At This Junction
Posted on 17 Sep 2020 @ 2:30pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Commander Godiva Kimberlye
Edited on on 17 Sep 2020 @ 3:03pm
Mission:
M1 - Emergence
Location: Intel Offices
Timeline: MD03 1330
1852 words - 3.7 OF Standard Post Measure
As the reception halls of the Executive offices had been, the halls of the Intelligence suites were likewise powered only to emergency lighting. Calliope hugged her padd against her chest with both arms, glancing side to side as she walked the passageway. Ahead was a T-junction and she paused to exhale. With a little fog it would have matched a recurring nightmare she'd had....
She would be grabbed by some kind of thing lashing at her ankle and then when she went for her phaser to shoot it, another lash would catch her by the wrist of the opposite side. She'd strike at it with her free arm, but a million tiny beads ran down the stringy fibrous grasps and began to coat her arm and leg, freezing them into place. Captain Winters would come out from the lighter side of the T-junction, and a dark figure in a long coat and cast over by a shadow would emerge from the other to confront him.
She'd call out in warning to her captain, and grasp her phaser with her non dominant hand, firing... And hitting Captain Winters. He'd look down at his damaged uniform, holding his hand against his heart and then look back up at her with shock and betrayal. And then the steadfast older man she thought of like a replacement to her own missing father in her life would collapse under his own weight. The shadow figure would approach, throw back it's hood, and dissolve before she could make out any face.
Calliope would awake in a sweat. No matter how many times she'd dreamed the dream and told herself what she should do instead, even put in hours of real training with the phaser in her left hand until she was reliably good with it, she always hit the wrong target in the dream. She always killed the man she had sworn to defend.
But Captain Winters was no longer her Captain, and so she no longer had to worry that the dream might one day prove precognicent of an actual event. With any luck that fact would soothe her subconscious enough to quit cycling that particular horror flick for her nightly viewings.
Intentionally attempting to calm her nerves, Calliope exhaled in this dim corridor, looking at this totally-normal-absolutely-benign-T-junction-through-which-no-one-was-coming-friend-nor-foe.
Since her arrival earlier that morning, Godiva had found the navigation of the entire station to be tiresome at best. To her guess, there were maybe a few dozen functional turbolifts, and the station's site-to-site transporters were shot. She wasn't surprised though, seeing as a great deal of the stations other features were also missing, having previously entered and returned through a subspace anomaly that had threatened to completely destroy it. Still, there was a hint of annoyance as she moved through the vast corridors of the station, trying to track down anyone that could possibly get her set straight.
The Intelligence Offices were offline, environmental controls were at the best on the fritz - prompting her to strip down to her undershirt and roll the sleeves up in the radiant heat that had formed in the last hour- and she was forced to wear her goggles to use their built in infrared vision feature to be able to actually see. As a result, the mirrored face of Godiva was now on a mad mission to find an LCARS panel that was functional to call Engineering again since the commbadge network had gone down again, and she was beyond frustrated. Worse still, the emergency lights had given her this almost ominous glow, her pale skin reflecting the red light in a way that made her look ethereal, and she had already scared one unsuspecting person - herself.
She buried her face in the tricorder she was using, trying to trace where the active power draw was coming from and indicating that there was something active in on the deck. Ahead, one of the stations many t-junctions was coming up, which meant that this was the most likely place for the LCARS to be. Sure enough, she could see it. Her own joy overcame her, rushing to panel with a speed that caught herself off guard, she slammed a hand onto the dark panel, which briefly lit up at full illumination, before letting out an unholy scream of corrupted audio and fried circuitry. It was going to pop, and she turned briefly and barreled down the open hallway, not realizing until it was too later there was already someone there.
At the appearance of the rushing red-lit figure in the reflective goggles Calliope jumped back and a shout escaped her, though it was immediately drowned out by the wailing of the panel overload, and she was promptly crashing to the deck under the unknown figure.
Calliope felt herself hit the deck on her side, twisting to catch herself and landing oddly on her wrist, a shower of angry sparks lighting the hall above them like fireworks and leaving the acrid smoke behind. Untangling her arm from under the runner and registering that they were wearing a uniform, pealed to the undershirt, Calliope allowed reason to overcome her active imagination and pulled her own duty jacket straight.
"Sorry! SorrySorrySorrySorrySorrySorry," came the reply from Godiva, as she rolled off the woman she was lying on. She took a second to take mental check of her surroundings, and her own well being.
