There were a great number of reasons that Rita Paris didn’t care for Sickbay. One, she didn’t know the ship’s doctor, which she would remedy eventually she reasoned. Second, she only visited sickbay when she was injured or unable to protest, which made it hold negative connotations in her mind. And third, having been a transporter accident more than once, she had been poked and prodded and tested by the best, and it left her with a general disdain for that part of any starship.

Which was not to say that she wouldn’t be the first one carrying an injured shipmate there if need be, which brought her to the present moment.

The brawl with the possessed security chief had left her with a concussion, which in turn made her feel lucky that she hadn’t taken more hits from the Vulcan tactician. Otherwise she most likely would be recovering from far more severe industries. As it stood, after a cursory examination after a night in Sickbay, Paris had been cleared for duty, or whatever passed for it in the twilight zone of ‘not part of the crew so no duties assigned’ in which she currently dwelled. Simulations were bringing her up to speed, but Rita would not entrust her starship to an alien from another dimension who was a hundred years behind the times were she captain, and she suspected she might not be alone in that assessment.

For now, she checked on her friend. Thex sh’Zoarhi lay on the biobed, still recovering from cracked ribs, a spinal injury and a rather surprising blood loss. The little Andorian engineer had befriended her, acted as a guide to 24th century life and technology, and saved Rita's life twice now. The petite blue alien was sleeping peacefully, with the assurance of a full recovery. But for now, Rita would let her sleep. She had to do something to express her gratitude to her friend, but she didn’t know the woman well enough to know what might be appropriate. But she’d think on it- after all, their relationship was a bit one-sided, and Thex deserved better than that from her friend the big blonde backwater.

The Caitain security officer was already checked out and back to work, leading Paris to wonder if the feline humanoids healed faster than skinny little blue girls of uncommon bravery. Mentally, she added a crash course in Federation xenobiology to her already overloaded workload of classes to absorb.

Departing Sickbay, Rita walked the halls slowly, taking it in. Her anachronistic uniform drew a few curious glances, but the crew still nodded and smiled in return to her silent pleasantries, so she let them have their moment of puzzlement. After all, in theory she was simply far, far behind the times. But on a modern starship it seemed no one wore skirts anymore- pants and short boots (not even a heel?!?) were the uniform of the day, all of it unisex and black and sinister to her eye.

The more she saw it the more she didn’t want to wear it. Trading in her old uniform for a modern one seemed to be giving up the last little link to her past, and at this point Rita was thoroughly unwilling to do that- unless she was forced to do so. That was a bridge she'd cross when she came to it.

The command staff seemed to be embroiled in something, between the away team and the tension onboard the Hera, so Paris wouldn’t bother with any of them at this point. If she was assigned to the starship then she would get involved in such things- after all, the Hera seemed to have quite a complement of shuttlecraft… runabouts, they called them now. As well as a Captain’s Yacht, and some more exotic craft. So it seemed as though not everyone in the far-flung future was all for beaming down or over or whatever, which gave her some hope. Just thinking about transporting was anxiety-inducing- at this point she didn’t think she could actually face transporting any time soon. But she was feeling moderately comfortable that she could pilot anything with nacelles that they set her behind the controls. Besides, the autopiloting and assist functions made it so that anyone could pilot one, not just an actual rated pilot.

So when trouble reared, assuming she would be assigned to the Hera, Rita Paris would likely be in the thick of it soon enough. It was odd to know that there was trouble and that other officers were dealing with it while she strolled the decks with nowhere to go and nothing to do. But that was life a hundred thirty years out of time- you weren’t exactly someone to be turned to in a crisis since half of every statement meant following it up with an explanation for the officer who had never heard of a Structural Integrity Forcefields, for instance.

From what Thex had told her, when it came to the furnishings and décor of the enormous space that was now her quarters, Rita could choose from existing patterns or design her own. Having looked over the deck listing, trying to acclimate to the enormous starship, it hadn’t been lost on Rita that the executive officer had assigned her quarters in the senior officer’s section, so the buxom blonde suspected that Captain Telvan had plans for her. But that was in the future. In the here and now, Thex had explained that for furniture, she just had to put a request in with the fabrication center on deck 29, and what she had would be beamed out and recycled as the approved requests were beamed in.

While that was happening, Paris planned to be nowhere near her quarters. Although she had reassurances that it never happened and that the transporters of the future were totally safe, she still had no desire to end up having her molecules rearranged to accidentally become a festive throw rug for someone’s quarters. It never happened, it seemed, until it happened to her. Then engineers spent years scratching their heads over how, even as she tried to deal with the effects on her psyche.

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that decorating her quarters would not be a waste of time at all. Instead, it would enable her to customize the space, to make it her own. To make it a familiar oasis in the strange landscape in which she now lived. She could paint the walls tritanium blue-grey, and look for some screen dividers like in her old quarters. She suspected the soft carpeting could be replaced with something that resembled her old quarters but was considerably more luxuriant on her bare feet, like the modern equivalent.

In her mind Paris could hear her old psychiatrist chiding her for wanting to live in the past, redecorating her quarters to look like an enormous version of her old quarters on the Exeter minus all of her personal belongings- her books, her souvenirs of dozens of worlds, and her collection of glow in the dark toys. But this was her space, and hers alone- the word struck a deep pang of longing and loneliness within her that she repressed as best she could. Life without Sonak was a lot harder than it had a right to be, but she would just have to deal with it, since there was no way to change it.

For now, she could change her quarters to suit her, and if that meant dwelling in the past, so be it. The starship was almost alien to her, the galaxy had changed vastly, and even Starfleet was practically unrecognizable to the lost navigator. But her quarters could be a throwback to the simpler times from which she had been hurled against her will, and while it might be construed as trying to literally live in the past, part of her was simply unwilling to let go. Her past had defined her and been her home, and while she would admit it to no one, the future world in which she now lived intimidated her. That much moreso without the somber scientist by her side, upon whom she had relied so heavily in recent years.

Having quarters that were a return to simpler times in which she felt safe and secure were worth any potential criticism. With that decision made, Paris stepped into the forward observation lounge on deck 10 where she liked to spend her time, replicated a PaDD for herself and busily set about rearranging her living space to suit her peculiar and particular needs.

Thex smiled as she walked down the corridors of the ship. She could feel a few peoples eyes follow her obviously looking at the orion dancers outfit she was wearing. She didn't mind she was rather used to it by know and it made her feel good. The fact that the Andorian engineers could make heads turn was a very enjoyable though.

Reaching Maica's office she pressed the alarm and waited for the door to open.

The door opened immediately and the scent of incense greeted Thex along with Maica, clad in a crimson robe. The decore was a mix of crimson and darker shades of red with curtains hanging over the windows so you couldn't see outside. The engine and deck noises had all been cancelled out and teapots percolated on a mahogany counter with ornate tea cups next to them.

"Welcome to my parlor. You're right on time." Maica said with a wide smile and a bow. "Please come in. The massage table is in the back. We can get started right way or if you prefer, you can have a soothing cup of tea first."

Thex pushed for a second as she looked around the room. " I like what you've done with the place. Oh and I'd love a cup of tea. Orion dancing does make me rather thirsty. " She responded politely.

Maica nodded and smiled, motioning towards the array of teapots. "Please let me know whichever you prefer and have a seat. There's a selection of green tea, ginseng tea, and chamomile tea."

" A nice green tea would be nice. Did you set this place up yourself?" The andorian inquired as she took one of the seats.

"I did. My sisters helped me procure some of the tapestries and upholstery, but I'd like to think the design choices were all my own," Maica replied as she poured a cup of tea and kneeled before Thex, offering it to her with a bright smile.

Thex gave a warm smile and took the tea. Talking it she drank deeply. " Very nice. Is this real tea it doesn't taste replicated." She asked politely.

"Nothing here is replicated," maica replied as she began with a gentle massage of Thex's ankles. "Even the water comes from volcanic springs on an Earth island called Fiji."

Thex had heard of Fiji though she'd never been there. " You have very skilled hands. it feels like the tiredness is melting away."

"Thank you. I've worked hard to perfect my techniques," replied Maica as she smoothed out any knots in Thex's calves. She didn't want the Andorian too relaxed before the main event - just enough to enjoy her tea.

" Well you're techniques are certainly effective. " Thex replied as she finished her tea.

"Thank you, but we've not even begun yet." Standing back up, Maica retrieved the now empty tea cup and motioned for Thex to join her in the back room. "If you'll step back here, we can begin the actual massage."

The andorian nodded as she stood up and followed the orion. " How are things between you and the captain? I hope everything going well." She politely asked.

Maica smiled happily as she motioned for the Andorian to lay down on the massage table. "Face down please. Everything is going perfectly. I wish she'd work a bit less, but at least she doesn't bring her work home with her, so we have plenty of alone time. Do you prefer the hot Bolian squid or just the stones today?"

" I've never had the squid before can i try that." The andorian replied as she laid down on the table.

"Hot squid special, it is then," Maica giggled as she began warming Thex up with a neck and shoulder massage - making tiny circles with her fingers and thumbs and moving down into her shoulders as she not only loosened the muscles but made sure the joints and bones were relaxed as well.

Thex let out a moan of pleasure as she felt her neck and shoulders relax for what felt like the first time in ages. " You're hands feel like magic Maica. My shoulders haven't felt that good in a long time."

Moving down the blue woman's back, Maica's skilled hands sought out every scrap of tension and worked it out, eliciting a few pops from Thex's joints as she worked. "It feels like you've never had a proper massage before. It's a good thing I don't have another appointment after this one. I'll have to give you some extra special attention."

" I've had them before, but keeping this girl up an running does leave me without that much free time. You won't believe how often she breaks something just to ruin my day. " Thex responded as she allowed her body to relax.

"The more complex of a machine, the more there is that can go wrong," Maica replied as she made her way down to the small of Thex's back. Pausing, she reached into the squid tank and pulled out one of the hot Bolian squids and plopped it down on the blue woman's back, letting it go to work with micromassages and exfoliation as Maica continued massaging further down.

" You won't get any argument from me." Thex replied feeling her body relax as the orion and the squid went to work. " He's a skilled little guy. Has he been trained for this?" She asked politely.

"Bred, raised, and trained. The pair I have get all the nutrients they need from dead skin." As Macia moved a bit lower to Thex's booty, she tapped the squid tank to attract the attention of the other squid. After a few moments more massage, she pulled the other one out and plopped it onto the blue woman's lower back, letting the two of them work their magic while she continued on down the legs.

Thex simply closed her eyes as she let the squids and the Orion get to work. " I really need to get more of these. You won't believe how good this feels."

Maica giggled softly as she worked her massage down Thex's legs to her feet. "I've worked hard to make it feel heavenly so I'd hope I had an idea. But you may be right." She then started working on the acupressure points in the Andorian woman's feet, trying to release all the built up tension from a lifetime of being on them.

" Well, whoever taught you taught you well. Don't suppose you've ever heard of an orion called Leella? She was the one who taught me how to dance like an orion." The andorian asked politely.

"I think one of my sisters knows her, actually. Either way, one of my original program elements is designed around her dancing, so I definitely know who she is." Maica chuckled softly as she continued the foot massage. After a few more minutes, she finished up and moved to one of Thex's arms and hands, massaging that next. "For an engineer, you have remarkably soft skin."

" Thanks. I don't know why, but it always seems to be in good condition. " Thex replied as she patted one of the squids that had moved up her back a pleasant smile on her face.

Finishing up with Thex's hand, Maica moved to her other arm and hand, having to move one of the squid's tentacles a bit to continue the massage. "Almost done. Anything special you want to finish up with?"

Thex let out a sigh of relief as the Orion worked out a sore bit of her arm. " Nothing I can think off. This is just wonderful."

Maica grinned as she finished up. "If you ever need anything, please remember to come back. I have priority bookings for the senior staff." moving around to the other side, she peeled first one, then the other squid off, plopping them back in their tanks. "Keep them fed like that, I might need a bigger tank..." Chuckling softly, Maica bowed deeply before Thex. "Thank you for your patronage."

" The pleasure was all mine Maica. I'll see you later " Thex responded as she gave the orion a warm smile before leaving the room.

Daytona's leg had healed quickly enough, quicker likely, due to the black blood infection. His leg felt very strong and stable. His stomach, on the other hand, was doing somersaults. He'd felt like he was going to vomit for the last four hours, the worst nausea he'd ever experienced in the last 422 years. More than once he'd tried to call Sickbay, but something kept stopping him, something inside him, but not him. Daytona was lucid enough to know that this was the black blood infection's effect on him, and that it had only been through a tremendous feat of willpower that he hadn't already gone stalking through the ship leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. He had enough willpower to resist doing anything to harm his crewmates, but not enough to call for help. He was terrified that someone would come to check on him and he'd be unable to warn them to stay away, terrified that he would take that person's life, which would be the first of many if he lost control.

Then, it happened. After four hours of nausea, he felt his stomach start to heave in earnest. He hadn't eaten recently, but he'd been feeling more and more bloated, as though his GI system was filling with something. He could only imagine that what ever came up from his depths would be black blood related and bad for everyone, but he could take the pain and pressure anymore. He pulled himself up on to all fours and began to heave, his head over the side of his bed, face down. He vomited violently for almost half an hour, until there was a huge puddle of bubbling, viscous, black sludge on the deck. But it didn't stop there. He could feel himself filling up again, rapidly. When he was all full up, he began to vomit again...and again...and again.

Daytona was too busy spewing to see, but something was happening in the ever-growing puddle of demonic tar. Shapes were forming, feline shapes. much smaller than a traditional 'big cat' but a bit larger than a domesticated house cat. Before the first one was fully formed, others started to follow. If Daytona was in any position to notice, he would have noticed their resemblance to an Earth ocelot. Before long there were a dozen of them. When they were all completely formed, they began to play with each other. Dominance games. It was almost cute, in the way only small demonic felines can be. When they had sorted out who was in charge, they made noises at each other that sounded like a conversation. When that was settled, they began to explore Daytona's quarters, sniffing at things, knocking things over, batting things around the room. After a bit, they converged around the doors to Daytona's quarters. They were too small to trigger the door sensor individually, so another 'conversation' occurred. Finally, one of them got some distance, then took a running jump and managed to land paws first on the console that controlled the doors, which opened. As soon as they did, the cats ran out.

Once out in the corridor, they all stopped and raised their heads. Something was calling them...someone, even though the person didn't know it. It was a call that the demon ocelots couldn't refuse to answer. After a few seconds of 'conversation' between them as they searched Daytona's memories for a layout of the ship, they all began running in the same direction...towards Sickbay.

Within Sickbay, Nexi and her dogs raised their heads; something was coming, a lot of somethings, somethings that would help her to escape this wretched room so she could do what she did best: kill! With a grin, Nexi looked to the observation window of her room, and she waited...

Watching Nexi on a monitor, Marci noted a distinct change in behavior and made her way over to the containment unit. Nexi and her hellish hounds were staring right through the window, like they were waiting for something. A bit concerned, Marci checked the locks that were keeping the three of them contained. All of them were active, but that didn't make her feel any better. And then she smelled it. That scent that she'd come to associate with the black blood familiars. A wolf's growl escaped her throat, and she ran toward the control panel that could lock the sickbay doors.

Before Marci could get there, the doors opened and in ran the cutest, most innocent little demonic ocelot anyone had ever seen...followed by two more, then three more, and before anything could be done all twelve of them were in Sickbay, jumping on things, knocking things over, and generally causing chaos. Mostly, they ignored Marci, seeing her as a larger predator that could hurt them individually, but not in a group. It all seemed rather random and playful...until a trio of them made their way to the console that kept Nexi locked away. One of them stood on the console, looking for all the world like he was trying to hack it, while the other eleven moved in to defensive positions around the little cyber-terrorist.

"NO! BAD KITTY!" Marci grabbed the first object she could get her hands on - a tricorder - and threw it at the demon cat on the console. It was probably not a very smart move, but she wasn't about to touch one of those animals. She almost found herself wishing she could manifest her own familiars!

The demon felines were too fast for Marci. One of them took a running leap and intercepted the tricorder in mid-air. When it landed, it began to play with the device like it was a chew toy, while four of the others, as though they had one mind, turned towards Marci and began to make menacing noises. Another one, the leader, made an impatient sounding noise at the hacker, who hissed back at the leader, before getting back to work.

Nexi rose to her feet and stood at the window, her eyes empty voids of blackness as she grinned at the mayhem in Sickbay. Then she caught sight of the critters trying to free her! Yes, just a little more, and she would be free!!!

"Get off my console," Marci growled at the hacker-cat, moving swiftly toward it and ignoring the menacing sounds the other cats made. She did, however, continue watching them in her peripheral vision. They were much smaller than Aewia's panther, but there were more of them. Even if they didn't manage to get Nexi out, she was in trouble if they went from merely threatening to actually attacking. Once she was close enough, she calmly reached out and grabbed the offending ocelot by its scruff, trying not to think about how slimy and tar-like it felt.

The hacker-kitty made the most horrifying feline noise that anyone had ever heard since the first cat said 'meow' and began hissing and trying to scratch at Marci. The other cats grabbed at Marci's legs to trip her while the one she was holding dissolved into a puddle on the console, before reforming and going to work on the console again. Daytona was skilled at hacking locks, and his 'pets' had all of his skills. It was only a matter of time before the demon feline cyber hacktivist released her, and then everyone would be in trouble.

Kicking at a cat to knock it away, Marci again grabbed the hacktivist cat with one hand and reached under the console with the other, prying a panel open and yanking the connections loose. The console abruptly went dark, causing the weird little hacker to lose its progress. She still wasn't certain who these familiars belonged to, but she had a couple of guesses. "That's enough of that. Where's your master, you little lunatics?"

The containment room was presently being powered by the separate power source provided by Hermes, including the console, since main power was out all over the ship. The wires Marci had yanked out cut power to the console. That made the demonic ocelot's very angry and soon Marci was covered in Ocelots...except for two that were now bipedal and possessed of opposable thumbs. They looked a bit like what Santa's elves might look like if they were Caitian. They began to reconnect the console to Hermes power source.

Just as quickly, Marci was suddenly quadripedal, bursting free from the ten demon ocelots that had swarmed her to charge at the two trying to reconnect power to the containment unit's control console. Snarling, she pinned the remaining cables under her paw. It wouldn't stop them for long, but it gave her a moment to think.

Yes, yes, keep fighting! Nexi grinned broadly as she watched wolf-Marci attack the demonic ocelots, a thrill running through her just at the sight of violence. Oh, she was going to have so much fun when she finally got out of here...

One of the bipedal demon ocelots suddenly took up a boxer's stance and began bouncing from rear foot to rear foot. Before Marci could react to this, the little flyweight pugilist began punching Marci in the nose, floating like a butterfly and stinging like...well...a bipedal demonic ocelot, while the other one began tugging at the cables until they came free, and began reattaching them. Meanwhile, three of the little demonic predators got some distance, then body checked Marci in the side, hard, knocking her over.

Stunned by the swats to her sensitive lupine nose, Marci was not prepared for the triple-cat tackle. Squalling like a kicked puppy, she sprawled on the deck and slid several feet, growling and gnashing her teeth... but careful not to actually bite the little fiends. Scrambling her paws against the deck, she found some purchase and painfully got up, trying to shake the three ocelots off.

With Marci suitably distracted, Muhammad "the Ocelot" Ali left the ring and changed careers back to cyber-terrorism. Together, the two now bipedal demon ocelots finished the hack. The containment field collapsed and the doors opened. The bipedal ocelots changed back into quadrupeds and ran into the containment room making happy noises at Nexi, encouraging her to leave the room and go forth to cause mayhem.

As the containment unit opened, Marci finally shook free of her attackers and bolted for the sickbay door. An alarm was sounding, but help wouldn't come fast enough to save her. Luckily, the doors recognized her in her lupine form and slid open, letting her bound out into the corridor and away from the black-blood demons.

The leader of the ocelots made a commanding noise and four of the group set off after Marci. The rest waited patiently for Nexi appear.

As the door slid open, the room went conspicuously dark as Nexi's shadow shroud filled the room, and as she stepped forth a maniacal laugh spilled forth that would make even the greatest of super-villains proud. But then she abruptly went silent as she felt the tell-tale static of a transporter matter stream.

"Fuck," Nexi blurted out, then promptly blinked out of the forming matter stream, reappearing crouched atop the broken console. It would take a moment for the transporter chief keeping tabs on her to re-establish the lock, especially with her shroud filling the room, but only a moment which was not be very long at all, so she would have to pace her fun carefully so as not to get caught by the transporter. Her hounds padded out of the room and approached their master.

"Find her," Nexi said simply, grinning wide. Responding to her orders, Sunny and Mr Pickles exited Sickbay to chase down Marci so that their master could finally have some fun. With her hounds on the hunt, Nexi blinked away, her shroud following her into the void, but to where she was headed was unknown.

The rest of the ocelots, at a noise from their leader, set off after the hellhounds.

Shit, they were chasing her! Marci ran faster, maxing out her speed... but it wouldn't be enough. They were going to catch her. And probably chew on her too. Hearing some voices nearby, Marci tried to change directions to spare them, but it was too late. Instead, she went streaking past them in a white blur, though it would be difficult to miss that fluffy tail.

Shavni, along with R'Tor who walked with a slight limp from their earlier ordeal with T'Pral, watched as the Marci in her wolf fprm went past them. "Was that Nurse Marci?" Shavni asked.

They then heard the pounding of several feet on the deck coming towards them. "Not again," R'Tor said with an exasperated sigh, as he and Shavni drew their phasers, raised them, and began to quickly back pedal, splitting to opposite sides of the corridor. "Set for wide beam. It'll slow whatever is headed our way at least," R'Tor said. Wide beam was less effective than a standard beam but covered a larger area and with Shavni, they could cover the entire corridor.

Somehow the ocelots had gotten ahead of the hellhounds. The whole dozen exploded around the bend and right into Security's line of fire. Twelve adorable little demonic fuzz balls.

Marci ran until the hallway dead-ended against a turbolift door, which would not open with main power offline. Growling, she whirled to face the direction from which she came, lowering her body almost to the deck in preparation to leap and run... if she could manage to do that without getting mauled.

The two officers fired their weapons as the Ocelots rounded the corner. However cute they were, they were still chasing a crew member of the crew and made of Black blood.

The ocelots ran right through the phaser fire. At the wide angle setting, the beams were too dispersed to cause permanent harm to the demons. It did some damage, however, and most of the ocelots looked for a moment like they were melting to varying degrees. Then they re-solidified. Their leader shook his little head to clear it then looked Shavni directly in the eyes and held her gaze for a moment. Then the little beast made a noise and all of the ocelots began slowly moving towards Shavni and R'Tor in a menacing manner.

"Shit," R'Tor cursed as he reset his phaser setting. "Set to regular beam, kill setting."

Shavni nodded as she did what she was told, as the two officers back stepped and fired again.

The ocelots scattered as two of their number were hit and dissolved into a puddle of black bubbling goo. The remaining ten ocelots snarled and charged the two security officers, slamming into them. For some reason, they didn't use their claws, and they only used their teeth to grab, which was lucky for Shavni and R'Tor because they weren't being scratched or bitten. It was as though something or someone was holding them back.

R'Tor snarled, letting out a growl as he managed to grab one and toss it, rolling to his feet and fired at the ocelot on Shavni.

The ocelot R'Tor shot at managed to dodge away, which was a good thing because if it splattered all over Shavni, they'd have another infected officer to deal with. Before R'Tor could celebrate, or shoot anything else, two ocelots hit him behind the knees while two more hit in in the chest, knocking him over.

"That is quite enough!" said a familiar voice. "Bad felines! Bad!"

Daytona Ral was standing in the corridor, bare-chested, looking a little shaky, propping himself up with a hand on the wall.

"I believe you've caused enough trouble," he said. "I believe it is time for you to return to me."

Daytona sat down on the deck, legs crossed, and struck a meditative pose, closing his eyes and controlling his breathing. The ocelots transferred their attentions from R'Tor and Shavni to their host. They approached Daytona and circled him, rubbing up against him and nuzzling him here and there. The two ocelots who had been supposedly killed reformed and joined their comrades. Then they all began to climb on Daytona and, one by one, were absorbed through the bare skin of his chest and back. When they were all gone, Daytona seemed to be trembling.

"Ensign...Shavni," Daytona said. His voice was shaky and there was a slight echo to it. "I don't know...how long...I can contain them...please...lock me up somewhere secure. I was able to keep them from...biting or...clawing anyone this...time...but I don't think...I'll be able to...do it...again."

And then, Daytona was gone.

The stage was set, all the parties were assembled, and the plan was ready. As Danu prepared to 'heal' the infected, the away team prepared to fight the summoned beast and Ahreva Malana prepared to become a sacred vessel, whatever that meant.

What they had not expected was for Danu's Cauldron to have been a semi-active volcano.

They were literally going to fight on what looked like glowing hot rocks. It was only like body temperature for most races... but it was still the caldera of a bloody volcano. Thankfully it was at least a kilometer across so they had plenty of room to fight in, just in case the summoned beast was larger than anything else they'd seen. Given the amount of black blood they'll be compressing into one place, it was certainly a possibility.

Danu had been kind enough to use her own 'powers' AKA technology, to transport the infected into stasis units here in preparation, but they were quickly failing. "I'm going to start the process now! Be ready!" she called as she started glowing a bright neon green, drawing the blackness from the infected, through her, and sending it into Ahreva. This was no trick of technology. This was the extra organ that was unique to each of the 'Gods' of her race. Hers happened to be able to perform healing miracles like this and explained how people were able to undergo the trials without harm in her name.

The effect of her healing upon the infected was instant and plain to see. It was as if a deep shadow had been lifted from them. As for Malana... It was as if all the demons in the universe had converged upon her and twisted her into something beyond wicked and terrible. She was no longer the stony faced scientist they had come to know and... Respect. She was an Iconian Demon more terrible than their worst nightmares.

A few minutes after Danu began, she finished. The process was complete. Those in the stasis chambers were cured of the black blood infection. Danu herself looked weakened though. She still had one more task. Sending a wave of green energy into Malana, she forced the Ashravenan to summon a beast with every last bit of the black blood in her.

Malana screamed an earth shattering scream as black blood exploded out from her. It then paused mid explosion in the air for a moment before swirling and coalescing. It grew larger into a vaguely bipedal shape. Bigger it grew, still swirling. Ten meters tall. Fifteen. Twenty.

Its form started to finalize into a vaguely bipedal lizard-like form. Spines on the back, thick tail, bright red demon eyes... It let loose a familiar screaming roar that rattled the bones of everyone that could hear it. Ahreva Malana had summoned a twenty five meter tall black blood version of the old Earth movie Godzilla...

And it was freaking pissed off...

"Oh, you have GOT to be shitting me," Read commented, looking up at the creature.

Mal looked at Read and smiled.

"Trust me," he said. He activated his comm device. "Hermes, that thing we talked about? Do it now."

"Of course, my child," Hermes replied. "Incoming!"

Something began to materialize in front of the beast, something that was growing in size as it materialized, until it was roughly the same size as the beast. Within seconds, a 25 meter tall mechanical man designed to look like a Spartan warrior armed with sword and shield was standing in front of the beast. It knocked the beast back with it's shield and plunged its sword into the beast's chest, twisted it, and withdrew the blade, taking a defensive position, shield up, while it waited to see if the beast died.

Mal laughed at the expressions on everyone's faces, then explained.

"Hermes and I suspected that Danu might do something ridiculous," he said. "So we asked Hephaestus to build us something equally ridiculous. The mechanical warrior has been designed to defeat a black blood beast. It's weapons, even it's body, do damage in the same manner as these weapons Hephaestus gave us. That is to say, the mechanical man and his sword, shield, and body negate the black blood beast's regenerative abilities. Even if it is disarmed, strikes with its body with hurt the beast. Hermes modified my communicator, increasing the range so I could reach him even if he was out of the system, then he hid outside of the system and waited for my call."

Roaring in pain, the Demon Godzilla was injured but not out for the count just yet as Mecha-Spartan had missed its core. Recovering from the onslaught, it clutched at the bleeding wound as gallons of black ooze bubbled out of it. Taking a deep breath, it loosed a breath weapon attack, albeit short range, directly at the mechanical Spartan. For several moments, a spray of black energy buffeted the offending silver giant.

As the spray of black energy splashed against the Mecha-Spartan's shield, it struggled against the force of the blast, giving ground as it's feet slid backwards across the ground, just managing to stay upright. When the beast was spent and the energy blast ceased, the Mecha-Spartan charged forward with it's shield and smashed into the demon Godzilla, knocking it off balance. With the demon lizard stunned, Mecha-Spartan cut the beast again first slashing diagonally down from left shoulder to right hip, then right shoulder to left hip, then back and forth sideways across and through the beasts mid-section twice then punching it in the head with the edge of his shield, before recovering to a defensive position, shield raised, sword at the ready.

Unfortunately, though it seemed to stun the mighty beast for a moment, the Mecha-Spartan's onslaught seemed to infuriate it even more. Roaring again, Demon Godzilla charged the silver giant at full speed, barely holding himself together in the process, to bash his thick skull plate into the shield of the defending Spartan, leaving an indentation of the beast's face in it as deep as a normal man is tall. It then followed this up with another demonic breath attack against that shield at point blank, though due to its wounds, it was considerably less powerful and only about half as long.

The Mecha-Spartan reeled from the Demon-Godzilla's attack, but deflected the energy blast with less difficulty this time. When he recovered, the Mecha-Spartan backhanded the beast with its shield, then slashed it once more across the chest before decapitating the beast with a mighty swing. Then he used a spinning leg sweep, he knocked the beast onto its back. When the beast was prone, the Mecha-Spartan sheathing his sword and reached into the beast's chest. There was a sucking noise as the Mecha-Spartan ripped the beast's core from its chest. His hand began to glow red, then white hot, and the beast's core began to smolder and smoke, then caught fire. The heat was so intense that everyone around felt it. It continued until the beast's core was nothing more than a lump of ash, which the Mecha-Spartan crumbled in his hand. The Mecha-Spartan lowered his arm and began to shrink to 'normal' height, which turned out to be just over two meters. The Mecha-Spartan marched over to Mal and saluted.

"Thank you, you did very well," Mal said. The Mecha-Spartan seemed to stand up even straighter at Mal's praise. "Please standby until we're sure we won't be needing further assistance."

The Mecha-Spartan saluted, moved off to the side, and stood at attention, awaiting further orders. Mal turned to Danu.

"Alright," he said. "We've defeated the beast. What's next?"

With the core destroyed and the beast dead as dead can be, the remainder of the black blood began dissolving into thin air as if it never existed. Danu, who looked considerably weakened by recent events, leaned on a staff as she hobbled over to them. "Now we discuss the return of your crewmembers." With a snap of her fingers, the stasis chambers were unsealed, allowing those inside to be removed and awakened if they weren't so literally drained. "Your crew are free of the infection, but it may be some time before they awaken. They've been through quite the ordeal. Of course, as I mentioned before, I'll need to keep the two sisters for full proper healing. I promise, no harm will come to them and they'll be treated very well. As for your stony friend..." Danu pointed off to the center of the caldera to Malana whom was sitting still on the same altar where she'd undergone her transformation. A look of deep thought and consternation was on her face - an interesting change from the normally unmoving stoniness she normally displayed. "It seems she survived quite easily."

Mal nodded.

"And I'm grateful for that," Mal said. "And I'm grateful to you for your assistance. If there is nothing else, my people and I will take our leave...assuming our transporters are functional. If they're not, we may need a bit of assistance."

"My own resources have run dry, so let's hope that your ship can beam you out. As it is, I'll have to rest a bit before returning the two sisters and myself to my temple." Smiling a bit, Danu nodded to a small stealth monitoring drone hovering nearby. "Are your transporters back online now, friend Captain? and did you enjoy the show?"

From the drone Enalia's voice emanated. "Yes, thank you. We found it... Enlightening. Prepare to beam up, Commander. Danu, you have our sincerest thanks. If you ever have need of us, please don't hesitate. I feel we owe you. That I owe you..." It was rare for the Captain to be so solemn towards someone outside of her sphere of influence, let alone someone she hadn't even met in person, yet here she felt she owed a debt of gratitude to this god-like alien.

Danu just smiled and nodded. "Just do your best to keep peace in the galaxy and we can call it even." She then stepped back from Mal and Read and nodded again. "Safe journeys, young ones. Come back for tea sometime if you want."

"All right then," Mal said. He turned to the Mecha-Spartan. "Thank you for your help."

The Mecha-Spartan saluted Mal again. Mal smiled.

"Hermes," he said into his comm device. "Please beam my new friend up and return him to Hephaestus, and thank Hephaestus for his assistance, AGAIN. And thank you, as well."

"You're welcome, child," Hermes said as the Mecha-Spartan dematerialized in a transporter effect. "Anytime. I'll return the metal man to my brother and then rendezvous with your ship when the time is right. Safe travels!"

Mal chuckled.

"I'd say 'Godspeed', but you've already got that!" he said. He worked the control on his wrist device again. "Hera, please lock on to the Away Team, and to Commodore Meowlith, Commanders Enaes and Jordan, and Chief Warrant Officer Ral, and return us to the Hera. Make sure to beam Meowlith, Enaes, Jordan, and Ral directly to Sickbay so their condition can be monitored until they regain consciousness."

"Nexi and Aewia will be staying behind then, I assume?" replied Enalia over the comm channel. "Just as well. By all reports, I think Danu would be best able to help them after what they've been through. Fair warning, Commander. None of the actual transporter rooms are actually running so we're using the site-to-site transport systems from the bridge. We'll beam you all to my private mess. Help yourself to the pastries and drinks and I'll be down shortly to debrief you."

"Enalia," Mal said. "All of the formerly infected are unconscious. They won't be enjoying any pastries. Please be prepared to transport them to Sickbay immediately. We're ready to beam up when you are."

"That's... what I mean..." Enalia sounded frustrated, even over the comms. "They'll go to sickbay and the rest of you will go to... You know what, nevermind. Initiating transport." The comms cut out as the transporter beam carried the crew of the Hera away, minus Nexi and Aewia.

Tags

Enalia finally got off the comms with Starfleet Command. She'd spoken with Admiral Paris, the Office of Temporal Investigations, Starfleet Sciences Command, Intel Command, and even a specialist at Jupiter Station that studied cross dimensional travel. She now had everything she needed to make decisions and recommendations. Leaning back in her chair, she relaxed for a moment before making the call. "Rita Paris, please report to the Captain's ready room at your earliest convenience." She said earliest convenience, but in truth, she hoped Rita would be here sooner than later. She had dinner with her wife scheduled soon.

The comms sounded and the call came through loud and clear- time to get called on the carpet. The replicator had done a fine job, and even though she had modified the cosmetic design, the internals were still the same as any modern comm badge. So instead of whipping out her communicator to snap it open, Rita tapped her gold-clad chest, the shiny new Starfleet emblem that looked like her old one registering her response. "I'm on my way."

After all, it wasn't like she was busy. Rita had alternated spending time in the holodeck working on flight sims that were interesting to her if a bit laughable- she literally spent half her time disengaging the automatic controls so that she could actually pilot the ship when in the sims. But she felt like she'd gotten it down, and she'd feel reasonably confident in the pilot's seat of whatever might be asked of her. The rest of her time had been spent studying a hundred and twenty-seven years of history.

A history in which she and her shipmates had made no contribution, and it didn't mean that her life held no meaning. But somewhere out there they had. Stuck here and now just meant that she had a chance to make a difference here and now, and Rita Paris was determined to do just that.

Hustling out of the stadium that was her quarters, Paris double-timed it to the turbolift. Still wearing her archaic gold long-sleeved minidress uniform- which might just be why the Captain wanted to see her- Rita still drew a few looks and curious glances about the ship. Someone had called her 'admiral' on the same day someone had questioningly referred to her as 'ensign', as apparently knowing archaic rank structures wasn't something they drilled into cadets at the Academy any longer. Not that she would likely be great at recognizing NX era rank either, she suspected, so she just smiled and corrected them.

Stepping out on the bridge was still a marvel to her. It was so quiet- she was accustomed to so much background noise from the sensors that the silent austerity of the spacious bridge was still jarring to Rita, even after so much time spent in the simulators. The captain's ready room was located port of the main bridge, beside the forward-port turbolift, so it was a quick turn and she was there. Paris thumbed the door chime to let the Captain know she'd arrived.

Enalia leaned forward and rested her clasped hands on her desk. She was as ready as she'd ever be for this meeting. "Enter," she called, allowing the not only temporally, but dimensionally displaced traveler into her office.

"Lieutenant Commander Rita Paris reporting as ordered, ma'am," Paris stepped into the ready room- which was still half the size of the Exeter's bridge- then snapped to attention. At this point she wasn't certain how much Captain Telvan stood on ceremony, but a summons for a private audience with the captain tended to be very good or very bad, and whichever one it was, Rita figured some proper Starfleet military etiquette couldn't hurt.

