him on protocol, check in on him, make sure he's doing ok. Keep him from spiraling out of control.”
As she spoke, her expression seemed a little worn, like she’d been holding a flood of emotions back for several weeks now.
“I… just need you to make sure he’s not going to become a danger to anyone, or himself. And I'm not asking this of you just as his team and as your Captain… I'm asking because you're our friends as well. Can you do this for me?”
"Isabelle…" Ming-na said quietly, before correcting. "Captain… we have been." She looked around the table, meeting nods of agreement.
"He's become more… secluded and angry and paranoid." Added Gessen.
"What the fuck did any of us really expect?" Koval cut in, LeClerq fervently shaking his head at him, to convince him to take it down a notch. "Nah Dorien… Captain needs to know… The Boss is broken." He said pointedly, gazing down the table at Izzy as he jabbed his finger into the table.
Soren and L'zek in particular seemed to take the wording harder than the others, with Soren twitching reflexively with a faint glisten in his eyes, and L'zek letting out a lion's roar at Koval before folding his arms and closing off.
"All the shit the Commander's put up with over the years… even he couldn't take it forever. Christ, he may have averted a goddamn war and they wanted to put him in prison for it. I'd say now he's been broken, the last twenty years of his life has just caught up with him." Koval stood up, growling, pacing between his seat and the door.
More glum and saddened faces showed around the room, the group going quiet as they awaited the Captain's response to Koval's outburst.
Izzy nodded, hearing all they had to say. The truth was, she really didn't disagree with any of it, except for the broken part. She never really believed anyone was broken beyond repair. It was true that Soule had been through hell and back in his lifetime, and it was finally catching up to him. Having it confirmed to her by someone else was at least a step forward. She sighed, and gave a nod and smile of gratitude to Koval and the others. "Thank you. I can see you're at least trying to talk to him, and I appreciate that.
"The distrust and paranoia has always been present in one form or another … and some of it has a real basis in his… and our… experiences in the past. But the anger, even at little things, is what's bothering me the most. Threatening other officers who are just following orders, breaking things, shouting… I know none of us in this room want to see that get worse. I don't want him to tip into lashing out at those he cares about. And I don't want him to end up in prison. I care far too much about him to let him slide down that far.
"But, I don't have a good solution for him to not be affected by everything that's happened in the past. Unless I order him to see a counselor and go through anger management… and possibly go on medications... or even take him off duty with the assent of the chief medical officer, if things get worse. But I wanted to try this approach first because he won't do the other things willingly. And for him, they’d be a last resort."
"H-h-he's not broken." Soren said adamantly, sitting up straight. "He's j-just having trouble aju-justing. He's in pain."
"He is." Added Earhart from the end of the table. "I know we're not supposed to… listen to…" She blinked innocently. "Sometimes you hear things in passing. Now, I've been here since most of you guys have…Tak here came in with the Spitfires…" She thumbed to her left at Takihara before continuing. "Used to hear a lot of music in Soule's head, lots of images of beautiful landscapes and things… he's always thinking about a bunch of things at once… but recently…"
"When was the last time the Commander was vulnerable?" LeClerq asked rhetorically.
"When the Jem'hadar cut his hand off and carved out his goddamn eye." Barked Koval in answer.
"Exactly. He hasn't felt so mortal as the rest of us do since then; he's faced death a hundred times, and if he isn't leading the charge, he'll be the next guy. He's been hurt, but when was the last time something actually put him down?"
"It's more than that!" Earhart pushed back into the conversation. "It's not just the injury and what's happened to him… it's the things he's seen… I've seen some of them…"
The group all turned to Maggie with a mix of expressions from bewilderment to a sudden discomfort.
"Alien symbols that look familiar, and images of armored giants… and…" The pilot closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "The crew… but we're all dead… except for Soule. I didn't mean to see it, but its the feelings that are the worst part, like guilt and anguish from the sting of failure… it bleeds off of him, but also… fear… like he's afraid of something."
"I've sensed it too." L'zek whispered. "He is afraid of something. Don't know what. Something external to Zorya…"
"And those fucking pompous dick marines were forced on us, at exactly the wrong time." Evans practically spat. "Almost like it was intentional, to get the boss off his game at his most vulnerable moment."
Izzy nodded, finally getting a more complete picture of what was going on with her Imzadi. "I agree, he's in pain… and for the first time, I don't know how to fix it. By that I mean…” She paused for a second, trying to put her thoughts into words that made sense. “Yes, he's been treated medically, and his treatments are on track, and he's keeping up with his physical therapy… but it's only been a month since the accident, and he’s only a little over halfway through the physical healing process. And even though he's on track medically, it seems like it's been a lifetime ago that he was able to walk. And I know that’s been really hard on him, and he's been so very frustrated.”
“And that's what I don't know how to fix, except to try and reassure him that his body will heal, that it just takes time." She sighed sadly. "And I want more than anything for him to be whole again, and happy."
"The rest of it… The symbols, and the armoured giants, it’s something I’m not fully at liberty to discuss here, but I have a good idea of what you're talking about.” She nodded to Earhart.