She tried to catch her breath, her hand over her racing heart. "Son of a gun." Calliope grimaced and sucked air through her teeth when she realized the throb in her wrist. "Son of a *gun*"
"Are you okay? That looks like it hurts, it definitely shouldn't look like that, oh my gosh are you okay... Commander?!" The last work escaped as a squeak. There was supposed to be only one Commander on the station, and that was the XO.
"No, no, it's minor. I'll be fine. What just happened? Who are you?"
"In order of asked," Godiva responded, turning back to the panel, "That panel likely overloaded due to the patchwork of repairs that were previously done to keep the station functional - which means that there is a good chance that I am back at square one, no probably square negative two actually. And then if that's the case there is a good chance the environmental will only get worse, and which I hope means it won't get hotter here... And, what was the second question?" The Intelligence Officer turned to the woman, and frowned. "Right! I am Lieutenant Commander Godiva Kimberlye. Uh, ma'am. Chief Intelligence Officer. Ma'am," she added again, for good measure. "Are you sure that's okay, I have a medkit back in the office, I can take a look..."
"No, really, it's not so bad. I'll just go down to Medical. I have to introduce myself and check our personnel and capacity anyway. You're Kimberlye, you said?" Calliope was still parsing out the string of explanation. "I was looking for you, actually, before we ran into each other... We're setting up a meeting about station defenses and regional matters. I've sent you the details, but I wasn't sure they went through, circumstances being what they are around here. I wanted to follow up. Did you receive the memo?"
Godiva gave a once over of the Commander, with the skeptical eye of someone who was used to telling people they didn't need help when they were burnt. Her last CO had specifically removed the MedKits from her lab to avoid her avoiding leaving the lab. "No memos came through internal communications, though most of the internal communications net is blown from Intel. Gutted, likely, for parts as it seems it was, I barely have power. I was actually trying to find a junction with power to try and get online." She paused, thought for a second to remember what had originally been said, and then carried back on. "I can be there though, I'll parse what I can from the surrounding ships, hijack a few signals to get a better understanding of what's going on. Though if you're concerned about station defense," she gestured around, "I'd keep ships nearby, there is a good chance we will see pirates" she said with air quotes, "around soon, testing the station to see what our actual position is."
"Yes, that is something of a concern. We're organizing what we can in terms of ship support. That will be detailed in the meeting, I'm sure." Calliope compressed her wrist against her chest. "It's crazy hot in here. Oh right, you said the environmental controls were part of the trouble. I hope you're filing accurate reports of the damage and your modifications, so maintenance crews will know what they're looking at."
Godiva giggled a little, cut short by the flurry of sparks from the remains of the LCARS panel. "I keep accurate documentation always!" she started with, pulling her PaDD and waving it. "However, Engineering has stopped answer my calls, so they can have it when they actually come to fix things," she continued with another small giggle to herself. Giving her neck a quick pop, she looked over at the remains of the panel, she shrugged. "I have crawled through ships in worse shape, believe it or not. Usually in an EV suit actually, so I am used to sticking hands where they don't belong and working in the dark. The goggles help, basic night vision. Dark vision? Does that make me sound too much like a fantasy character? Godiva, Lady of House Intelligence, fear her with her dark vision!" The woman struck a pose, the moment of seriousness having passed her by for the second.
She looked to her superior, and gave another snort as she suppressed another giggle. "Sorry, I try and keep things light, so much of Starfleet is always serious. Got to learn to smile, right? Or, just keep smiling, which ever works better for you." In the darkness and red lights, her teeth we accented in an odd way as she put on a large smile. "Not much we can do but make the best of it. Could be worse, could be ghosts!"
"Ghosts... right" Calliope had enough run ins with anomalous oddities in her time such that she didn't entirely discount ghosts, or at least things that manifest ghostly enough to qualify for the description. She smiled, although it may have evinced more of a wince against the pain in her wrist. "Oh, I've a feeling you're going to be a delight to work with. I'll have this checked out and see you upstairs shortly. Good hunting, Commander."
"Okay Commander, I'll see you soon!" replied the Intel Chief as she dusted herself off and held her PaDD up to take a look to see where the next power feed was coming from. She still needed to stabilize things to get her work up to date before the meeting. Now was the simple question, where was that bypass really going...?