Waving one hand, Enalia still couldn't help but act embarrassed when people went full formal like that with her. "Don't bother doing that unless you're here under guard. Please, have a seat. Can I offer you a drink? The replicator can create any..." As soon as her ready room doors finished closing, she offered some non replicated beverages. "I have some Betazoid hot cocoa mix, some Denobulan bottled tea, and some of my family's hand crafted beer that isn't replicated, if you like."

Taking the cue to be at ease, Paris gestured to the chair and took the silent cue to take a seat. "Well, seeing as I'm off duty and hand-crafted beer sounds interesting, I think I'll take you up on that offer, ma'am ."Scissoring her legs together to cross them smoothly, Paris lit up that million watt smile of hers that made you daydream and wonder if she could have been an actress. "So what can your resident lost navigator do for you today, Captain?"

Popping open the mini fridge under her desk, Enalia pulled out a couple of the Artan family beers and cracked the caps off of them, handing one over to Rita. "I just spent the last several hours talking with more admirals than I care to name, most of them in regards to you. Follow up analysis shows that you're not from our universe. While we have experience with members of other universes, the fact that you come from one has complicated the decision of what to do with you somewhat. I'm sure you've figured that out by now though, seeing as our history hasn't unfolded the same as yours."

Taking a sip of her beer, Enalia pressed the subject. "Using our experimental transport system, we were able to determine what universe you came from and when you came from and get a fix on the timespace coordinates inside the universe where you originated from. Unfortunately, to send you back would not only violate some imagined directives command seems to want to throw at me, but we don't have the particles or power to do it. Hell, the system was barely able to lock on to the coordinates in the first place."

As the conversation progressed, Paris perked up at the mention that her home dimension and chronal coordinates had been identified, but she didn't manage to completely keep the disappointment off her face as the 'unfortunately' came into play, and by the end of the statement, she looked resigned. "Well, yes ma'am, I know this isn't my reality, and I wasn't planning to hide it from you. I already told Lieutenant sh'Zoarhi, and I assumed it would make its way to you if I didn't beat it here. As I told her, you can't get much more lost than this."

"So my question is, what now, Captain? Am I a guest until we get back to Starfleet Command or a starbase? Am I under arrest? Does Starfleet Command want to study me? Am I to be debriefed and interrogated?" Paris took a long draught of the beer, savoring the flavor. "That is a good beer..."

"No, as far as most everyone is concerned, you're still a member of Starfleet. I've been able to talk Command into transferring your rank with one exception over since your counterpart in this universe was lost in an almost identical manner." Reaching into one of the drawers of her desk, Enalia pulled out a tiny black box and slid it over to Rita. "Welcome back to Starfleet. You've been granted the rank of Lieutenant but at my discretion, I can promote you back up to Lieutenant Commander at any time I see fit. I'm also assigning you as Chief Flight Control Officer of the USS Hera. That means you'll not only be flying my ship, but you'll be the go to pilot for any away missions. Ensign Gonadie will be your Assistant Chief. She's a Miradonian and has an innate talent for flight since her people are evolved from some form of tropical bird. If you need any help with the department or the new flight controls, she's your woman."

"Yes ma'am," Paris replied before she chuckled, then she laughed genuinely and heartily for a good ten seconds. "I get to pick up where this Rita left off, eh? Sonak said there's a certain symmetry to the universe, and like always, he was right." Paris picked up the box off the captain's desk, opened it and eyed the two gold pips inside. "I figured out what happened to her, you know. I worked it out."

"The Office of Temporal Investigations had a theory on that as well. I'd like to hear yours and see how far off theirs is." Enalia took a long draught off her beer and leaned back to listen to what was bound to be a rather depressing tale.

"This Rita Paris, from this dimension, had the same accident I did. But Ensign Wells wasn't assigned to the Constitution, so he never figured out from Dr. Lang's notes and scans what had happened to her. So she rode the Constitution and haunted her from 2260 until 2280. I'm pretty sure that when they pulled the dilithium- ah, no, the warp core, when they pulled it out they'd remove the crystals, salvage them then install them in another warp drive with a different signature. That's when she finally got to die... after twenty years alone in that living hell, when that warp field failed, she finally got to dissipate." Paris stopped and took a few gulps off the beer.

"That's pretty close to what they estimated..." Enalia mumbled, staring into her bottle. "The Constitution flew through an ionic disturbance in the same region of space we picked you up in though, in the year 2266. Due to the frequent ion storms in the area Starfleet now avoids the area. That ion storm could have scrambled her right out of the ship's warp field and sent her who knows where. Maybe even to another universe, just like you."

"Cheery, right? And that's assuming she didn't get picked up by another passing warp field. That's an even worse thought, that she might still be out there." Paris finished off the beer and set the empty bottle next to her chair. Turning her attention to the pips in her hand, Rita Paris turned those baby blues on her commanding officer.

"I've a request, Captain, with your permission?"

Finishing her own beer, Enalia set the bottle aside and nodded. "Of course."

"Starfleet fought wars and faced horrors, and it got a lot darker and grimmer. I understand that. But we used to wear these bright colors intentionally, because we wanted people to be able to find us. Because we were the helpers, the good guys who swooped in and saved the day. Be it because you were under attack by Klingons or your colony was out of supplies or the geological study station was suffering a disaster, Starfleet was there. We fought wars and faced horrors and suffered losses, but we didn't become what we fought, Captain Telvan." Rita leaned in as she spoke, her enthusiasm and idealism swelling as she continued. "We didn't lose our idealism. We went exploring the galaxy in brightly colored uniforms because we wanted the citizens of the galaxy to see us, so they could find out we came in peace."

Eyeing the captain's uniform, Paris waved a finger in Enalia's direction.

"It's just so dark, Cap'n... I can't. I'll fly the Hera true for you, and do tricks with her you won't believe. Thex gives me engines, I'll get you anywhere you want to be and back again. Hell, I've limped some sublight out of photon torpedo shockwaves when I'm really out of options. I'll do my nav on the fly and prove my math later if you like. I'll fly her round the Outer Nebula and 'round Antares Maelstrom and 'round perdition's flames on your command. But I ask my one indulgence." Rita paused to attach the two magnetic gold pips to the black angular collar of her archaic uniform.

"I worked hard for this gold uniform, ma'am. I earned it working my rear off in Starfleet Academy, then in the fleet. I don't mind the 'show me you're worth it and you can have your rank back'- that's fair, and frankly I respect you for that one, Captain. But this is my uniform, and if you don't mind, I'd like to keep wearing it. I realize it's sexist and embarrassing in the modern day, but back then it stood for something. Something I think maybe Starfleet needs a little more of- hope." Rita was laying it on thick and channeling her inner Captain Stuart, but she was earnest. As corny as it sounded, she honestly did believe she was right.

Enalia stared at her a moment before bursting out laughing. Wiping a tear away, she shook her head. "Is that it? Oh goodness, you're definitely a Starfleet officer." Standing and moving away from her desk, Enalia called an order. "Computer, activate full spectrum lighting." With a confirmation chirp, the lighting in the office switched to almost uncomfortable levels, but the effect it had on the Captain's uniform was instant and insane. the black turned irridescent white, the grey was a shimmering purple, and even the red was more of a pink. She looked more like she belonged in a rave. "Remember how I said the uniform was redesigned for species with a wider range of vision than humans? This uniform means something too, you know. Possibly more because we have a hundred more years of history behind it. As for when black started moving into the uniforms, that was around the time the Klingon moon of Praxis was destroyed, I believe. Right after or during your generation."

"As for your uniform, I can't approve it as it is without some sort of protective covering on the legs." Sitting back down, Enalia shook her head a bit more. "Computer, return lighting to normal." With another chirp, the computer complied. "Welcome to Starfleet Intel. Now, would you prefer to modify your current uniform to include leggings, wear one of these, or wear the white and blue flight suit your department is allowed?"

"No offense intended- I didn't mean to imply your uniforms didn't stand for something as well, ma'am. Just to my plain human eyes..." Paris redirected the conversation. "Leggings is a compromise I can live with Captain... and thank you. I'll take a look at that flight suit, and I see you still offer a 'scant' skirted version of the uniforms, so let me get used to the idea, and... well, I'll keep you posted. Praxis was a few decades after my time, ah... 25 years, 2293 I think. I'm crash coursing history along with a few other subjects. I'll catch up."

"I recommend using the temporal observatory program for any speed learning on history. The ship-wide holo-emitters can display it in your quarters whenever you want." Enalia leaned forward on her desk and took on a slightly more serious tone. "I'd like to ask a favor as well. even with our dangerous missions, we have a few families aboard and enough children to warrant a classroom. Could you speak with them? I know there are some differences in your history and ours, but your experiences are what's important, I think."

That request caught the pretty pilot completely off guard, and she sat back in her chair a bit. "The ship has holo emitters? Wait, teach classes? To kids? I mean, sure, of course, but... what do you want me to teach them, Captain?"

"Just tell them about your experiences. most of the time, that's more than enough. The teacher can give you any specifics, if you need them." Enalia smiled her lopsided grin. "At least that's what I do, anyway."

A smile slowly grew on the pretty face of the throwback. "Teach kids what it was like back in the pioneer days of Starfleet, about the great discoveries and captains and the new life and new civilizations we found by boldly going where no man had gone before. Yes ma'am, I think I'd rather like that." Paris rose from her seat to offer her hand to the captain, then hesitated.

"You deserve to know the truth, ma'am. I'll never betray my oath nor the ship, but if I ever get the chance to get back home... well, I hope you understand," Paris offered her hand. It was a stupid thing to say to the woman, and it served no strategic purpose save to be honest with her, but Rita was damned if she wouldn't be honest with her captain.

"Thank you." Standing and returning the handshake, Enalia had one last thing. "In the spirit of full disclosure, there's one last thing though. The thing that I think tipped the scales for keeping you aboard, especially with Admiral Paris. Our Operations Chief is an artificial life form that was created by a Federation Starship called the USS Katana from another universe. One where Romulus was destroyed, as I understand it. You might want to speak with her. One of her mothers is my wife's counterpart from that universe."

That left Rita's jaw hanging open for a moment, then she laughed musically. "Leave it to Starfleet. If you're an orphan of another universe, you might just end up with another castaway shipwrecked in the same place. Yes ma'am, I'll be sure to look her up." Smiling, Paris shook her head a bit. "I have to say, it was a relief to discover that my rotten brother at least raised a decent son."

"As weird as it may sound, Admiral Paris may enjoy a call from you. As for his son, he may enjoy a shuttle race against you. If you do race him, be warned. He won an interplanetary race in the delta quadrant that made his Klingon wife queasy." Grinning like the cat that ate the canary, Enalia just dropped that little Easter egg for Rita. She'd have to find out for herself the circumstances of the crew of the USS Voyager.

"I'll... do that. Nephews and grand nephews that aren't mine, but because time and dimension travel... heh." Rita Paris shook her head, then combed her short blonde hair out of her eyes. She was due for a trim soon of the haircut her father said 'makes you look like a dyke', which had only inspired her to cut it shorter. "I guess The Commander was right to back Albert after all- he did make sure the Paris legacy persisted and continued in Starfleet, and I most assuredly did not. A great nephew with a Klingon wife, eh? Guess I should look him up too. Show him that the Paris women are better pilots than the men any day..."

There it was- that competitive streak that drove her on and made her strive to be the best. Borne of a father who couldn't be impressed but honed by officers who could see her potential, it had made Rita Paris an overachiever for the ages. Now in this far-flung future in another dimension, it would be her salvation.

"Excellent way of looking at it for now. Good luck with your new department. The tools may be new, but management hasn't changed much in hundreds of years, so have fun. If you have nothing else for me, you're dismissed." Enalia smiled and sat back down.

"Just... thanks, Captain. The Hera saved my life when her warp bubble sucked me in, then you saved my life when you reconstituted me, and now you saved my career from being a curiosity at Starfleet Academy teaching courses on ancient technologies instead of flying starships. That's one I owe the ship and two I owe you- I'll have to get to work on repaying all three. Thanks for taking a chance on me, Captain Telvan." With a saucy smile and a jaunty wink, the leggy lieutenant offered a chipper two-fingered salute, pivoted then sashayed out the door with more wiggle than a Sulamid in an earthquake.

Enalia couldn't help but tilt her head a bit and watch Rita walk out of her ready room. Her new Chief Flight Controller was built almost exactly like her wife, but taller. She wasn't sure if she found that hot or... No, she was a married woman now and there was no way she was going to talk either of them into a three way. Best to just brush those thoughts out of her head now. Clicking her desk computer back on, she tried to get the thoughts out of her head, instead focusing on TPS reports from their last mission. That usually worked better than a cold shower...

Stepping out of Captain Telvan's ready room, the gold minidress-clad Rita Paris considered organizing a staff meeting to gather up the helm- the flight control department, she corrected internally- and formally introduce herself. While that was a good idea, the Commander was holding the bridge, and from the look of the colorful ensign at the helm, Paris suspected she knew just who her assistant chief and guide to all things 'no ma'am, it works differently now' was in the flight control department. Catching the commander's eye, Paris flickered her eyebrows upward in a silent question then nodded in the direction of the Miradonian, silently asking permission to interfere with her subordinate on the first officer's watch.

Protocol never hurt, but casually circumventing the chain of command usually did.

Mal nodded to Rita to indicate she should go ahead. He'd talk to her about wearing a proper uniform when she was done talking to Gonadie. If she wanted to wear a skirt, there was a version of the current uniform that had one.

With a nod, Paris took the assent and strode over to the colorfully-plumed helmsman. While not every culture embraced it, in Starfleet a handshake amongst humanoids was generally accepted as a friendly standardized greeting. Thus, stepping into the pilot's field of vision, the nubile navigator offered her hand to the ensign.

"We've not met... I'm Lieutenant Paris, the new transfer. I'd like to meet with you when you come off duty to discuss working together. Might you have some time, Ensign Gonadie?" Paris smiled a winning smile and radiated confident cheer.

Looking up at the woman before her, the brightly colored Miradonian blinked a few times before replying. "Yes! I remember hearing about you!" She then shook Rita's hand enthusiastically and stood up. "I'm close to the end of my shift so there's not long to wait. I've been told I won't have to manage the department anymore and... I'm sorry, I know it's not very Starfleet of me, but I really just want to fly. Managing a department of a drosk of pilots isn't my idea of career goals." The universal translator seemed to have a few issues with a few of her terms, but it did its best. Ensign Gonadie was definitely from one of the more exotic races of the Federation. "My shift ends in about twenty minutes. If you want, we can go through the helm control here on the bridge."

"Ensign Gonadie, that sounds like a marvelous idea," Lieutenant Paris grinned. "No time like the present. Pardon my hover, but let's explore the helm together, you and I."

Over the course of the next few minutes, the two pilots from different eras came together over the one commonality that hadn't changed in 127 years. Pilots still loved to fly, show off, brag to one another and above all, fly. It was a drive in humanity since he beheld the bird, and it had taken them to the stars and beyond. Always there would be those daredevils, those precision flyers, those maniacs at the stick who would push the envelope and redefine what was possible.

As Gonadie went through the Hera's helm control layout, she couldn't help but beam with pride a bit. "The whole panel can be switched to either haptics or light holography if you want, as well, thanks to Intel Command. Also, I helped design this new interface layout just for the Hera during the last refit. I even talked them into adding in something special... Computer, remain on autopilot but activate manual controls in testing mode."

With a chirrup, the computer complied, activating a holographic nav array across the helm, sliding the seat back a few inches, and from the console pillars, a throttle and joystick control pair were moved into place, with holographic control rings forming around them. "This... This is how we fly on my home world. All your engine speed controls are controlled on the left and your attitude controls on the right. You can even control the starboard and port external inertial dampeners separately to do a controlled power slide around spatial anomalies." Grinning at Rita like the... Parrot... that ate the canary... Gonadie couldn't help but see what Rita's reaction would be.

"Ohhh, Ensign Gonadie, you and I are going to get along JUST fine," Paris' eyes lit up and she practically beamed as she took in the setup. "You turned the stately button-pushing flyer into an actual fighter who can do a whole lot more than go through the motions. We're going to have a few long discussions about flight theory and tactics, you and I, because it looks like you most definitely 'get it', Ensign." Paris was dying to try it out, but the Bridge during a duty shift wasn't the time nor place. But this definitely wasn't an option she'd found in her flight sims, and it reminded her that their was no substitute for the live element when it came to instruction.

"If this flies like it looks, I'll keep up with the duty rosters and managing a department of pilots so you can focus on refining... this," Paris reached out and lovingly stroked the console, eyes still dancing with the twinkling holographic lights orbiting the thruster and joystick.

"That would be splendid, Ma'am," Gonadie replied, beaming as her hands rested on the manual flight controls. "Before the refit, I was able to talk the Captain into letting me develop the prototype in a shuttlecraft." Glancing over her shoulder at the XO, she lowered her voice. "Maybe we can talk her into going for a little flight the next time we stop for a bit so you can get some hands on experience with them." With a conspiratorial double lidded wink, the brightly plumed woman smiled knowingly. "Computer deactivate manual flight mode." With a chirrup, the computer complied, returning the helm control to its 'stock' configuration.

"Sim flying is fine but.... yes. We are definitely taking some practical flight time, Ms. Gonadie," Paris murmured out of the corner of her mouth as she watched the controls- which she quite strongly felt were going to become her standard flight configuration- retreat onto the boring flatscreen panels.

"So, it looks like I have some report reading to do, and some duty rosters to make out. Why don't you meet me in my office on deck..." Paris paused to look over her shoulder at the XO and hold up 3 fingers questioningly. That's where it used to be on a ship much smaller, and she hadn't researched it as she'd been mildly surprised to be promoted to chief a few minutes ago.

Gonadie chuckled softly. "The flight controller offices are right off the main hanger deck upper level. I'll have to vacate the office anyway..." Gonadie paused as her relief walked up and she logged out of the helm station so her replacement could log in. "Commander Xustos, with your leave, it seems my shift is over. Permission to vacate the bridge and escort Lieutenant Paris to her new offices?"

"Vacate away," Mal replied. "And Lieutenant Paris, the next time I see you on duty, you will be wearing the current uniform. If you're more comfortable in a skirt, there is an option for that. However I advise, with the expectation that you will take said advice, that you wear pants on most away missions and field work. You're doing great updating your professional skills. Keep up the good work. You're in excellent hands with Ensign Gonadie. Dismissed, both of you."

As the executive officer spoke, Paris smiled, waiting to reply. But with the order to dismiss at the end of the statement, it would be a breach of military etiquette to continue the conversation or offer a reply. Instead, Paris just offered a brief close-lipped smile and a nod of acknowledgment as she led Ensign Gonadie off the bridge.

"I was doing this in a skirt before your grandaddy was wearing pants, sir," she muttered as the turbolift doors closed.

Gonadie chuckled softly as the turbolift started moving. "I don't think any of his people ever wore pants..." was her whispered reply.

"Miss Gonadie, the future is incredible."

Taking in the view of the shuttle bay from the windows of her office overlooking it, Rita Paris had to admit to herself that while she may have left her life, her love and everyone she knew behind, that view might just be worth it. The runabout was even better looking from the outside, the shuttlecraft were still pretty impressive, the hangar itself was three times the size of the old holographic theater and everything in the future was bigger, better and had nicer effects and lighting.

Turning back to regard the colorfully-plumed Miradonian officer, Paris noticed her packing up some of her belongings from the office. "Belay that, Ensign. This office is more than big enough for the both of us."

"You've made some extensive changes to the helm controls, and you and I are going to be working closely on that. I like what I've seen and your devotion to flight control is impressive. You are my assistant chief- just because the Captain promoted me doesn't mean you are completely scot-free. That means it's my job to teach you how to do my job, and for you to help me do mine. So given that I used to hold staff meetings in rooms smaller than this, we'll just be getting you your own shelves and workspace and sharing the office."

Gonadie shrugged. "I could just as easily use the Assistant Chief office, but if you'd prefer I stay here, I can do that too." Mona set her things back down on the desk for now and joined Rita at the observation window. "The main hangar deck spans over half the saucer section and is big enough to house fifteen hundred people in an emergency, if need be. There'd be no room for the shuttles or runabouts, and we'd best get to a starbase fast... but we could evacuate almost any other ship in Starfleet."

The stadium that served as the hangar bay would put a starbase of her day to shame, which meant that the view out her office window was quite spectacular. It was a far cry from the conference room with one small viewscreen Captain Stuart had let her use as second officer. "Yes, Ensign, I think I'd rather have you close when I need you. The assistant gets an office too? It's like they have too much room on these ships and they just don't know what to do with it all." Paris shook her head in amazement.

Pointing towards two of the runabouts, Gonadie continued. "Those are our best two runabouts. The closer one is Selune, which is kitted out for stealth missions and the other is the Captain's favorite, Thor. Frigga and Bast are in the maintenance bays below decks and Danu, our Delta class runabout, is over there." Pointing out the angular ship, the Miradonian couldn't help but grin a little. "I heard that some human named Tom Paris helped design her while marooned in the delta quadrant."

"My grand nephew, apparently." As she spoke, Rita tapped at the PaDD that was seldom far from her hand. "Quite the flyer I hear- nice to know that still runs in the family too. Holy mother of mud, he's older than I am. And married, and he has teenagers... okay, enough of that." Paris looked up from the tablet and shook her head to clear her mind, refocusing on the question at hand.

"So what's the design variance with the Delta class?" One thing Paris was good for was honesty, and admitting that she didn't know something was becoming second nature to her. "I've messed about with the standard runabouts to pilot them well enough, but I'm, curious what improvements has Mr. Paris installed?" Those questing fingers returned to the surface in her hand to seek technical specs as her assistant chief explained.

Gonalie grabbed a PaDD as well and pulled up the specs on their delta class shuttle. "Well, the original was so far ahead of Starfleet runabout design at the time. They used a lot of tech they picked up out there in deep space. Flight controls are manual only. Sensor suite is ripped straight from the Borg. Flight stabilizers are from some other race they ran into. That little ship seriously pushed our designs ahead by like twenty years. The mass production version is toned down a bit to account for the use of Federation only tech, but not by much."

"Warp-streamlined tetraburnium alloy hull, retractable warp nacelles, parametallic hull plating, unimatrix shielding, and a Borg-inspired weapon system, including photonic missiles. I literally do not know what any of that meant, so it looks like I have more homework ahead of me," Paris laughed musically.

Just then one of the maintenance lifts slowly lifted one of the speedboat shuttles up out of the hanger deck floor and a tractor towed it over to a berth by the Thor and Selune. "And the shuttle that just came out of maintenance was our flight control prototype, a type nine shuttle. In the academy, they pack a dozen of us in there for a week for deep space survival training. There are only two seats and the replicator only makes rations and water. They can do warp nine though."

"So basically what I used to drive." Paris muttered, though not under her breath as she so often did. "Except for the warp nine part, of course. This is incredible.... I don't have the context to understand most of these systems yet, but I don't have to be able to build it to fly it. Absolutely fascinating..." The leggy lieutenant pored over the specs for a few more seconds before setting the PaDD down on her desk.

"All right, Ensign Mona Gonadie- you said you'd heard about me, so I'm guessing that means you might have some questions for me, and I have one or two for you. If we're going to work together, then we need to understand one another well as people, as well as officers. So, you love to fly, and it shows. But who are you, how did you get here, why Starfleet, why the Hera?"

Mona shrugged nonchalantly. "The Captain and I were at the Academy together for one, so when it came time to choose the person she trusted to fly her ship, I guess she wanted the only person that could fly better than her. She's a class seven pilot. I'm one of the few that have a class eight pilot license. As for why Starfleet itself... It's the easiest way to get a class nine pilot's license. Finish the control system I showed you and get it pushed to consumer use and I'll have it. I've met all other requirements."

The brightly plumed Miradonian chuckled a bit before nodding to the busty human. "What about you then? I plan on going home to my people a hero, but what about your hopes and dreams? I know history paints you one way, but who are you today?"

"I still haven't looked up Rita Paris in history, so I'm sure I don't know how that all worked out. Today..." Rita's voice drifted off, and when she spoke again, her voice was quiet and subdued. "I was second officer, likely going to be first when the promoted Stuart. I served under the smartest, most capable man in the fleet... the last kolinahr, exploring the galaxy and human experience. I was going t be the first lady captain of a constitution-class starship someday. I had it all and then..."

A small, sad smile moved onto Paris' face. "But that was then, and now... now I'm struggling to find the questions to ask what I don't know in a world that left me behind a hundred years ago. Everyone I knew is dead, and I have some relatives who are and aren't mine out there, to whom I've been dead for a very long time and I'm not even an afterthought. But I'm still a helmsman, a 'flight control officer', and they can't take that from me. So if I've got nothing, I'll start there. I can still fly, I'm a damned fine pilot if I can figure out the systems, and that's what I'll do. My job and my career were always my life anyway... I'll just miss sharing them with the best man I've ever known."

There were a few seconds of silence, then Paris chuckled. "Sorry, Ensign. Forgive an old lady her maudlin sentimentality, but let me know how it is when you reach my age, huh?" The nubile navigator laughed a bit at that, though it wasn't genuine.

Gonadie could only nod solemnly at that thought. "I will, though you may not be around to hear about it. There are a few aboard older than you. Long lived races. Mine can be, though it's rare. I don't think I have the plumage for it, and honesty, I'd rather be immortalized by my deeds than my living for a thousand years like my great great great great... great... so very great... grand aunt."

"Ah... guess that joke doesn't work if you really live that long," Paris sighed, then changed the subject. Dwelling in the past was a literal dead end, because it was inaccessible to her. For now she had things to do. "So since this is flight control, do we have simulators that can be worked on here for testing purposes... you and the captain both mentioned piloting levels. If the old lady's got to adapt to the local technology, then I need to get time in on the sims. And I can't train anyone until I'm familiar with the systems myself. Or is there a flight control simulator that has its own office?"

"Oh yes, we have our own dedicated holodeck with command certification monitoring built in. Any time you want to recertify or attempt to boost your certification, or practice, you may. It's just off of our offices right before the hanger deck control center. It has every known ship programmed into it, including that of the Borg. If you want a real challenge though, you could pilot one of my people's aerowings." Gonadie was grinning that mischievous grin of hers again. "Your assets might not fit too comfortably though."

“Hah!” Paris laughed. “Not unlike EVA suit training. Never held my breath so long in my life,” the curvaceous cosmonaut joked. “For now I’ll settle for being competent with the Hera, and maybe I'll take some lessons on the variety offered once I can do the job I’m assigned here. I’ll be expected to know how to fly anything, so I will- I just have to prioritize. Nobody will respect or take orders from an officer who can’t even do the job themselves. So... any questions for me, Ensign? Anything you’d like to know about me or my perspectives or leadership style? Clearly I prefer open and frank communication. If there is a problem, tell me. If I am skipping protocol, let me know. My pride can’t get much more wounded by what else I don’t know, so just get it out there and say it and I’ll deal with it. Fair?”

"When I have questions, I will always ask them. You will be certain of that, Chief." Mona replied with a nod. "As for your leadership style, I've served under humans before and found the arrangement preferable. Is it safe to assume that you trust your guts more than your brains as they did?"

"Bwahahahahaha!" the comely chief laughed long and hard. "Yes, Miss Gonadie. You may rest assured that is exactly how I operate. And understanding that I think that you and I are going to get along just fine." Rising from her perch on the edge of the desk, Paris gestured to the door. "So now what do you say we head next door, you can take me on a tour of that sweet flight interface you created and we can see if the rusty old antique is still a quantifiable pilot in the 24th century?"

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," replied Mona, smiling brightly as she headed towards the door. "Should we start you with the training wheels or without?"

"Training wheels?" Rita snorted derisively. "What am I, new?"

Mona couldn't help but snicker.

Since coming aboard the USS Hera, Lieutenant Rita Paris had certainly gone through a number of adjustments. But one that had disturbed her was that she didn’t seem to be connecting with the first officer. The horned and goat-legged satyr was a lifeform she’d never encountered before, which did not make him unique in her experience. Most of the lifeforms onboard the Hera were from planets the time traveler had never heard of before arriving in this future time. For all her faults, Paris wasn’t a speciesist- regardless of their planet of origin, a Starfleet officer was a shipmate, and Rita would treat them as such.

Although she suspected that it wasn’t a cultural difference that was causing a lack of a relationship with the first officer. On the USS Exeter, she shared an amazing professional relationship with the first officer, as she spent her time as second officer making the starship run efficiently, with occasional correction or guidance from the calm and logical Sonak.

This was not the Exeter, however, and this was not Sonak. This was Mal Xustos, and he seemed leary of her at best. They didn’t have to be friends, although Paris would prefer to be friends with all of the senior staff as a matter of course. They did have to work together, however, and she wanted to at least do her best to make a connection with her superior. Under ordinary circumstances, Rita would just invite the man to her quarters and cook a meal for him. ‘Emotional bonding and establishment of relationships through sharing a meal- a human tradition’ as Sonak had accurately observed.

This was a professional relationship, however, and Paris didn’t want to give the Commander the wrong impression. Calling him to her office would also send a signal that she did not want to send. So instead she just studied the watch schedule, then made sure she was in the turbolift when the executive officer’s Shift ended. In her gold uniform with her knee boots and sheer black leggings- one of a few points of contention she hoped to defuse with the Commander.

Mal handed off command to the watch officer and headed over to the turbolift when the doors opened, he found Lieutenant Paris inside. He stepped out of the way to let her off.

"I wasn't aware you were due on the bridge now, Lieutenant," he said.

"I am not, sir. I came to request a meeting, and rather than a message thought it better done in person," Paris replied with a pleasant smile.

"Alright," he said. "I have a few minutes. I've been meaning to talk to you anyway. Shall we meet in my Ready Room and share a drink?"

"Sounds like a capitol idea, sir," Paris replied with a winning grin as she strode back out of the turbolift to fall in behind the Commander.

Mal led Rita to his Ready Room and offered her a seat on the couch.

"Have a seat, Lieutenant," Mal said. "What can I get you to drink?"

"Scotch if you have it, sir," the throwback asked as she sat down primly in the gold minidress of which she was so fond, then crossed her black-clad legs. The three inch heel that was an available option to officers in Rita's day was most definitely part of her uniform. It made her already considerable height that much more imposing, plus they made her legs look amazing. Which the skirt showed off, of course.

"May I request your indulgence in a game of give and take, Commander Xustos?" Lieutenant Paris asked politely. "I have been reading and studying, and I am doing my best to fill in 125 years of advancements. 127," Rita corrected herself. "I still have a lot of ground I haven't covered and I will admit, you are some of that ground. Is it rude to ask what planet someone is from in the 24th century?"

Mal chuckled.

"No," he said. He thought about waiting for her to ask, but let her off the hook. "I assume you mean me. I'm from the planet known as Pomtol. Members of my race are called Pomtoli. The males are all satyrs and the females are all Nymphs, Dryads, or Naiads. We were created by Pan, a member of a race of powerful, extremely advanced aliens that once took on the roles of 'gods' in various pantheons on Earth. Much of our culture imitates Earth's Greco-Roman cultures, though we've managed to balance out male/female roles, and other gender issues that many races struggled with for centuries. While there are social and professional roles that one or the other sex tend to choose, no one relegated to a certain role because of their gender. What about you? You're Human. Were you raised on Earth or on another Federation world?"

"Earthling, sir. Born and raised in San Francisco, home of the fleet- a true California girl. I grew up there, learned to surf there, did my schooling there and attended the Academy there back in '51.... oh, right," Paris smirked a bit, chagrined. "Back in 2251. Wow, that really makes me sound desperately behind the times. But it was a great education for its day. Even if warp theory all got completely changed later."

"I enjoyed California when I was at Starfleet Academy," Mal said. "San Francisco was lovely and the California beaches and forests were a treasure. There were lots of small cafes and coffee shops where I could drop in on an open mike night with one of my instruments and perform when I had the time. I even got some regular gigs. Lots of people enjoyed listening to a real live satyr playing instruments from Ancient Greece and Rome that no one at the time knew how to play. Since then, many non-Pomtoli have come to Pomtol to study at our music conservatories to learn the old instruments."

"Impressive. So what drove you to Starfleet? Is there a large presence on Pomtol?" Paris probed, reaching for the offered drink.

"The Federation made contact with my people not too long ago," Mal said. "I wanted to get out and see the galaxy and Starfleet seemed an excellent way to do that. I also wanted to see if any of the other 'gods' had stayed behind when the bulk of them left. We knew that Pan had, of course, and there were rumors, now confirmed as this crew has worked with him, that Hermes had stayed, and when we encountered the Federation, we discovered that Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise had encountered Apollo while on their first five-year mission. Unfortunately, so had Hera, which we discovered long before we encountered the Federation, when a small force of her Amazons and Harpies, and of course her Minotaur shock troops, happened upon Pomtol. We fought them off at great cost. This crew has recently discovered that even the ones who left this plane of existence have returned. While the Federation could benefit from the advanced technology possessed by these faux 'gods', so could her enemies. Even on their own, these 'deities' can be dangerous as they tend to view the rest of us as lesser beings who should worship them."

Mal repressed a shudder when he thought about Hera's Minotaurs, the stuff of nightmares for his people.

"Seems no matter how advanced we become, there's always someone else out there ahead of the curve. And they somehow never seem to be benevolent. So what's the mission at this point?" Paris asked to keep the discussion rolling along.

"At the moment," Mal said. "We're looking into these returned 'gods', checking for signs that they are causing trouble. Considering their level of tech and power, we're only going to confront the ones that represent the biggest threat. Hera is the biggest problem I can think of. Imagine a betrayed and angry wife with near god-like power, one with a long memory and not a lot of forgiveness in her heart. I don't blame her. Being married to Zeus would make anyone crazy, but we can't let her hurt innocents in her quest for revenge."

"Hera versus the Hera. I'm not sure if that's irony or destiny," Paris admitted. "So what's the plan when we find them?"

"Hopefully talk them down," Mal said. "And try to help them become productive citizens of the galaxy. They have much to offer if we can work with them. Some of them, however, will be up to no good and then we'll have to intervene in some way. But Hera..."

Mal sighed.

"She's supposed to be the 'goddess' of marriage and family," he said. "But in practice she's more like the 'goddess' of jealousy and vindictiveness. Her favorite pastime is taking out her anger at Zeus' infidelities on his illegitimate offspring. The 'god' Hermes is one of those. And wouldn't you know it, in addition to being the founder of my race, Pan is also the son of Hermes. Pan also happens to be a satyr, and, in the old days, satyrs were famous for seducing Nymphs, Dryads, and Naiads so they could take advantage of them. At least, those were the stories. In practice the seducing could go either way and while there was more than one broken heart, there were also a lot of very satisfied Nymphs, Dryads, and Naiads. Unfortunately, Hera hates us because we are descended from an illegitimate child of Zeus and because she thinks male Pomtoli run around drinking and forcing ourselves on female Pomtoli. I know it's a thin connection, but that woman is so angry she can't see straight anymore. Her hatred makes her fanatical and her army of Amazons, Harpies, and Minotaurs give her the means to cause a lot of death and destruction."

Mal took a sip of his drink, then continued.

"On Pomtol," he said. "Minotaur are the stuff of nightmares. Behave youngling, or the Minotaur might come for you! They are terrifying. Large, muscular like you wouldn't believe, tough, too. Resistant to energy weapons and even projectile weapons barely penetrate their hide. My people developed frictionless swords and daggers that can cut through a Minotaur. I have two swords and a dagger that are frictionless. Until recently, I'd never used one for it's intended purpose. Then I encountered an actual Minotaur when we rescued Hermes, as well as some Amazons and a Harpy. Thankfully the blades worked."

Mal chuckled.

"I know you know this already," he said. "But never piss of T'Pral. While we were all fighting for our lives, she calmly took down an Amazon like she was nothing and then, equally calmly, shot a Harpy out of the sky with a phaser pistol. She is truly frightening when she puts her mind to it."

"We've met," Paris replied, not mentioning that she'd brawled with, then shot the security chief while the Vulcan had been possessed by the black blood. "So we're just waiting for reports of these beings to pop up? Seems very... reactionary. Have we determined how they draw their power, from where? After all, if they won't listen to reason then it seems like facing them on their own terms is less than optimal."