“The Marines.. we are working on that, and Soule will, I hope, give you news on that soon. Which, I think, will push at least that one problem in a more positive direction. And as for the rest, you’ve confirmed what I was seeing also, that he’s scared, and feeling vulnerable… But I don’t have an easy answer for that, except that we’ll try to get him the support he needs and fill in what he isn’t able to do right now so he doesn’t worry so much.”
"You know he will, ma'am." Said Mingna quietly, holding out a reassuring hand on the table.
"The marine situation is a powder leg though." Voiced Takihara. "We're not in the rivalry as much as the others, the marines look down on us pilots… they look down on security too… but we're not even in consideration."
"They'll never see my fist cracking their teeth, if they do kick off, then." Added Ley'wyk. "But that's typical soldiers for ya. They don't understand the warriors way. Which is why they don't respect the Commander. He's a warrior through and through, and it takes more than base soldiery."
Geralt suddenly raised his hand, immediately silencing the group, before steepling his hands together and addressing the Captain directly. "The marines can be dealt with; even if the worst possible projections were to come to pass." He spoke in a slow and deliberate but strangely authoritative and certain manner, with a heavy gravel in his voice. "And we will continue to monitor the commander, as you have ordered."
The rest of Soule's circle looked to each other in shock, neither of them able to recall a time Geralt had said so many words at one time. "But the wolf must hunt, only then shall his spirit be calmed. To cage him, is to turn him feral upon the world." He let his words hang like a grim omen, before sitting back, clasping his hand one over the other on the table. "To speak about his wyrd to an outsider would have him alienated, to shackle him with chemicals will drain his animus. He must be given a fight worth fighting, an enemy that must be vanquished, with no quandary on the morality of their inevitable fate."
Izzy nodded to Geralt, letting his words sink in, as she considered their meaning.
"Thank you for your wise insights, and thank you for agreeing to keep an eye on him. And of course, those things are in fact, what I'm trying to avoid… they’d be a last resort for him if everything else fails. I know him, he wouldn't do well with most of the typical ways that are used to correct behavior in Starfleet. Before the accident, if he had a problem he needed to work through, he’d most often be found in a training program in the holodeck, or tinkering in his workshop, but never a counselor’s office.”
“Geralt, I know he’s been training with you recently - and I’d like you to continue training him, bring him back up to strength as he heals. I want him to be able to hold his sword again, to be able to be a warrior again. And if you can offer him wise words along the way, that would be even better.”
The quartermaster nodded solemnly in reply, the age in his eyes saying more than all the words he'd just said.
"We'll do what we can, Captain." Ming-na said with a reassuring smile, pulling her hand back, and looking to the others.
"We could always try and bag a mission to the Klingon homeworld." Evans said out of turn, not elaborating.
“Thank you, Ming-na.” Izzy gave her a smile of gratitude, and then gave Evans a grin.
“I don’t know what’s in the cards next, Evans, so I can’t promise anything. But, thank you all for being here, it means alot to me. And it will to Soule also, I’m sure. We won’t give up on him. And please, if any of you need to talk with me about something, just ask. I’ll make time for you as I’m able.”
"We could always tell you about all the secret emergency protocols or the equally secret projects." Evans said, again out of turn and not elaborating.
"Shut up Evans." LeClerq, sitting behind him, croaked under his breath, gritting his teeth. "You're gonna get us in trouble."
"What? It's just like ten million extra protocols we've gotta remember on top of the ones in the manual." Evans shrugged. "From The Borg boarding us, to various members of the crew being compromised… there's also one that if I recall correctly, is basically an exorcism."
"He's actually right about that." Barked Koval, his spirits lightened slightly. "It is an exorcism. Apparently something a guy called Ilaihr taught him, but he's not sure what kind of creature it even works on… something spooky." He threw some jazz hands in for effect.
"That's not the only anomaly." Ming-na readdressed the Captain. "He never made protocols for himself, he told us to make them and never tell him about them. And to be honest, it's not great."
"That's because the plan consists of the words 'Kill him' and 'quickly'." L'zek snorted. "He knows every nook and cranny of the ship, and knows how to breach and disable pretty much every system."
"And no offense to L'zek or Taank or… even Commander Feyna, but when we he's at max, Soule is the most dangerous mother fucker on the ship. We don't have an easy way to take him down non-lethally." Koval added.
"Continuous fire, in a multirange full encirclement. Gotta pick our shots, and… try to force him to burn out his own implants or exhaust himself; assuming he's not been possessed or being puppeted by something." LeClerq gave a more tactical assessment.
Izzy looked a bit uncomfortable, and may have turned a little pale at the thought of Soule being possessed by something, and then his team trying to take him down, as low as the chances of that actually were.
"Let's... not talk about killing my husband, ok?" She cleared her throat, looking sternly around the table. "We're here to help him, not plan his demise," she gently reminded them.
"And besides, before all of that, maybe you should consider just throwing out a dampening field. That usually knocks him out. Maybe develop a handheld weapon that can't be attached to the ship's systems..." she added helpfully.
"Anyway. I appreciate your honesty… If there are other protocols and projects that you think I should know about, please don't hesitate to talk to me. For now, everyone is dismissed. And again, thank you all."
Then she suddenly remembered something. Something she thought she'd heard Soule say in his sleep once, she'd assumed he was having a nightmare, but now it made more sense.
"Actually… Does anyone know anything about a Damocles protocol?"
"Aye, Captain." They all said, standing up in unison, with a sudden and awkward pause at Izzy's question, before they all turned and glared at Evans. "Yes, Evans… since you brought it up." Mingna said stiffly.
"Oh boy, did it get hot in here all of a sudden? Are there lasers on me?" Evans wiped at his forehead. "I should go do… bwwaaa…" He tucked tail, turned and made for the door.
"L'zek! Take him down." Mingna ordered.
With a roar, the Ferasan leapt across the room in a single bound, tackling Evans to the ground in a rolling heap on the floor, before standing up, holding Evans by the collar.
"Ow…" Evans groaned, dangling helplessly. "Fiiiine. We call it the first protocol; Soule initiated it after… Captain Rome…" He gulped. "It's for deposing the Captain… if they should be compromised."
"It's taken on some iterative changes over the years." Mingna took over, waving for L'zek to put Evans down. "It's quite a bit different now that you're the Captain… ma'am."
Izzy’s eyebrows raised at the implications of what Evans just admitted to. But if there was any kind of incursion from the mirror universe, or otherwise… she’d want them to be able to distinguish between herself and her counterpart, whom she most definitely did not want taking over the ship. She didn’t even want to begin to think about herself being taken over by another being, or something similar.
“Um… that’s alot to think about. How different is it now, exactly?”
"Well, you're the only Captain we've had that…" Mingna paused, trying to find the right phrasing. "You're… married to Soule… ma'am. And you've been a member of the crew since the beginning. We should notice if something was up, and he certainly would. To be honest he'd probably trick you into a containment field, so you could be medically and psychologically tested. From Jiang to Truman, we'd probably have shown up in force to… basically arrest you at gunpoint. Whilst other members perform command code lockouts, and the junior teams are all sent to guard critical areas of the ship, and the transporter rooms. The fighters being given orders to prep, and with their presence lockdown the shuttle bays and enforce an area of denial around the ship once they've launched."
They all shuffled uncomfortably, unsure how the Captain would take this information.
Izzy’s expression went from incredulous to a nod of understanding, once Ming-na finished her explanation.
“Well, actually…. It’s not that unreasonable. Especially if there’s an incursion from an alternate dimension, considering recent events. I’d ask you to also add a scan by the medical staff, looking for quantum signatures, to make sure that I’m ‘me’. I’ve worked with them for several years, they’d also probably be very quick to figure out the differences in behaviors, and I’d trust them to do the right thing. In fact, when I was CMO, I was prepared to use stasis fields and other nonlethal interventions in case there was a problem with the Captain, and I’d expect the same thing done for me.”
"Trust us, Captain, the necessary precautions have been put in place." Mingna smiled reassuringly, looking back to the others; in place of Soule and as leader of Alpha team, giving them the nod to leave.
She waited as the inner circle filed out, nodding respectfully to the captain as they did so, before turning back to Izzy and continuing. "The Commander really does only want to keep the ship and the crew safe, Captain. But since…" She went quiet for a moment as she worked it out in her head. "...Cestus. That's when he started becoming more… defensive. Like, I think when we first got to Zorya, he really filled into the role; he was never as comfortable on Hyperion. Even though we had the war and there was alot of shit that went on, it wasn't until Cestus that I noticed him start to change." She looked down at her chair, as if asking to sit again, now that they're alone.
Izzy nodded to Ming-na, catching the request to stay. "Please, go ahead." she smiled warmly to the security team leader and gestured to the chair, pulling out another opposite to her.
"Yes, and you're right. I suppose by now you probably know most of what happened to us down there… We'd been taken prisoner by an enemy power, we didn't know if anyone had survived on the Zorya, we didn't know if we would make it out alive. And... we didn't know if our son had made it out. And then having the Gorn Warleader in the same ship as us when we finally escaped, even if she was officially a prisoner, it was the last straw for him."
"We all got blindsided." Ming-na's thoughts drifted off for a moment, as she sat back down." Koval's team got hit hard by the… collaborators. Alpha team was in the hall outside the conference chamber, we moved when he sent out the call, it's probably what saved us from getting killed; but we still got overwhelmed, and Evans nearly died." Her lip quivered at the memory.
"Apparently Soren led a repulsive action with LeClerq and the junior security officers, when the Gorn boarded Zorya. L'zek's team actually managed to go to ground; so we didn't hear from them again until they linked up with the relief forces." The trauma of the whole event was clear on her face, even now. "We nearly lost everyone."
"Ming-na, Cestus was the first major crisis that we had after Arun was born…" Izzy paused, realising she’d never given voice to this before. "Soule's never had so much to protect."