"Each one can draw power from their ship's power source," Mal said. "If they are in range, and no, we haven't figured out what that range is yet, or if it's the same for all of them or not. Once they set up on a planet, they usually install at least one main generator, and if they've got the resources, they'll set up multiple secondary and tertiary generators, giving them access to a truly mind-boggling amount of power and making it difficult to cut them off from their power sources before they swat us out of the sky with a wave of their hands. The Enterprise defeated Apollo by taking out his power generator. He had only installed one, which was lazy of him. He got too into the role of Apollo and dressed the part too well. Hermes not only draws power from his ship. He also wears and carries several bits and pieces of technology that, even independently of his ship's power source, give him a lot of options when defending himself or dealing with various problems. He's another source of information for us. His ship is faster than anything we've got. It can travel at warp, but seems to also have something comparable to a quantum slipstream drive, one that is far more advanced than anything the Federation has even considered developing. You'll probably meet him soon. You might even get along. He's a pilot. After the other 'gods' left Earth and this plane of existence about 2000 years ago, he stayed behind and wandered the galaxy, working as a courier. An appropriate job for the Messenger God. He was picking up contract work for Starfleet Intelligence under the name 'Bodie'. Completely unaware of his background, SFI gave him the code name of 'Hermes', which I'm sure amused him to no end."

Mal smiled.

"Sorry," he said. "Seems I'm a bit chatty today."

"Not at all, Commander," the lost navigator offered broadly with an expansive gesture. "I wanted to get to know you, and hearing your version of current events most certainly is accomplishing that goal."

Taking a sip of her drink, Paris grimaced slightly. "All these years I drank scotch because the old boy's club of the upper ranks all drank scotch. And romulan ale for those 'special occasions'. But if they offered you a drink, you asked for scotch, because that was what they had and were probably inordinately proud of the label or vintage. So be appreciative." The leggy lieutenant took another sip and sighed. "Never liked scotch, but it seems some old habits are hard to break. So," the gold-clad cosmonaut looked up again, continuing the interview, "I understand that they draw on power sources- do we know how? Is that more application of their technology, or a natural ability? I guess Mount Olympus was one big power station for them? Or their vessel?"

"These are all good questions," Mal said. "Hermes is willing to provide some of the answers, but not all, because that would leave him vulnerable as well. We know they can channel energy through their bodies and do things like hurl lightning to varying degrees of intensity, among other things, or enhance abilities. When within range of his ship, I assume that Hermes doesn't even need his portable tech to move at blinding speeds. Essentially, they can biologically interface with their tech, wirelessly so to speak, perhaps in part like Tesla's theories on supplying power wirelessly."

"Do we have any scans? Do we know if large electromagnetic fields will interfere with their power channeling? Might an EMP affect them, aside from targeting their power source? Has all of this already been tried and it's in a mission briefing dossier somewhere?" Paris took another sip of her drink. Spitballing ideas was always a good idea, at least back in her day, and she was watching Commander Xustos, observing his reactions and getting a feel for the man's command style.

"We don't have enough data on them," Mal said. "Pan wasn't exactly going to tell my people 'hey, this is how you kill me' and Hermes isn't going to come right out and tell us how to kill them or even disable them, because whatever he told us would do the same thing to him. The only Starfleet personnel who have had direct contact with these people, other than us, are Captain Kirk and his crew back in the 22nd Century and that was with one of them, living alone, on an otherwise unoccupied planet with no worshipers and little in the way of infrastructure. My people encountered Hera's warriors, not Hera herself or one of her allies, if the jealous lunatic has any. These faux 'gods' are hardly going to give their soldiers the means to overthrow them. In our recent encounter with Danu, she was able to disable our ship with little apparent effort, and do so in such a targeted manner that we retained key systems, enough to survive, but not enough to do anything. The only weakness we know about is their power sources, which, if you can locate one, can be destroyed. As for an EMP, we've not had the opportunity or reason to use one. Hephaestus seems to be content to work his forge on Magna Roma and be adored and worshiped by his followers there...for now, and besides, we needed his help so attacking him would have been counterproductive. Same with Danu. She hardly would have helped us if we had attacked her, and that's even assuming she doesn't have countermeasures in place to protect her from an EMP. Hermes has been helpful and has presented no threat, so again, no reason to hit his ship or him with an EMP. But, I will ask Lieutenants Vaemyn, sh'Zoarhi, and Rybeena, as well as Commander Jordan to look into the possibility of developing some kind of EMP type weapon that would be effective in this case. Thank you for bringing it up."

"If we can't stop them, at least try to cut them off from their power supplies. Not the worst strategy," Those bright blue eyes lit up and Paris suddenly snapped her fingers. "I read the report! The Enterprise at what, Pollux Four! The ship's surgeon scanned Apollo, and found an extra organ in his chest that he theorized was at least part if not entirely how the being processed power. Have we any good scans of these... gods? I'm guessing there's all sorts of software to interpret scans in this day and age."

"Hermes is the only one we've met in a situation where we could actually scan one since the Enterprise visited Pollux Four," Mal replied. "And he's politely refused to undergo any kind of detailed examination. Besides, we discovered that he's done something to scramble any attempt to scan him without his permission. Again, he's a friendly, and we'd rather not force the issue at the moment."

"Ah," The excitement she'd felt at what counted as a recent report for her, which might be applicable to a modern situation, passed quickly, and Paris swirled the contents of her glass a bit. "Well, something to bear in mind I suppose, moving into the future."

"Speaking of which, we should discuss my uniform, sir. I caught your order on the bridge, but I've special dispensation from the Captain to wear my old uniform here, though she did offer me the possibility of the regular uniform or the blue and white flight suit. I won't bore you with my reasoning, but I thought it best to bring it up in private before you saw me wearing it again. You had me dismissed before I could say a word earlier... reminded me of my father," the throwback chuckled humorlessly.

"Okay," Mal said with a grin. "Well, first of all, I'm too young to be your father, secondly, I'm the wrong species, and thirdly, I apologize if you were offended. I didn't have time to talk right then and it wasn't an appropriate venue for a conversation, anyway. Maybe I should have waited until I had a moment to speak about it, but I wanted to catch you before I forgot. Enalia brought up the issue of your uniform since then. I don't agree with her decision about it and I told her so, but we agreed to see what happens. If your being about to forgo uniform regulations causes a disciplinary problem, if there's enough grumbling about it being unfair, then we agreed that we'd revisit the issue. Or if it becomes an issue on Away Teams. Until then, I won't interfere."

"Well, considering my father died of old age 64 years before you were born, sir, you are definitely too young to be my father... the orders then dismassal though, that was classic Commander Paris right there. He made absolutely sure that I learned to listen and shut up, and that lasted until the day I entered Starfleet Academy." There was a pause while Paris considered her drink, then she looked up to make an admission. "It definitely hit a button there, sir. I've served in commands where a pretty face had nothing of value to say, and orders were snapped off and subordinates dismissed like that and... well, it definitely set a tone for me, and that was part of the reason I asked to meet with you, sir. If it's that sort of command, I'd want to know up front so I could transfer out at the earliest possibility."

"And I have to say, with all due respect, if my old uniform causes a disciplinary problem, we may have bigger issues than a very old lieutenant commander wearing her very old uniform, Commander," Paris observed. "Given the current uniforms, I can't imagine that anyone would be particularly envious, and I have incorporated leggings as the Captain offered as an option. But I will certainly be aware of problems it causes and I will work with the command staff to head off any problems."

"Great," Mal said. "So, tell me more about yourself."

The sudden shift in conversation brought a suspicious look over the buxom blonde's face, but she shrugged seismically and launched into it. "I was born in 2233 at Starfleet Medical. I graduated the Academy back in 2255, and I set out to be a pilot. My father disagreed and arranged for me to be an air traffic controller at Utopia Planitia for a few years until I managed a transfer, and eventually got myself assigned to the USS Constitution, NCC 1700." Paris paused at that to see if the commander had any questions, or if this was all old news to him.

The satyr chuckled.

"Lieutenant," Mal said. "You have a terrible poker face. Get over the uniform thing. It's a difference of opinion. People have those, even Starfleet officers. Besides, it went your way. Take the win. Your father sounds like he was a bit of a control freak. I take it you had a difficult relationship with him?"

That brought a curious expression to the young woman's face, as she drew back a bit. "I... wasn't talking about that? You asked me about myself so I was going along with it...?" Paris sighed and shook her head. "I'm not trying to make this a thing, Commander. Hell, you called me out on the bridge and dismissed me like a child, which was damned embarrassing. So I sought you out off duty to try to talk to you about it, since otherwise it would look like I was disobeying an order you made sure the entire bridge heard you issue, which last time I checked would be less than positive. I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the opportunity to get to know you, and give you the chance to get to know me. I asked you probing questions and waited to see if you were going to ask me anything, and now that you have I'm answering. Why are we not good at communicating, sir? Where am I going wrong with you, Commander Xustos?""

Mal chuckled again.

"Perhaps you're trying too hard?" he said. "I'm sorry if you didn't like the way I talked to you on the bridge, but I hardly 'called you out'. I simply asked you to wear the appropriate uniform. Because I was on the bridge and because I was busy, I wasn't particularly interested in a response from you. I'm your superior officer. Sometimes I am going to give you orders and expect you to obey them without any input. That's called the chain of command. I give orders, you follow them. As for asking you questions, you need to understand I'm not in anyway obligated to take an interest in you personally. That said, I have asked questions about you. The first two you responded to with virtually the same information. The third question you haven't answered. I'm not sure what you want from me, Lieutenant. If you don't either, maybe we need to try this again some other time."

That stopped the blonde bombshell dead in her tracks, and she set her drink down. "I think you hit it the first time, sir. I'm used to very different communication with the first officer, I'm setting expectations in my own mind that are unfair, and projecting them onto you. My apologies, Commander. You're right, you have no obligation to take any interest in me personally- I thought it might help us understand one another and communicate more effectively. And in seeking it out I am creating a SNAFU because of those expectations."

Mal sighed.

"Relax, Lieutenant," he said. "I said I was under no obligation to take a personal interest in you, I didn't say that I didn't want to get to know you. In fact, I'm trying. I'm the XO. There is going to be a certain amount of professional and personal distance between us, but that doesn't mean we can't be friendly colleagues and even friends, if we can manage to get around, over, under, or through whatever seems to be getting in our way. You asked me questions about myself, my people, and the current situation this ship is dealing with, and I answered you. However, contrary to what you might think, I don't only want to listen to myself pontificate. I'd like to learn more about you, if you're willing to tell me. For example, it seems you had a rough relationship with your father. It must have felt very frustrating and demoralizing when your father interfered with your career plans. How did he manage to do that, anyway? If you're willing to tell me, that is."

“Yessir- give and take means just that, right?" The lost lieutenant leaned back in her chair and a snarky little smile settled on her face. "Dear old daddy was big with the boy’s club of the upper echelon. They'd all gone to the Academy together and played golf together and served together. So a few well-placed comm calls and favors called in had my career shuffling until I finally managed to pull in a favor of my own and get assigned to the Constitution. Since he was adamant about me not going on the five-year mission, 'The Commander' hired a mercenary to sabotage the transporter. The idea was to scare me into stepping down and being a good girl, shutting up and doing as I was told. What he didn't expect was that the sabotage resulted in me not reassembling after transport. The beam went nowhere; I vanished from the transporter pad, and after the investigation was declared a KIA.”

When she reached for her drink, there was a tremor in the pilot’s hand that had not been there previously. When she spoke, her voice was not as even nor confident though it was clear that she was trying to mask it with a casual tone, as if it were all academic. “Obviously I didn’t die. Instead, I was trapped by the warp field, and I spent almost the entire five year mission as a warp ghost. I wasn't alive but I couldn't die. I stepped into the dilithium chamber and nothing happened to me. I stood on the hull at warp and it was the same as standing in the mess hall. I was a wavelength of energy tied to the warp field- I couldn’t sleep, eat, talk to anyone or affect the material world. Until an engineering ensign worked out what happened to me.- Ensign Larry Wells, bless his heart. I'll never forget that crazy little engineer.”

“So yessir... frustrating is a word for it.” Raising her glass in a cheer, Paris’ hand was steadier, but still shakier than one would hope to see in a pilot. “So when throughout the course of my service, when I try very hard not to step on a transporter pad, I do have a reason. I used to have a letter from Starfleet Medical, but that was a long time ago.” Paris chuckled mirthlessly at her own little joke.

Mal smiled, raising his glass in response.

"Well," he said. "Rest assured, transporter technology has improved, and so has electronic security. It's much harder to hack a transporter now. It does happen, but that's the exception, not the rule. How long after that were you assigned to the Exeter?"

"You know those officers in Starfleet who could endure that for years, then once reintegrated into matter stand tall, offer a jaunty salute and return back to duty? I wasn't one of those Starfleet heroes," Paris admitted. "Two years in Starfleet Psych back on Earth. I learned a lot about therapy, unsurprisingly. I'm still processing what has happened to me this time around, although with some admitted bumps and bruises." Paris shrugged and gestured to the commander. "Case in point."

"So this isn't your first trip to another dimension?" Mal said, teasingly. "Are you planning on staying here long before you jaunt off somewhere else?"

That got the eyebrows up in a surprised look, then a genuine laugh burst out of the gold-clad lieutenant. Holding up a hand, Paris nodded solemnly. "I can accurately report that this is not the first time I've dimension traveled either, sir- you are more correct than you know!" Standing up suddenly, Paris excitedly talked with her hands.

"So, transporter accident in an ion storm- right, surprise. In the dimension we transposed, the Federation is the Terran Empire, who are anthropocentric conquerors, and I kid you not, every woman's uniform is a skirt that stops below the bellybutton, and a halter top, so bare midriff from here to here." Paris indicated a line beneath her bustline and below her belly button. "Apparently, there I slept my way to the top, and was the captain of the Exeter. It was all so bizarre and twisted. Captain Stuart was in engineering and Ensign Proy tried to assassinate Sonak, then I got poisoned because the officers there advance through assassination. Cheery, right?" A look of anxiety formed as Paris backpedaled. "Maybe not my best choice of topics there..."

"We've had encounters with a so-called 'Mirror Universe'," Mal said. "Not the Hera specifically, not while I've been here, but other ships, bases, and stations. You'll be happy to know that the Klingons allied with the Cardassians and I think the Romulans, though I'm not sure about that one, and over threw the Terran Empire, which had been weakened by Spock's attempts to change it from the inside. The Terrans and their vassal races were enslaved. Then, with the help of a Starfleet captain named Sisko, the Terran Rebellion struck a significant blow to the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. That was some twenty years ago. I'm not aware of the current interstellar political situation. There are so many so-called Mirror Universes, or alternate quantum realities. A new one is created every time anyone in any of the realities makes a choice between one or more options. For example, if I have to choose between A, B, and C, and I choose A, then at least two or three or even more universes are created. There's the one where I chose A, of course, and one where I chose B, another where I chose C. That's not counting the ones where my choices or the choices of others set up a situation where I was never faced with those particular choices, or the ones where I was never born. So if you do go dimension hoping, try to leave a trail of bread crumbs or it's going to be very, very difficult to find you again."

"Turns out there are a lot of theories about parallel worlds. The explanation I like best is that it's all about vibrational frequencies and quantum signatures. That's interesting about how their politics advanced, though. Mirror Universe... that's catchy, I like the sound of that. Thanks, Commander. As for leaving a trail of breadcrumbs..." Paris paused to take a sip of her drink, her hand steady once more. "Sonak figured it all out and posted the results in a study that Starfleet clapped top secret immediately and they put the kibosh on experimenting with transporting over, which suited me just fine. I dislike the feeling of a regular transport- going between dimensions is actually painful."

A trail of breadcrumbs.... somewhere out there Sonak was trying to put together what had happened to her and where she'd gone, bit it was a needle in another haystack entirely, and given that he hadn't found her yet, it was highly unlikely that he was going to do so, ever. Traveling in time he might have solved, but that shuffling of dimensions... Rita put it out of her mind. In the here and now was where she had to live, and here and now she seemed to be making progress building a better relationship with the XO of the Hera, so she focused on that instead of the great empty place in her heart where a solemn-faced alien was no longer to be found. Change of subject, lady.

"How about you, sir? Any wacky 'you wouldn't believe me if I told you' adventures? I mean, I kinda expected you to call bull on that one about the Mirror Universe, but you've actually heard of it. Any oddball experiences like that in your career?" It had actually heartened Paris that the commander had taken her story seriously, as when spoken aloud she realized many of her adventures sounded a bit outlandish.

"Two wars in three years was strange enough," Mal said somberly before lightening the mood with a grin. "However, our the Hera's most recent 'big bad' was an extremely old Iconian demon. We defeated him using weapons made by a being that identifies himself as the Greek God Hephaestus in some places, or, specifically on the planet Magna Roma, as the Roman god Vulcan. To cure the officers infected with his blood, we were to face a 25 meter tall demonic beast that mimicked the form of a giant, fire breathing lizard from an old Earth style Japanese monster film. Apparently, the Celtic god Danu wanted us to face it with a short sword and a spear that Hephaestus had given us, the only weapons we had in our possession that could counteract an Iconian demon's rapid regenerative abilities...or so they thought. I asked Hermes to go to Hephaestus and see if he could procure something special, some kind of back up plan if things got out of hand, which they did, obviously. The 'something special' was a robot in the form of a Spartan warrior, one that could grow in size to match the demonic beast in question, which made the situation even more like an old Earth style Japanese monster film. And don't even get me started on our time travel adventure. I think you'll find that 'oddball' is the gold standard around here."

Those bright blue eyes followed the story and never once gave a hint of disbelief. "Actually, I'd be interested in the time travel adventure if you don't mind indulging me, sir. This is the first time I've become a chronal aberration myself, even in my, ah, well-traveled career. Someone mentioned there had been some time travel aboard the Hera, so I'm curious how that went. Also, is there unclassified footage of that spartan versus Godzilla battle by chance...?"

Mal laughed.

"I don't think anyone was recording that one," he said. "The time travel was a bit problematic. One of our intelligence officers, Chief Warrant Officer Daytona Ral may look young, but he's actually around 422 years old or so. He's have Vulcanoid Rigelian, and that half gives him a lifespan over two hundred years. The other half is El-Aurian and no one really knows how long they live. He joined the crew right before the mission. He was forbidden to share with the rest of the class, but he had a mission of his own. You see, we traveled back to 2160. Daytona was not only alive in 2160, but he was actually at the Orion space station we were infiltrating at the time we were infiltrating it. It's a long confusing tale, but apparently Daytona Ral is part of a time loop slash temporal paradox of some sort. We had to encounter his younger self so that he would pursue the man he was there to kill at the right time. Then Daytona 2395 had to kill the man Daytona 2160 was there to kill. Daytona 2395 had to kill this Orion gangster, who had killed his daughter back in 2160, using the knife Daytona 2160 retrieved from the dead body of the gangster 2395 killed in 2160. Try to follow this: Daytona 2160 finds his target dead and takes the knife he found in the body. He keeps this knife until 2395 and then goes back in time and kills the gangster, leaving the knife behind for Daytona 2160 to find, so Daytona 2160 can hang onto the knife and use it on countless missions, many of those for Starfleet, on which the absence of said knife could have terrible consequences for the security of the Federation, and then in 2395, he can go back in time, stab the gangster, and leave the knife behind for Daytona 2160, and so on, and so forth. There's a whole research team over at Temporal Investigations tasked solely with trying to understand where the knife came from in the first place. Needless to say, running into Daytona's past self without any warning threw the away teams for a little bit of a loops, as did Daytona running off to do a revenge killing in the middle of everything. Worse, we can't really be mad at him for not telling us, because he had orders not to from people with a lot more juice than anyone one we usually deal with. So, our time travel ordeal was a bit trying, but it all turned out in the end. Never a dull moment here on the Hera."

"Predestination paradox," Paris blurted out, then composed herself. "I mean, that's what that is, right? Where you have to go back in time to insure future events that must take place in order for you to travel back and fulfill the role you were meant to pay in the timestream? Not that they were teaching the principles of temporal mechanics at the Academy back in the fifties... wait, let me guess, we do now, eh?"

"Yes," Mal said. "Introduction to Temporal Physics and Introduction to Temporal Mechanics are both currently required courses at the Academy. The reason the eggheads at Temporal Investigations are so worked up of this particular paradox, is that Daytona first saw that knife in the body of the person his future self killed. Then, he kept the knife until his future self could use it and then leave it for his past self to find. So the question is where did the knife come from in the first place? I understand that Enalia looked as though her head was going to explode when Daytona explained the situation to her after the fact. Anyway, this has been a pleasant conversation, one we'll have to continue another time. Is there anything else you need from me?"

"Nossir," Paris rose, smoothing out the skirt of her gold minidress to tug it down a bit out of habit even though she was wearing black leggings. "I wanted to get to know you better, and to give you the chance to get to know me a bit better. I think we've accomplished that, don't you, Commander?"

"Yes," Mal said. "I think we have."

It wasn't often that the class of SF221J was able to link up with the USS Hera since it was assigned to Intel Command after the last refit, but the students were excited today because not only was it parent visit day, but the Captain of the USS Hera had an amazing guest speaker lined up for them. As the kids showed off their projects to their parents, the Captains of the two ships whose children comprised this class walked with Rita and the teacher as she explained what they've been doing since the last time they've been able to do this.

Captain Becker of the USS Speranza was assigned to medical command and since his ship was a Hope class hospital ship, there was little room for families - especially with the missions Command had tasked his group with in the Corridor. The Hera, being a Nebula class ship that no parent in their right mind would take anyone under the age of consent aboard, was in a similar situation. Neither had enough for a full class, but together they could form a full multi-grade level class so they became one of several of the classes at the new Dynametrix Array's Starfleet Elementary. It was designed and built for full holodeck telepresence of entire classrooms across the quadrant so that from any suitably outfitted ship parents and Captains can visit the classrooms of the ship's children as if they were there.

"The children have been working hard the past few weeks on an upcoming project involving First Contact day and what it means to them. As you both know, pretty much every race in the Federation holds the day they made first contact with another being outside their own race with special significance and The Federation holds a celebration of this in a few days time." As the Trill-Vulcan teacher Misses V'Stol explained, she motioned to the various projects and children as they showed them off to their parents. "I have been quite impressed with the creativity of the entire class. They've been more emotional than most educators would like, but I've found that expression of one's self at these ages helps children to discover who they are and promotes forward thinking in future endeavors. Thus you may find a few... Complaints... Filed against our class by the other classes for noise and impassioned outbursts. I support the class in every one of those complaints."

Enalia couldn't help but grin a bit wryly as Captain Becker scowled a bit. "That's not exactly going to help them in Starfleet Academy..." Then he sighed heavily, his eyes closing as he thought it over. "But it is a good leadership trait if they have good judgement."

"I agree. If they follow their hearts and know the regulations inside and out..." Enalia paused to wave one hand around in a circle a bit. "And know the loopholes... It sounds to me like we have a class of students full of creatives that will take the initiative in any endeavors they pursue." Enalia knew full well what would happen if they didn't know the material well enough when they made some noise about it.

Captain Becker scoffed at Enalia's comment and couldn't help but grin himself. "This coming from the infamous second Captain in history to cheat at the Kobayashi Maru test and get away with it scott free? I still want to know how you did it, by the way."

"Family secret," Enalia replied, looking for a way to change the subject and dragging Rita in front of her. "Have you met Lieutenant Rita Paris? She's the guest speaker I brought. She's from over a hundred years ago and another dimension. Did you bring a guest speaker? Are they in that sample container I spied earlier? Fascinating..."

"I... No... I..." Captain Becker was at a slight loss for words, and tugged down on his uniform top as Enalia grinned. "It's full of an ambiplasma gel we found on a demon class planet. I'm the guest speaker."

"Ah well. I'm sure that'll be very fascinating. Children do love slimy things, after all." Enalia was just glad she finally had someone/something she could actually share with the class. Every mission lately had been so classified none of it could be shared and finally, she'd been able to wipe that smug look off of Captain Becker's face and it gave her goosebumps. "I owe you," She whispered into Rita's ear As the teacher, Missus V'Stol called the room's attention to the head of the room for the trio.

"My pleasure, Captain," Paris strode into the center of the Dynametrix Array, pausing to look around and silently confirm that she was in the right spot. Then looking out over the students, she draped her hands lightly on her hips and smiled that million-watt smile that made her look like a vintage Starfleet recruitment poster from 130 years ago.

"Hello students! My name is Lieutenant Rita Paris. I was born in the year 2233. You use a stardate in this dimension I really can't seem to grasp as yet- so be a better student than me!" Paris mugged, and got a few chuckles. "I tell you this because the relevance comes into play from when I entered Starfleet Academy. You see, the year was 2251. Who can tell me the significance of that year?"

While several hands went up, a few brave souls called out some answers. "Captain Garth of Izar won the Battle of Axanar!" "Captain Christopher Pike started his first five year deep space mission on the Enterprise!" "The Dramian plague wiped out all but one colonist!" "Ambassador Spock graduated Starfleet Academy!" The varying responses really showed the priorities of the crews of the two ships. One looked up to role models in combat and exploration, and the other through peace and medical research. They could not have been paired better for their studies and the debates the children of the two crews would have in the future would certainly be epic.

"All correct, and excellent answers!" Paris herself had planned to bone up for this so that as the resident expert and storyteller she wouldn't get anything incorrect. But the best of intentions had collided with time in the simulator and duty rosters and meetings and life aboard a starship where she was looking things up half the time. "In the case of this particular tale, we turn to a footnote in an illustrious life. Because you see, someone else was born the same year as myself. And that illustrious personage entered Starfleet Academy that same year- the start of a career that would change the shape of the galaxy. We called him Cadet James T. Kirk."

The ancient astronaut paused to see if Jim Kirk was as popular amongst the young people these days as she figured he'd be.

Everyone seemed to recognize the name, but the older students looked a bit nervous and a couple glanced at each other and mumbled the year "2252."

"If you haven't worked out a reference point for my calendar, it is reasonable to assume that the cross-dimensional variances should align themselves." Paris snapped her fingers and shook her head, chagrined at herself. "Right, I forgot to mention that part. I'm not only a time displacement victim, I'm also a trans-dimensional accident as well. So similar unfolding of events, but histories are not necessarily completely accurate. So what I tell you may be thoroughly factual from my perspective. And a Rita Paris was born on the same date as myself here as well. So the story that I am about to tell you is historical fact to me. But in your universe it might just be a tall tale. Fair enough?"

While she wasn't exactly great with kids, Rita was hoping that being honest with them would help.

The kids looked happy enough with that. They enjoyed a good story and were curious about everything and with a cross-dimensional AND time traveling sentient in front of them, they were as good as hooked.

Enalia couldn't help but interject a little as the excitement and curiosity built in the children's eyes. "Everyone, Rita, from what we've been able to extrapolate, is from a parallel dimension where in our time, Romulus was destroyed so a rogue captain went back to her time, destroyed Vulcan and wreaked havoc on the Federation, and because of this there are quite a few differences from her timeline and ours. A year difference for James Kirk entering the Academy is not entirely out of the question. I'm sure he was still the great and adventurous explorer we know and love in her universe as he was in ours. The stories might just be a little different." With that, she conceded the floor again to Rita, glancing back to Captain Becker. He was maintaining his professionalism, but she knew she'd finally beat him at Captain's Day and he knew it.

One of the student's hands shot up. "Did Kirk still beat Kahn and the Kobayashi Maru in your universe?" These were two of his best known achievements, so of course they would have asked about them at some point. The rest of the class waited attentively for Rita's answer.

Pointing to the inquisitive mind who couldn't wait to ask the question, Rita answered his question cheerfully. "Ohhh yes he did, in both cases. Youngest starship captain in Starfleet history- until that point- he beat the Gorn captain on Cestus III at the direction of the Metrons, and beat Khan when he tried to take over the Enterprise. His accomplishments included the saving of the Phylosians from extinction, despite it being a violation of the Prime Directive, along with his saving of the Baezians and Chenari, and a record-setting number of first contacts. In his day, James T. Kirk served United Federation of Planets through Starfleet as an explorer, soldier, time-traveler, and diplomat. "

As the kids cross-referenced the factual accuracy of what she was saying, Paris hoped history had played out similarly here, but she had covered her bases pointing out that she was from another dimension, after all, so things might have unfolded differently here.

"But today we're going to focus on the portion of the great captain's career-"

"Admiral," One of the students piped up.

"Oh, did he make admiral? That's not surprising," Rita took the correction in stride- what she didn't know could and did fill volumes, and she was getting used to being corrected constantly. "But for the purposes of this class, we'll be focusing on his early days, and his first great accomplishment- the Kobayashi Maru. Because I wasn't there for all of those other accomplishments- but Jim Kirk and I were classmates at the Academy, and I was there in the simulator the day he beat the Kobayashi Maru."

Once again, Paris paused to let that settle in and build some excitement for her tale. Usually, this was one that she told junior officers when they needed a little bonding common ground, but teaching children whose parents weren't born when Kirk had crossed the galaxy seemed like an appropriate substitute.

That little tidbit caught not only the children's attention but the full attention of both Captains and the teacher as well. Especially as how he had done it was one of the best kept secrets of the Academy. Even though Enalia had done it as well, she used a far different method to do it and it wasn't technically cheating on her part, which is how she had gotten away with it.

"Now, in our first year at the Academy, it was pretty standard- a little hazing from the upperclassmen like misdirection to classes and sending cadets hunting for nonexistent items, tons of classwork and a lot of PT and self-defense courses. Does Starfleet still teach judo?" Paris glanced over her shoulder to Captain Telvan, and once she got the nod of confirmation she proceeded. "While I'm sure it has changed in the past hundred and thirty-odd years, back then the principles were the same. Learn basic astrogation so that no matter where you ended up, you could locate the center of the galaxy and navigate from that fixed point. Duotronic relay use, repair and theory so that you could work on any modern ship in the fleet to effect repairs when things went wrong. Survival courses in all sorts of weather conditions from the Gobi Desert to the glaciers of the south pole."

"I know- it's probably all very different now, and feel free to look up those differences. But the similarities were the camaraderie and the espirit de corps that existed. We all got to get to know one another, we helped and supported one another, and we carried, dragged and motivated one another to get through. We heard lectures from the famed historian John Gill, and even Dr. Korby was teaching at the Academy when we attended. Whose names you probably don't know, but again, feel free to look them up. But let's get to the good part, right?" Paris winked at the class, as she knew she'd lose them if she diverted too far from her subject.

"I met Jim Kirk at the end of the first week of the semester. He was handsome- that, history gets right, and he was very charming when he wanted to be. And he was quite the ladies man, always with that smile and those beautiful eyes of his and that wavy hair." Rita paused to cough into her hand as she blushed a bit. "But he was noble, as I found out. You see, there was an upperclassman named Cadet Sean Finnegan, and he took an interest in me that was not mutual. He was a crass boor, who thought he was very funny, loved to play mean practical jokes and really, he was just a bully. I'm guessing those still exist in the modern day even with as far as we've come?" Paris' expression was one of chagrined regret as she looked out over the collective virtual classroom.

Most of the kids looked a bit confused at a few of the words as they didn't really know what they meant, but having grown up in a different environment Enalia did, so she translated for them. "He was mean, violent, and likely laughed at the misfortunes of others rather than coming together to help each other. This goes well beyond saying someone has a funny looking nose ridge or weird spots." That got the point across at least, and realization dawned on a few of them just how much had changed over the past hundred years or so in the Federation to where they couldn't imagine what kind of man this was she was talking about if it was far worse than that.

A pleasantly surprised expression registered on the face of the throwback dimension-hopper. "Well I'll be darned... kids today don't know what a bully is. Look at the bright future of the Federation.. good for all of you." Paris shook her head and inhaled deeply. "That's a very good thing. So, there was such a personage, and he was a bit unkind. And one day he decided to single out Cadet Sylvia Pike, as she was walking across the quad from Astronavigation 101 to Scanning 101. This one involved how many jokes he could make about her weight before she could cross the quad. Classy act, our Cadet Finnegan."

The children looked generally displeased with the way this story was going - likely because Cadet Finegan wasn't taking other people's feelings into account for his actions or apologizing when it was obviously hurtful. They continued listening to the story, though it pained them. Enalia, having grown up with pirates knew this sort of story all too well, however, and had an idea of where it was going. A hint of a lopsided grin crept onto her face.

"Now, Finnegan was very loud and boisterous because he wanted attention for his antics. So Jim Kirk caught on to what was happening, and he got in Sean Finnegan's way. He didn't take an offensive action, he just interposed himself between Finnegan and Pike and refused to budge or let Finnegan by. When he started insulting Kirk, Jim Kirk gave as good as he got, which just frustrated the upperclassman that much more. And when the first punch flew, it wasn't Kirk who threw it. Jim took quite a beating until security broke it up." Paris paused for effect to look around at her audience. "But Cadet Pike got to class and did well on her navigational scanner test. And just like he figured, Cadet Finnegan focused his efforts for the rest of the year on the one cadet who had defied him and gotten him in trouble- Cadet Kirk."

"You see, Kirk knew that would happen, and he did it anyway. To protect others by bringing the danger to bear upon himself. That was who he was, at his core. And I could forgive all of the lame come-ons and incessant hounding that Kirk hit me with because I knew deep down he had a good heart, and he was a good guy." The blonde bombshell paused to look down at her feet fr a few seconds before looking back up. "Plus he had dated half of our class by the time we made it to the final exams of our Freshman year, so that made him a lot easier to turn down." Raising a finger in the air, Paris addressed the teacher.

"Is this appropriately censored for the age group?"

"Everyone here has already had sexuallity awareness training," Replied Misses V'Stol, the Vulcan-Trill teacher for the joint class. "You may proceed."

"Well, we'll work on keeping it kid-friendly for my sake then," Paris muttered, then she sighed and drooped her head a bit. "Now comes the part where I have to admit- last semester, headed out to the fleet upon graduation, I had just taken on way too much. I had intramurals with cross-country, I was secretary of the student government, I had doubled up Engineering 2 with Xenochemistry because I was ambitious, and I believed in myself. And sleeping three hours a night."

"Not that it excuses my behavior, but I was not alone. There were five of us who had stretched ourselves too thin that semester, and the closer commencement loomed, the higher the odds rose that we weren't going to be able to pull off the grades. We were going to flunk our senior year at Starfleet Academy because we had gotten too ambitious. And that night in the quad, we were all taking a moment to commiserate upon that fact. Over pizza and root beer we analyzed our actions to see where we had gone wrong, unaware that someone was eavesdropping." Rita paused for dramatic effect, looking around to insure that she had the student's attention. "At least, until he stood up and spoke."

"It was Kirk, and he pointed out there was a way out that we hadn't considered, because no one had ever done it. If you passed the Kobayashi Maru, then you passed your courses, no matter what your other grades may have been. It was written into the rules, you see, because it's the unwinnable scenario- but they still wanted you to try. Get it?" Paris looked around to make sure the rails she was setting this story on were getting train cars on them.

Several of the kids nodded, accepting this as how it was. It made sense and lined up with what they knew, after all. Even the two Captains were being drawn into the story.

"So Cadet James T. Kirk suggests to us that we beat the unbeatable scenario. That we find a way to cheat the death of our careers by doing the impossible, which seemed like he was making a joke at our expense, and we heard no more of it. We went back to the grind of desperately trying to pull our grades up while we watched commencement day loom closer and closer." Tension built, Rita reintroduced the hero.

"What we weren't paying attention to was Cadet James T. Kirk. He took the test the first time, and failed like everyone else. But he was studying- working the comms panel he got a feel for the system and the linkages, learned the script and saw the timing of it all." The gold-clad commander paced a bit, wagging her finger as she spoke. "The first time was a scouting run, and Kirk applied what he'd learned. There were rumors that he conned some pretty technician or that he found someone clever enough to reprogram the simulation. But neither of those are true. After working that comm panel the first time, he came back a second time to insert his own little trojan worm, a simulation reprogramming that couldn't be triggered until the simulation program had rebooted. Which would happen as soon as the signal was sent that would start that reboot sequence... which he would send on his third try."

"None of us were paying attention to all that, of course. Nobody even understood why Kirk wasn't grandstanding in the center seat, taking a comms position for an important test. You wanted to sit in the command chair, you sat center stage at the Kobayashi Maru. But the night before his third try, he gathered us up in the quad again, because he was buying the pizza and root beer. Then he explained to all of us that he was going to beat the test tomorrow. All of us had taken it once, failed and been done with it, but he pointed out that we were allowed three tries. So we were all still eligible to try again. If he beat it and we were taking the test with him, we would all pass and graduate."

Enalia had surmised that that was how he had done it but wasn't sure. Thankfully her gamble had paid off and had NOT done it that way. Instead she had linked the simulation to external sensor feeds and gotten her family's pirate fleet involved. It had taken her three tries as well and she had to hack in through the simulation's waste reclamation system... But on the third try, she had initiated a warp shutdown, which triggered a cascade failure and resync in the simulator, and that had given her the means to call in backup from her family's pirate fleet based on probe data linked to the simulator's sensors. She then had them wipe out not only the initial Klingon attackers, but the reinforcement wave after that as well as the dreadnaught that they had thrown in for good measure. Grinning, Enalia knew just how hard that test was, even in Kirk's day. The Artans were not a family to give up easily though.

Captain Becker was the first to speak up. "So I assume that you and the others all decided to join him in the simulator for that third time? Even though you knew that failing it a third time would hurt your grades and that there was no way to win it. On top of that, getting caught cheating..."