"That makes sense." Mingna nodded in understanding, resting her hands on the table, looking over her shoulder conspiratorially toward the door, before going back to Izzy. "Evans will get flak for it from the others, but he was right to mention the protocols… and the projects…"
The security officer paused for a long while, making it uncertain for a moment if she was waiting for the Captain to speak; until she finally came to it. "We don't know where he got it from, but we know Soule has been on some… special missions… because right after Cestus, Soule had Geralt get to work on replicating his personal armour; for the teams." This time she really did stop and let the implication sink in.
“Armour?” Izzy had to think about whether Soule had ever spoken to her about this… she’d never seen him working on a whole suit of armour, except for maybe a few bits and pieces lying around his workshop. She’d thought at the time that it was just some other version of his prosthetic hand that he was experimenting with, or something similar. “It’s not like the personal shields we usually wear, is it? Or is it mechanical…?” It dawned on her suddenly, what it could mean for him now.
“Is it like an exosuit?”
"That's…" Mingna startled slightly. "That's… the other major project… Paladin." She rubbed at her own shoulder. "We don't know what you saw… on the other side, but that and the sword, prompted him to launch that."
"What we're calling our Knightfall armour, is Starfleet's next-gen over our official top of the line equipment. This Paladin armour concept is more like… yeah…" She nodded at the captain. "It's powered armour, but there are so many hurdles to get over; technical and… official." She became tense. "It took Geralt months to scrounge up the materials he needed to build even a couple of those Knightfall suits, and that was after the first few months of… reverse engineering the tech. So he knew how to build it in the first place."
Izzy nodded, remembering the terrifying Terran armoured soldiers.“So… if they come through from the other side, he wants to be ready for them. And no wonder he’s been so secretive about it… it doesn’t sound like a brass-approved project.”
“But, we need it don’t we? I don’t think our current Starfleet approved weapons and armour would match up to what they have. And if the Gorn attacked again, it would probably give us an advantage against their size and strength. And Paladin… if he and Geralt can iron out all of the problems, it would give Soule a chance to fight alongside you, and to use his sword again.”
“That’s the hope of all of this; that it’ll give us an edge. I mean…” Ming-na tugged at the yellow of her collar. “I’m proud to wear this uniform, but it is not battle attire. And over the years, we’ve been sent into a couple of meat-grinders. Soule cares about us. And people might think it’s Soule’s ego, for him to have a bigger tougher suit than us but…” She smirked, a little glimmer in her eye. “There’s a reason we call ourselves the Flagbearers.”
Izzy allowed herself a smile, nodding to Ming-na. "This is his home, Ming-na. He'll do anything to protect it, and I’m glad to see that he’s got a good team behind him, and that he’s willing to get you the armour and weapons that you need, so you’re safe when we go into a situation that needs it. The Paladin and Knightfall projects will need to be safety tested of course, and I’ll have to see them before I can approve them, but once those hurdles are cleared, it should allow Geralt and Soule to get the supplies they need for them, and to do the proper testing and development. I’ll speak with him about that as soon as I’m able to…” She paused for a moment, realizing something. “I’m going to have to broach this subject at some point very soon, he’s going to wonder why most of the team were called into a meeting today.”
Ming-na rubbed her shoulder again, a look of discomfort on her face. “He’s gonna be mad at us.” She frowned. “He’ll feel like we betrayed his trust; even if it is you that we told. I know we had to tell you, and not just because you’re the Captain.” She sank in her chair somewhat, before slowly sitting back up. “We wouldn’t have told Commodore Truman.”
Izzy gave Ming-na a reassuring look of her own. “Thank you, and I’m glad that I have your trust, that means alot to me. To be fair, if Evans hadn't said anything, this may not have been discussed today… but it's good to have things out in the open, anyway. And if Soule gets upset about the fact that I know about these projects and protocols, let me know and I’ll have a talk with him."
"Thank you, Captain." Ming-na returned the smile, slowly getting back to her feet. "Evans is an agent of chaos; I think that's why Soule's kept him around so long. I think Jacob follows the Commander's example more than the rest of us… he'll always speak up." She chuckled a little to herself, shaking her head. "It's a problem, but I suppose it's a good one to have."
"It is, actually…" Izzy let out her own little chuckle in turn. "And, I'd worry more if he hadn't said anything. If I'm going to be an effective leader, I need to know what's happening on my ship, so I can make good decisions. And I need to be able to trust my security teams implicitly, so the more transparency, the better. So this was good." She nodded, giving Ming-na a warm smile, and then also stood, and stretched. "It's been a long day, I should be picking up Arun and getting back to our quarters. Have a good night, and I'll see you tomorrow."
"Ooooooh I haven't seen the baby in so long! How is he? I bet he's a little tike by now…" Ming-na stopped herself and cleared her throat, knowing she'd be there forever otherwise.
“He’s doing well, he’s been crawling up a storm lately, exploring every nook and cranny in our new quarters. He even found a few trinkets that fell down under the furniture…” Izzy grinned. “But you’re welcome to stop by and see him soon, if you’d like. Anyway, take care, Ming-na.” She nodded to the lieutenant, gathering up her things from the table in preparation to leave.
"Goodnight Captain." She nodded respectfully, before turning and leaving Izzy alone in the conference room. ======
Ming-na regrouped with the others in what they had termed their "rec room", but was actually an unassigned office in the lower decks, that they had commandeered for official mustering purposes but was also used more unofficially for the teams to kick back after a mission or when off duty.
"You were a while." LeClerq said passively, almost purposely unaccusatory.
"I had to elaborate and contextualise, on someone opening their mouth." Ming-na paused as she came to the table they were all sitting around, before jabbing Evans in the shoulder, not maliciously but enough to let him know how she felt.
"A-ha-ha-ha Ooooowwww. That's the same spot Koval got me." Evans whelped, cradling the shoulder.
"Yup. We decided if we beat him up too much it would be classed as bullying and intimidation. So we did a rock paper scissors contest whilst we were waiting for you. I won." Koval smirked.
"She needed to know, didn't she? And it's fucking, Izzy." Evans rubbed the spot, before washing down his pain with a sip of beer. "Besides, it'll be nice to have something that we're not looking over our shoulders for. Good job Jacob, nice one Evans; Yes, yes it was, thank you Evans. God Sun, you make it sound like I did a bad thing." He creased his eyebrows, looking up at Ming-na
"Don't you, Sun, me. It's not about what you did, you idiot, it's about how you did it. We aren't gonna argue that she needed to know, right?" She looked around to the others, who all either nodded or shook their heads then mumbled out clarifying their agreement with her. "It's about you blurting it out, like it's nothing. What if it had been Truman? What if it was the Brass?"
"Then we wouldn't have told them shit, would we?" Evans sipped his drink again, as he kicked a chair out from under the table, motioning for Ming-na to sit.
When she did finally relent and sit, L'zek broke the silence with his whisper. "So what's the plan then?"
Ming-na sighed, screwing up her mouth in thought. "We're gonna do what the Captain asked us to do. We're gonna protect Soule, like he protects us…" She paused for a moment, taking a proffered drink that Gessen was passing her. "For the Zorya."
"For the Zorya!" They all bellowed back, in what seemed like a tame rendition of a battlecry.
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Feb 5, 2024 19:05:44 GMT
Stardate 12401.15 Joint log with Captain Rousseau and Chris as Admiral Raif ~Takes place just after the end of the last mission - during the lull when half the crew are on the station repairing the power, and Soule was tracing the dead bugs~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The action was finally winding down on starbase 440 - the power repairs were being seen to, and the bugs were seemingly defeated, their lifeless bodies still scattered throughout the station, waiting for the cleanup crew to arrive. Isabelle took the opportunity during the subsequent lull on the bridge to go into her ready room to take care of something that had been weighing on her mind since the beginning of the mission. She sat at her desk and brought up a console screen.
“Computer, open a private encrypted channel to Admiral Raif, and send a communications request.”
“Sending, please wait.” The official starfleet insignia twirled on her screen while she waited for the request to go through.
Two minutes go by until the screen is replaced with an image of Raif in his office aboard the Dispatcher. “Captain. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Admiral, thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I just have a few questions left over from the investigation, that I was hoping you could answer for me. Do you have a few minutes?”
He looks at the time, “I can spare you a few yes Captain. However, do be aware there are certain topics that we already know that I can’t speak of.”
She nodded, considering what to ask in light of that. “Since you don’t have alot of extra time at the moment, I’ll get right to the point. I need to understand more about these insects. Their origin wasn’t completely determined, and they seemed to have hallmarks of possibly either being a previously unknown species,” she looked off camera, checking some notes in a file on her desk,
“Or they were bioengineered. Now… there were, as you said, some top secret weapons in the vault, which you then took onto your ship for safekeeping. And I do understand that I probably am not in a position to know exactly what those were, or why they were being developed at this starbase, but I need the assurance that the project did not involve the bugs.
“And considering how dangerous they were, I’m guessing that the Federation Council wanted to assure that the bugs weren’t going to spread from their origin point and affect other ships… correct?”
“You are correct, the bugs were an unknown species. Starfleet, at least at this installation, are not in the habit of bioengineering creatures of mass destruction. We have traced back their origin to that asteroid, where it seems they lay dormant in the vacuum of space and the materials in the asteroid we discovered were actually dead bugs, the ones there were in a type of self-induced stasis woke up when they got enough heat. The First Federation have also said the same about their ship.” He pauses to take a drink from an opaque glass “The projects undertaken here are not to do with bioengineering at all, officially, Starfleet has no interest in bioengineering and continues the ban on bioengineering and manipulation of DNA.” He pauses for a few seconds to stretch and pop his back and neck, the hours and hours of paperwork that the entire shutdown, evacuation and then resettling of a Starbase takes has clearly taken their toll.
“You are also correct, the Federation Council were quite worried about the possible spread of a bug that can kill with acid, eat metal and go basically undetected. I have been told to pass on a heartfelt thanks and commendation, for you and your crew, from the council after my meeting with them today.” He says as he presses a button after moving a mountain of PADDs out of the way and sending said thanks and commendation through to Rousseau.
Officially. At least at this installation. She let those comments filter in and attach to her long-term memory. She did have a pretty good idea that similar projects were possibly being developed elsewhere. And they did involve DNA manipulation and bioengineering… she still had horrific images from the Forge etched into her memory. But those experiments, along with the facility, had been destroyed a few years ago. If they had restarted some of those at another blacksite, Starfleet was certainly not going to admit to it, officially. And she would never admit to anyone official that she'd seen them.