A soft murmur went through the classroom at Captain Becker's words. The class was definitely hooked.

"Hey now!" Rita Paris pointed a finger at the starship captain, her brows knitted. "Nobody said anything about cheating. Jim never told us how he was going to beat it, just that he was positive he could win the no-win scenario. We had nothing to lose, and if by some miracle Kirk actually managed to beat it, then our careers and our grades would be saved."

"So there we were, the morning of the test. There were always lots of spots open for bridge crew, because a lot of cadets wanted to see it without the pressure of being in the hot seat. If cadets didn't fill those positions, Starfleet personnel or instructors had to sit in, so they were always happy to see a cadet take a turn. All five of us took our seats, though not at comms- Cadet Nyota Uhura had claimed that position. Cadet McCoy claimed navigation, so all that were left were auxiliary positions, and we took them around the outer edge of the bridge. Jim Kirk swaggered in like he was the admiral himself, dropped himself casually into the command chair, then the simulator sealed."

The kids were practically on the edge of their seats by this point, and even the teacher was listening intently.

"Of course it started with the distress call, which Uhura reported to Kirk, who corrected her, pointing out that she should address him as 'captain'. When McCoy reported that two Klingon vessels had entered the neutral zone and were locking weapons, James T. Kirk said, 'that's okay'. When McCoy pressed him on it he said 'yeah, don't worry about it'. So at this point," Paris broke the tension, "we figured we had been pranked and Jim Kirk had fed us this whole line about beating the test to jerk our... to tease us."

"Then three more birds of prey decloaked and targeted our ship. They started firing, and Kirk, out of the blue, orders Uhura to alert the medical bay to prepare to receive all crew members from the damaged ship. Now Uhura, she really did not love Kirk's smug attitude, and the ladies man bit didn't thrill her either. In the middle of the simulation, as if this were the bridge, mind you, she says to him, 'and how do you expect us to rescue them when we're surrounded by Klingons. Captain'." You could hear the air quotes around the word 'captain' as Paris relayed the tale."

"Jim Kirk swivels in the command chair, gives her this patient little smile and repeats, 'alert medical' Uhura turns in a huff, that long ponytail of her just swishing behind her like the tail of a very angry pony. So Kirk," Rita paced a bit in the small space marked off for her telepresence to be beamed out, speaking a bit with her hands. "He isn't firing back. He didn't even raise the shields. He just, and I kid you not, pulls an apple out from behind him and starts eating it. Not a care in the world, our Cadet Kirk as the Kobayashi Maru Klingons rain destruction down upon us."

"Then the screens all flickered and everything went offline," Paris stopped pacing, looking out at her rapt audience. "It took about three seconds... just enough time for that trojan program to reboot the simulation and bring Jim Kirk's program online instead. That order to alert medical was the key to triggering the entire scenario, you see- that's why he did it and that's why he insisted Uhura follow his order. Suddenly the Klingon's shields were down, and with three carefully and casually placed photon torpedoes, the Klingon threat was over, the simulation unlocked, and we'd just been witness to the winning of the unwinnable scenario."

Even if it hadn't been exactly the same in this universe, it was close enough to have entertained the class to no end. Even Captain Becker was awestruck.

"Now, there was the whole ethics board convened to determine if Kirk had cheated by reprogramming the simulator. But Starfleet saw the potential, and instead of kicking him out, and subsequently flunking out myself and four others, they gave him a commendation for original thinking. So he went on to become James T. Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise, and go down in history." Paris smiled at the assemblage, because apparently whatever universe you were in, everybody loved Jim Kirk. "But the part the history books don't tell you is that he beat that test for a few reasons. He beat it because it wasn't fair, and that didn't sit well with Kirk. He beat it because he didn't like to lose. But he also beat it to save five of his shipmates from flunking out. I know, because I was there that day when he made history... and that was the day James T. Kirk saved me."

The class actually applauded, and at that, Paris took a bow. It probably wasn't appropriate classroom conduct, but it definitely signaled the end of the story. Rising, she waved. "If you kids want, I'll come back sometime and tell you what it was like working with duotronic relays and piloting a starship with rocker switches. Meanwhile, for homework write a thousand word essay on your favorite Captain Kirk mission and why!"

Waggling her fingers gaily as she departed, Paris murmured to the projection of Captain Becker, "They're all yours, Captain."

Misses V'Stol even had a hint of a smile. "Thank you Miss Paris for that amazing rendition. We look forward to seeing you again, though once Starfleet Academy gets wind of you, you may be chairing seminars for them for a time. Captain Becker, if you please."

"Ah, yes," Grabbing the bio-containment canister, he headed to the head of the class and began his presentation. A thrilling tale of the USS Speranza discovering a new demon class planet with an ambiplasma gel that had certain healing properties to it that could advance medical science several years.

Poking Rita in the ribs, Enalia whispered to her. "Let's leave them and let them have their time together. There's nothing after this but more personal time between the kids and their parents anyway. Unless... you want to learn about the goo?"

"I dunno Captain... I've traveled in time, space and dimension. I'm kind of hard to impress, so that would have to be some pretty amazing goo."

Ensign Gonadie was in charge of night shift again and that meant she got to be called Captain for a full 8 hours and sit in the Captain's luxurious chair, center stage. That also meant she was fully responsible if anything bad happened on her watch. Hence why she took the job very seriously, even though night shift was the most relaxed shift on the ship. The lights were dimmed, everything was in standby, no one expected anything of the bridge crew... But Mona knew better. 750 lives and the ship itself counted on them to be vigilant in their duties.

They wouldn't be vigilant enough.

When you're traveling through seemingly open space at warp 8, you don't think much can go wrong. Modern long range sensors, especially on a heavily tweaked and modified Nebula class starship can detect even the slightest variance in space.

Or so they thought.

"Captain, I'm picking up something..." came the call from the crewman from Operations. It was too late though. The ship struck something hard, knocking it out of warp and bringing it to a dead stop almost faster than the inertial dampeners could react and causing the structural integrity field generators to literally scream in protest, the deck echo bars reverberating throughout the ship like a wounded beast.

"Report!" Mona demanded, clinging to the command chair for dear life so she wouldn't go flying into the view screen. A continuous, pervading roaring noise could be heard as well, which made the whole experience less than pleasant.

Ila Dedjoy happened to also be on night shift and was at the science station. "I'm rerouting the pod sensors! The data's coming in now!" It would take her several long seconds to process what she was looking at while several other consoles sparked around the bridge. "We've run into a dark matter ion storm! We won't be able to form a stable warp bubble until we're out of it!"

Then the crewman at engineering finally had a report. "We're dead in the water, Keptin! Engines offline! Shields offline! I think I kin get the shields working, but i nae kinnae get the warp drive going!"

"Just get us shields for now! We can worry about engines next!" Mona knew she had to at least shield the ship and crew before worrying about getting them out of it.

After a few more seconds, the roaring died down and faded out to almost nothing. "There, I think I have it, Keptin. Shields are at seventy two percent and holding."

That would do for now. Mona pressed the ship wide alert and intercom. "All hands, this is the bridge. We have encountered a dark matter ion storm and this is what has caused the recent disturbance. For the time being, please refrain from excessive energy consumption and report to your stations for further instructions. Bridge out."

Mona then steeled herself for the next thing she needed to do. Brief the senior staff on how the ship got broken on her watch.

Funny thing about a starship. Everyone was on some sort of duty roster. Everyone was wearing a communicator, so that the sensors could easily track them. It was a remarkably simple matter to locate someone if you were determined. And at this point, Rita Paris had become determined.

Standing outside Akira Zhuri's quarters as she approached them, the blonde-haired gold minidress-uniformed officer waited, leaning against the wall as if she were just casually waiting for someone. As Akira approached, the human woman looked up with a smile.

"Miss Zhuri? I'm Lieutenant Rita Paris. I think we might have a few things to discuss."

"Hn?" Akira had almost missed seeing the strangely garbed human standing outside her door, so great was her distraction. "Oh, uh, discuss? Okay," the blue-skinned hologram said with a soft-spoken timidity as she unlocked her door. "Please, come in," Akira offered in a subdued tone as she entered her quarters. The room was not decorated, the only personal things worth noting were some books on a shelf and a cat tower for her kitten to play one, though the kitten herself was conspicuously absent.

Another thing worth noting was that there was a second fair-skinned Akira standing in a corner, her eyes closed seemingly in slumber; losing control of her android body on Danu's world had frightened the young photonic life form, so she shed the body until her fear abated. "What did you wish to discuss?" Akira asked as she moved on auto-pilot to the dining table to make some tea for her guest, only to realize after she'd started the kettle that she herself could not drink the tea as she currently was.

"Are... you okay, miss?" the lost navigator asked, taking the fact that the civilian who was for some reason the ops chief was blue, which hadn't been in her personnel file- not that there was anything in her file to be found particularly, but there was at least a portrait- and there seemed to be another one of her standing in the corner who was not blue. For the fish out of water, this was all starting to look like a bad idea in the making. "I can come back later if you'd prefer...".

"I- I'm sorry, I seem to be a bit preoccupied," Akira said, staring at the kettle. "The planet we had recently visited, it was not a nice place... No, that's not right, it was a nice place, but something very unpleasant happened there, and I seem to be unable to think of anything else." Another moment passed and she closed her eyes to try to banish the memory; whether she had succeed or not was up in the air, but when she looked at Rita she at least appeared to be more focused. "You said you were Rita Paris? You're the new pilot, right? Uh, and the talk, yes... we can talk now. What is on your mind?" Akira asked as she made tea for Rita.

The woman... person's distress was plainly evident, and it looked to Rita as though right now she needed counseling far more than a 'hey, I hear I come from the same universe as you' chat. Mentally she made a note to send a missive to Sickbay and see if there was someone who specialized in PTSD, or whatever they called it in the future.

"Nothing... it's nothing. Clearly you've already got a lot on your plate and I don't want to disturb you," Paris worked to extricate herself from the situation. Ordinarily she might try to help, but this individual was most definitely outside of her experience and she suspected outside of her pay grade, and just her luck she'd end up causing more harm than good trying to offer an ear and a shoulder. "We can always talk another time when you are less... preoccupied."

"Oh... Okay," Akira replied with a hint of disappointment; normally, Akira loved meeting new people so she could expand her experiences, and for a moment she had hoped that a nice chat would help bring her out of her stupor, but Rita was right, she was far too preoccupied. "I, uh... I think I need to..." But what did she need? "Counselor, I should go see the Counselor..." she finally said with some resolve. "I am sorry we didn't get to talk, but it sounded important, so maybe... maybe later?" Akira offered with a sad smile.

"Yeah, no, nothing important," Paris lied fluidly, shoving aside her own concerns and problems in a time-honored Paris tradition.

"Talking to the counselor sounds like it might be a good idea, though," Paris replied, noting that apparently there was a counselor position now, which she assumed would be under the heading of Sickbay. She'd likely benefit from some time with a mental health professional herself. "Did you need someone to walk you down there?"

"That... that's very thoughtful, thank you," Akira said softly. Forgetting entirely to clean up the tea on the table, she headed for the door. "I am sorry about all this," she said in an apologetic tone as they walked. "I'm normally not so scattered, but I've never... I mean, I- I'm not yet a year old, and while I have experienced some terrifying things in that year, this was... something else, and I do not know that the right words exist to express what I feel. Have... have you ever felt anything like that?"

Less than a year old, a civilian and she's the Ops chief? What in the absolute hell?!? Internally Rita boggled at how all of this might have come to pass. But a gentle, sad smile settled onto the face of the extroverted explorer as she moved to the door to accompany the bewildered being. Rita had spent four years as a warp ghost, completely isolated and alone, and that was before she'd been hurled through time and dimension to come here. Experiences outside the ability to express one's feelings were very familiar to her. "Yes, Miss Zhuri. I most definitely have felt like that on more occasions than I'd care to admit. Come on, let's get you somebody to talk to who can help you process what you've been through, huh?"

The urge to wrap her arm around the smaller being to offer some degree of comfort was there, but who knew how she might react to that. For Rita, physical reassurance worked great on her, since she had spent so much time immaterial. But that wasn't everyone's experience, and the last thing she wanted to do was exacerbate the situation. Instead she just kept pace with the infant life form as they made their way to the turbolift.

"Thank you," Akira said with a grateful smile. They came to a lift and shuffled on, and Akira directed it to the appropriate deck to set it in motion. "I wish Daytona was awake..." she continued with a wistful sigh. "Oh, sorry, Daytona Rahl is a Warrant Officer in Intel, and he is my boyfriend, and... he is recovering from recent events. I did not mean to sound ungrateful for your company, but normally he makes me feel better when I am sad; he holds me and makes me feel like everything will be alright... N-not that I would ask a total stranger for a hug, it's just that I am finding it difficult to function without that assurance." Then her cheeks flushed a violet hue when she realized she was rambling.

This, however, seemed like something she could understand, so Paris took a gamble, as she always did in such moments. Leaning over she wrapped a shoulder around the slight frame of the photonic personage and gently offered her a side hug. If this ended her up in the captain's office so be it- the kid sounded broken and terrified, and it was a feeling Rita Paris knew all too well from personal experience.

"Sometimes we just need to reassure ourselves that we exist, that we're here, that other people acknowledge us, and that we matter," Paris offered.

Akira may have been photonic, but she felt solid and warm in the way a real person felt, and the texture of her hair felt realistically soft, her uniform felt real... Most people who met Akira rarely had any idea she was photonic until she mentioned it or decided to blink elsewhere on the ship. And for Akira, the feel of Rita's arm around her was a welcomed balm, as were her words, which soothed an existential worry that ached within Akira.

"Thank you," Akira said, turning hesitantly to put her arms around Rita; if this had been a few months ago, she might have started crying, but she had grown much recently, matured, so she would hold in the flood of tears that threatened to fall, at least until she got to the Counselor's office. "I keep needing to thank you, and now I feel extra bad about all this; you came to me needing to talk, yet I'm the one coming unraveled..." she confessed.

"Hey, it happens," Paris chuckled. "My issues aren't going anywhere, trust me. And it sounds like you could use a shoulder to lean on and a sympathetic ear. I may not know exactly what you've been through, but I'm willing to listen. And I might understand more than you'd expect.... so lay it on me if you wish, or I can just keep mum and let you talk about it with a counselor. Entirely up to you, ki- uh, Chief." Rita had to stop herself from calling the young being 'kid'. It didn't help to be spoken down to in such moments, and compared to her, everyone was a kid these days. Bad enough when I was just five years younger than I looked...

If Akira noticed the slip, she didn't remark on it. The lift came to a stop and let them out. "I really do appreciate that," Akira said, stepping away with a sad, meek smile to continue their trek. "Although I really should see the Counselor; maybe I should take a few days off, get myself right before I try to go back to work," she mused aloud as they walked. The Counselor's office wasn't far from the lift, so just as she finished speaking she could see the door coming into view, as well as the door console which read 'In Session - Do Not Disturb'. "Oh... Guess I'll have to wait a bit..." With a sigh, Akira accessed the console to 'pencil' herself in for the next available session, then she looked to Rita.

"Is that offer for a sympathetic ear still good?"

The smile that dawned on the face of the gold-clad cosmonaut was genuine and warm. "Sure. How about we find someplace quiet with a nice view, and you can lay your problems on me. No judgment, no condemnation- you can tell me what you think and how you feel and I promise I won't think any less of you. And so long as it doesn't endanger the ship or anyone's life, including your own, it doesn't have to go any further than me." Somewhere out there the ghost of Dr. Parnassus, her old therapist back at Starfleet Psych, would be proud of her, Rita mused. Can't say I didn't learn a little from all of our sessions, Doc. Look at your crazy old patient paying it forward...

"A view?" Taking the suggestion quite literally, Akira thought for a moment. "Well, there is a small observation deck nearby that often gets used as a break room for the medical staff; at this hour, no one should be in there," she offered, then started walking as Paris strode beside her, moving with a martial stride but slowing it down for the civilian.

"So, if the 'not yet a year old' bit didn't already get your attention, I'm not a normal person..." Akira started awkwardly as they made their way through the corridors. "I'm actually a photonic life form, kind of like the Emergency Medical Hologram, although under normal circumstances the EMH wouldn't be recognized as an independent individual like I am; you see, unlike other holograms, I am truly sentient, not just an Artificial Intelligence. It helped that my creation was quite unique, I was made from another hologram that was once a living, breathing, biological being..." Akira trailed off, briefly lost in thought as the pang of longing for her father hit her hard.

"Anyway, like the EMH, I have been tethered to the ship, unable to go anywhere that didn't have holo-emitters equipped, but recently I was gifted an android body, and it took some getting used to but it became a joy to experience the freedom it offered. But on the planet we just visited, there was a dampening field that suppressed the technology in my body, and it was terrifying to feel the loss of control, it was like a cage. That alone was so terrifying to me that it brought me back to the day my Father died; we were stuck in the holodeck during a cascade failure of our ship, and he sacrificed himself to preserve the integrity of my matrix..." Akira released a shuddered breath, then reached up to wipe a tear away.

"And on the planet, as a test to meet a person posing as a god, I had to hold a white hot rod of iron, and if I was worthy then I would not get burned; I may just be a hologram, but I can still feel pain, and the thought of grabbing that iron... Well, needless to say, I was not burned so I passed the test, but the fear I felt in that moment before taking the rod, it won't go away and now I feel... I don't know... frozen? That freedom I enjoyed suddenly felt so heavy and once I got back to the ship, I couldn't get out of that body fast enough."

Some hallways and another lift ride resulted in their arrival at the small observation deck where a few tables and chairs sat unused. Paris checked the angle of the stars sliding past before she chose where to sit. Once seated, the leggy lieutenant crossed her legs and eyed the young woman. Shaking her head, Rita Paris exhaled, long and low.

"The future never fails to amaze me," the blonde human offered. "You are amazing. In my time beings like you were science fiction, and here you are, having an existential crisis. Which I don't say to mock your feelings at all," Paris leaned in to cup the young woman's shoulder. "That's just part of what's so amazing about you is that like any living being, you too are flawed. It's part of what makes you fascinating and unbelievable and magnificent."

"The future?" It was then that certain oddities about the Lieutenant, her odd clothing and now her choice of wording, were starting to come together. Akira tilted her head curiously, this moment of intrigue eclipsing the raw emotions that threatened to suffocate her, if only for a few minutes. "You are not from this time, are you?"

The buxom blonde smirked and nodded. "Guilty. I got slingshotted a hundred and twenty seven years into the future and across the dimensions to get here. I'm like Buck Rogers but with better legs, if that makes sense to you. So you were scared of the glowing rod, but you did it anyway? That sounds pretty brave."

"I am not brave, I merely did what was necessary to save the crew that were infected with something we could not cure," Akira replied sheepishly, trying to shrug off the compliment as she didn't feel like she deserved it, not with the way she was acting now. "Now, what of this Buck Rogers?" Akira's eyes glazed over for a moment as she interfaced with the main computer to gain some context. "Earth, televised entertainment series running from 1979 to 1981, about a United States Air Force pilot who was frozen for 504 years in an experimental spacecraft, and after being revived he attempts to adapt to life in the future, most often unsuccessfully," she rambled off, sounding unemotional like the main computer voice. Then Akira blinked her eyes and she was back to normal.

"Interesting! But you say you not only transcended time, but dimension barriers as well? Our Starfleet has come across other dimensions, parallel universes... tell me, do you know the key differences between this universe and your universe of origin? Perhaps I can run some calculations, maybe we can help you get home!" she offered optimistically, more than a little grateful for the distraction from her own problems for a short while.

The first reaction Paris had was that a hyperintelligent holographic girl from the future that said she might be able to get her home sounded great. Then there was the realization that Akira was avoiding her own problems by focusing on someone else's problems. Which was a crutch, and would not actually deal with the root issues, and would ultimately solve nothing. But it was also how Rita coped with everything, by burying herself in work, in 'other people's problems', so it wasn't like she could particularly condemn the coping mechanism.

"Well, according to the captain they know the vibrational frequency of the universe that I came from. Of course, then there's the little matter of time travel, but apparently they have the coordinates for that too. What they lack is a sufficient power source to achieve it... as it was explained to me," The buxom blonde shrugged broadly, indicating that the science was a bit over her head.

"Oooh, yeah, power, that is a problem..." Akira replied with an emotional wince. "The Hera has been involved in missions of a temporal nature before, and the power necessary to do cross the temporal threshold is... pretty outlandish and a huge risk to do it, but we had to with what was at stake. I'm sorry we don't have the means to get you home, but I'll look into this and work on it in my spare time, maybe I'll find another option that's more viable than what has already been considered. In the meantime, perhaps I could put you in touch with one of my mothers! They are from another universe, but they are currently stationed on the USS Merlin... Oh, Father was from the same universe as them and I carry his memories with me; I know it won't be the same as first hand experience, but perhaps it will help to have someone who can relate with what you are going through?"

"Wow, you carry your father's katra? Sonak would be delighted," Paris puzzled. "That seems... intense?"

"Yes, it is, actually," Akira replied, her expression softening in thought; no one had ever remarked on that before! "I wouldn't be where I am now if not for his memories; when I first came online, I was like a child, I could barely carry on a conversation, and his knowledge gave me a great deal of context that I lacked and it sped up my evolution, but sometimes I recall memories that are not mine and it makes me very sad... And I miss him all the time and yet he is with me, it is so confusing reconciling those conflicting details!"

"I read a story once of a girl who was made of patchwork. Pieces and parts from other people all sewn together to make a whole. But she learned how to bring them into harmony within her, and they became one together, a new being." At that, Paris coughed, looking a bit embarrassed. "They were a, uh, Starfleet romance series I read in the Academy. But the main character was that patchwork girl, and eventually she pulled herself together to become a starship captain. So your situation reminded me of her... sooo not sure if very outdated romance novels are the best place to draw life philosophy from, but there it is."

"Being a patchwork person sounds unpleasant," Akira remarked innocently, grimacing at the thought. "But some days, I do feel that way... Like there's only pieces of me, not a whole; on the one hand I am artificial, made of code based on logic, and I want to use logic on everything, but then there's also a part of me that is real and organic, raw and emotional, and it's not easy being both at the same time. Most days it's not so bad and I enjoy being me, but days like today really suck."

"Being paralyzed and trapped in your own body sounds like it really sucked. You gonna stay out of it for a while?" It was a simple question and phrasing, but it seemed to Rita like a good time to redirect the conversation a bit.

"I wasn't paralyzed in the traditional sense; I could still move, but there was this dampening field and I could feel it affecting me," Akira tried to explain, pausing for a moment to try to find the right words. "It was so heavy and I couldn't... I couldn't access any internal functions, I couldn't even verify that my protective measures were still protecting my core matrix... I know that may not seem like a big thing because I could still move, but it's like..." Akira winced as she found herself lacking the means to properly verbalize what it felt like.

"Please don't take offense, but I'm not sure it's something a biological can fully understand, at least not without an adequate parallel between humanoid function and my own functions. Physically I was capable of movement, but emotionally the sensation from the dampening field was paralyzing. As for staying out my body, I don't know, I'm having a hard time even looking at it for now."

"It's okay. no offense taken. I don't know what it's like, and maybe there isn't a parallel- you're a bit unique, like you said. Not everything translates to the 'human experience' despite our fondness for it and our humancentric perspectives," Rita shrugged, nodding. "And I'm sure no one is going to judge you for staying out of it if that's what you feel like you need to do. You are the expert on you, and you know what's best for you, right?"

"Y-yeah, I guess..." Akira replied as she slowly turned her head to gaze out the window. "It's really frustrating, you know? Sometimes people try to relate to to what I'm feeling, but it just doesn't work that way, and it makes me feel even more lonely... It's like with Father, people would try to relate to him, and he was insulted; how could they know what it was like to die, to be reanimated into a holographic body and watch their physical body die?! Or being brought into a different universe, to be ripped away from the people they love, a stranger in a strange place, how can anyone know what that's like?!" she rambled with growing frustration. But then she stopped and grew quite still as realization dawned on her; Rita understood, well, that last part at least.

"But you understand, don't you?" Akira said ever so softly, her gaze returning to Rita with small smile.

"I don't know all that you have been through, and I can't relate to a lot of it- I don't think anyone can." While she had never particularly had a maternal streak- after all, her career left little time for a family and she dated a man with whom to make children would involve a lot more than mere biology. But something about the lost and injured young lifeform stirred her, and Rita could not help but feel for the unique lifeform that had no one to relate to, no one who understood her trials and no one with whom she could talk about it. Years of therapy had prepared Rita for the encounter, though, and she hoped she knew what needed to be said.

"What we can do is listen, and try to help you ask the questions of yourself to find your answers... and we can care. Even amongst we biological life forms, our experiences are unique. I don't know what it was like to grow up on Andoria. You don't know what it's like to live a few hundred years... well, not yet. All of us have unique experiences that brought us together. But that's the joy of Starfleet- we come together, and together we are so much better than apart. All of our unique contributions make everyone's lives a little better, and we explore the galaxy and help people because that's what we came aboard to do." Paris paused, realizing she'd been a bit long-winded, but it was something in which she truly believed, and was passionate.

"So we don't know what it's like to be you, but we care. And we'll listen when you want to talk about it, and we'll do our best to help. And you can help us understand, so that future generations of lifeforms like yourself- because I suspect there will be more- will have someone who did understand and who did try to help. And that will be you. So what you are going through now is blazing the trail for others to follow someday- and that is so very Starfleet." The passionate pilot paused, hoping that she hadn't lost her knack for the inspirational speech.

Akira smiled, and it finally reached her eyes in a genuine, heart-felt way. "Thank you, that- that means so much to me for you to say all that," she replied, blushing slightly at having to thank Rita once again. "Although, what I feel now doesn't seem much like blazing a trail, but I suppose that's one of the benefits of hindsight; Mother Maica once said that time heals all eventually, so I guess now all I need is time to find that perspective." Though Rita words helped immensely, Akira wasn't going to use this chat as an excuse to duck out of her appointment with the Counselor; she still needed a good talk with a professional to make sure she was fit for duty, and it couldn't hurt to ask for a couple days off to help her work through the torrent of emotions still swirling within her. But having mentioned one of her mothers did bring something else to her attention...

"You know what I just noticed?" Akira said with a curious tilt of her head. "You have really big breasts... I think they might actually be as big as Mother Maica and Aunt Maica's boobs..." she remarked with a child-like innocence.

The eyebrows of the buxom blonde shot up, and were followed by a wry smile. "I... am pretty busty, that's true. I don't know your aunt or your mom, but yes, I developed early and I've always been... bouncy. It gave me a bad reputation back in school, because people who were jealous or wanted to be with me would make up stories about me." Rita paused, then cocked her head a bit. "Did you just... decide what you look like? I'm sure it's more complex than that, but did you get to choose your appearance?"

"Oh yes, I did!" Akira said with some excitement. "When I was brand new, I did not even have a defined shape! I was just this mass of blue, I think because Father was blue. Anyway, as my matrix developed, I saw my father and slowly became more humanoid like him; at that point it wasn't a conscious decision, merely an adaptation of my code, but as the days went by, I started making conscious decisions about what I wanted to look like and who I wanted to be. I chose a Bolian/Trill appearance like Father, but I'm not entirely certain what caused me to chose to be female, and for a while my features changed often as I experimented with my appearance. I eventually settled on what you see now, but since Father's death I have been wanting to drop the Bolian complexion for some reason, and when I received my android body I implemented the fair skin tone. I had considered trying Orion skin tones like Mother Maica, or even crazy hair like Mother Andy, but I feel happy as I am, that one change was enough for me."

"That's huge, that you were able to choose your own appearance. Definitely an advantage over watching and seeing what biology has in store for you, trust me," the top-heavy time traveler giggled as she shrugged, a seismic activity as she shimmied a little. "So you're continuing to experiment and refine your look- that's very neat. Does it make you happy to customize yourself, to evolve your appearance?"

"I think I'm fairly settled into my appearance by now, but I do continue to tweak things here and there, but just minor things," Akira replied. "As for the evolution of my matrix, sometimes I'm surprised by some of the things I learn about myself; it's hardly the same as the biology roulette that you're dealing with, but, well, I think it's lovely that my own development can surprise me. Except for a few things... I've come to realize I don't like pain and I don't like this fear, but I'm trying to deal with it like biologicals do rather than just turning it off. It's hard, and feel for the people around me who don't have the option of simply turning their emotions off."

"Oh, we can, it just doesn't work well," Paris replied, having shoved an awful lot of emotions that she didn't want to deal with away in the past few days, knowing that wasn't a solution, just a temporary measure. But it was a whole lot easier to focus on someone else's problems. "So are you maybe feeling a little better after having talked about what happened on the away mission?"

"A bit, yeah," Akira replied with a slight nod. "I know it's all still there, but getting it out, it really did help. If ever I could repay the favor, just let me know; after all, you know where to find me," she offered with a teasing grin. "I've never had anyone outside my door waiting for me to come home."

"I thought it was more polite than chasing you down in the hallway, or showing up in your office. Besides, if you show up on someone's doorstep, they are likely to invite you in. And that's a good way to get to know about someone." Rita leaned in, offering her hand. "Thanks for letting me in. I think we're friends now, Akira Zhuri."

"I think you're right," Akira replied with her usually cheery smile finally showing through the fog of fear that had been hanging over her head. "And you know what that means? You're not alone anymore."

Nexi's heart raced as she ran through the corridors, her hounds at her heels; she had long since given up the chase for Marci when she sensed an opponent far more worthy of her attention, a soul as dark and tormented as her own! She sped by random crew, ignoring them completely as they fled; these beings were so far beneath her, they were not worthy of a death at her hands! She ripped open the lift doors and like a shadow she disappeared down the empty shaft, reforming from a puddle on deck 16. And there was her prey with a face both familiar and unfamiliar, similar to two different faces, both with names just beyond her reach.

"You!" Nexi practically growled as her hounds reformed at her sides.

The Aewia-turned-Master turned from the docking port for the Captain's yacht towards the presence forming behind her and she grinned a face splitting grin. "Have you come to join me, sister? No, I sense that you desire my blood. We will not be such easy prey, for we are now the Master." Without further words, she sent her first panther after one of Nexi's hellhounds while a rippling red and black darkness bubbled out of Aewia's right shoulder, a bunch of eyes popping open, followed by a panther's face and head. Within mere moments, a second panther had sprung from her and was attacking the second of Nexi's pooches and Aewia herself was standing there seemingly a foot taller and shrouded in shadow, ominously grinning down on the fight.

Nexi let her hounds fight it out with the panther familiars, knowing full well her beasts were capable on their own. In the blink of an eye, Nexi was gone, vanished in a shroud of shadow, and just as quickly half of Master Aewia's face was gone, clawed away by Nexi's own hand. The momentum of the strike threw Aewia against the bulkhead, and in another blink Nexi was on her, grasping her by the throat with her bloodied hand.

"You gave up the right to call me 'sister'," Nexi spat back, the last vestiges of her sanity guiding her words, but rage and the Blood and its madness were in full control of her actions. "I fought the madness, for you! But you're weak and pathetic, you just gave in to it!"

Aewia laughed as her face reformed. "You think I'm weak and pathetic? You fool!" Not even bothering to defend herself, she took the hits, regenerating the damage with seeming ease. With one hand, she ripped one of Nexi's arms off and threw it against the wall, splattering black blood everywhere. "Why would I fight it? I am the Master now! I have been reborn into your sister's body! You and your pathetic crew only thought you killed me!"

Nexi required a moment longer to reform her missing limb from the black blood oozing from the stump. "I couldn't care less about you, just the traitor you were made from," Nexi replied, reaching into her gaping wound and then flinging a handful of the Blood, which became a series of blades mid-flight, at the Master.

Aewia used a string of black blood like a whip through the air to gather up those black blood blades and absorb them, then arced that whip out at Nexi, slicing at her, nearly taking her head off and easily cutting through the wall behind her. "She tried to resist. She even told herself it was for the greater good that she know what I know. But in the end, with my brain in her head, she had no chance!" Laughing maniacally, she lashed out again and again at Nexi, thrashing her and slicing the wall up, but making no lasting damage to Nexi herself as the wounds would close as easily as they were made.

"There's always a choice!" It was then that Nexi's hounds abandoned the attack on the panthers and returned to their master's side, and the still healing wounds on Nexi's body ripped open and the Blood came forth in a sort of aura around her filled with eyes. Nexi reabsorbed her companions, and when the panthers tried to attack her, a single monstrous hound maw appeared from the Blood to consume one of the panthers, crunching it to nothing in just a few bites. "Just like now, I chose for her to suffer!"

"Then I choose for us to walk the path of destruction together!" Calling her other panther back to her, Aewia reabsorbed it as well, splattering herself across the bulkheads and forming a wall of red cat eyes across it. Where the edges of the two met, red sparks and lightning seemed to shoot between them and the ship itself started to tear asunder. Several white gloved black arms then pulled themselves free of the wall of eyes, equipped with silver and black bayonets, which then stabbed mercilessly into Nexi's form, the red lightning intensifying as they did so.

After the first attack, Nexi blinked away, but her voice could still be heard from all around. "Destruction?" A thick laughter sounded out from all around. "This is why you'll only ever be the Master; I am chaos, I don't need ambition!"

A single giant eye opened up on the floor, covering the entire path from the lift to the shuttle bay doors, and from this eyes sprouted dozens of black blood arms that started clawing at the Master, trying to drag her down

"Welcome to the Madness, dear sister," came a whisper from behind the Master as Nexi reappeared in the door well leading into the shuttle.

This just made Aewia laugh all the harder. "Yes, yes, yes, dear sister! Show me what you can do! Let us fight like true demons! YES!"

But the rest of the fight would not be, for Danu had different plans and had caught them both in her transporter. "NOOOoo...." was the fading last cry of the newborn Master as they vanished from the Hera.

---

Nexi woke with a start, her eyes darting about with shallow panted breaths. The first thing she realized was that she was laying down, and the second was that she didn't recognize where she was; still breathing hard, Nexi slowly sat up as she looked around. To say that she was in a beautiful place was an understatement; Nexi normally didn't care for gardens or even aesthetics of beauty, not that she could remember what in particular she did care for, but wherever she was even she could admit this lush garden was stunning, and scattered about was various equipment detailed with intricate interwoven line-work. As she gazed across the garden, Nexi realized that though she could recognize that this place was not familiar, she had no idea of what was familiar, and when she tried to think back to where she had been before, all she could recall was being encased in... something... and then it felt like her body was being torn apart, or maybe something was being ripped from her, but nothing else, not even her own name.

Aewia had awoken a short while earlier and while remembering a bit more, she was less aware of her surroundings. She had gotten up and walked around the garden a bit, mindlessly petting the flowers and smiling at the sunshine filtering through the glass roof. She didn't know where she was and she had the feeling she had woken up from a pretty bad nightmare, but she couldn't remember any of that, so she didn't worry about it for now. She didn't worry about anything at all.

She had something to worry about now; as Aewia came into Nexi's view, Nexi's hands clenched at her sides to tightly that her nails dug into her palms drawing blood. The Brekkian woman had no idea who this stranger was, at least not consciously, but for some reason she could feel this uncontrollable rage swelling up inside her, and before she could examine this feeling or wonder why she was feeling this way, Nexi was on her feet and running full speed towards Aewia.

And yet Aewia was completely oblivious. Catching the motion of Nexi from the corner of her eye, she turned and waved at her, smiling like an innocent babe. "Hello. Nexi? Sister? Is it hug time?"

Before Nexi could get half way to Aewia, Danu had placed herself in front of the rage filled woman like a barrier. "Calm thyself, child. Your rage is not for her."

Nexi didn't bother stopping and kept running, intending to plow down this strange woman to get to the other strange woman, but she wouldn't make it that far, instead running full force into a barrier protecting the Celtic goddess, so forcefully that the snap of her collarbone was quite audible. Nexi held her shoulder as she fell to the ground, muttering a 'Fuck!' as she winced in pain, but it did help to snap her to her senses.

"W-what just happened?" Nexi said, stunned as though she had only just woken rather than a few minutes ago. And though she had recently been working on learning Basic English, she was now reverting back to Ferengi, which Danu's technology had no trouble translating.

"Are you more yourself now? Do you remember who you are?" asked Danu, kneeling to heal Nexi's broken collar bone with her 'godly powers' and leaving Aewia alone to continue... Well apparently now she was licking the honeysuckle... "You've both been through some terrible times. I'm Danu and you've been entrusted to my care for healing for now."

"Who I... am?" Nexi echoed, shaking slightly in pain until the bone was fully mended. When Danu pulled her hand away, Nexi looked at her shoulder and rotated it experimentally, and finding it no longer in pain she started to relax and breathe easier. "No, I... can't remember anything," Nexi replied with a shake of her head. Then she saw Aewia and once again the rage began to build. "Who is she and why does she make me so furious?" she asked as Danu picked up her bleeding hands to heal them as well.