She blinked at the new information about the asteroid, then nodded. “So my hunch was right after all. We looked at scans of the asteroid also, but we must have missed the signs that confirmed that they originated there. At the time though, it did seem logical that the asteroid acted as a sort of nest. The bugs didn't seem to appear until after the asteroid was split open.”
“Thank you, Admiral. I'm very proud of my crew, they worked very hard on this, and I’ll be sure to pass along the commendations and thanks from Starfleet.” She gave Raif a smile of gratitude, digesting everything he’d just told her.
“I think we all deserve a good rest after we're done bringing the station’s power back online. And I think you do, also.” She studied the worn look on the admiral’s face with her doctor’s eye.
“I won't keep you, sir. I assume you’ll need to get back to what you were doing. Thank you again for speaking with me.”
“Of course,” He chuckles for a moment, “I will get some rest soon. I have to meet with the president first and then a few others. I do appreciate your concern, I’m sure everyone needs a bit of rest.” He looks to the side, “Once you and your crew are done. You will have new orders sent to you from my Aid, I’m sure you remember Elise.”
She nodded, not missing the mention of the president. “I do. And I’ll look for the orders soon. It sounds like you have some important meetings to attend, so I’ll speak to you soon when I receive the new information. Take care, Admiral.”
“Certainly, Captain. Enjoy the time off you will have. Raif out.” The symbol of Starfleet with USS Zorya appears on the screen after the call disconnects.
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Babs
Lore Committee
Posts: 210
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Post by Babs on Feb 5, 2024 19:07:57 GMT
Stardate 12401.29 Shadows (Joint log with Izzy and Soule)
Earth, Izzy and Soule's house in Malibu. Just after the mission to the First Federation, and Starbase 440. Three weeks before leaving for Pacifica.
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“Hey Soule, can we talk?”
Izzy had just put Arun to bed, and everything had quieted down for the evening. The stars, and Earth’s moon twinkled through the windows of their living room, and the roll of ocean waves could be heard from outside through an open window which let in the evening breeze. Her captain’s uniform was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a comfortable set of off-duty civilian clothes. They were home at their house on the Malibu coast for three weeks, taking a much needed shore leave between missions.
Soule sat gazing out of the window for a long time without saying anything, watching those waves roll to and fro, listening to the sound of them crashing… the crashing of the waves… the crashing of the waves… the creaking of wood, and the smell of spray in the air; he shuddered, then growled. “Not my time yet…” He whispered to himself under his breath, before breaking to turn back the room behind him
“Yes, my love?” He asked passively, rubbing at his weary eyes, then stroking down the scraggly unkempt beard that was forming across his jaw. He didn’t like the way she asked the question, or even really the question itself; she was his imzadi, she could always talk to him. It was foreboding, and he had some idea of what it was about, namely about how he acted at whatever that meeting was earlier in the day.
She drew in a breath, hoping what she wanted to say didn’t sound as awkward out loud as it felt in her head. Normally she found it easier to talk to him about most things, but it had been difficult in the past few weeks since the accident to find a good time for a heart to heart, and she felt guilty for not doing it earlier. His abrupt departure from the meeting had been concerning, and certainly a catalyst for this conversation. But it wasn’t primarily what she wanted to focus on. And besides, starting out by pointing out someone’s misbehavior rarely went well.
“It’s just that… I know I’ve been really busy with my new captain’s duties, and I haven’t really taken enough time to talk with you lately, besides work, and I’m sorry. Are you doing ok? You’ve seemed down lately.”
She left it there, giving him space to answer; even though she knew after the meeting with Soule’s security team, that it was much more than that. And her words seemed wholly inadequate compared to everything he was going through.
“I’m…” His eyebrow twitched, a distant look in his eyes. “I’m fine, Imzadi.” He rolled away from the window, crossing the room. “I’m my usual self.” There was a strain in his voice, surprise at her question, tinged with a small amount of annoyance; he didn’t like her worrying about him.
“I just need a shave. Been busy, not thought about it…” He tried to brush it off. “I’m fine.”
She crossed over to him and leaned down to kiss him on the cheek. “Ok, I won't pry. It's just that you've seemed more tired lately, maybe a little burnt out… But we were working alot at the station, and you’ve been taking on a few extra projects, so it's understandable. And you’ve been through a major trauma, I’m not expecting one hundred percent fine… but you know I’ll always give you the time and space to heal if you need it.”
She took a seat on the sofa nearby, wrapping a light blanket around herself against the evening’s chill. “But this break must be welcome, are you looking forward to it?”
He frowned and pinched his eyes closed as she kissed him, her words seeming to wash over him like the tide, a ringing beginning in his ears, getting louder and louder the longer he didn’t reply; before he let out a sigh. He pulled up to the sofa, staring at the gap between it and his chair for a moment before lifting himself up by the armrest, hopping one hand over to the sofa, and pulling the rest of himself over; only momentarily having to support his weight on his legs.