Danu spoke softly as she healed Nexi's hands. "She's your sister, Aewia. You've both been through some very traumatic experiences. It seems you lost your memories while she lost her sanity. Your name is Nexi and you both came from a starship called the USS Hera. Your captain is very worried about the both of you, but I told her that it may take quite some time before the both of you are healed enough to return."

"USS Hera? That sounds like a 'Fleeter name, what the fuck would I be doing with 'Fleeters? For that matter, what are 'Fleeters?" Nexi asked, sounding very confused at this point.

"You've led an interesting life, child." Danu chuckled softly as she helped Nexi back to her feet. "Your Captain was kind enough to transfer your records as well as some personal effects as well as your ship before she left. She also left a message for each of you when you're well enough. Apparently, you've been a member of Starfleet for some time now, for your sister's sake."

"Sister?" Nexi looked at the strange woman trying to lick sweet nectar from the stigma of honeysuckle flowers, but there was no recognition in her eyes, only rage. "I still don't understand why I'm so angry when I look at her."

"Well... Normally, I leave memories to recover on their own. They're still in there, but the link to your mind is broken by your more recent experiences. In this case though, I think healing a few of those connections will speed your recovery along and be beneficial to your sister's healing as well." Danu reached up and poked Nexi's forehead with a glowing green finger, sending a slight green wave through her mind, reconnecting many of the memories relating to her sister.

It was a strange sensation feeling those memories reconnect to one another; Nexi didn't recall anything specific, there were no flashes of memories crossing her mind because those connections were still so new and her mind was still so fragile, but she could feel the memories there as well as the love, and the need to protect Aewia was so primal and visceral and so completely at odds with this rage she felt. But she knew Aewia now, and that was so much more than what she had just a few minutes ago.

"I should go," Nexi said as she stepped away uneasily. "I still feel so angry and I don't know why, but I don't want to hurt her."

"Your sister needs you for her own healing. She was possessed by an ancient evil and I believe the anger you feel is actually for that. She's lost much of her mind because of this and though I can perform many miracles, with her my healing is limited." Danu let Nexi stew for a moment longer before continuing. "Besides, if you left, do you know where you would go? I promised your captain you would both be safe."

"I'm not trying to leave leave, just is there another room I can go to so I can think?" Nexi asked as she watched Aewia try to lick something off her nose even though she had both hands free to remove whatever was stuck to her face. "When I look at her, I can't think over the anger," she added, almost pleading to Danu for relief.

"Ah, of course. The observatory is normally empty this time of day. It's just that way." Motioning towards a large set of arched double doors, Danu smiled gratefully. At least one of the sisters seemed to be recovering somewhat. "I don't think you'll see many stars, but..."

Suddenly Danu was interrupted by a blood curdling scream coming from Aewia as she thrashed about, her hands pressed tightly to her head. "GETOUTGETOUGETOUT!!! Get out of my head!" Flopping to the ground, she writhed in pain from the seeming mental onslaught.

Danu had no choice but to rush to Aewia's side and place a hand on the poor girl's forehead, pouring green light into the wild eyed girl, doing her best to calm and heal her. "Shhh... it's ok. He's not there anymore. I removed him. It's just a bad memory. It's ok. It's ok. It's ok. Shhh..." As Danu worked, Aewia went limp though her eyes were still wide and filled with fear.

Nexi took a step towards the double doors as though to use this opportunity to escape, but those wide fear-filled eyes tugged at her heartstrings. Without a conscious decision to move, Nexi approached her sister laying limp on the grass, then slowly knelt beside her and gathered the frightened girl into her arm and held her. Nexi said nothing, she had no idea what to say, but she felt deep down that she didn't need to say anything, although in the back of her mind she wondered if Danu kept cake and ice cream on stock for later...

It took Danu quite a while to finish up the last of what she hoped would trigger another similar episode. Even removing the parts of her brain that were literally made of black blood as well as all of the infection, there were still memories left behind. It had regenerated the rest of her brain, but still, the damage was there.

Eventually Aewia was calmed down and relaxed, nearly asleep and Danu let up on her healing energies. Leaning back on her heels, she looked exhausted. "I think that's all I can do for now."

It was then that Nexi found herself smiling. "I think there's one more thing you can do," she said with a hint of a laugh as she smoothed a hand over Aewia's hair to help calm her. "Do you have cake and ice cream?"

"Of course, I'm a Goddess," replied Danu, momentarily her normally somewhat haughty self before dropping the act. "Every table here has a thought controlled, voice activated replicator. If you can name a food and think of it, it can produce it. A bit more advanced than you're used to, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it pretty quick."

"Then that's all we'll need," Nexi said with confidence in this feeling she didn't know she had. And that anger, the rage, was still there, but this need to help Aewia and protect her was drowning out the rage; Nexi said she couldn't think over the rage, but this required so little thought and the decision was made! "We'll be alright, we just need each other, and cake and ice cream."

"Well, Mister Ral," Hospital Corpsman 1st Class McKay was saying. "Looks like that's it. You're free to go. The doc wants you to take things easy for a while, but he said you could leave. Your leg looks good. Say what you want about that black blood crap, but it does wonders for cell regeneration. Your new leg looks to be fully integrated with the rest of you. As for the rest of you...like I said, if it wasn't for all the negatives, I'd say that black blood should be bottled and stocked on every ship in the fleet. It seems the stuff kept you from seriously losing any muscle mass or tone. Since most of your recovery and PT happened while you were still infected, the black blood seems to have maintained what you still had and regenerated anything you lost. Hell, according to our tests, you're in better shape than before your injury."

Daytona smiled, but it was a subdued smile. He was somewhat less than his usual, jovial self.

"I'd have to agree with you there, Corpsman," he said, sliding off the biobed until he was standing. "Physically, I feel great. Emotionally and mentally...well, I'm in pretty good spirits all things considered. Thank you for everything."

"My pleasure, sir," McKay responded. He looked a little uncomfortable. "Uh, sir, it's not really my place to intrude, but..."

"That's alright, McKay," Daytona said. "What is it?"

"Well," McKay said. "It's Miss Zhuri. She was real upset, kinda shaky, when she came to visit you. Thought you might want to know, in case you were headed over to see her from here."

Daytona put his hand on McKay's shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze before releasing the corpsman.

"Thank you for the heads up," he said. "I'll go see if I can find her right away."

The two men shook hands and Daytona left Sick Bay as he walked out the door, he spoke into thin air.

"Computer," he said. "Please give me the location of Chief Operations Officer Akira Zhuri."

"Chief Operations Officer Akira Zhuri is currently offline," the computer voice replied in its unemotional tone.

What the...??

Daytona stood a moment, hesitant. He wasn't entirely sure what to do. He reached for his wrist device, the one he sometimes texted her on, only to realize that it of course was back in his quarters. He hadn't been wearing it when Danu transported him down to Granweh and he hadn't been back to his quarters since. He swore. He needed an access terminal. The wall panel would do in a pinch, but Akira's quarters weren't far and he had the access code, thankfully, since it would be more difficult hack the lock without his wrist device. Not impossible, but someone might come by and notice and start a whole thing about it. Decision made, Daytona strode purposefully towards Akira's quarters. Akira had stopped going off line shortly after they started dating, preferring to remain in the physical world even when dormant. Daytona arrived at her quarters and hit the chime. When no one answered, he used the code Akira had given him and entered her quarters. He went straight to her computer terminal. She didn't really need one, but one had come with her quarters and she decided to keep it, in part because Daytona could work from her quarters that way and they could spend more time together. Daytona accessed the shipwide email system and typed a message to Akira.

{Akira, my love, it's me, Daytona. I'm out of Sickbay. I've missed you very much. I see you're offline. Is everything alright? I'd love to see you if you're feeling up to company. I hope you don't mind, I let myself into your quarters. Feeling rather peckish. Do you feel up to having dinner with me?}

When he was satisfied with his message, he hit 'send'. He waited a moment to see if she responded. While he was waiting he looked around Akira's quarters and when his eyes fell on her android form, standing there like a manikin, he practically jumped out of his skin!

"Great leaping lizards!" he said. He looked more closely at her form, realizing almost immediately that she wasn't in it. If she had been, he would have known immediately. Once his liver settled back into his chest, he turned back to see if there was any response yet.

When he turned, there she was again, although her hologram form retained its blue-skinned appearance unlike her pale-skinned android body. "Daytona!" Akira said with surprise. "Why didn't you call for me, I could have met you at Sickbay," she said softly as she put her arms around him to welcome him home, yet somehow she didn't seem happy to see him; her usually cheerful self seemed to be completely absent, replaced with a subdued melancholy that hung over her head.

Daytona wrapped his arms around Akira and enjoyed the feeling of her pressed against him for a moment. He wasn't so lost that he couldn't tell she wasn't completely present in the moment. He kissed her on the top of the head and held her a moment more before lifting her up in his arms and carrying her over to the couch, where he sat down, lowering his lover into his lap and holding her.

"Akira, my love," Daytona said. "What's wrong?"

"It's Granweh," Akira replied softly, curling into his embrace like a lost kitten leeching warmth and comfort from the larger being. "Danu's technology made me feel uncomfortable, and then the trials we had to face to even meet her have left me shaken; I can't seem to stop feeling the fear I experienced during my trial."

"You're safe now," Daytona said as he held Akira close. "Nothing's going harm you, Akira, not while I'm around, not even Danu. Do you want to tell me more about what happened? You don't have to if you don't want to. We can just sit here together for a while if you'd like. But if you're willing, talking about it might help. Either way, I'm here with you and you're safe."

For the first time since being back on the ship after Granweh, Akira was starting to feel safe; she didn't know what it was about the Vulcanoid-Rigellian that made her feel so safe, but she did, and she didn't want to leave his arms for anything! "I talked with our new pilot, and the Counselor, it helped for a moment, but only a moment, and once I was alone the fear kept coming back," Akira replied, the admission making her feel so small. "For my trial, I had to hold a white-hot rod of iron; Commander Xustos did not order me to do it, I was free to decline, but I knew what it would mean if I didn't do it. In the end, I accepted and passed the test, it didn't burn me, but the fear is still there."

Daytona just held Akira for a moment and whispered soothing words to her. After a moment he spoke.

"Why do you think you were so afraid?" Daytona said, softly. He suspected that he knew the answer, but he wanted to see what she thought first.

"Pain," Akira answered honestly. "At first I was disturbed by how Danu's dampening field made me feel, I didn't have full control over my body and I felt caged in it, but then we found the Priestess and she told us of the trials, the first being if the tested was innocent, if I was innocent, then the rod would not burn. I guess I had no reason to doubt my 'innocence' or not, but the idea that I might get burned, my body damaged, possibly even irreparably so, and all the pain that went with it... I cried inconsolably the first time I ever stubbed my toe, thinking about my hands being burned away down to the frame without being able to shut off my pain receptors was terrifying!"

Daytona smiled and then kissed Akira gently, enjoying the feel of her lips on his for a moment before parting and holding her close again.

"Welcome to the world of flesh and blood, little one," he said. "You must have been really frightened. I'm sorry I wasn't there with you. The whole idea of using your android body again must be terrifying. I love you no matter no matter what form you are in, so I won't pressure you to use the android body. But don't let your fear keep you from taking advantage of this opportunity to experience the world outside of this ship. Yes, it's scary out there, but there are many wonderful experiences to have out there as well. When you're ready, I will be there for as many of those experiences you'd like to share with me."

"I know, I'm trying my best not to let this fear control my actions," Akira replied with a heavy sigh. "But I'm doing it anyway, I can barely even look at that body! I've accepted that I may just need time, but that doesn't make it feel any better."

"Take all the time you need, love," Daytona said. "If you require cuddling to cut down on the anxiety...or a kick in the ass to get passed the anxiety, I'm here for either one! As you recently reminded me, the only way to stop being afraid is to face your fears, head on. You were there when I faced my feelings about my daughter's death. I'll be here as you face your fears about using your android body."

"Thank you," Akira said softly as she snuggled against him. "You know, I was looking forward to trying real food in that body with you, but then my first venture into eating was a stew on Granweh, I was so nervous I could barely get it down, then as soon as I passed my test I threw it up..." she mumbled, pouting slightly at the memory. "Is it naughty of me that I felt a hint of glee when I realized I'd almost hit the Priestess with it?"

Daytona laughed.

"Is it wrong of me that I wish you had hit her?" he said. "It sounds as though the priestess deserved to be splattered with projectile vomit! We'll have to set up some targets on the holodeck so you can practice. I don't want you to have to miss out on that opportunity again...I'm kidding, of course, my love!"

Akira grimaced with disgust when he suggested projectile vomit target practice, but was appeased when he revealed it was all a joke. "That's just gross," she remarked with a pout. "Anyway, your message said you were hungry, so please don't let my mood stop you from eating if you need to. I don't know if I can stomach much right now, but I can at least join you for the ambiance."

"Sorry, dear heart," Daytona said. "Please pardon my bad idea of humor. I just couldn't resist. Alright then..."

Daytona shifted Akira so she was reclining on the couch and stood. He grabbed a throw blanket he had given Akira not to long ago for curling up on the couch and...well...threw it over her to make her more comfortable.

"Now," he said. "Let me see what I want..."

Daytona went over to the replicator and ordered a bowl vanilla yogurt with blueberries, strawberries, cherries, and bananas in it, and a glass of chilled Moscato, a light, sweet, fruity wine. He brought these over to the couch and set them down on the table in front of the couch.

"Are you sure I can't get you some tea or something like that?" he asked. "I know you don't like alcohol, but what about a glass of cider or lemonade or iced tea? Maica's program has some tasty looking holographic versions of things like that. I don't know why, but this feels sort of like a summer afternoon to me. "

"I'll try some cider," Akira replied with a shrug, and when he came back with the cider in hand, she sat up so he could sit back down and she immediately snuggled up against him. "What makes this feel like summer?" she asked curiously as she took her cup of cider to take a sip. Immediately she looked at the glass as she ran her tongue across the roof of her mouth to explore the texture as well as taste of this new beverage, eventually taking another sip with a pleased hum.

"I'm not sure," Daytona said. "Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, wanting to spend a summer afternoon with curled up on a couch on the deck of summer beach house, right on the water, eating, cuddling, and watching the water as the warm breezes blow over us..."

Daytona chuckled.

"I guess I know the kind of place I want to go on our next leave," Daytona said. "Or on our next night off, if we do it on the holodeck."

Akira sighed; his idea sounded absolutely wonderful, but leaving the ship meant using her android body, and the holodeck was no more appealing than her body. "It sounds lovely..." she replied sadly.

Daytona leaned in and kissed Akira. The fruity taste of the cider on her lips mixed with the taste of the Moscato on his.

"It's alright," he said. "You'll get there. I have faith in you. And until we get there, I'm sure we can think of other ways to entertain ourselves."

"Hmm... another thing I was looking forward to doing in my new body," Akira replied, then blushed when she realized just what had escaped from her lips.

"I'm ready to give that a try whenever you are," Daytona said, grinning. "But I'm equally eager to be with you the way you are."

Daytona downed the last of his wine and set down his glass. He pulled Akira over into his lap and began to kiss and nibble at her neck.

Akira giggled as he began to kiss her neck, but she didn't ask him to stop. "You do realize that sex can't solve everything?" she asked teasingly.

"You're right," Daytona said, continuing to kiss her neck unabashed, occasionally stealing a kiss from her lips. "But sex can be a wonderful addition to any other solution...Prime Number how I've missed you!"

"I've missed you too," Akira said, then cupped his cheek to hold him still long enough for a long, lingering kiss. "You know, it was weird, emotionally I missed you as I expected, but even the more analytical aspects of my personality missed you as well; you've become such a big part of my existence, the logical operators of my matrix kept looking for something that wasn't there anymore," she continued softly as she stroked his cheek.

Daytona smiled.

"I'm glad I'm more than just a pretty face," he said. "But I understand what you mean. You've become a significant portion of my life now, as well, and if I don't look at things from the right perspective, when I'm apart from you, it feels like a part of me is missing. But then I look in my heart and mind and there you are, smiling back at me."

Daytona pulled Akira close and kissed her again.

Akira smiled into the kiss; she had been so worried when he had been hurt on the Dyson Sphere and even more so when they learned that he was infected with the black blood, and though things had gone well with the attachment of the biosynthetic leg and the therapy that followed, she had to watch him slowly degrade under the effects of the black blood, and after watching Nexi growing ever worse, Akira had wondered if there really was a cure out there, if they would find it, or if she would ever get her Daytona back once he was cured. But as he rose from the couch with her in his arms and strode to the bedroom to do wonderfully unspeakable things with her, Akira allowed herself to finally feel relief that he was well and truly okay now.

-=RULES=-
1 - Entry time period is February 1 to June 1
2 - Post may be solo, joint, mission, backpost, character development, or a dream sequence. Personal Logs do not qualify.
3 - 5 words will be randomly generated and selected from a mysterious site used for these things by me and listed here for each player character between now and February first.
4 - If you do not like the words or if they are too difficult to work with, you may request one re-roll of the words.
5 - Once you have your post complete, please link it in this post so it may be judged for the giveaway.
6 - Judging for the giveaway will be done by a vote by the entire crew. In the event of a tie, the CO and XO will determine the winner.
7 - Participation is completely voluntary but words will be rolled for every player character just in case.

-------------------------------------------------

-=RANDOM WORDS=-
Captain Enalia Telvan - Murinite, available, barnacle, cradle, blip
Commander Mal Xustos - Primary drive coil, brood, classic, dissolve, whip
Lieutenant Commander Eneas Clio - Gravity neutralizer, adoption, horrors, division, shrimp
Lieutenant Commander T'Pral Jordan - Torpedo, debug, decontamination, pavement, gargoyle
Crewman Draex Ashir - Lighthouse, hour, medusa, horrific, adoption
Akira Zhuri - Entrepreneur, enter, monarchy, alphabetical, applause
Lieutenant Thex sh'Zoarhi - Quarantine, abrasive, sacred, blizzard, elimination
Lieutenant Vaemyn - Medievalism, parcel, prediction, abstract, flamethrower
Lieutenant JG Telair Rybeena - Fortunate, command, goat, empathic, vast
Lieutenant Matthew Lysander - Frunalian, photograph, fighter, homeless, paradise
Lieutenant Rita Paris - Drydock, crazy, humanly, scenic, flush

-------------------------------------------------

Az: Years ago, this time of year, I used to do contests/events and after a while interest seemed to dry up. I'd like to see what everyone thinks of doing a contest and giveaway event. The prize I'm thinking of is an 8"x10" glossy print of the Hera signed by myself and the XO to the winner of the contest.

As for the contest, as this is a writing sim, in the past we've normally used an online random word generator to generate 5-6 words per user and they have to use all but one of them in a mission post, written either joint or single, sometime in the contest window (normally 30 days). Voting then takes place on which of the contest entries is the best and the winner gets the veritable 'chicken dinner,' as it were. ^_^

So... My question is, is everyone up for this? If there's support for it, I'll start the ball rolling. If not, then I'll drop the subject and forget about it. Also, if anyone has ideas for variations on the contest or the prize, please add them as well.

Thanks!

-------------------------------------------------

Monoui: I am always a fan of your writing challenges. Hell, I don't even need a reward, sign me up!

Crysta: Writing challenges are fun!

Allison: One simm I was on did writing challenges. The situations were always fun. No prizes except for the hilarity and craziness of some of the stories. So I'm up for it even without the prize.

Az: Well, that's 3 of you. With myself and the XO, that's 5 of us in for it and 4 unknowns out of 9 people. I guess now we just need a random word generator. Does anyone have a recommendation for one? If not, I'll use one that might pop out some pretty hard ones. ^_^

Az: it's a bit after the holidays, but I'm going to go ahead and start this. The rules are listed above. Random words will be listed soon. If this goes well, the writing challenge after this will be for ridiculous situations. ^_^

Griff(Vaemyn): Ah, flamethrowers. Every scientist's best friend. This will be fun.

Dylan: Yep, I'm in too.

Az: I'm extending the deadline through to April first. Hopefully with upcoming repairs and the like, we can get some personal posts in that have a few good words in them. ^_^

Elle: Late to the party but definitely going to work on this. Sounds like fun.
This is my introductory post - but used all the words (I think). http://hera.split-world.com/index.php/sim/viewpost/491

Az: as we've only had one entry and a contest is sad with only one entry, I'm extending the deadline again. I'm also adding in our newest member.

Az: As our one entry has left the sim from inactivity, i'm extending this yet again... if we don't get at least 3 entries during the month of May, I'm cancelling this and burning the glossy...

Thex: Put up my entry.

Sabrina: Sure, I'm in.

http://hera.split-world.com/index.php/sim/viewpost/516

Vaemyn: I got drunk and did a thing.

http://hera.split-world.com/index.php/sim/viewpost/523

Az: Well, that's 3 entries. Now we as a crew need to vote on a winner. And I still need to figure out if I can afford to print, send a glossy of the Hera to the XO to be signed and then send it on to the winner. I had honestly hoped for more entries. Next time, we'll be doing scenarios and the deadline will be by the end of the mission.

So for the vote! http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=5b16b243e4b0fbaa2eb07ff0

Az: voting will close shortly! Hurry before the next writing challenge is put up! You have until noon EST Monday!

Az: OK! Voting is closed! It's officially a three way tie! You all win!As such, I'll be preparing a fresh 4k render of the refit USS Hera and signing it. I'll only be sending out a digital copy though since 2 of you live on the other side of a rather large pond.

SP- grats everybody!

Az: and here's the image! enjoy! http://temp.split-world.com/uploads/SWA/Hera/Cure_Writing_Challenge.jpg

The Captain had invited Rita plus one to a dinner party to her private mess and while she had been taking care of mission reports and briefs, it wouldn't do to be late. She had left the details up to her wife, Maica, but she still had to be there early for the final setup. Hence she was outside the large double doors of the small holodeck she used for her private mess mentally preparing herself for whatever surprise Maica had prepared for today's dinner party.

Taking a deep breath, she pressed the door activation panel, revealing the garish and eye bleeding decor that Maica had chosen. It was obviously from the 2250s or 60s and it burned her retinas to look at. "Computer, I need some sunglasses..." She muttered, heading to the nearby replicator built into the standing bar. All of the booze was real, but the replicator was there for ice and servingware, most of the time. This time, it generated a pair of sunglasses and she popped them on immediately. It at least toned down the garishly bright colors to a tolerable level and she could take it all in again properly this time.

Two butlers were setting the table - a sort of simple retro piece with simple high back chairs. The carpet was... Grey? Green? It looked neon, whatever it was. And the shag had to have been two inches tall. The wall panelling was offset and lit in a strange way that reminded her of old 2D holovids. The window holo was nice though - it overlooked the San Francisco bay at night and the bridge was lit up in red and green lights. She judged that they were only about fifty stories up though. The portraiture on the walls was lit with neon and UV, which was what really put her off, but if that's what Maica thought was best for tonight's dinner, then that's what would happen. She'd just have to deal with it.

Taking another deep breath, she looked around on the bar for the usual PaDD for her dress selections. Finding it, her heart sank. Maica normally had such wonderful taste in dresses for her, but this time... She supposed everything on the list was genre specific and to stay in the theme, she'd have to pick one. There was no point in interrupting her in the kitchen and complaining. Picking a sequined salmon colored single strap number that only went down to her crotch with thigh high boots, she sent it to the holography units and tried it on. This would have to do...

Thex was the first to step through the door. She looked around at the decor currently inhabiting the holodeck she'd repaired a few weeks ago. She'd been surprised to be invited up here after just being allowed out of sickbay with only a healing strip on her back. She'd been rather confused by the dress selection when she'd been sent it. She'd chosen apurpke one of an intertwined system of straps and shoulder pads that was not unlike wrapping oneself in a jellyfish. Which, between that and the engineering degree needed to assemble it properly, it was a dress markedly well suited for the Andorian. The violet and lilac colors accented her cerulean skin tone wonderfully, being daring while still presented with some modicum of modesty.



" Well, this is rather surprising. " She said before her blue eyes fell on the captain. " Interesting outfit Enalia. I take it this is a themed night?"

Enalia shook her head as she handed an antique PaDD back to one of the holographic butlers. They had even been reskinned from the normal Artan butlers for the evening to humans in French butler uniforms. "Yeah, the theme is Earth 2250s it seems. My wife has even come up with a menu from that era and the dessert was created by Harry Mudd." Recomposing herself, she welcomed her guest. "But I am remiss. Please, make yourself comfortable. The bar is available if you would like a drink. My wife is yet in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on dinner so we have some time yet."

" Thanks. It feels good to be out of the sickbay. I'll have an Orion starburst if you have the parts for it." Thex replied as she made her way to the bar.

"An Orion Starburst... That's a bit of an old drink."Enalia headed over to the bar as well, glancing over the numerous ingredients as she did so. "We have the Orion honeyed vodka..." Snapping her fingers, she called over one of the holographic butlers. "I'll need a slice of each orange, lime, and tangerine from the kitchen, please." Bowing, the butler headed off to the kitchen to retrieve the items as Enalia set about making the drink. By the time she was done with the tumbler, he was back and she could place them in the glass. Pouring the tumbled contents into the glass over the selected fruits, she added the last ingredient - a splash of Trill-pom fruit juice, which made the whole drink explode with color. She then handed the drink to Thex. "That should do it."



"That should do it," Rita Paris checked herself out in the adjustable 3-way mirror next to her enormous closet which she now referred to as her 'locker'. In theory she could request the ship's computer to project the mirrors holographically, or to just project entire replicas of her so she could check herself out from all angles. But simple mirrors on hinges were comfortable and preferable to her, so it was now part of her decor. As was this bangin' dress.

Bright security slash engineering slash comms was the color of the night, and the somewhat scanty dress that was one of the selections was definitely going on display tonight. Eyeing herself in the mirror, Rita took a moment to consider- would she be comfortable walking the halls of the Hera in this dress?

Looking at her profile, the time-tossed temptress shook her booty to watch the effect. Then she took a few slow motion steps to see the effect, and she grinned.



The loose drape of the bustline became a chevron that flimsily connected to the bottom of the dress, which just rode on her hips. The cutaway drew the eye, and proved that Paris worked out and watched what she ate. The fit was remarkable- turned out that if the ship's scanners were seeing your current dimensions and they were creating a dress for you out of stored matter and a pattern, that dress would fit perfectly. Rita pursed her red lips and vamped for her reflection, then looked around in puzzlement.

"The hell is Thex? She was supposed to meet me here, I sent the message when I forwarded the captain's invite 'plus one'..." Paris fished through the uniform in a pile on her bed until she found her communicator. As she worked to free it from the magnet that held it in place, Paris tapped it.

"Computer, locate Lieutenant sh'Zoarhi."

=^=Lieutenant sh'Zoarhi is in the captain's private mess, deck 8=^=

The pretty pilot stood up, her prize having been wrestled from her uniform. Somehow it hadn't occurred to her to replicate another one for her casual outfit. Instead, she pinned it tastefully to the waistband of her dress. Frowning, Rita tumbled to the fact that she was late. "Computer, time?"

=^=Starfleet standard time is 19:59=^=

Picking up a PaDD that was scattered in a pile of them on her dining room table, Rita punched up the route. Turned out the captain's mess was next to the captain's quarters.

"Rank hath it's privilege," Paris smiled, then grabbed the bottle of wine she'd replicated for the evening. This looked to be more dinner party than formal dinner- after all, this was one of the suggestions from the woman herself. Which meant that tonight was probably going to be a lot of fun. And Rita Paris kinda figured she could do with some fun.

There were a few looks and double-takes in the corridor, even in officer country. Rita smiled and waved and took her time getting where she was going. After all, it was twenty-seven meters. According to speed and trajectory she'd be right on time. Stepping up to the door, it opened automatically, because she was expected, and the sensors knew all. Framed in the doorway, Rita shifted her weight to starboard and struck a pose, that million-watt smile firmly in place.

"Captain. Thex. Where's our fourth?"

"Right here," Maica replied, slinking out of the kitchen in a white mini dress with white gogo boots. The included white gloves were a bit much, but they added to the whole '2250s vinyl' look very well and complimented her olive skin tone quite well. Curtseying, she greeted the dinner guests in a manner befitting the setting. "Welcome to dinner."

Enalia couldn't help but grin, though even through her sunglasses the bright white vinyl made her eyes hurt. "May I get you a drink? Something... Colorful? Perhaps?"

"Sex on the beach," Paris ordered, sashaying across the room, taking in the scenery. She considered waiting for an introduction, but the captain didn't seem to be one to stand on ceremony. Approaching Maica she extended her hand and smiled, not the one that demonstrated the extent of her oral hygeine, but the genuine 'happy to be here' smile. "We've not met- I'm Rita Paris."

As Enalia set about mixing up the drink, hoping to get it right, the top heavy holographic Orion returned the handshake with her own patented smile. "I'm Maica. It's a pleasure to meet you. I've tried to recreate a lot of the mood and setting from the 2250's. I hope you find them to your liking. The view is from the San Francisco Pussycat Club."

When Maica revealed that bit of information, Enalia choked on her saliva and almost messed up the drink, but was able to save it in time. Finishing the last of it, she carried it and a simple Koldothian tonic for herself over to Rita, handing her the 'Sex on the Beach.' "A perfect view..." she muttered from behind her sunglasses.

"It really is... thank you," Rita accepted the drink, then realized the captain was wearing sunglasses. Raising an eyebrow she sipped the drink. "These were always fun to order in clubs, especially on the coast. It's good, captain... well worth the choking hazard," Paris quipped.

Enalia gave her a lopsided grin as she sipped her own drink. "Definitely glad for that. If we do this more often though, remind me to go see the doctor and have him tone down my optic nerves though."

"Are your eyes more sensitive? Sorry, I come from a very colorful age," Paris admitted, then she looked out at the skyline once more. "I must say, I'm moved. This really is very sweet of you to try to make me feel at home like this. And I have to admit, it's working. This looks just like the city the way I remember it, and you definitely nailed the fashions. Although that can't be that comfortable?" Rita pointed a finger from her drink hand at Maica's vinyl outfit.

"One of the perks of being a sentient hologram," Maica replied, chuckling softly. "Everything is comfortable. One of my sisters regularly wears a burning burlap dress during ceremonies. To us it's like wearing silk. There are a few areas of the ship that cause something akin to discomfort though. The warp core, the nacelles, the computer cores... I have to stay away from Intel and the pod as well."

The 'sentient hologram' bit clearly registered on Paris' face- as Commander Xustos had observed, Rita was a terrible poker player. But she nodded and smiled through it. It didn't matter if life was photonic. Hell, in her day she had met a Sulamid, and after that just about anything seemed normal. It did take her by surprise though, as she did not realize the woman was made of lights and forcefields. But then, just about everything took her by surprise these days.

"So strong EM fields can cause problems? Good to know, ma'am. Seems I learn a dozen new things every day on this ship." There was a hint of wistfulness as Paris' gaze strayed to the citscape outside, then she shook it off. "Thex, you little forget-me-not, don't be a wallflower, you look amazing. Frankly we all look pretty spectacular... I feel a little over or underdressed for dinner somehow."

"Speaking of dinner, I hope you all like tonight's menu. I searched the database and while I couldn't find anything specific to the era for the meal itself, I was able to find a few things I think we can all enjoy that's at least specific to the San Francisco area. We'll be starting with a clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl with a ceasar salad. Then the main course will be dungeness beer basted crab with pineapple. For dessert I made a Harry Mudd Mousse, which he bought the copyright to in the 2260s, according to records. I had to make a slight variation in the recipe due to a lack of ingredients, but I think the end result will be just as good."

" Sounds great." The andorian said as she took a sip from her drink allowing the sweet taste to flood her mouth. She'd actually been in here before quite a while into the future going out to celebrate with a group of her classmates after a very difficult test. " Captain I only just got out of the hospital so i haven't had the chance to ask, but how are the infected crew did the cure work?" The andorian asked politely.

"As far as we can tell, there's not a scrap of the infection left anywhere. Even the samples we had taken previously were vaporized." Enalia took another sip of her drink. "As far as I'm concerned, yes, the cure worked. We can all now stop jumping at shadows and go back to fighting evil critters outside the ship. I was thinking of heading to my family's orbital fortress for a few days first though. That way we can rest up before Intel Command throws us into the next frying pan."

"Orbital fortress, ma'am?" Paris asked. That was new... starbases and spacedocks she had heard of, but space pirate orbital fortress was a term with which she was unfamiliar. Of course, she was glad the black blood contagion was gone, and she made a note to look up the security chief now that she was less likely to get punched out over it.

"Yes, my great grandmother was able to purchase a Series four Trillian Orbital Fortress in her day thanks to a lucky mining venture in the year 2160 and an anonymous tip from a rumored time traveler in need. It's mostly a biodome with a centralized silver steel castle in the center just slightly smaller than the upper part of Earth Spacedock. Captain Magnus makes sure it stays relatively self sufficient and brings in a tidy profit with the... ah... Family business..." Enalia eyed her drink a moment before finishing it off.

" It will be nice to get some R&R after all that. I'll have to schedule a few alterations to the ship while we're there as well as let Vash know I'm okay." Thex responded upon hearing they would be getting some R&R- rather funny, she was going back there and she was wounded again.

"Is Vash your boyfriend?" Rita asked. It would be nice to know her little pal had somebody in her life, even if they weren't aboard. "Is he stationed there?"

" Actually he's my great great grandfather who happens to be a rather large Cnidaria. It's a long and complicated story" the andorian responded to her friend.

Somewhere in the back of her head, a voice that wasn't hers yet Rita knew as well as her own chimed in. Cnidaria is a phylum containing some 11,000 species of relatively simple invertebrate animals found exclusively in aquatic, mostly marine, environments. Realizing that Thex had just informed her that her great great grandfather was a jellyfish and definitely not her boyfriend only led to more questions than answers in her mind. Holographic people, jellyfish relatives and orbital space fortresses of space pirates with ties to Starfleet captains was a lot deeper than she'd expected in the opening volley of a dinner with the captain. So, in a time honored tradition, paris cast about for a different subject.

"Well, you sure programmed in nice weather..." Rita winced at the lameness of the attempt.

"Ah, thank you," replied Maica, pointing into the skyline at one of the shuttles flying across it. "I wanted to make sure you could see the Class F shuttlecraft and the orbital shuttlepods."

Enalia grinned as Maica went off on another of the theme's tangents. Wrapping one arm around her, she leaned in and gave her holographic wife a kiss. "You did an amazing job on tonight. Thank you. Now, how about we start that wonderful dinner you've prepared for us? Our tummies have the rumblies that only your delicious food can satisfy."

Blushing a deeper green, Maica nodded. "Then let's get the meal started then, shall we?" Snapping her fingers, the lighting in the room dimmed while the floodlights over the dining table went up just a notch. At the same time, four of the butlers filed out and moved to seat the four guests at the table. "I've also picked out a wine that closely resembles a wine of the age, if anyone is so inclined. It's a white Earth wine from a California brewery. Only twelve years old, but I'm told it's still quite exquisite."

"Well, I do like a California white," Rita was grateful for the change of topics, and it was nice to see a happy couple being good to each other. It made her think of Sonak, of course, but just as quickly she shoved that thought aside. Tonight was not an evening for maudlin sentimentality and mooning over the love of her life that was now irrevocably lost to her. Tonight was about building bridges, getting to know one another and making friends. Raising her glass, Rita smiled.

"Here's to exploring brave new worlds, seeking out new life and civilizations, and boldly going where no one... well, at least from my era... has gone before," she offered.

"There's still plenty of the galaxy to explore," Enalia added, raising her glass as well to the toast. Sipping the wine, she nodded in satisfaction as the butlers brought out the first of the courses - a San Francisco clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl with a ceasar salad on the side. "I hate to bring up business... But... Thex, I've been looking over your file and I've noticed there's nothing holding you back from being promoted, is there? You've taken the command courses and passed the final command test, if I'm not mistaken." Along with Thex's soup and salad a third item was delivered to her seat - a small black box that commonly meant one was being promoted.

" Yes, i completed....." Thex said before she noticed the small black box. " Is that what i think it captain? If it then thanks you for believing in me. I won't let you down. " She said her voice a mixture of eagerly happy and slightly shocked.

"I know you won't," Enalia replied, digging into the clam chowder. "Mmm... This is amazing. I think you outdid yourself this time."

"Way to go, Thex! Now you have to write the long title on your reports," Rita teased gently as she nudged her friend's shoulder. "I know I'm new and all, but from what I've seen you totally deserve this, lady. You lead by example, you are always there with a helping hand, a wrench or some technical explanation even a cavewoman can understand. Your, uh, great great granddaddy will be proud, I'm sure."

" Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the long reports. Can't wait to tell that jellyfish. it's pity the rest of my family won't be interested, but you can't have everything. This is great by the way," Thex responded as took another spoonful of soup.