One of his legs twitched, as a strain formed on his face, the twitch getting more intense, until in a burst of action he booted the wheelchair away from him. He sat back and sighed again, before looking at Izzy. “I am tired.” He said softly. “So tired.” He went quiet again, as his sad eyes examined her face, like it was the first time he’d ever seen her.
“Been thinking about a lot recently.” He turned away looking up at the ceiling. “Y’know, I’m older than my parent’s now…” He tried to say that nonchalantly, but it carried a haunted air to it.
His parents had died when he was a child, and if he was thinking about them, he was probably also thinking about his mortality. He’d come face to face with death. What could she really say to that, which would cut through the darkness he must be feeling? What do you say to someone who’s faced his own mortality?
She moved over next to him and put her arms around him in a comforting hug, then leaned her head onto his shoulder, and put half of the blanket over him to share the warmth.
“I’m glad you’re here.” She said softly, offering the simple statement in response. Then she closed her eyes and just let herself feel his heartbeat.
He rested his head on her’s, kissing the top of her head as he nuzzled in closer. “I worry you’re the only one, love. Starting to think I’m not wanted in Starfleet.” He voiced a thought that he’d been keeping bottled up for a long time. “I mean, I never was; but it becomes very different when people start monitoring you in secret, and all I’ve ever done is be a loyal servant of the Federation.”
He took a long and deep breath. “Just another problem to deal with, on top of all the other ones.” He sounded drawn out, like a fraying thread. “It’s not like I could hand in my commission even if I wanted to… too much work to be done anyway, and I don't know how much time there is to do it… it’s too important to let them trample me underfoot.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Which work? Do you mean the projects that you’ve been working on with Soren?”
She didn’t yet give voice to her concern over his apparent paranoia about being monitored. His team was right, this was worse than normal. It even bordered on paranoid psychosis.
Maybe he’d misconstrued why she had to keep an eye on him at the station? She’d thought it necessary at the time, considering that he almost got himself arrested by station security for threatening to break into the vault. He believed the bugs were the secret weapon that was being developed there. It could also at least partially explain why he’d been behaving strangely at the briefing earlier that day, with all of the Brass in attendance.
“Need to prepare for the next war… No… the war never really ended. The schism and our whole civil war was just the first volley, testing our resolve… and we failed. We barely pulled it together in the eleventh hour, to prevent the galaxy being invaded.” He remembered the fierce boarding action aboard Zorya, and the sheer astronomical chance of them heading off the Solanae invasion fleet.
“And we think we destroyed the Teffies and all is back to normal, and Section 31 is just a memory; but they’re not. We just trimmed the fat for them, so they could go back to hiding; I suspect the true masterminds and top agents are hiding in plain sight, perhaps even in the spotlight.” He started to shake, his heart beginning to race, as a quiet rage built up in him. “I think one day soon, I’ll open the front door and find Issac looking back at me…”
It wasn't the first time he'd been worried about Issac showing up unannounced, and now the secret monitoring fear made more sense. Issac was capable of that, as were a few other people in their past, including the rival Starfleet intelligence operatives that the crew had been nearly killed by during their classified mission to Rigel.
“You may not be wrong. Those fears are valid. Especially after a lot of the things we've seen.”
She remembered Admiral Raif’s subtle allusion to the secret development of biotech within Starfleet, in the conversation she had with him just two weeks ago. She didn't, however, think he was one of the ones hiding in plain sight… if he was trying to hide something, he would have been more careful about letting small details like that slip out.
Still, it was hard to forget what Taldean had done to the senior members of the crew just after they had returned from the mirror universe, even going so far as to imprison the senior staff without due process, under suspicion that they were Terrans. She was still furious about that one. And even after they were released, it had taken her weeks to get over her anger at the Admiral for allowing it.
“I do think it's good to be prepared. I should tell you that Ming-na sat me down and told me about some of the projects you've been working on… And I approve, we need a way to defend ourselves against the Terrans, or the Gorn. And our current armour and weapons probably wouldn't stand up to them.”
“You know about Knightfall and Paladin?” He pulled away from her, looking at her with shock, a bassy grumble echoing from his chest; the admission clearly made him angry and he was fighting his temper and the feeling of betrayal. “Who else knows? Does Starfleet know?”
Izzy drew in a gasp, not quite expecting him to be this angry with her. Ming-na had warned her, but the gut punch of his anger and mistrust was difficult to bear all the same. She could have kept her knowledge of it from him, but she felt it was better to tell him and get it over with, though she’d dreaded this conversation. There were too many secrets floating around already.
“No, Starfleet doesn't know. And no one else knows on the ship aside from myself, you and Ming-na, and the rest of your team that have been working on it with you. She felt I needed to know, now that I'm Captain, and I agree with her. And before you ask… I didn't go looking for any secrets, she told me voluntarily. And rightly so, Soule. I can't be an effective leader if I don't know what’s happening on my own ship.”
She kept her voice calm, but firm; though there was a hint of fire in her voice, fueled by the strain of the last few weeks.
“You not knowing was supposed to be for your own good, Izzy. Plausible deniability. So when they finally come for me, they won't come for you as well.” He practically shook her, anger and fear in his eyes, his breathing becoming erratic as he started looking around the corners of the room.
“I've been meticulous, keeping them under even Truman's nose, since Cestus! Liberating what material I can, so it goes unnoticed, even by our own quartermasters!”
“If Starfleet finds out, they'll finally have enough to get rid of me; by whatever means they feel like on the day… they've been trying since The Forge!” He closed up on himself, sinking into the sofa and balling up; a thousand yard stare forming in his face.
Izzy's eyes widened in shock at his reaction, backing away when he shook her. She fell utterly silent, her heart raced as she fought the tears welling in her eyes. He may have shouted at her once or twice in the past, but he’d never laid hands on her like this, and he was scaring her.
He himself was scared, that was clear. But even so, there was some truth to his words. Whether or not Starfleet would actually come after him after all these years, she wasn't sure, but it was still possible.
She held back pressing her badge. Security could have been there within seconds if she wanted them to be. But that wouldn't help anything, it would only make the situation worse, and he’d already retreated to his own half of the sofa. She forced herself to remain calm, though she was still trembling. Arun was still sleeping in the next room and she didn’t want to raise her voice.
“I'm sorry, about how this happened… I never wanted to violate your trust. I see now why you felt you couldn't tell me. And If you felt you could, I truly believe you would have been the one to sit me down instead of Ming-na.”
”But please don't fault her, she was doing what she felt was right. And honestly, now that I know how you feel, if I could forget I knew about it, I would. Actually I really wish I had plausible deniability for alot of other things we've been involved in, but that's not realistic at this point. What's done is done.” She sighed, releasing some tension. “We'll just have to weather the storm, if it comes.”
“I'm so tired…” He said quietly, his head flopping to the side as he laid it on the armrest, before going silent. Somehow it made his beard look even more unkempt, his hair scraglier, his broad shoulders looking thin, and his infamously indomitable will and strength were gone; he was completely devoid of hope. He didn't even have the strength now, to look at Izzy.
She sighed, gazing at him with more concern than before, taking note of how frail and defeated he looked. Though he didn't want her to, it was impossible not to worry, he was so clearly not himself.
“I need to get you some help, Imzadi. You can't do all of this alone, it's eating you up,” she responded quietly. “And I’m going to have to take you off duty, at least for this next mission, if not longer. So you can get the rest you need.” She gently smoothed his hair back and helped him lay back on the sofa, tucking him under the blanket, and putting a pillow under his head.
He slid his hand into her’s, squeezing it, with no real strength or energy behind it. “They'll never let me go back on duty again. If they don't take the opportunity to put me in prison or kill me off… they'll send me somewhere… like Sigma Rho or the Forge; where I can die being useful one last time. Because they own me, Izzy.” He still couldn't look at her, as words spewed out of him. “It was the deal I had to strike with them, after the forge, to keep me and you, and Klara and Zigzy and Kimpor out of prison. I wouldn't have even gotten that, without Issac…”
“You did?” She blinked, absorbing this new information. “And this is another thing you never told me, to protect me?” Her mind whirled. If this was the case, then Soule's fears were real… and it was obvious why he thought he was always being watched, and it was killing him, keeping all of this inside.
He slowly nodded in reply.
“Oh gods...” Her voice lowered to a whisper, and she drew in a shuddering breath.
“What are we to do, then?” She shook her head in disbelief, and let out a huff, thinking. “Ok. You have some leave saved up, use that. You really do need the time off, and I’ll give you approval for it. Even if you stay on the ship, you won't have the stress of having to work while you should be healing… We should have done this in the beginning, but lesson learned.” She squeezed his hand back. “Meanwhile, I’ve contacted Klara. She accepted my request, she’ll be joining us when we leave in three weeks.”
“I'm glad, we need someone like her to handle the marines. What about the others?” He asked. “Kimpor would make a good Alpha leader, since Ming-na doesn't really want the job. And Zigzy… it'd be nice to have someone from intel working with us, instead of through or against us; I feel like we might need him the most in the times to come.” He mustered a momentary smile. “Don't tell him that though…”
She gave a small chuckle at that, then looked at his face thoughtfully, her eyes examining a few new lines of wear that she hadn't seen previously.
He finally looked back at Izzy, exhaustion writ across his features, and staring into her big blue eyes seemed to make him shrink even more. He had kept secrets from her, yelled at her, scared her, maybe even hurt her; his eyes falling from her’s carried a shame and self loathing that had never been there before.
Izzy stroked his cheek with the fingers of her free hand, trying to comfort him. “You've been carrying this weight by yourself for such a long time. I know it's been hard…I love you, and I want to help. Let us carry it for you. I’ll gather the others, with any luck they'll all be able to join us at the same time as Klara.”
“I love you too, Izzy.” He nuzzled into her hand. “I'm sorry.” He whispered, closing his eyes, kissing her other hand gently. “I just wanted to protect you.”
She closed her eyes momentarily, releasing a few more cathartic tears at his apology, then kissed his hand back. “I know, beloved. You've done so much for us, let me and your team help you now. We're here for you. Just rest.”
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