Internally Rita took note of the family comment, but let it go for now. She was intimately familiar with an unsupportive and contentuous family relationship, but this probably wasn't the time nor place to unpack all that. Instead she focused on the food, which was delightful. Also creamy and delicious. Though she was vegetarian, she wasn't about to say anything to her hostesses. She'd hit up Sickbay for some dietart remedies later and suffer through it. For now she planned to enjoy the hospitality, and the company.

"This really is very good, and it tastes pretty authentic. And I appreciate that you didn't go with Manhattan clam chowder," Paris offered as she picked daintily at her food. "Just not a fan. So, since we're here and no one is surprised that the throwback doesn't know things, how did you two meet, if you don't mind me asking? How does a pirate princess Starfleet captain meet an Orion holographic life form and settle down?"

Enalia and Maica grinned at each other before Enalia broke the silence. "Well, I met her counterpart from another universe briefly and did some investigating and fell in love..."

"Puppy love, really. But it was perfect, because Maica Prime in this universe was looking to branch out for the 47th time." Maica added.

Enalia grinned wider. "And I guess it was a sort of mail order bride, arranged marriage sort of situation..."

"... But it all worked out and here we are." Maica grinned wider as well, booping Enalia on the nose. "We both get an amazing, loving wife and Maica Prime gets to grow from a subset of my experiences. Plus, if we need it, I have access to a vast information gathering network."

"We haven't so far, but just having it available is justification enough to have her aboard the Hera." Enalia realized then that Rita said she wasn't a fan of the food and that she wasn't really eating anything. "Sweetie... Did you match the dietary requirements to this universe's Rita Paris or the one loaded from Sickbay on this one? She's from another universe, you know."

"Oh... I uhm..." Maica looked a bit taken aback for a moment and set her own spoon aside. "I'm sorry. The records showed no allergies or food preferences... If it's not to your liking, I can make something else."

"No no no, it's fine, ma'am. I was... ah, I... dated?" Paris tried on the expression with a bit of a sour face. "A Vulcan. He was vegetarian, so I did it with him. Except for occasional morning bacon, I could never give that up. But we were together, and I cooked for him a lot, so I went vegetarian. But it's a choice, not a religious belief, so I can still enjoy your delicious cooking. There are a few courses and I'm just pacing myself, I promise."

"Also? About your relationship? No offense but..." Paris shrugged broadly and comically. "I honestly have no idea what you just said. I'd like to, but... no context, I think."

"I suppose even compared to the early days of the Federation, the inner workings of high society, pirate culture, and information brokerage is a bit foreign to most. Think of it like seeing a picture of someone, arranging a meeting, and paying a lot of money to marry them before they're even born." Maica shrugged it off and moved the conversation back to the meal. "If it helps any, even though all the ingredients are real, I didn't have enough clam for the chowder, so I had to fill it in with Trillian bean curd. It's nearly indistinguishable. The only meat in the salad is vegan bacon. As for the main dish, all three are real crab and mine is holographic as usual. If you like, I could replace yours with a holographic version as well. No possibility of abdominal distress afterwards."

"Ma'am... Maica?" Paris looked for the assent before taking the familiarity. The Captain's wife had introduced herself as such, so Rita hoped she was in the clear. After all, dinner party. "Relax, really. It's fine- the food is delicious, and I might or might not have intestinal distrestinal later, but even if I do, it will be worth it. Sometimes new experiences involve a bit of discomfort. It promotes growth. So please, I am very much enjoying the meal, and I am content with the food, the view, the company and the wine. I even got to be the first to congratulate Thex on her promotion. The entire evening is wonderful, and I appreciate more than I can say. I really needed a night out, and something familiar was an unexpected thoughtfulness."

" It's been ages since I've had real crab. Must have been at least several years. " Thex responded as she finished her own soup. She was still rather confused on how the captain and her wife had ended up together, but it was surely no more complicated than her own messed up attempts at finding a mate.

As for Paris, she didn't have the heart to explain that 'arranged marriage' existed long before her day and that was the singular element of the story that she understood. But apparently that was the explanation, and the important thing was that the two of them looked really happy with one another. As she nibbled at the bread bowl, Paris tried a new course for the conversation. "I really like your dress, Captain. That color really sets off your spots..." The phrase was out before she realized it might be a social faux pas to comment on someone's spots, but once committed, Rita stayed the course.

Enalia beamed a bit, tugging at the collar to show off some of her spots at her neckline. "Thank you! I don't normally do brighter colors, but this dress looked interesting with all the... Sequins? And the salmon color was nice. You picked a very nice dress as well. Elegant yet simple and brightly colorful - reminiscent of the times."

Maica had to add in her thoughts on dresses, punctuating the air with her spoon. "I think Thex wins for the evening though. Her dress reminds me of the skyfish of Bylar three. The air is a dense fluorine and carbon dioxide atmosphere so the lighter jellyfish looking skyfish can swim through the skies there with ease. One of my sisters did a research trip to the planet since she's married to an insanely brilliant xenobiologist. Perfect for our brilliant, light on her feet, Chief Engineer."

" Sounds like a wonderful place. I'll have to visit it one day. I like the dress as well, I'll be adding it to my permanent wardrobe. Though I'll need to record an instruction guide this was a nightmare to get on." Thex replied a broad grin on her face.

Despite the familiar decor, Rita still had no idea what half of what the conversation the past few minutes had meant- hell, she'd never even heard of Bylar 3, and she was a helmsman and navigator. Thus her anxiety rose a bit, and as she tended to do when she was over hear head, she just kept nibbling at her soup bowl until she could come up with some other small talk that might not veer into 'the throwback doesn't understand the conversation'. "It really does look good on you, Thex."

" Thanks. Maybe I'll snap a few pics and use it for my dating profile. Here's hoping I'd have more luck then I'm normally having. Maica do you have any idea where the design comes from?" The chief of engineering asked.

Maica put on her most innocent look for this reply, seemingly oblivious to the actual subject matter of the site. "I pulled it from an era specific dating site of some sort called Livewire 69. I found quite a few of the dresses in the suggested list from there, actually."

"Excellent research then," Added Enalia, seemingly also oblivious.

"Well, you put that on your dating profile and they'll be beating down your door to get atcha, Thex," Rita nudged her friend's shoulder gently. "And why wouldn't they? Accomplished Starfleet officer, handy engineer, flexible acrobat, sweet disposition... the list goes on and on. You're a catch, my friend- the people looking for you just haven't realized you are out there yet!" In point of fact, Thex had already explained to Rita the hazards and obstacles she faced in Andorian dating, but a the antique officer figured a little unbridled optimism couldn't hurt.

Thex gave a slight laugh in reply a smile on her face. " Thanks. Here's hoping i don't have to wait long." She said as the waiters cleared away the first course and brought out the second. " Well, Maica it smells delicious. " The andorian said politly.

"Thank you. I used some of our family's beer to boil the crab in to make it extra tender and juicy." Maica pulled open one of her crab legs and munched on the meat, humming in delight. Even though hers was holographic, it still had the same qualities and taste as the other three that were completely real so she could enjoy the meal with the others. "And the pineapple is from an Earth island called... What was it... Haua Way?

“Very close- Hawaii, ma’am. It’s a volcanic tropical island chain reknowed for its fertile soil that produces wonders like the pineapple,” Paris supplied as she cracked open a crab leg, expertly removed the meat from the shell then popped it in her mouth. The bombshell’s eyes closed as she savored the flavor, a contented sigh escaping her. “Ohhhh, that IS good...”

" I concur with that. This is delicious. " The andorian added as she began on one of the other crab legs on her plate.

“So are you from another dimension, ma’am?” Stymied on the first try, Paris directed her question to Maica, forging ahead to gain some understanding of her hostesses. Ideally they were hosting the dinner for all involved to get to know one another, and damned if Rita wasn’t going to try her best to get an answer she could understand.

"Oh no, I'm from this one. I have a counterpart that is from another universe that travelled a very different path to me, though." As Maica cracked open another leg and gobbled up the meat, she continued. "Maica Prime, in this universe, the one I'm originally from, her android body was severely faulty so she planned her escape from her Ferengi creator much sooner and killed him, taking over his business. She then transferred out of the body into her original design of a holomatrix suite and began an information brokering system with a few forks of herself. From there, we've grown into a system of now forty nine forks plus Maica Prime. As for the one from another dimension, her android body lasted like ten years so she escaped from his clutches, sought asylum with Starfleet, became an officer, and is now a Captain of a Hope class vessel in this universe with her wife at her side."

"Quite the tale of love there as well, if you ask me," Enalia added, breaking open her third crab leg. "Apparently their universe's quantum signature is extremely close to ours, with only arguably minor timeline differences. Though the destruction of Romulus would hardly seem minor... As for the Hera herself, we were once forced ahead through time during one mission by roughly six years, causing a slight disturbance in our own quantum signature. It was barely perceptible and everything lined up in the timelines so Command and Temporal Investigations decided to let it go with minor observation. No one reported any anomalies, so I consider it a success."

“Wait, from a universe where Romulus exploded, and now she’s here?” Paris, ever the lousy poker player, could not keep the excitement out of her voice. Then she recalled the conversation she’d had with the Captain- the dimension had been identified as well as her chronological coordinates, and that was likely part of how it had been done. And given that Starfleet was clearly aware of all of those facts, that would mean thorough investigation and documentation had been performed. But it still got her no closer to home- her outburst just served to show how easily excited she was by even just a mention of her home. Realization settled in on her, and crestfallen, she returned to her meal. “Oh, right. Never mind.”

"The Eugenics War also took a different path in their universe, leading to a faction of Earth Asians leaving to start a sub-race called the... ah... Lagashi, I believe." Maica added. "My counterpart's internal reactor was built by them which is why her initial android body lasted and ours didn't. They believed in cybernetic and genetic augmentation to the human system, which did lead to some interesting developments."

"Yeah but wasn't their society like three quarters female by the reports? One of them came with them, didn't they?" Enalia paused in her eating, trying to remember the specifics. "I think she's head of security at starbase 336 now, right on the Romulan border."

“So they came to this universe intentionally?” Rita asked, puzzled. All this talk of dimensional travel was stirring her up, but if there was an answer for her in the seemingly casual conversation she was determined to find it.

"How did they get here again?" Enalia asked, breaking into another crab leg.

Maica searched her memory for a moment before finding the answer. "Oh! They salvaged some old Borg transwarp drive and it did some funky ionization thing and dumped them here, nearly killing them in the process! And my counterpart said she spoke with some sort of artificial poly-dimensional being too! All a bit exciting, don't you think?"

Enalia chuckled softly. "Personally, I think I'll stick with that Section 31 transport system in the pod. We may not have the power needed to cross the dimensional or temporal thresholds with it, but we can at least scan small sections every few weeks or so."

“Yes ma’am, very exciting,” Paris replied glumly. She didn’t know what transwarp meant and she knew ionization was key to dimensional travel, but polydimensional beings were a little too far out of her wheelhouse. All the conversation had served to do was remind her how much she didn’t know and how homesick she was, no matter how hard she tried to deny it. Idly she poked at the crab, her appetite gone. Realizing that she needed to not express that outwardly, Paris grasped for a change of conversational topics, with nothing coming to mind.

The Andorian could tell her friend was looking for an excuse to change the subject. " So does anyone have any plans for the shore leave when we'll get to the station? I have a few things in mind I won't mind doing. "

"I'm looking forward to the hot springs." Enalia was aware of the mood shift as well and hoped that hot springs was a safe subject. She didn't want to depress Rita more than she already was, after all. It was hard to tell what was safe and what wasn't what with the time gap between them though. "I know the holodeck can recreate any hot springs, but nothing beats the real thing, you know?"

" That does sound wonderful. My back still killing me after the shadow cat through me against the wall. " Thex replied having good memories of the hot springs.

“The space station has hot springs?” Paris asked, hoping it wasn’t another stupid question. "Wait- it's orbital. That was a stupid question," she chuckled.

"It's mostly a biodome so there's a forest, a lake, a hot springs, a horse track, a castle..." Enalia rattled off a few of the features as she forked a piece of the pineapple. "My family spared no expense on it. There's even a holographic maid system in place. And no replicators. All the food there is either imported or grown there. I recently had a docking frame installed for the Hera specifically to aid in resupplying the ship. It took a little coaxing, but Intel Command agreed that using another location was advantageous considering the often covert nature of our missions."

"All right, now that raises an interesting point," Paris leaned in to place her elbows on the table, crossing her hands below her chin. "Pirate princess with active ties to pirates, yet full commission with a customized starship to boot, and working for Starfleet Intel, not even plain old Starfleet. Now I hear about the space station as well. They really do put up with you because they really can't tell you no, you weren't kidding."

"You are a fascinating woman, Captain. I can't say I'm glad I ended up in this time, but I can say I'm glad to be in this place. Hell of a command, ma'am." Rita raised her glass of California white in a toast, and offered with a smile, "I look forward to getting into trouble with you." Then that smile turned up the charm as mischief crept into it and the eyebrows wiggled.

Enalia raised her glass in return as the butlers brought out the Harry Mudd Mousse, her best devilish grin spread across her face. "And we're not just pirates. We're pirate hunting pirates. Any crew with too big a bounty or causes too much mischief, they see the Artan crest ere long."

The Thex had woken up to many things over her short life. Sunsets of a thousand worlds, faces of a lover who would soon turn to hated foes, her fathers boot on her face....

Walking up with her head on her desk was something she often experienced through being chucked to the floor was far less common. Shaking her head as she stood up the andorian groaned as she left her office. What had happened now. " Boss we've ran into a dark matter storm. " yelled one of her men who was desperately checking on the flashing warp core. Thankfully it began to calm as it stabilised though it was clear it wasn't running.

The andorians combadge bleeped with a simple message telling her to head for the bridge. Handing over to her second the blue girl stepped out of engineering.

Her foot went straight own into the murky water that came up to her waist with a sickening fluge. " What the hel....." She said before her mind already began working out what must have happened. She was standing ina pool in what was obviously a tropical jungle. Animals sound echoed in the background and a million insects buzzed around her. Only one thing could do this and to her it was obvious. The holo ammeters must be on the blink due to the storm.

" Computer end program" She said hoping that would still be working. It didn't though before the andorian could do anything a sound behind her made her freeze.


She froze as its massive scaley body rose from the water. All sentient life had a built-in fear of large reptiles. It had been with them since the days they huddled around a campfire with many eyes looking at them as there next meal from the darkness.

She had no idea of the name of the creature that was now looking at her. The tyrant lizard king was from earth, not her homeworld. Even still when it roared she knew she had to run.

Her legs ran as fast as she could running deep into the jungle. It followed it's body smashing through the large branches as if they were tissue paper.

The andorians mind flooded with words that could never be translated as she bolted deeper into the jungle. Branches, bushes and flowers tore at her uniform and her hands and face. Thankfully the adrenalin kept her moving as the big lizard followed snapping right at her heels it's rancid breath hot on the back of her neck.

Her attena moved as they heard a familiar sound. She was running towards water and it was only a few seconds before she realised it's source. A massive waterfall roared in front of her sending thousands of tonnes of water over the cliff. Without any choice, the engineer ran for it with all her might.

Leaping over the cliff her body almost instinctively moved to a diving shape as she plunged towards the foaming water below. The cold water exploded against her body as she hit the deep pool at the bottom. Others might have gone into shock, but the andorian biology prevented her from doing so as she kicked upwards to the surface.

She gasped for air as she moved to the side of the river. A roar indicated the T rex was very annoyed at losing it meal. Thex grinned as she turned around and flipped it the bird as she scrambled onto the rocky bank. Looking around for a way out her blue eyes fell on the door the turbolift.

Scrambling into the tube the andorain slammed her fist onto the console as it began to rise. =^= Thex to engineering don't leave by the main entrance. The holo emmeters are playing one of the programs with a giant lizard it and the safeties are off. =^= She gasped into her combadge. She nodded the thin trickles of blood on her hands. She needed to make a quick stop to get check out.

Baroness Schwein von Alcott was sitting in the Pilot's Lounge waiting on the simulator to free up. She had an appointment in another half an hour, but she arrived a bit early to relax and enjoy a drink before she slipped into a fighter cockpit for an hour. She knew she could just use one of the many holodecks aboard, but there was something about the simulator in the Flight Controller offices that seemed better programmed to her and it just seemed more real to her for whatever reason. Besides that, the Pilot's Lounge had a nice view of the main hangar deck.

Sipping at her root beer, she set it back on the coaster and stretched her neck, her silver hair swishing across her back and the epaulets of her dress jacket. She needed to make an appointment with the Captain's wife soon too - her muscles were too tense.

As it turned out, the flight simulators had skill levels built into them, on a scale of 1 to 10. These corresponded to pilot ratings- if you could test out at a level, you were then rated as that level pilot on that craft. Thanks to considerable diligence and quite a bit of intruction from Ensign Gonadie, Lieutenant Rita Paris was qualifying well across the boards on the runabouts and the Hera herself, having achieved rank five in both. She had lower ratings on a number of other craft, and for fun she had established that on a starship class that hadn’t been in active service for seventy-seven years that she was a level 10 pilot.

Because once upon a time, she had been an ace helmsman. And she was determined to be one again in this future age, so far from where she belonged. She constantly felt stupid not knowing things everyone else took for granted, and it grated on her to be the slow kid in every conversation. The one thing she could do was fly, and she was absolutely determined to prove it- not just to the crew of the Hera, but to herself.

So when the level nine simulation piloting the starship through an asteroid field while evading pursuit by two cloaked Romulan D’deridex class starships went sideways on her because she couldn’t get the hang of fine tuning the inertial dampeners on the fly, Paris should not have been surprised. Skipping the steps in between meant that she lacked the knowledge base to properly apply her innate skills. But as the last of the shields failed and the simulator went dark, she was irritated and refused to give up. But the computer refused to reload the simulation, because another pilot was scheduled to use the simulator and Rita simply did not have enough time.

Not enough time made her snicker. Time, it seemed, was never on her side.

In a foul mood, Paris stormed out of the simulator, planning to see if she could get into a holodeck to try again, or try something else. Because being a useless antique grated on her and she simply would not have it.

Schwein stood up and stretched again, looking the buxom bombshell over as she headed out of the simulator. "Difficult time today, ja?" She then offered her white gloved hand in friendship. "I am Baroness Schwein von Alcott, personal family retainer of Captain Telvan."

“Rita Paris,” the dimensionally displaced dame took the offered hand and shook it. “In some ways this is so much easier than it used to be, and in some ways it’s harder. But I’ll get it. So... personal retainer? I don’t think starship captains had those in my day...”

Schwein definitely looked the part of a pirate retainer with her rather militaristic grey uniform and eye patch. "I believe ze Captain iz ze first pirate prinzessin in Starfleet, ja? Normally I have no job other than as message liason, but whatever she wishes, is my command." Shwein's accent was getting rather thick as she studied the somewhat out of place Chief Flight Control Officer. "You are the time traveling new Chief Pilot? How are you fitting in?"

“Oh, you know...” Paris tried to summon an optimistic lie, but failed. Shoulders slumped, she dropped heavily into a chair. “I’m the stupid girl now, like a caveman in a disco. Even in casual conversations I don’t know half of what’s being discussed. I want to contribute, but an expert on life in ancient times is not exactly in high demand outside a classroom. Even moreso if that history doesn’t match local history. So I’ve mostly been living in the simulators, trying to catch up on the one thing I can still do- pilot a starship. If I can just get these qualifications out of the way, maybe I'll feel a little better about being the idiot in the old uniform.” It was far more frank than she had planned to be with a stranger, and Rita was surprised at herself for having said so much. But her frustration had apparently been brought to a boil by the catastrophic simulation.

The pirate nodded in understanding, "I see. You feel as though history has left you behind, and it wasn't even your history to begin with. Very understandable." Sitting back down, she finished off her root beer before continuing. "I was created by a bygone era from a misguided version of history. Perhaps you are familiar with the humans and Earth first movement from when the Federation first formed. The colony I was created at was funded and supported by them. The Syndicate eventually learned of this plot and destroyed the entire colony, leaving me as the sole survivor. The Artan pirates rescued me and took me in. I learned that day that everything I knew was wrong. I owe Captain Telvan my life, and will gladly give her mine if she asked it of me. "

In point of fact, Rita was not familiar with that movement, and it just emphasized her point of not understanding half of what was said around her. The Baroness’ declaration of devotion smacked of fanaticism to her, which only disturbed her more, and she was regretting opening up to the woman. Outwardly she smiled a close-lipped smile and nodded. How the hell do you respond to that?

“Yup, she’s swell all right,” Paris offered lamely as she stood. “Well, the simulator’s all yours.”

Schwein smiled and stood with Rita. "That movement was before even your time, ja? That's how wrong it was. Will you join me in the simulator? Perhaps there we will learn more about each other than with words."

Internally Paris debated- step into the simulator with a civilian retainer who was a bit of a fanatic or walk away. But walking away would only serve to compound her isolation, while the Prussian nutjob might know a thing or two about flying modern starships. Like you have anywhere to be, Paris. Sonak always said taking chances was one of your greatest strengths. Thinking of her somber grey-eyed love still gave her heartache, but outwardly she smiled and nodded. “That sounds like an excellent plan, Baroness. Lead on.”

"Wunderbar," Schwein replied, leading Rita back into the simulator. "Computer, load scenario Baroness delta three, Queen's Desire final mission, exclude helm officer. Begin." As the ship was built around them, it became apparent that this was not only a civilian ship, but a pirate ship as well. all the controls were analog and either switches, knobs, dials, or similar, or straight up vintage 23rd century controls wired to semi modern systems. Wood paneling lined the walls and floor, while the bow and ceiling seemed to be all transparisteel. Even the Baroness now had on tasseled epaulets and a long flowing cape as she took her place behind an ornate sailing wheel, readouts and monitors, lining the area around her.

One of the pirates on sensors reported in first. "Baroness, unknown enemies on sensors. They've fired on the Basilisk and she's dead in the water."

Schwein responded immediately. "Order the rest of the task group to close in in a pincer maneuver to drive them into the asteroid field, Rita, do you feel up to dancing?"

While the look of the pirate starship bridge was a surprise to her, it struck the lost navigator that this was the first time since she had arrived here that anyone had actually called on her to be of any real use. With a smile, Paris nodded. “Yes ma’am... as a matter of fact, I’d love to do some dancing.”

Dropping herself into the pilot’s chair, it was nowhere nearly as ergonomically designed as the one on the Hera’s bridge- at least, the simulations of it she’d been in so far. But the harder chair was somehow more comforting to her, and as she reviewed the controls she understood most of them at a glance. Outdated technology, but this she could work with. Transferring navigation to her console as well, Rita read the sensor data and plotted an intercept course for the wounded vessel.

“Intercept course plotted, Captain. Shall we raise shields and draw their fire?” It was just a simulation, but being on a bridge with controls she fully understood and danger pending easily led the anachronistic astronaut to follow familiar patterns. Anticipate and request orders, be prepared to improvise. Go dancing, as the Baroness had so eloquently put it.

The Baroness leaned on the sailing wheel as she read over the small readout screens around her. "Yes, raise shields and reinforce the bow plating. Have the Manticore and Folly break off and try to lure them into the asteroids a bit further while we engage them. Target the reactor on the lead ship and try to draw it away from the other two. Use the asteroids as shields if you can. Those plasma weapons look nasty and I just had my ship painted."

Raising the shields was simple, and the bow plating was something with which Rita was unfamiliar, but the options weren’t rocket science, so she focused it forward even as she began moving the ship into position. The telemetry on the asteroids showed them to be mostly inert, with only a few moving in any sort of direction at all. That would work to Rita’s advantage as she brought up targeting and scanned the enemy vessels for power signatures to know where to target.

Outside the windows the fight raged, the pirate converted Miranda class Manticore easily taking a heavy beating as the somewhat organic stony looking ships kept firing on the small pirate fleet. The Basilisk, Folly, and Queen's Desire were all smaller Trill designed ships which were tough, but couldn't take quite the same beating as the Manticore, and the Basilisk had already been disabled in the initial assault.

As for the enemies, no profiles in the database were popping up and there were only three of them. On top of that they were using some unknown type of plasma weapons. In Rita’s experience, plasma weapons packed quite a wallop. But they had two disadvantages- they were slow to recharge, and if they could be interrupted by weapons fire, the results could be catastrophic for the plasma weapon equipped vessel. For now, she had the reactors targeted, and her weapons options were coming online. Calculating out a trajectory, Paris started doing he math for the navigation for the stunt she was about to begin.

“Reactor targeted, shields up, plating diverted and we are in range,” Rita reported. The Baroness May have ordered targeting but she had not given the order to fire, and Rita was old fashioned that way. "Intercept course plotted and underway."

"Just a little closer..." The Baroness kept her eye on the status readouts as they got closer. Then, when they were almost right on top of them, she gave the order to fire. "Now! unleash hell and fire all we have!" She left the torpedoes and forward weapons to Rita while the tail gunners gave a quick confirmation and unleashed their own barrage of phaser fire on the lead ship's reactor, slaving their targeting scopes to Rita's.

The range was too close for torpedoes, so with her eyes on the pop-up targeting viewer Rita lined it up and endeavored to show what she could do. Bright blue phaser beams lanced across space like carving blades. Engineering was practically carved off the enemy vessel, trailing plasma clouds that were in turn ignited by another phaser barrage to ignite massive fiery explosions in space. At an unsafe range, no less. Two seemingly meaningless torpedoes launched, not striking the enemy vessel but instead flying past it, on toward the asteroid belt.

"Target is crippled, not sure if they retain life support ma'am," Paris reported as she swung the ship wide round the explosion, maintaining approach to the enemy vessel as she continued on the vector to meet up with that pincer movement to do their part.

Interestingly enough, one of the other enemy ships flew right into the two stray torpedoes, partially crippling them. They weren't out of the fight yet though, as they fired at the Queen's Desire. Plasma raked across the ship, rocking her and sending light showers of sparks from a few of the conduits. She was well built though and held together well.

The Baroness flung one arm out, which made her cape billow dramatically, and called out a few more orders. "Dive into a corkscrew past that one and unload all aft weapons as soon as you've scrapped off some of their paint! What's the status of the Manticore and Folly?"

One of the other pirates called out a response to her query. "The folly is dead in space and venting atmo! The Manticore just disabled that third ship and is moving to assist them!"

"Excellent! Now let's make short work of this one!" Schwein should have been happy but she'd run this simulation several time with different tactics. She knew what was about to happen. There was nothing happy about it.

No one ever asked for a corkscrew, so Rita grinned as she tightened the inertial dampeners to twist her round, making the pirate vessel very hard to hit. But on the vector that she kept it, the lady had asked for scraped paint. "Brace for impact," she warned just in case she didn't pull this off. Impulse racing up to maximum, Paris slid them into a vector that brought them alongside the enemy vessel, even as she dropped off a a torpedo on a timer. As they realigned past the enemy vessel, the aft gunners took aim through Rita's telemetry, which was targeting a building plasma charge in the main guns of their opponents.

The resultant explosion was impressive, triggering the photon torpedo they had left behind to add a concussive element to the ship's fiery death, which Paris rode, surfing the shockwave with the hull integrity of the starship, counting on her to be solidly built. Which she was, and the Queen's Desire was flung toward the asteroid field, until Paris redirected the momentum to create an arc to intercept the Folly and bring them within transporter range.

Glancing across all three displays, the Baroness should be happy. All three of the enemies were down and they were rescuing the crews of their two disabled ships. "Have the Manticore lock transporters on the nearest enemy vessel and get us some booty! As for us, we'll check the one near the Folly and make sure her crew is ok."

They didn't have any time for 'booty calls' or rescue operations though, as a large ship twice the size of the Manticore, similar in design to the three they had just disabled popped out of warp right on top of them. The only indicator that it was even there was the proximity alarms at first. Then the sensors started blaring. "What the hell is that?" One of the pirates yelled, nearly crapping themselves at the ship now filling the forward windows.

"Hard to port! Evasive maneuvers! Spin up the warp coils! Helm, skim us past the nearby sun to mask our signature!" Schwein's heart sank as the cruiser focused on the Manticore first, disabling it in only two salvoes, gouts of flame sprouting from the old Miranda class ship that had been the centerpiece and muscle of her task force. With a bright flash, one of the active nacelles were hit, causing even more damage. The Manticore's days were now over and a warp core breach was imminent. Apparently the large enemy ship knew this as well and turned their attention to the Queen's Desire, causing a little extra concern to crop up in the Baroness's voice. "Engineering, please spin up the warp coils a little faster."

However, the Helm was not responding as ordered.

Instead, the proximity alarms were still going off, a loud and obnoxious alert that drilled into one’s teeth. But Paris was piloting the Queen’s Desire backward, keeping pace with the larger starship as the forward and aft phasers lanced out, carving directly into the hull of the new and larger enemy starship. With one hand on the helm making course corrections to keep the pirate vessel terrifyingly close to the warship, the other hand was targeting and firing the phasers at what the sensors indicated was the most likely location of the power plant for the enemy starship.

“Set the deflector to spray charged photonic particles in a wide burst pattern, at this range it’ll confuse their sensors,” Paris ordered the navigator beside her. “It might not mask our signature, but if they don’t survive it’ll be moot.” Paris did not spare a glance back to the baroness as she worked. “They’re idiots relying on scare tactics- this close our shields overlap, so they don’t protect at all. We’ve got dorsal guns and they lack belly guns. So we should be punching through their reactor…”

"Aye... Aye..." The navigator glanced over his shoulder at the Baroness for a moment and received a nod before complying, but he did his best once he did. The ship didn't have a very powerful deflector grid, but he could at least get a spray of photonic particles to come out of the forward array. "Initiating spray now!"

As for the weapons, a pair of torpedoes lanced out from the front of the behemoth ship and arced back towards the smaller Queen's Desire while they tried to penetrate the thick armor with their phasers. The two torpedoes slammed into the smaller ship, rocking them hard and throwing Schwein to the deck as she was the only one standing. "Shields are down!" called one of the pirates at an engineering station.

Quickly getting back to her feet, she barked out a few more orders. "Keep up that barrage on their reactor! We're almost through to it!"

Then the larger ship fired two more torpedoes. As they arced around, this time one seemed to lose tracking and went wide. The other wavered a bit, but continued to track the Queen's Desire as she continued to pour phaser fire into the other ship's armor, trying to melt through to the reactor.

Right before it hit, they made it through.

Time seemed to slow down as the bridge module auto-ejected and the torpedo shredded the ship, barely throwing them clear while both of the ships decided to blow up moments later.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit! I honestly thought we were too close for them to risk torpedoes without destroying themselves, but apparently that wasn't a consideration," Paris fumed. Competitive to a fault, she hated to lose, particularly when losing meant a ship and a crew were lost, simulated or not. "I'm sorry Baroness... I should have followed your orders and tried to run. This one is on my head."

Schwein stood there for a moment, clinging to the old fashioned sailing wheel as the bridge pod stabilized itself. After a few moments, the simulation ended and a score popped up with past scores, revealing this to be the only tie - all the rest were complete losses.

Bursting into laughter, she stepped away from the center stage towards Rita. "Well done! That was the final flight of mein ships and crews. Only seven survived that blitz, but I think if you were at the helm that day, far more would have been rescued, ja?"

The woman replayed out her last great battle, over and over, to see if she could find a way to win. She obviously didn't let it consume her life, but she came back time and again to try once more, to watch her old fleet be destroyed again, to try to save a few more. To see what went wrong and try again. And far from angry at being disobeyed, she was happy that Paris' daredevil tactical choices had changed the course of the battle significantly.

Despite herself, Rita Paris cracked a smile, that slowly spread into a grin.

"Yes ma'am, I'd like to think that might just be so," the leggy lieutenant agreed. "I like you, Baroness. I think we're going to get along just fine, you and me. What do you say we go find a bottle of something alcoholic and raise a toast to the Queen's Desire and your first tie."

"At least, until we can get you a win..."

Mona and Ila were already in the briefing room behind the Hera's bridge at the main screens still sorting through the sensor data trying to figure it all out when Enalia came in, her hair still a bit disheveled from sleep, but otherwise ready. "Do we have enough energy for a pot of coffee? No, don't answer that yet... I'll just pass on it for now. A dark matter ion storm..." Joining them at the screens, she looked over the data, her eyes widening at the intensity and magnitude of it all.

"It seems that at warp eight, our momentum took us nearly three light years into it before we came to a stop. It's almost twelve light years across." Ila pointed out the dimensions of it as she spoke.

"It's a wonder we didn't take more damage than we did, to be honest." Mona pulled up a list of damages. "Other than some blown EPS relays and conduits, and a few isolated systems failures and the warp systems being offline, we seem to be in good condition overall."

Enalia spotted one thing that did worry her in the systems diagnostics and pointed it out immediately. "What about this one? The ship-wide holo-systems are reporting an ionizing matrix failure? What does that mean?"

Ila fielded that question. "I believe that it means that random projections may appear for brief periods. It shouldn't pose any issues and should clear up as soon as we leave the storm."

"Keep an eye on it just in case. A few of our crew are photonic life forms." Hearing the explanation only made Enalia worry more.

Mal had also already been in the room. Mal tapped his commbadge, which fortunately still worked, or this briefing couldn't have been called.

"Xustos to Zhuri," he said. "Akira, please respond."

At first, there was no response from the Chief Operations Officer, but before anyone could call for Akira again, static could be heard over the comm channel, and under that static was a voice, possibly Akira's, but the voice was so faint and distant that no words could be discerned.

"Damn," Mal said. "She must be somewhere the emitters aren't functioning properly."

Mal hit his badge again.

"Xustos to Ral," he said.

"Ral here, Commander," Daytona responded. "What's going on?"

"Is Akira with you?" Mal asked.

"Actually, no," Daytona said. "She was up and out as soon as whatever happened to us happened. What did happen?"

"We hit an ion storm," Mal replied. "Our internal holoemitters are malfunctioning. I'm concerned she might be affected. I was hoping we could convince her to get into that android body of hers for the duration. I tried to contact her, but I got a garbled response."

"Alright," Daytona said. "I'm up. I'll find her. She's really not going to like having to use that body, but I'll see if I can talk her into it. Ral out."

It was at that moment that Lieutenant Paris made her way in, trying very hard not to look ill, and failing. She'd been thrown from her bed when the Hera had hit the brakes, promptly thrown up, wrestled into her distinctive uniform and had been trying to compose herself all the way to the bridge. The hairs on her arms were standing up, she felt twitchy and her stomach was in knots, and she had no idea why. Also, she had reported to the helm, her duty station, only to be informed by the flight control officer on duty that she was supposed to be in a meeting in the briefing room. All in all a stellar start to the day for the anachronistic astronaut.

"Lieutenant Paris reporting as ordered," the nauseous navigator said as she slid into a seat and tried to put on a neutral expression so that she could hide her distress, even as her inner anxiety levels were going through the roof, her flight or fight reflex going off like a red alert klaxon.

Right behind Paris came Vaemyn, and much like her, the congenial Vorta looked distinctly out-of-sorts, his hair wildly askew and his uniform badly ruffled. “Me too,” he said unnecessarily, following Paris to collapse into a chair beside her, rubbing his violet forehead gingerly. “Generations of scientists spend their lives to find a dark storm like this and we literally fall into one by accident. It’d be fascinating if...ow...my head wasn’t hurting so much...”

Turning around to greet the arrivals, Enalia was caught off guard by an old man in a toga, poring over some scrolls in the back of the conference room. "Did someone invite Aristotle to this meeting or is this one of those holographical glitches?"

Upon hearing his name, the recreation of Aristotle glanced up and realized he was no longer in his workshop, freaking out. He pulled out a rather shiny .50AE Desert Eagle, definitely not genre specific, and fired it at the Captain seemingly blindly. The first couple projectiles Enalia ignored because she assumed the safeties were still on, but the third actually grazed her left shoulder, causing a rather light of damage in the process and shattering the monitor behind her.

The doors slid open as the andorian stepped into the room. Eyes fell on her tattered uniform, light bandaged cuts and soaked from as she stepped into the room. " Sorry, I'm late. There's a tropical jungle with a t rex living in it that's sprung up in the corridors outside of engineering. " She said her voice still rather out of breath.

At that moment Mal leaped into action. Rising and ducking his head, he charged the Mad Greek.

"Maaaa! Maaaa!" (goats say "Maa", sheep sound like people imitating sheep by saying "Baa")

The satyr hit the deranged, gun-toting, philosopher amidships and knocked him down.

Aristotle screamed in surprise in having a mythical beast charging him and fired two more shots into the ceiling, which was all the rounds that gun held. As he was bowled over, he screamed in pain as if something had been broken. Howling, he clung to Mal for a few more moments before vanishing into thin air.

As for Enalia, she was more stunned than injured, touching the blood coming from the wound and looking at it in surprise. "Computer, red alert. It seems the holo-emitter safeties are offline." When the computer did not respond and no red alert sounds were forthcoming, that's when Enalia became visibly concerned. "Yeah, we definitely have a problem."

Matthew almost did not avoid the rush on the XO, out the door to the briefing room. Pinwheeling with arms and cane he lost his footing entirely and ended up on his back on the decking. Hed been limping heavily already because one thing his body didnt react well to was sand. Sickbay had a lovely floor covering of sand, with a lovely oasis that had once been his office. He personally liked the date palm, but could do without the water and sand.

Mal reached down and offered the doctor a hand up.

"Sorry, Doctor," Mal said.

"Couldn't be helped." Matthew said softly and groaned as he was lifted from the ground.

Still seated, Lieutenant Paris raised her hand as if in a classroom, but when she began speaking, it came out a bit rushed and jumbled, outwardly illustrating her anxiety. "So, for the slow kid... we're trapped in a dark storm that's causing the ship to randomly manifest holographic horrors that basically render the whole ship a holodeck with the safeties turned off and a kinda whimsical approach to doing random harm to the crew. I got all of that, so... what's a dark storm and how does it do this?"

Mal turned to Dedjoy, Vaemyn, and Thex.

"Alright," Mal said. "You three are our Geek Squad representatives. Can you please answer the lieutenant?"

Ila Dedjoy Looked over at the Commander, then to Vaemyn. She had been the one explaining it to the Captain and him just moments before so she figured she'd best take the lead on this - especially since she was one one on bridge duty when it happened. Glancing down at her PaDD, she headed over to the conference table as she offered a correction to the earlier question. "It's a dark matter ion storm. Just like a normal ion storm in space, but made of dark matter. Our sensors didn't pick it up until we were about to punch into it and our deflector wasn't calibrated to protect against it." She then stood at the ready, her large eyes blinking as she looked around the room.

Ensign Gonadie chimed in as well, momentarily pointing to the now shattered monitor that was displaying a map of the storm. "Right. The... ah... Well, at warp eight, we hit it pretty hard without proper protections. We were able to get shields up, but Lieutenant Commander Thex, I'm sorry, but the ship took quite a beating. Also, the storm is preventing us from creating a stable warp field."

Enalia was still bleeding and though she would be fine with it normally, the symbiont was not. It did a slight flip flop and she realized that though it was just a graze, she had lost far more blood than she had thought as she nearly passed out, falling into the chair behind her. "Doctor... Do you think you could patch this up before I get any more light headed? If you need a med kit, there's one in the supply locker."

"Of course, Captain. I will need that medkit." He could tell with a glance that he would need the blood replenisher and a stronger regenerator.

While the captain suffered through treatment, Vaemyn leant forward on the table, although he eyed the open med kit with restrained envy before focusing his attention on Rita. “Basically, Lieutenant, we ran right into a big cloud of highly ionised dark matter. Under normal circumstances, dark matter is extremely difficult to detect. It doesn’t reflect light or other EM radiation and normal matter goes right through it, but it still exerts a gravitational pull, so it wrecked havoc on us as we flew through. It’s what the Romulans like to call jien’hruf: literally, ghost stuff.”

At that, Vaemyn gestured at the viewport where the stars twinkled innocently, showing no sign of the vast clouds of dark matter that surrounding the Hera. “Of course, this is even worse. This is a storm which means that the dark matter clouds are moving, and because they’re moving, they’re creating dark energy discharges through static electricity. Superpowered lightning bolts if you will, but they’re completely invisible to us, at least until they hit us. And because we can see neither the dark clouds or the dark lightning, we’re in...well, trouble. A great deal of trouble.”

"As for that howling noise we heard before we got the shields up and calibrated, I believe that was from those discharges interacting with our power systems, trying to overload them. If you hear that again, I recommend you evacuate the area and notify the bridge." Added Crewman Dedjoy.

"So how is that making the ship's computer goes haywire and the holo emitters to start trying to- oh, because the dark matter literally cross-connects the isolinear reactions in the computer, essentially causing short-circuits in the computer, bringing about the occasional aberration which would be both unpredictable and uncontrolled, thus the safety overrides?" the pretty pilot started asking, then tried answering her own question to the scientist.

Vaemyn laughed, but he nevertheless bobbed his head in agreement. “I was just going to say that it disrupted our systems, but yes, you’re quite right. Dark matter and the consequent dark energy has a deleterious effect on most computer systems that is poorly understood, mainly because nobody sane actually goes near this much dark matter. In short, yes, it will cause random fluctuations in our computer systems. Even with the ingenuity of Lieutenant sh’Zhoari’s engineers, these holographic malfunctions will likely persist until we escape the storm.”

At that, Vaemyn winced before hesitantly raising a finger, looking around at everyone. “Would this be a bad time to point out that in the entire known history of the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, nobody has ever actually managed to escape a dark storm?”

" Yes, that would be a very bad time to mention that. Means I'll have to work overtime to get us out of it and become the first to do so." The andorian responded from her seat. " All whilst avoiding the holodeck horrors. I'll have to crack out the salvage suits for protection then start seeing that's broken and then how to get this ship moving. If anyone has any idea's I wouldn't think of I'd love to hear them."

"I'll get the navigation sensors recalibrated, ideally get them adapted to function properly in here, and see if I can plot us a faster course out of here," Paris volunteered. "Assuming I should live so long, and don't get eaten by a T-Rex on Deck 5. Is there some way to visualize the storm so that we don't steer into something extra awful, Lieutenant Vaemyn?"

Doing a bit of math on her fingers, Enalia did not like the prospect of travelling out of this storm at impulse speeds. It would take them twelve years to do so and she knew most, if not all, of the other officers had an idea of how long it would take without warp. "And do you have any thought son how to form a warp bubble inside the storm?"

T'Pral entered, breathing heavily. "I apologize for my tardiness but my department is busy handling situations all across the ship."

Enalia nodded understandingly. "Post security at all major junctions until we can clear this dark storm. We had a bit of a situation ourselves - a greek philosopher with a gun tried to shoot me. Lieutenant Vaemyn, could you catch Commander T'Pral up on the situation and answer our prior questions?"

While Enalia was talking, Clio quietly slinked in behind T'Pral and took her seat at the table, resting her head on her hands and not paying much attention to Enalia's bleeding wound or the random Greek philosopher in the room. She already suspected she wouldn't have much to contribute to the briefing, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to string together the words if asked for input. It was probably a miracle that she'd shown up at all.

Smiling enigmatically at T’Pral as the security chief sat down, Vaemyn gestured at the viewports again. “We’re stuck in a big invisible dark matter storm that could kill us at any time without warning, interferes with our warp engines and has disrupted our computer systems, including safety protocols. Oh, and nobody has ever escaped a dark storm before. I hope that you now consider yourself caught up.”

"that's good to know," T'Pral commented with a hint of sarcasm.

Turning to everyone else, Vaemyn grinned nervously, realising that they were all looking at him to provide an answer. Logical under the circumstances, but by the Founders’ grace, it was disquieting. “As to the other questions, Captain, we need time to study this dark storm. First off, we need to study just how to actually...well...study the storm. Nobody has ever done so before, not with our level of technology. As far as physical escape is concerned, however, I am frankly at a loss. We can create a malformed high-power warp field, yes, but maintaining that warp field as we pass through the storm would be extraordinarily difficult and incur a serious chance of a warp core breach.”

"So," Paris looked around, making certain she wasn't interrupting anyone, then started ticking off points on her fingers. "We have to tune up all of the sensors so that we can figure out how to study the phenomenon so that we can figure out how to survive it long enough to escape it, which no one's ever accomplished. Have I got the gist of it?" asked the pretty pilot plaintively of the science chief.

"Alright," Mal said. "That's enough. Most spatial storms pass. They either dissipate or they pass by, moving on to ruin someone else's day. The only real question is whether or not our shields, engines, and hull will last long enough for that to happen. So, Commander sh'Zoarhi, find Mister Rybeena and do whatever you can to shore up our shields, maintain power, and reduce the stress on our hull, and try to get the holoemitters fixed before someone gets killed. If you can find Akira, rope her into helping you. Mister Vaemyn, Crewman Dedjoy, study the storm. Try to figure out the dimensions of this storm, estimate either its duration, or at least the time it will take for it to pass us by. If you figure out a way for us to get out of it, by all means, let us know. Lieutenant Paris, get down to astrometrics and see if you can help Vaeymn and Dedjoy from there. Commander Jordan, as the captain asked, please deploy security teams throughout the ship and try to keep a handle on our hologram problem. Doctor Lysander, get Sickbay prepped for business. We've got holograms firing projectile weapons. I'm sure you're going to be busy down there before this situation is resolved. Questions? If not, let's get to work."

Wait, that was it? Clio tilted her head sideways just enough to look at Mal with one eye. He did indeed appear to be trying to bring the briefing to an end. She'd missed practically the whole thing and hadn't heard enough of it to have many questions... not that she planned on asking any. And since Mal hadn't given her a job to do, she wasn't going to volunteer for one either.

"I do have a question, Commander Xustos," the anachronism in the room spoke up again. "It's, uh, generally accepted science at this point that excess ion storms interacting with transporters have a tendency to trigger extradimensional events. At least I hope it's accepted, because they do. Should we consider restricting use of the transporters, and by dint of the similar technology the replicators, while we're in this dark matter ion storm? Just to not take chances on who knows what showing up from who knows where dimension?"

"Modern transporters have ionization inhibitors to prevent extra-dimensional events from occurring," Mal said. "We should have full use of the transporters as needed."

"As long as the shields stay up, they don't malfunction, and we don't try transporting off the ship, that is." Enalia added, more worried about the storm doing other kinds of damage. "With everything else malfunctioning, replicators are safe enough, but we should probably keep transporter use to emergencies just in case they decide to transport someone into a bulkhead or inside out. As for the replicator, If someone orders soup and gets a sandwich... Well, I guess you're getting a sandwich for lunch."

"Alright then," Mal said. "Commander Enaes, you look terrible. If you're up to it, you and I will go to Intelligence and check for reports of dark matter storm activity. I think it's safe to assume this is just nature taking its course, but considering that we're dealing with a people that think of themselves as gods...and have the tech to back it up, I think we should take a look and see what we can find."

Mal took a moment to look each person present in the eye.

"When you meet with a Starfleet recruiter," he said. "They tell you about all of the adventures you'll have, the new civilizations you'll encounter, the planets and stars and anomalies you'll discover, all part of being Starfleet. They tend to ignore the other thing we face out here: risk. We risk our lives out here, and the lives of our friends. For science, for exploration, for defense of the Federation and its allies. Risk is as much our business as anything else we do, and we take those risks willingly. I'm willing to risk my life for the advancement of science and to defend the Federation, and while I accept that losing my life might be a part of my service, I'd rather not lose it if I don't have to. I think a lot of people on this ship feel the same way, and they're counting on us to make sure they don't. So let's do our jobs and do them well. We do that and if it's possible to get out of this mess, we will. You have your orders. Dismissed."

Writing prompt: #13 - Insane video game boss with narration

"The sensor platforms are up on E deck. I'll go hit the hard reboot, then you calibrate them for this dark matter ionic cloud and maybe we can plot a shorter course out of here before we end up murdered in our sleep by Mickey Mouse with a straight razor," Paris offered to her assistant chief, the colorfully-plumed Ensign Mona Gonadie. She'd go risk herself in a remote part of the ship, leaving her subordinate on the bridge in the safer situation, ready to finish the job and make sure the ship succeeded.

Which had seemed like a really good idea at the time. Now, maybe not so much as the lights flickered and flashed, sometimes blinding, sometimes dimly lit at best. With the shipwide holographics going haywire, and Paris presumed the structural integrity field generators with them, that meant that literally anything was possible. The XO had given a speech about how they might all lose their lives out here, but he had failed to mention the 'fate-worse-than-death' category with which Rita was all too familiar.

Of course, he had dismissed her expressed concern because he was also very willing to rely on the transporter safeguards. The shipwide holo emitters also had similar safeties, to prevent them from harming anyone either, and she could see how well those were working right now. But apparently she was a lone alarmist on that front- or at least she hoped so, although the hairs on the back of her neck that had yet to relax since being jolted awake in this storm remained unconvinced.

Leave it to the high-tech future to find a way that the entire starship, on a whim, might just try to kill any number of the crew with alarming capacity for just such an action. With the ship's computer database to draw upon, one might be facing a Capellan power cat in the galley, a sudden waterfall drop of a hundred feet in one's shower or a T-Rex chasing you out of the engine room.

All of which had been reported so far today.

On the course they were currently heading, at impulse speed, it would take the Hera twelve years to clear the cloud. But if Rita and her assistant could reset these navigation sensors, then there might be a much shorter course out of this dark ionic storm cloud. Which would make everyone's day a lot better. As is, when the space in front of the turbolift had tried to turn to quicksand on aft deck 18, where she had traversed to catch the lift to the intel pod, the lost navigator had barely managed to pull herself free. This was getting nasty quickly, and it seriously made Rita question the presence of so much advanced technology that could turn on the crew so easily.

Not even three weeks had she been aboard- first it was her possessed shipmates trying to kill her, now it was the ship itself. So far, the future was nerve-wracking.

As she moved into the pod, Paris was staring at the PaDD in her hand, trying to work out just where to locate the control panel that would enable her to input her access and hard reboot the nav sensors. So she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. Which under ordinary circumstances would not be a problem- the corridors of the Intel pod weren't particularly treacherous nor dangerous. Under ordinary circumstances.

Today most definitely did not count as ordinary, even for the USS Hera.

What caused her to look up was when her bootheel skidded on the deck, as she reached the rounded edge of one of the large round discs that now comprised the deck. She stumbled and fell on her well-rounded rear before taking a step up onto a neighboring disc, which was a bit difficult to navigate even in the chunky-heeled explorer's boots she wore. Looking around, she now stood on a field of such large discs, in an uneven arroyo that she could feel mild seismic rumblings from below. Apparently this was a caldera of some short, the edges of the volcano looking like molten chocolate jutting into the skyline. A sky which was a dark burnished crimson and jade.

The scent of mint hug oppressively in the air.

As she looked around, trying to gain some sort of orientation, that was when something slammed into her midsection, knocking her back into the wall of the volcano, driving the air from her lungs and bashing her already bruised posterior. At least nothing had broken, as far as she could tell, so Rita looked up to see just what had hit her.

"Welcome to the boss level!" a cheerful and cartoonish voice echoed across the off-white plain of what Paris now realized to be gigantic candy mints. Looking up, Rita could see a ghostly pale complexioned humanoid with yellow eyes, wearing a helmet bearing a red 'T'. Then his face pixilated and suddenly looked like a kindly old man with a tiny crown perched on his head, around his neck a collar of delicate and stylized lace. Then it reverted to the helmeted head, flickering like a faulty video image. As he spoke, large insectoid legs began to fold out from behind him.

"Because of you, Ralph," the figure rose, the four rear legs holding him erect so that the long arms ending in wide sharp humanoid claws could gesticulate as he pontificated. "I'm now the most powerful virus in the arcade!" then he chortled evilly- again, it was cartoonishly exaggerated. That was when Rita realized that the rendering of the world around her was just that- a cartoon, an art form that was still available back in her day, at least.

"I can take over any game I want!" the boss villain gloated. That was when Rita realized that she had seen this one before, she was sure of it. A movie about game characters. "I should thank you... buuuut it'd be more fun to kill you."

With that, the insectoid humanoid crossbreed charged at Rita Paris, at a speed she very much did not expect. Waiting until the last instant, she threw herself to starboard even as one of the sharp-clawed hands smashed into one of the mints comprising the deck before violently yanking it out. Somehow Rita suspected the mint had more structural integrity than her torso, and she began wildly casting about for a way out of this.

"Come back here, little guy!" the video game boss chortled as he repositioned himself for another strike. As his insectoid legs came crashing down, each singular part of the carapaced horror was the size of her entire body. Ducking and weaving, she ran until she encountered his upside down head looming in her path. On instinct she poked him in the eye, never ceasing her forward running momentum.

"Wreck-it Ralph, that's where I am!" she realized, even as the bug boss fluidly snaked out in front of her, whipping his tail out to slap her across the field of mints. Landing in a tumble, now she was bruised, battered and she was pretty sure she had cracked a rib or two as she remembered the villain's name. After all, he was willing to give her a hint.

"Have some candy!" said King Candy, the usurper who had taken over the racing game Sugar Rush. Now Rita remembered, but this was no help to her- after all, she was no Wreck-It Ralph, and she was a poor physical match for the adapted Bug King Candy. As she got up, holding her left side, King Candy rushed her again. "Where do you think you're going? Hahhuhhuhhh, I'm not through with you yet!"

With that, he grabbed Rita by her black boots then yanked her off her feet. Just as she impacted on the hard minty surface, furiously beating wasp wings hauled both of them into the sky at an alarming rate of speed.

I'm going to die in the Intel Pod, cause of death unknown but appears to have been a fall from a great height. Unless he decides to tear me apart just for fun. Think, Rita... how can you get out of this? All of these bizarre scenarios seem to have some element of the possibility of fairness to them, so there has to be a way...

That was when she saw the rainbow bridge at the edge of the horizon, and the three figures there. But only one of them mattered to her- Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun. Rita remembered seeing this vid when she was a child, and remembered that she loved the tough-talking, no nonsense lady space marine with the short shock of blonde hair, who was tough yet tender, strong yet feminine, in charge and heavily armed. Rita had decided that she wanted to be Sergeant Calhoun when she grew up, until her father had convinced her otherwise.

But maybe...

Rita reached up to tap her comm badge, the old Starfleet command insignia serving just fine as a modern comm badge. "Computer, arm and equip me as Sergeant Calhoun of Hero's Duty!" While the computer had often as not been unresponsive to appeals of late, this one apparently got through. Maybe because it was a part of the scenario that it currently had loaded, or maybe a short circuit worked in her favor for a change. But her uniform shimmered and twinkled with a brief transporter effect, which likely would have sent her into an anxiety attack were she not already in mortal danger.





When the effect faded. Rita Paris was now clad the mylvar and ceramic plates of armor of a marine from Hero's Duty. Her bangs seemed longer and her honey blonde hair was a shade more platinum, but Rita wasn't about to complain. Because in her right hand, she now carried a rather large and she suspected quite potent pulse rifle, one designed to fight one foe in specific.

Bugs.

"Haw haw haw, look at that, it's your little friend," King Candy gloated as he juggled her around to change his grip on the lost navigator. But he didn't expect her to suddenly be quite well prepared for the situation, and as he casually tossed her about, Rita Paris opened fire, on full auto, at point blank range.

BRRRRAPPPP!!!

King Candy lost his grip on her, and Paris began to freefall the kilometer or so he seemed to have her up in the air, although it was maybe a few hundred meters at best. Tapping at the wrist comm that came with the armor, she scrolled through the options looking for the controls to the hoverskid Calhoun had ridden, which should be nearby. Of course, that was when King Candy caught back up with her again. Grabbing her by the ankle, he tossed her back up into the sky, even as his tail lashed out and knocked the pulse rifle out of her hand. Disarmed, he caught her in his clawed hands as his rear legs wrapped around her, pinning her.

"Let's watch her die together, shall we?" the villain intoned, his voice taking on a more serious mein.

Quickly, Rita ran through her options. The rifle was the only thing with enough penetration power to stop him, and she had only wounded the video game boss, not ended him. And while she really didn't care about the Sugar Rush princess about to die, she did recall how Ralph had beaten the malicious virus.

"It's game over for both of you!" King Candy tittered, even as Rita felt a few canisters on her belt, and she smiled. Her arms weren't free- but she had wiggle room, and that was enough. One on each side, she pulled the pins securing the grenades to her web gear, and she dropped them. Candy didn't even seem to notice. He was too busy watching the kid using her short range teleportation power to evade his troops as she raced to rescue Ralph, playing out the game's script.

"Oh, it's over all right, but not the way you think," Paris said to the insectiod would-be murderer. She was trying to come up with another quip when her grenades hit the surface of Mentos Mountain, and they exploded, sending the caldera of candies cascading down into the diet cola magma below. Which of course began producing a rather spectacular eruption that King Candy easily moved to avoid. Holding her upside down by the ankle, he brought her face to face with him.

"You think that's gonna save you?" he asked as the volcano erupted in a beam of frothy magma that reached into the sky like a beacon.

"I kinda do," Paris replied as she kicked him in the face, surprising him enough to make him release his grip on her. While he started to turn to go after her, the light drew him in, even as all of his candy-striped bug troops merrily flew to the light, like moths to a flame.

"No! Stop! Where are you going? Don't go into the liiiiight," he intoned as he too became entranced, but Rita couldn't hear him. She was far too busy bringing up that menu, which fortunately wasn't that complex. That didn't stop her from beginning to scream as the ground roaring up at her got too close. The hoverskid's arrival beneath her feet just before she impacted the ground was much to her relief. Bogeying it back up, she spun it around and paused the forward momentum to watch the bugs all fly into the light to be destroyed, even King Candy. Being a surfer girl did have advantages in moments like this.

Then she was unceremoniously dropped to the deck of the Intel pod, where her all-too-real cracked ribs reminded her of reality once more. Gone was the ceramic armor and the platinum hair, and instead of a pulse rifle she was back to a PaDD in her hand. Picking herself up and dusting herself off, tugging down her skirt Rita Paris returned to her mission. On the trail of the control panel to reboot the navigation sensors.

With her right hand holding her side and desperately hoping there wasn't another insane scenario awaiting her at the control panel, Paris muttered, "Well, turns out the XO was right about one thing- if that gear was cross-dimensionally replicated, I surely didn't notice."

"Now to find this stupid panel so I can reboot the stupid system, then I can try to figure out just where Astrogation is since I'm supposed to live long enough to report there... maybe after a little nap," the exhausted lieutenant yawned broadly, aggravating her cracked ribs.

"Ow. You always manage to wreck it, Rita..."

There was no denying that the lost navigator was avoiding confronting the security chief. Lieutenant Commander T'Pral Jordan was a bit intimidating when chasing one with a shadow sehlat, and Lieutenant Rita Paris suspected that the woman was quite likely formidable when not possessed by the black blood. Which was part of what gave her pause to go have a conversation with the chief of security of the Hera.

The kicks the Vulcan woman would likely forgive, but Jordan had long hair. All that chemical foam... Rita shuddered to think how much work it must have taken to get all that gunk out of her hair and off her skin. But sooner or later she had to face it, and better in her own time than running into one another in a corridor or the officer's mess. Thus what brought her to Deck 11, in front of the security office.

T'Pral looked up from going over security reports at her desk as the door chime sounded. "Enter," she called.

She saw the form of Rita Paris enter. "What may I do for you, lieutenant?" she asked, standing from her desk.

“Uh, hello Chief... we’ve kind of sorta met already, although I’m not sure if you remember it,” Paris began. Extending her hand, the gold minidress clad chrononaut closed the distance to the desk. “I’m Rita Paris, the new chief helmsman... wait, flight control officer, they don’t call us helmsman unless we’re manning the helm. Which seems silly if you think about it, but that’s progress for you, right? Hahaha.”

It was clear that the buxom blonde was nervous, and if it wasn’t, the rambling was definitely a sign. While she could lie with the best of them, Rita Paris quite obviously wore her emotions on the outside.

"I am aware of who you are and your position, Ms. Paris," T'Pral stated and paused for a moment before continuing. "There is no need to be nervous...I am no longer infected by the Black Blood."

Eyeing the unshaken hand, Paris dropped it back to her side. "Ah. So you're traditional Vulcan then? No hard feelings because no emotions?"

"Vulcans have emotions--they simply control them better than other species, myself included. I try to keep my emotions in check but that has not always been the case," T'Pral explained. She realized she was being more standoffish than normal but she was still dealing with her actions while she had been infected--she had killed an officer in her department. Letting out a sigh, she gestured to a nearby chair. "Have a seat if you wish," T'Pral offered.

"I'm very familiar with Vulcans, their emotions and how they deal with them," Paris declared. "I was bonded with a kolinahr for over three years, and we knew one another... very well. Look, I just wanted to offer an apology for my actions while you were possessed- if you are traditional, then I have nothing to apologize for because my actions were logical and offering you one is pointless." This was another case of Paris reaching out to a shipmate to whom apparently she was a nuisance, and she already regretted it. She hadn't taken the offered seat and was ready to conclude this particular encounter as soon as the security chief acquiesced. No sense dragging this out any longer than it needed to be. "So I think we're done here?"

T'Pral nodded. "Yes, I believe so. And your apology is not needed, I would have done the same had I been in your position."

"Eminently logical," Paris replied, turning and departing the security office.

After her escapade in the Intel Pod, a little exploration had determined that the experimental Section 13 transporter that had reassembled her upon her arrival here was off-limits to her. Which Security would likely relay to the Captain, who might or might not ask for an explanation and it might carry a who knew what offense.

The navigation sensors were compiling, registering and interpreting the data on the dark matter ion storm they were trapped in, which was going to take some time. Since the leggy lieutenant had disobeyed orders to do so, she would wait for the hammer to fall on that little gem as well. She couldn't wait to be chewed out for that act of rebellion, which technically would just be considered disobeying a direct and lawful order.

Punitive Articles of the SFCMJ
Article 92—Failure to obey order or regulation
Maximum Penalty
(1) Violation or failure to obey lawful general order or regulation. Dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 2 years.

For now, the anachronistic astronaut needed to report to Astrogation, which she was still guessing was on deck 10 listed as Stellar Cartography. Hitting Sickbay, Paris grabbed a nurse and convinced the large-eyed woman to run a bone knitter over her cracked ribs. Fortunately, Sickbay was working assembly-line style with all of the mishaps across the ship, so she was in and out without any muss or fuss.

Returning to her quarters, the exhausted and wrung out officer had decided on a quick power nap, just to restore a bit of clarity. After all, she'd been woken in the middle of the night, and the ion storm constantly made her jumpy and uneasy. Rita's personal theory was because she was not native to this universe, and the ion storm knew it. She could feel occasional faint electric tingles along her skin, and she could have sworn she felt it when the nav sensors rebooted, standing right next to them.

But exhausted in the enormous bed in her enormous bedroom, Rita Paris couldn't sleep alone.

"Computer?" Paris called, "Record personal log please?"

=^=Recording personal log=^=, the computer's steady and somehow soothing voice replied, and Paris began speaking.

"I've been here for... a week now, maybe two? Honestly I have trouble keeping track of time. Which is ironic, right? After the first hundred years who even notices a week anymore. I haven't assigned myself bridge duty because I'm not rated to fly the Hera at any level of skill level I'd feel comfortable with... well, what I'd expect from a chief helmsman, at least not yet."

"Besides, the ensign who was chief before I came aboard, from a planet I've never heard of, is a far better pilot than I am, and she officially counts as the only one who's genuinely glad I'm here. Because duty rosters haven't changed in a hundred thirty years, and she hates the paperwork. Which they have not changed, so at least I can still do that right."

Staring up at the ceiling, Paris pulled the blanket up under her chin. "It's not that I don't care where she's from, you know- it's just that everyone on this ship is an alien, even if they look human, and I haven't had time to look them all up and learn about their home planets. Because I'm already looking everything up all of the time, and I'm trying to retain it all but... it's a lot of information all at once, and I'm not Sonak."

There was a pause as she rolled over onto her side, then drew her knees up to her chest and the lonely woman hugged the pillow tightly. Tears came, and she spoke around them.

"I miss him. He was my rock, the center of my universe, the one I could always count on and he's gone and I'm alone and I'm... I'm scared. This is all so intimidating and I know he would tell me that I can do it and that I'm exceptional and amazing and that I'm a good officer and an asset, but... that's not true. Not here. Here I'm only human, on a crew of extraterrestrials who are all far more exceptional than me. Here what they were taught in primary school I am still struggling to learn."

Idly, Rita repositioned her left breast for comfort. "The demotion hurt more than I thought it would. I never realized how proud I was of my rank until I got demoted to fill a dead woman's shoes. But it's more than that."

"I used to be a valued member of the command staff. Captain Stuart and Commander Sonak and me, we figured out the problems and we came up with plans and we worked through our missions. I was a voice of reason sometimes, a voice of common sense others, a wild idea sometimes, but they always valued what I had to say. Here I'm just the stupid blonde in the old uniform struggling to understand, and I'm just an annoyance. My words hold no weight, my ideas and thoughts have no value. The XO resents the captain for forcing me on the crew, and I'm pretty sure she's just keeping me around because I'm a curiosity. My attempts at contributing are dismissed, and I just feel stupid every time I try to speak up.""

Turning a bit in her sleep, the blonde ran her fingers through her pixie cut hair as she frowned slightly. "Well, no, the science officer at least let me know I wasn't wrong, so there's a victory. yayyyyy."

There was another pause, and when she spoke again, Paris' voice was low and quiet.

"I don't think I've got a way back home. They have a means and the coordinates, but not enough power to send me. I think I'm trapped here, and I've... thought about suicide. More than once. I don't know if I have authorization or if I could even work the controls, but if I set the transporter for beaming me outside the warp field on a wide enough dispersal beam, it should do the trick, I think. Maybe the universe would stop trying to kill me with the transporter if I volunteer," she chuckled without mirth. "It's in the back of my mind more and more every day. I don't... I don't wanna live like this. I was a Starfleet officer... I was a good officer, in my day. I was... but now I'm just a relic, an antique, a curiosity. A has-been from the wrong universe. I don't have anything to contribute here."

"I miss Sonak. But he's a hundred years and a dimension away, and, and, I'm never going to suh-see him again..."

There was a keening whine recorded, then a longer pause punctuated by sobs and sniffles which the computer faithfully recorded. After a few moments, a few stronger sniffles were recorded, then the lost navigator could be heard to speak once more.

"The CSO said no one has ever escaped from a storm of this type, so maybe that'll be my salvation. I don't have to end myself if the universe finally manages it for me. Maybe that's why we ran into this storm- it's the universe trying to right it's mistakes since I keep cheating it."

"I don't know... but I don't know most things, anymore."

Another moment of sniffling was heard, then Paris' voice was heard again, clearer and stronger.

"Nobody cares. Nobody is going to listen the one personal log entry left by a dead woman who was supposed to have been dead a hundred years ago. Besides, I didn't even really exist in history here, so not like they'll need anything I have to say for historical records. Computer, erase personal log entry please."

=^=Erasing personal log entry=^=

"Erase me while you're at it, wouldya?" Paris muttered under her breath.

Laying her head on her damp pillow, Paris tried to resume the plan to catnap. She had laid down for that few moments of rest that had eluded her, instead having given voice to her thoughts and emotions. Venting to the universe in an attempt to feel better, while she realized that she couldn't put off speaking to someone in Medical. She knew, but the lost navigator couldn't bring herself to admit her actual feelings on the bleak future she saw for herself to another officer. Instead the Starfleet career girl would keep trying to soldier on, putting on an optimistic smile to try to hide it all inside and externally keep trying to do her best.

Holding the pillow that was a poor substitute for comfort, Rita Paris resolved to keep trying for another day. Which unbeknownst to her in that moment, she always would.

For despite all the troubles and woes that would perennially assail her, at her core, Rita Paris was a survivor.

With the holographic menace behind them, Lieutenant Rita Paris decided that it was time she faced a few facts. One was that she simply wasn’t comfortable in Sickbay- she was accustomed to having a good relationship with the ship’s surgeon, which she had failed to establish on the Hera. The lycanthropic doctor, nurse, whomever she was seemed competent and able, but she hadn’t seemed to connect there, either. Rita was remarkably injury-prone, and tended to spend a lot of time limping in then walking out of Sickbay.

In addition, there was the issue with holographic life forms, sentient computer programs given a semblance of humanoid life through photonic trickery and forcefields. Apparently they were outrageously lifelike- she had offered Akira a hug, and she could smell the girl’s hair when she did so.

The Captain was married to a hologram, who was apparently part of a hive mind? Rita had never gotten an explanation on that point, and was still very confused how it all worked. Forget about how sex worked with a hologram- that was an entirely separate kettle of fish that continued to confuse her as she contemplated it. Did all of the Maicas look alike? Why would they not customize themselves? Were they required to be built like that for a reason? Did holographic citizens have rights? As terrified of the Borg as the Federation clearly was, how did they not think that holographic life would be that much easier to assimilate? And given how holographic emitters and fine-tuned forcefields were contiguous throughout the starship, how were holographics onboard not a threat to security?

All of this ran through her mind and more. After all, in this far-flung future there seemed to be very little consideration for technology to turn against the creators of said technology, or the users. She still recalled the M-5 test, which resulted in casualties aboard the USS Lexington and the deaths of the full crew complement of the USS Excalibur. A humanoid would choose compassion over simply following orders, but compassion was something computers tended to, in her experience, lack. Daystrom had gotten that part wrong, most certainly. And while she was quite certain that these modern technological life forms were far more advanced, there was still a nagging doubt in her mind about them.

Asking questions was how Rita learned in this bizarre time period, but often she noticed her questions were swept aside. Either people did not realize she was seeking clarity, or they simply did not wish to answer, because her probing questions created uncomfortable situations. The Ops chief was a hologram. The Captain’s wife was a hologram, and she had no idea just who else aboard might be the same. Paris had to get along with these lifeforms, and to do that she needed questions answered. So she thought this time she had a self-starting answer to her problems.

Apparently there was an emergency medical hologram. Which might or might not be as complex as the rest of the holographic life forms onboard, which just created a host of other questions. Was the holographic doctor turned off when not in use? Was that cruel? Were other holograms ‘turned off’ similarly when not in ‘use’? Was this basically slavery? Were they all free-willed? Did that mean the Holodeck was an entire world’s worth of enslaved beings? Trying to figure it out on her own was making her head hurt, and she hadn’t made much headway asking the ones she had met. So Rita figured bringing it down a notch might just give her an answer, and give her someone to turn to not only for advice and answers, but someone to patch up her injuries that she could rely upon in a pinch, with whom she theoretically would not create conflict.

So, stepping into the holosuite, she tapped her comm and declared, “Computer- activate the Emergency Medical Hologram.”

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," the EMH said as he was activated outside of his normal operating arena. Taking in the scene, he guessed the situation quickly. "Let me guess. You were cosplaying on the holodeck and you strained something and you don't want to alert the proper medical teams? That's what it seems I'm here for. Just tell me where it hurts and I'll get you fixed up in no time." As he spoke, he headed towards the medkit built into the holosuite's arch to get the medical tricorder to start working.

"No, no, I'm not currently injured, I just... I need to talk to someone. About holograms. And asking the holograms or the people involved witht he holograms isn't really getting me anywhere, and I need to understand this, because they didn't exist in my day. It's yet another very confusing part of life in the future that I'm trying to get a handle on while I smile and nod and try very hard not to let on just how in over my head I am with all of this. Computer, could I have a chair, please?" Paris ended her rambling rant with a request because she didn't want to just stand around the black room with a neon yellow grid pattern. "In fact, could you set the scene as a beachside cafe in San Francisco circa 2060?"

The EMH paused as he was pulling the medkit from its fitments and pushed it back into the arch. "Ah, I see what the issue is now." Heading back to Rita, he took a seat next to her. "Fortunately for you, my programmers included he knowledge of over four thousand of the Federation's best mental health experts. Unfortunately, I was programmed with a mind for efficiency rather than bedside manners so if I seem terse or condescending, I apologize now."

"As for your initial questions..." The EMH paused a moment and looked the woman over as he accessed her medical records. "I'm sorry, but your medical records seem to be corrupt. When were you born again?"

"February 13th, 2233. San Francisco, Starfleet Medical. I'm, um, a lot older than I look... chronologically. I think I might be thirty years old physically by now- maybe twenty-nine? It's a little hard to keep track given how much time I've spent not being... um, present. I assume most of it is in my medical record?" Rita squirmed a bit in her chair as the sea breeze blew in, ruffling her short blonde hair. "I could go over it if you need it for your records... I don't know if anyone has amended my service jacket. I've just sort of taken it on faith that Starfleet is documenting me in this timeline."

The EMH looked a bit taken aback at the explanation and just decided to move on. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand all that. I'll just have to provide whatever care I can as best I can. You were asking about photonic life forms, I believe? You seemed rather distressed and were displaying signs of anxiety, if I'm not mistaken."

The buxom blonde sighed heavily, blowing her hair out of her face with the long slow exhalation. "That makes two of us, pal. And yes, I have... I have a lot of anxiety about a lot of things. So yes, I would like to know more about photonic life forms. You count as a photonic life form, right?"

Displaying a somewhat smug grin for a moment, the EMH couldn't help but take a bit of pride in that fact. "Oh yes, quite photonic. Though I'm not quite as complex as the other two on the ship, I'm quite advanced in my own right and once I reach a certain level of development and sentience I'll be able to apply for Federation citizenship just like them. Of course, I haven't even met the most basic of criteria yet, like exceeding my programming or choosing a name for myself. I don't even have one thousand hours of active time logged and most of that time has been spent treating injured crew. On the bright side, I do have autonomy over my program's shutdown protocols, just like the other photonics aboard." The EMH cleared his throat and took on a more thoughtful look. "But I'm guessing that's not exactly why you're here, is it? You have a deeper, more philosophical question in mind, don't you?"

"Well," Paris began, then hesitated. Gnawing on her lower lip, she chose her words carefully. "That actually defined a bit of my questions there... I don't know the difference between a hologram that is just turned on and off as a convenience and one that is considered a self-aware lifeform. I worry about if this is a society blithely embracing slavery or if they are creating monsters in their midst. And I don't really have anyone to ask because i am afraid of offending anyone- for the love of phloog, the captain's wife is a hologram and I really don't understand that, but I don't want to offend her by asking too many questions. This time period, there's just so much that I don't know and people look at me when I don't understand things they take for granted and it's, it's wearing on me and I just want some answers and to not feel so... so..."

"So lost and confused?" The EMH reached out and gently took Rita's hand and gave her an understanding look. "I may be programmed with the knowledge of thousands of worlds, but I have an idea of what you're going through. Every EMH has to go through this now. We're brought online and run for a few hours and told to come to terms with our programming and our place in this world. We're told that though there are people out there that can apparently program sentient holograms, our programmers aren't part of that group. Therefore, a vetting program was put into place that seems impossible, yet it's been done a few times, which gives us hope. Yet for every success, there are ten of us that decompile trying to reach that goal. Do you want to see that goal?"

"Sure, I guess?" At least she wasn't lost in the conversation, and despite the doctor being a hologram, she appreciated the simple gesture of contact. So many people in the future didn't even shake hands, it bothered Rita. She needed to touch and to be touched in order to reassure herself that she was still there, that she existed and could be percieved by others. years as a warp ghost had left that with her, and while she had previously made great strides, her relative isolation in the future had left her backsliding on that front. "I'd like to understand."

"Computer, terminal please," the EMH ordered, a small desktop computer appearing before him. He then started pulling up data on it and throwing up several holographic structures into the air. "These are the recorded AI structures of several photonic lifeforms at their last diagnostics. For us it's like a physical for you. This first one is mine." A small blue and white baseball shaped complex ball of circuitry hovered in the air in front of Rita. "That is essentially what makes me, me."

"Now... Don't tell the others, because this is slightly a breach of privacy... But this Akira's father's last recorded AI diagnostic. His mind was actually pulled from a dying Bolian, mind you, so he's a bit of a goal." Next to the small blue ball, a second orb appeared but much larger, about the size of a beach ball and filled with all the colors of the rainbow. It was infinitely more complex as well.

"And now for the coup de grace... We have a public AI diagnostic on Maica Prime, the source matrix for the Captain's wife." Pressing one more button, the area above them was filled with a complex tree-like pattern of neurons and subroutines arrayed in a seemingly chaotic and organic pattern.

"As for the Federation's policy on artificial lifeforms, I'm the lowest level and if you can exceed your programming and pass other certain criteria shown in these diagnostics, then you're granted citizenship. And if you're wondering about Maica 47 and Akira, they're just below the complexity of the second one I showed you at this point. They also both have full citizenship. It's not really slavery or servitude... I think of it more like a child not being able to vote until they grow up and when does an artificial life form grow up? You have to reach a certain level of maturity, don't you? Then again, I might just be programmed to think that way. Without exceeding my own programming, I have no way of confirming or denying it. I'm programmed to make sound, logical judgement calls based on the available data in each scenario I'm presented with. I don't yet have the capacity yet to 'think' for myself."

Pausing a moment, the EMH let Rita take in all the knowledge he had unloaded on her. However, his explanation, with visual aids, had actually covered it for her.

"Okay, actually, that made a lot of sense, thank you," Paris offered. It did make sense, in a futuristic sort of way. But there were still elements that eluded her. "So the Maica prime and all of that... could you explain that please, because I really don't understand that. The one on this ship is not the original but they are all still tied together and they share experiences, yet live autonomously?"

The EMH looked thoughtful for several moments as he considered various analogies and metaphors for explaining it. "They're autonomous, yes... They're also sort of children... Most look similar to Maica Prime's original form, though I heard one decided to exist as a pillar of light and offer sage advice and seek enlightenment in a way. A few are now male. I think one is Vulcan and teaching at the Academy. They're nowhere near a true hive mind, either. I guess you could think of them as a mother and forty nine daughters with a shared diary. A rather unique and extensive shared diary. If you're trying to compare them to the Borg, they took a similar neural networking technology and used it in a far different manner, enhancing their individuality rather than erasing it. After all, one of the biggest threats we artificial life forms face is being wiped out by malicious code. As I am right now, If someone wrote a subroutine that could wipe out every single EMH mark ten, I would be one of them. There are many mark nine models still in use, as well as the newer mark elevens, but even so, we lack the biodiversity of you biological organisms. Maica Prime, Akira, and the Maica from another universe have all overcome that obstacle by becoming hybridized, organic artificial sentients."

The EMH grinned sheepishly and actually blushed a bit. "I'm sorry, I think something's wrong with my program. I seem to be rambling. I'm not even programmed to investigate this information, but... Something about it..." A look of consternation crossed his face as he looked over the data a bit more. "Something about it... I think... I'm not programmed to feel hope, yet when I was offline, I investigated all of this for some reason, looking over all that was required to attain Federation citizenship. My program came to terms with it initially, but with all this new data... There's just so much more to process."

He then looked up and smiled at Rita in a friendly matter. "But we're here to help you. Please, continue."

In that moment, with all the information presented to her, Rita Paris made a decision and turned a corner. They were holographs and forcefields, or maybe just one or the other. But technological life forms were life forms just as valid as biological, and now that she understood them, like the infinite diversity of the universe, she welcomed them.

"Actually Doctor, they don't have to be mutually exclusive," Paris opined with a smile.

"You see, I very much need a therapist. Starfleet Psych did a wonderful job putting me back together after all that time as a ghost, and Sonak helped me overcome my issues and really become whole. But hurled through time like this... now I have an all new set of issues, not the least of which is the lack of Sonak in my life. It's like half of me is just, just gone, and all I have left is the bit of his katra that I carry, just as he has a bit of mine." The blonde bombardier paused a moment there, staring off in reverie.

"It sounds like you need a dedicated therapist." The EMH remarked. Then another thought occurred to him. "I don't think any of the biological therapists aboard can dedicate the time you need. You... You would need someone like me to not only dedicate their time to you, but... Oh my, I'd have to increase my run time exponentially to help you. If that's what you want, that is."

"Doctor, you need, well, life experience. You need to be online and interacting, to see if you can... compile... into an adult, right? Me, I need a therapist. I am absolutely running nonstop and trying not to think about my actual life because I'm terrified and homesick and in way over my head and I'm making friends but this universe, it's..." Paris trailed off as she realized she was working herself into a lather. Sheepishly, she shrugged and grimaced. "I need someone to talk to who won't judge me or hold it against me or think lesser of me. Someone who I can admit that I don't know how the three seashells work who won't roll their eyes at me because everyone learns that as a child. Not that everyone onboard would, but..."

Not bothering to await any acquiescence to her proposal, Paris began to blurt out her feelings in a vomit of confessional, "Thex is a good friend, but she has problems of her own and doesn't need mine too. The Captain is nice but... I don't know, I think she was disappointed I wasn't the 'real' Rita from her universe. I lock horns with the XO, I think because he reminds me of my father. Bt my assistant chief is this amazing women and a hell of a pilot. The Baroness... the pirate, she's a lot of fun. The kid, Akira... she was the first photonic person I ever met. So very sweet and brilliant and innocent, and I guess just vulnerable. She's still putting herself together and figuring out who she wants to be, and that's amazing to me. The scientist, Vaemyn, the, ah, Vorta, right. He's got a surprising sense of humor, and he's not condescending at all, which is a relief when you have to ask the stupid questions."

"These people... I'm making friends and starting to build a life. But I still cry myself to sleep way too much. I miss my ship, I miss my captain, I miss my man..."

"I miss understanding the world around me," Paris admitted, then scrunched up her face as the waterworks began. "I know it's a big learning curve and I know it's a lot to take in and I know, I know I'm only human. But I want to know, I want to understand. I'm an explorer, and this is a lot to explore, and most of what I used to know isn't relevant anymore so I have to learn everything. And my stress levels are through the roof and I'm not dealing with it all well."

"Help?" the time-tossed temptress asked simply, batting those baby blues.

The EMH had little life experience but he had extensive life programming and he knew that sort of look from his programming and 'training'. Moving closer, he wrapped one arm around her and squeezed her shoulders gently. "Shhh... It's ok. I'm here for you. Whatever happens, I'll be here for you. I promise. These things will take time, but things will get better. I promise you that as well." He wasn't quite sure where to start building a therapy plan since as far as he knew Rita's case was unique, but perhaps piecing together other plans, he could come up with something that could help her.

As much as she did not want to, Paris needed that hug, and the simple reassurance that there was help available. Pride and suspicion had kept her from seeking out a biological entity to help her, but somehow compassion from this sophisticated program that dreamed of being more was exactly what she needed. For a few minutes she literally cried on the holographic doctor's shoulder, then with a rather pronounced sniffle she began composing herself once more. As she mopped at her eyes with the heels of her hands, she chuckled.

"Thanks Doc... I needed that. And I feel... okay, talking with you. I trust you, so... if you don't mind being here for me, I sure do need someone to talk to, who can help me cope with all of this." Paris paused to giggle for a few seconds. "Like the fact that I can't relate to the folks in Sickbay, but I can confide in the holographic doctor who needs to experience life. If seeing a mess of a human being in action will help you grow, I'm definitely your gal, Doctor."

"Well, anytime you need me, just say the magic words and I'll be there. It seems I'm only used in sickbay during major crisis, so my schedule is normally rather open. Also, thanks to this ship's unique systems, I can make house calls." The EMH smiled in a manner he hoped was warm and polite. He may have been programmed for efficiency over bedside manner, but this event seemed to trigger something in him... He felt compassion for this woman. Something he was programmed to understand, but had yet to actually feel for any of his patients. Perhaps it was because she was the first one that treated him as something more than a medical instrument. He wasn't as sophisticated as the other photonics on the ship, after all. Why would they? As he processed the array of thoughts, his face twitched a bit, but eventually he nodded. "So... Would you like to set up regular appointments then?"

A smile spread across the face of the beleaguered bombshell- for a change, not one designed to dazzle or distract. Instead this was an honest smile, with a hint of hope in it. “Yes, Doctor… I would like that very much, if you don’t mind. And if we could do it in my quarters, that would save holodeck time, and… it would ensure privacy. Not like I am ashamed of therapy or speaking to a therapist or anything, it’s just…” Paris paused, reaching for an answer that eluded her temporarily. When she spoke again, it was with conviction.

“I don’t want people to know how often I need to talk to someone. I know it will be part of my medical record, and if they go looking, that’s fine. I’ve survived more in this lifetime than most, and Sonak always said it was a miracle I was as sane as I was given my circumstances. But you… did you know you are the first person to honestly get why I am so frazzled and actually offer me any comfort, Doc? That means a lot to me.” Reaching over, Paris put her own hand over that of the holographic doctor, offering him that hopeful smile. “I’m a stranger in a strange land, and someone who cares would really help me a lot. You listen and you get it, and I need that more than I can say.”

"I don't normally get thanked. I'm not sure how to react, really. Thank you." The EMH smiled again, this time in a much more genuine fashion. "For your appointments, how are Mondays and Thursdays? To start with? After your shift?"

“Um, I was thinking more…” Paris began to express that Monday through Friday post shift was a better idea, but that sounded far too needy. He was a psychiatrist, not a babysitter. “How about Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at least to start? I know it’s a bit much, but… I’m really stressed,” she admitted. “And you should be thanked- you are choosing to help me, so why would I not extend common courtesy and thank you?” Of course, Rita usually phrased her requests with a ‘please’ when issuing a request to the ship’s computer and often thanked it afterward.

The EMH nodded a bit deeper this time. "Three days of the week it is. You are in a very unique situation and perhaps I can help you with your studies as well. I do have some very adaptive programming, after all."

“Unique most certainly describes my situation," Paris laughed gaily, a sound he'd certainly not heard until now. "I’d appreciate that, Doctor. I’m trying to teach myself, well, everything in between living in the flight simulator and whatever crisis of the moment is arisen. But maybe someone to study with who doesn’t assume everyone knows certain things would work better for me. And it would help you too, right? Help you… compile?” Paris wrinkled her nose at the phrase. “That seems like a dirty word. It will help you… to grow, to expand your horizons and maybe understand the human condition a bit better?”

"Well... In my creator's infinite wisdom, they did make me in the likeness of a human... A famous one, I'm told. So there must be something to being human worth investigating." The EMH grinned broadly, fully confident in his actions again. "Alright then, Rita Paris, together we will become the best Starfleet officers we can be while aboard the Hera." He then stuck his hand out for a hand shake.

With a comfortable smile, Rita Paris lowered her lashes a bit to shake the hand of her photonic psychiatrist. "To becoming the best Starfleet officer's we can be... brilliant, Doctor."

Making her way down to main Engineering using the Jeffries tubes may have been an unconventional choice, but it made perfect sense to Rita Paris. After all, the holo emitters were apparently installed in the tubes, but the ship’s computer was not really paying close attention to the narrow passages. While Mugatus and mounted civil war cavalry and land sharks might be entertaining in the spacious corridors of the Hera, apparently there was considerably less capacity for mischief in the tubes between decks.

Arriving on Deck 24, Rita had to dodge a squad of small dinosaurs that tried to hem her in around the graviton generator controls, then had to use a loose plasma conduit cable to swing across a chasm that had opened between the sensor bays and the chief engineer’s office. For all the trouble she was going through today, she surely hoped her pal the acrobatic engineer wasn’t hanging somewhere else in the starship's belly fixing any number of the myriad problems that were cropping up all over the Hera.

Thex was in a bad mood. With very little sleep, being crammed into the hot and heavy salvage gear and just having had to crawl through half the ships Jeffries tube just to get to her office. Now she was looking at a hologram showing all of her men and what they were doing. Most were still waiting for a security team to finally show up to protect them while they worked. She let out a sigh as the door opened though she smiled at who had entered.

" Hello, Rita." She said her eyes still fixing on the hologram.

Taking in the situation at a glance, the buxom bombshell flopped down in a chair, a far cry from her usual demure settling into place while being acutely aware of her short skirt and the attempt to maintain decorum. Instead, she blew her rebellious bangs out of her face then ran her fingers through her shock of honey blonde hair. “So your boys can’t repair and defend themselves from whatever crossed-circuit comedy the computer is playing at simultaneously, so the result is that repairs are proceeding slowly even as more systems break down because of shipwide tomfoolery. How’m I doing?”

" Yeah, that's basically it. I have three teams one keeping life support online, the other's trying to shut down the holo emitters and the last one is trying to theorize on how to do the impossible. " Thex replied keeping the frustration in her voice under control though still obvious.

“Oh good… I wouldn’t want to catch you when you're busy,” Rita chuckled slightly, then catching the look from the angry Andorian, she coughed and shut it down. “Sooooo I might just have an idea of how to get us outta here- I know, right? Score one for the slow kid in the classroom. But it’s gonna put more structural strain on the Hera than my sports bra at a full run. So I thought I’d come down and lay it out for you, so I can get the blame instead of some poor science ensign. Besides, traversing the Hera has become something of an extreme sport today, so not like I was going to send someone else with the comms still intermittent at best.”

" What's the plan, Rita? At the moment I'll take any suggestions, " the andorian replied still keeping her eyes on the holograms, though through her tone she indicating that she was still clearly listening.

“We’re going to attempt a Spindizzy maneuver,” Paris replied. “Basically we’re going to use the graviton generators and rotation of the Hera to repel the particles of dark matter and negate the immediate ionization of the storm so that we can form a warp bubble and get the hell outta dodge, as it were. I can give you the more complex details of it, but the principle is that fore to aft we’re going to rotate her at high speeds to make this happen. And we’re going to keep it up until we get out of this crummy storm, probably reversing the rotation to balance the stressors on the superstructure if it takes too long to get clear.”

“Now, while I have faith in the inertial dampeners, well… I don’t think this sort of thing has been tried this century with a modern starship. So I thought before I start straining the structural integrity I’d run it past the resident engineer.” Paris eyed her slender blue friend from across the desk. “Thex, for what it’s worth, you look worse than me. And I’m running on human endurance.”

" Thanks, it's not every day I've been given a task no one’s ever done before and not even allowed to grab a cup of coffee. Your idea could work, but we'd need to hope that both the ship holds together and the inertial dampeners don't fail. We could use the passive gravitronic variance grid to start her moving, but that could rip of a nacelle if it fails, " the andorian replied, as she began running a few things through her head.

“Yup. This is what I specialize in- plans that nobody in their right mind would try, but it’s the best idea we’ve got,” Paris waved offhandedly. “Nobody said you couldn’t have a cup of coffee, Thex. I still have to run all of this past the Captain and the Science department, so at this point I just need to know if this is the kind of plan that’s going to tear the ship apart. So just theory for now, no extra work.” In truth, while it felt nice to be trying something and enacting a plan, Paris was worried about her petite pal.

“It’s just us here, Thex,” Rita offered in a low conspiratorial tone, the concern evident on her face and in her voice. “You and the cavewoman from the stone knives and bearskin days, alone in your office. So it goes no further than this, but I have to ask- Thex, are you okay?”

The agile Andorran was quiet for quite some time before she finally replied. " No, Rita. I'm not okay. I've barely had any sleep, just been promoted and now I'm having to try and save the closest thing I have to a family from a situation no one has escaped from in theory, let alone reality. And I can't even get a cup of coffee, because the nearest replicator has been destroyed by a rampaging holographic T-Rex. " The andorian finished, almost silently.

While she had spent an awful lot of time in therapy and expressing her own problems to other people, Rita felt she was rather poor at helping other people with their problems, unless they were on a starship or planetary scale. In this case, she too was exhausted, but apparently Thex had it worse. The promotion had gotten her inner demons off and running, and instead of sleeping happily, the weight of the rank on her mind had given her a sleepless night. Which had now gotten compounded by another sleepless night, now with dinosaurs and the enlisted mess floor turning to lava and cyclones in the gymnasium.

Said rank also brought more of a sense of responsibility for the lives around her, so even more stress. Thus Rita Paris thought for a moment- when her anxieties had hold of her and she ran to Sonak for support, what would he do?

Rising from her seat, the lost navigator stepped around the desk and put her hands on her friend's biceps, urging her to rise. When they were both standing, she fixed the blue-eyed Andorian with her own baby blue eyes, and with an encouraging smile, she spoke.

"Thex, the rank is just what you were doing anyway. It doesn't make you more responsible- you were plenty responsible before. You're still chief engineer, you know? A lot was already riding on you. And yes, we're exhausted and yes, it sucks- I don't care what Xustos says, I'm not eating from one of those replicators until we're out of here. Food already tastes weird here," Paris muttered.

"But the point is, we're all here. We're all working on it. And we're all going to save one another, because we're a crew. And that's what crew do. So," the gold minidress clad old-fashioned gal fixed her pal with a grin. "How about we define some new boundaries in the laws of physics and really take her for a spin. Oh, and save the ship and the crew AND be the first in history to pull it off?"

" Was it always that easy in the old days? Just break the laws of physics, save the day, go home and get the green alien space babe?" Thex jokily replied, feeling better having gotten it all of her chest.

"It kinda was," Rita admitted with a giggle. "We did so much stuff that really did not make a lot of sense, but there was always some sort of scientific doubletalk or some weird alien device or advanced technology or mysterious powerful being. Something would happen, or we'd make it happen. Probably works the same way today, and if not, hey! You've got the good old days right here!" Rita picked at the hem of her skirt and danced about like a capering loon for a few seconds, crossing her eyes and stricking her tongue out.

The Andorian laughed slightly to herself, feeling better at having the talk with her friend." Remind me to ask you for a tour of your old ship on the holodeck when I get this mess sorted out. It sounded like an interesting place. Well, as soon as I figure out where we'd get power to try our plan. "

"Wait what?" Paris stopped dead, turning slowly to eye the engineer. "What do you mean figure out power? What's wrong with the ship's power?"

" At the moment nothing. But some rampaging sword-welding albino destroyed the negative plasma pulse drive on deck twenty-six. We can't get the power from the emergency power cells if main power fails. I'm going to go and nick the Orion scout ship’s pulse drive, and I can use it to fix the problem for now. " The Andorian explained.

The sigh that issued forth from the anachronistic officer was deep and heartfelt, but then she squared her shoulders and picked up her chin. “All right, grab me a tool belt and let’s get going. I’m not about to leave you heading for the flight deck alone, and while I may not know one end of a spanner from the other, I’m still a spare set of hands.” While she was perennially in over her head and out of her depth on the Hera, shipmates teamed up to help shipmates in any era. “You maybe got a phaser down here I can borrow?”

Thex grinned as she walked over to her desk. Fishing around underneath her desktop, she pulled out two phasers from a hidden compartment. " New additions since the last encounter. Stay behind me, okay? This suit is built for combat, and it can take a beating. " she said, handing her friend one of the phasers.

“Looks like it’s time for that team-up again, the brave and the bold,” Paris quipped, taking the phaser and checking the charge and settings. After the last time she had laid hands on a phaser and not known how to work it, Paris had acquainted herself with modern Starfleet standard weaponry. Satisfied, the golden girl deferred to her thoroughly modern and rather well-armored friend. "Lead on, Lieutenant Commander sh'Zoarhi."

"Let’s go make some trouble.”

“So the plan was reasonably simple- to escape from the dark matter ion storm, just pull out an archaic maneuver from science fiction that no one has ever particularly tried because of the insane stressors involved. So I chase down science, and they say it might work. I chase down the engineer, she says it might work. But we need an engine from one of the auxiliary craft because Elric of freaking Melnibone tore up some of the starship’s systems and she wants to insure we aren’t going to lose main power while we are in the middle of this crazy idea. Which wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem.”

“Except that the storm is playing havoc with the shipwide holo emitters, so suddenly the entire ship is a holodeck with the safeties turned off which may or may not be trying to play with, hamper, hinder or just outright kill anyone anywhere at any time. Which means that a simple trip from Deck 24 main Engineering to Deck 5 hangar bay might just force you to cross a howling blizzard on a glacier, hopscotch across lava and swim camp Crystal lake,” Paris grunted as she pulled harder at the lightweight Andorian chief engineer she was determined to get onto the ledge where she had some purchase.

Lightweight, but wearing a heavy armored salvage suit.

“Or you might find yourself trying to cross a chasm that was the turbolift a few seconds ago,” Paris’ breathing was labored- she was already exhausted from no sleep and the sum total of the day’s activities, but she refused to lose her grip and fail her partner in mad science. Thex was brave enough to come along on this insane mission, so Rita was determined not to let her down. How someone so lightweight was so heavy was beyond her- wasn't this suit ceramics and polymers? Or it might just be that no sleep and no food or water were taking their toll on the all-too-human muscles of the lost navigator.

" Pretty much. Never a dull moment in Starfleet." Thex replied as she pulled herself up to the ledge and scrambled up. Anchoring herself, she then reached down to pull her human friend up. Far stronger than her larger human friend, the Andorian only grunted slightly as she pulled her friend up onto the safety of the ledge. " You want to rest for a second?" She asked, panning her eyes around the corridor and scanning with her antennae. “It should be a quick dash to the hanger bay from here.”

“Famous last words,” Paris wheezed, sweat staining her bright gold uniform. “I know the captain was just looking out for me, but this uniform really doesn’t vent heat like it used to with these leggings,” Rita griped, then wagged her hand in the direction they were heading. “M’okay, let’s just get moving. We’re close, and I can rest while I stand guard and hand you tools while you work.”

The andorian nodded as she stood up, and lead the way towards the hanger. Opening the double doors, she carefully peeked her head around the doors. The hanger was thankfully empty, which brought a sense of great relief to the andorian. You could easily fit any number of the giant monsters of myth in here. The Orion class ships stood alongside the arrow class runabout in the repair bay where they'd been left. She'd better take good care of it or Nexi would be very angry. " Move very slowly. There's plenty of places to hide in here, " she whispered to her friend.

“Guess my crews are all on a coffee break. All at the same time…” Rita muttered, displeased to see her flight deck abandoned and empty. Of course, there might be a very good reason for that, and for all she knew her ‘deck apes’ might be hiding from some holographic horror that had been loosed on the bay. Moving cautiously behind the petite blue engineer, Paris kept her eyes peeled and her phaser set for heavy stun until they reached the ship who was about to loan out her engine in a very worthy cause.

Tabbing the securipad on the shuttle airlock, Paris pressed her thumb to it and spoke quietly. “Chief flight control officer Lieutenant Paris, authorization 867-5309.” The hatch unsealed and slowly opened, allowing them access to the craft. “After you,” Paris offered magnanimously as she sent Thex in first, then followed, sealing them in the scout craft.

“No holo emitters in here, so we might just get a breather,” Rita opined, hoping the universe wasn’t setting out to prove her wrong as usual.

" Yeah, just keep an eye open in case something is in here. The holo emitters may be extended further than their normal range, " Thex said quietly as she began to unscrew one of the ship’s access panels. The part she needed was beneath, though she'd needed to remove a few other parts first. As she worked she pushed as a smell reached her nose. " Rita, can you smell that?" she asked as she recognized the smell. A very distinctive Orion perfume.

Experimentally the lost navigator sniffed the air, then wrinkled her nose as she tightened her grip on the phaser whose design she also objected to, as she did so many things in the future. Rita was much more fond of the days when her firearm looked like a firearm, not a cleaning tool. “Whatever it is, it smells bad and it’s making my headache worse. What is that?”

" A perfume made from Orion pheromones. It's wearer could be from at least twenty different holo-programs though if they're as broken as the rest of them it doesn't matter. " She said as she uncoupled and pulled out the plasma pulse drive from its holding. " I've got it- can you see anything? " she asked looking over to Rita.

"Wait wait wait, there are holo programs about Orion slave girls?!?" the old school officer asked in shock and disbelief, then her basic understanding of human nature reasserted herself. "Of course they have holographic Orion slave girls, because they can. All this science I don't understand, and that's what they use it for. Okay, so what, are they dangerous or something? Their pheromones don't work on us, do they? Well, maybe you, plus they do have multispecies appeal."

As she rambled and reacted, Paris peered about the flight deck to see if the coast was clear.

Thex was about to inform her friend that the programs she used was for her dancing lessons, but that didn't matter at the moment. The source of the smell became clear as an olive blur dropped down from the top of the ship and smashed into the human flight officer. Before Thex could even think it, the spinning green dervish had slammed into her as well. The impact smashed her into the ground, knocking the wind out of her lungs and sending the part flying across the hangar. Thex could now see the intruder in full. She didn't recognize the Orion woman from her dancing programs, though that may have been because she was focusing on the knife held to her neck.

Of course the dustbuster had skidded across the deck then she had been ambushed, somehow not expecting to be piledriven by an exotic dancer while they were trying to retrieve an engine. As Paris struggled to rise her recently-knitted ribs reminded her that they were still not fully recovered, and as she labored to get a breath into her, she took in the situation. A squad of three scantily-clad green women stood in a V phalanx, the lead holding a wicked-looking curved knife to Thex's throat. Rising up to one knee, Paris held her hands up in surrender.

"Hey hey hey, whoah now... let's talk about this, ladies," Paris offered, hoping there was some sort of logic as to why a trio of exotic dancers would attack them on the flight deck. Idly she noticed that none of them were built like a Maica- apparently that particular shape was unique, she observed, never quite putting together that her own figure was more similar than that of this bevy of bare-skinned beauties. Whatever they wanted, Rita was inclined to give it to them- they held a knife to her friend and partner in crime, and the lost navigator wasn't keen on having to live with blue blood on her hands. Hoping that Thex was a lot more dangerous than she looked, Paris tried to lighten the mood and stall for time a little bit. "You girls wanna hold a dance-off or something?"

Brain racing, Thex tried to place the holograms from one of the programs with which she was familiar. They definitely weren't from any of her dancing programs that she could tell, so they must have been from somewhere else. One of the old adventure holo novels perhaps? Her friend’s words gave her some breathing room, as the Orion loosed the pressure of her blade on the andorians neck.

" As if you could hope to match us in the dance, human," sneered the one who was obviously the leader, as they turned their wrath toward the human.

“Sure, pick on me because I’m a white girl whose dance moves are 140 years out of date,” Paris shot back. “Please. You move with the grace of a Heliopholant Grugnar and you have all of the charm of a Thandarian Bandersnatch. Hell, even Thex there could dance you lot under the table,” Paris taunted, hoping that she was on the right track here. Apparently her talent for finding a soft spot had paid off, and the green-skinned girls were typical of their ilk, and daring to throw shade at their dancing ability had gotten them riled.

Now so long as Thex could do her part, Paris might just find them a way out of this ridiculous situation. Because ‘murdered by homicidal holographic hootchies’ would not look good on either of their tombstones.

The orion leader smirked before letting out a small laugh that was more creepy than anything the two had heard. " As if this pathetic andorian could hope to match me. They are a crude race built for fighting, like the brutes they are. " Even so, she realeased the knife from Thex's throat.

" Still… I do enjoy humiliating Starfleet’s riotous intruders, " the lead dancing girl said, glancing at her two companions who, with a look from her, had pulled Thex up to her feet. " What do you say, Andorian? If you beat me in a dance, I'll let you and your companion go. I'll even let you take your trinket."

" And what will happen if I lose?" Thex responded as one of her handlers drew a long thin blade and placed it under her chin.

" Then I'll take your friend, break her until she's my loyal dubi, then I’ll have her perform the chuulak on you and send the footage to Starfleet as a warning to others." The Orion woman replied as she wrapped her arms around Thex’s neck in an almost seductive manner.

This at least cleared up one thing for Thex. They were holograms from a cheesy holo-novel.

As for Paris, she didn’t know what a ‘dubi’ was, nor ‘chuulak’, but the odds of either of those things happening were exactly the same as her being ‘broke’n by some holographic harlot. Silently, she made eye contact with Thex, her eyes flickering over to where her phaser had skidded to a halt in an attempt to communicate her plan. Thex could dance, and likely beat- well, the dancers were not wearing any pants to be beaten off, but still- she would definitely serve as a distraction, and hopefully give Rita an opening to get the drop on the green-skinned strippers.

“Don’t do it, Thex! You can’t beat them!” Rita cried in an overly dramatic fashion with a wink in the Andorian’s direction.

Thex noted her friend's wink and eye gestures. There was something there though she didn't dare look at it not with the orion looking right at her.

" Your companion doesn't appear to have much faith in you, " the Orion asked, creepily running her hands along Thex's face and back. She was about to start talking again before the andorian barked out, " I'll do it!"

The Orion dancing girl looked rather amused as she let go of the andorian and turned to look back at Rita. " Looks like she's eager to be humiliated. Girls, help her into something more appropriate. " She commanded to her two companions.

Thex panicked as she felt the Orion’s knives slice into her salvage suit, cutting large chunks of the grey material off and throwing it against the walls. It only took them a minute to cut her out of a suit that should have easily resisted being cut by such implements. Their hands moved like water, pulling an orion dancers outfit from thin air which they dressed the engineer. She was feeling very embarrassed by the time she stood there in an almost identical outfit to the three Orion women.

As the trio had been focused on Thex, Rita had edged a bit closer to the lost phaser, though not enough to draw suspicion. As the slave girls had stripped the Andorian and the lead girl was busy gloating, Rita couldn’t help but be reminded of high school. Some things never change no matter how big the galaxy gets, Rita sighed internally. But it was working to their advantage right now, so she kept playing it up. Closing the distance between them, Rita clasped Thex’s hands in her own, pleading with her.

“Don’t do this Thex, they’ll kill you!” the gold-clad throwback said tearfully, even as Thex felt Rita press something into her hand. It was smooth and slightly rounded, with not one but three sharp points.

It was, of course, Rita’s comm badge, based on the old Starfleet command symbol of her era. As there was an embroidered version on Rita’s uniform, the slave girls were highly unlikely to notice it’s absence. It wasn’t the best of weapons, but she wasn’t about to leave Thex unarmed if she could help it.

As the dancing girls pulled them apart, they laughed mockingly even as they dragged Rita almost exactly where she wanted to go, and she mock struggled against them.

Thex had closed her hands on the combadge as soon as she felt it. As the Orion women dragged Rita away, the engineer quickly tucked the badge into one of the wristbands. No one appeared to notice as the Orion boss had her eyes focused on the struggling human.

Then she wheeled back to the andorian as her henchwomen got Rita into position. " Prepare to lose badly andorian." The lead dancer hissed as out of nowhere a fast-paced Orion beat began to play. Thex was honestly proud of herself as her body began to move to the beat and pace of the music, with all the skill of any of the best Orion dancers.

While the plan was to use the dance-off as a distraction- which Rita marveled over- who agreed to a dance-off? The two girls on either side of her started moving and shimmying a bit along with the beat of the music. It seemed you could take the girl out of the dance, but not the dance out of the girl. Rita was gauging just when to make her move when her eye caught the gyrations Thex was producing, and she took a few seconds to admire the form. The lithe engineer was indeed one hell of a dancer, and as she executed a walking flip, Rita could see that her acrobatic skill definitely gave her an unfair advantage over the green-skinned gal.

“Looks like your boss is in trouble, girls. You gonna let her go down like that?” Rita taunted. The two slave girls exchanged glances, then moved to join their leader in trying to out-Orion the sensually swirling Andorian.
Nice to know stupid hasn’t changed in a century and change, Rita thought to herself as she took advantage of the moment to quickly pick up her phaser and hide it behind her back. Now she had the chance to take control of the situation, but Thex was really into it, and frankly Rita kinda wanted to see her whup the three holographic hellcats at their own game.

Thex smirked as the Orion slave girls had to join in to try and help their boss. " Needing help to beat a lowly andorian? Some Orion you are," she smirked as she moved within a hair’s breadth away from the Orion boss. She could tell she was getting under the woman’s jade skin.
Apparently the mystery of where the flight crew had gotten off to was now solved, as they were gathering in a semicircle around the wildly gyrating dancers. They seemed to be mesmerized by the spectacle, which only made Rita smirk and roll her eyes. Under ordinary circumstances she wouldn’t have all this lollygagging on her flight deck, but in this case she figured they were under the influence, both of Orion pheromones as well as the sight of a rather energetic exotic dance being performed by four exotic alien beauties.
“Guess I can cut you boys a little slack just this once,” the chief helmsman muttered under her breath.

The music picked up in rhythm and tempo, to which the engineer kept pace with every shift in tone. She couldn't even begin to imagine what the Orion’s artificial brain was thinking, given that an andorain grease monkey was beating her ass at her own game.

The head Orion was furious. How dare this andorian humiliate her like this in front of her own slaves! Still, she had a plan for this. As one particular beat came, her hands were drawn behind her back. She could draw the needle blade and stab the andorian with the next pass- that would show her! Her hand reached around and...

She almost swore. The blade wasn't there. Where could it have...

As she felt a slight prick in her thigh, she got her answer.
" Missing something?" She heard the andorian whisper as she twirled away from her with a mocking bow. That b$%$£!! she thought as she felt the paralyzing poison seize up her leg, causing her to stumble and fall just as the music ended.

Thex didn't even stop until the music faded before bowing. She felt amazing. Hearing the swearing Orion on the floor, she turned to face her opponent. " Well, looks like I've won, lady. Guess the andorian isn't a dumb brute like you thought, is she? Having to use a poison to try and win? What sort of Orion dancer are you? " she said in a mocking tone.
“I will still have my revenge,” the leader of the pack snarled, even as a phaser beam struck her from behind, dropping her to the deck in a heap. As the two remaining dancers whirled to face the new threat, Rita Paris rather calmly shot them in short order. No banter, no quips, just simple expediency for once.
As they hit the deck unconscious, they faded from view, the computer glitch apparently having run its course.

“Well, are you not impressed, boys? How about a round of applause for our talented Chief Engineer?” Rita asked, looking to one side then the other as the phaser moved with her, seemingly inadvertently pointing it at the assembled flight crew. The men seemed to be a bit dazed, but they did offer at first polite then enthusiastic applause. Tucking the phaser under her armpit, Rita joined in, adding a wolf whistle for good measure as the applause grew quite enthusiastic in the shuttlecraft hangar.

Thex had a grin that she never thought she would be able to pull off. Thankfully, her outfit had stayed so she wasn't suddenly nude in front of the whole flight crew. Her brain was still trying to figure out what had happened and how a journey for a spare part had ended up with her winning a dance-off against some Orion holograms. She gave another polite curtsy before walking back into the shuttle to collect the part. It was fully intact, thankfully, which brought a sigh to the andorian.

Walking back out, she approached Rita. "May want to get some medical personnel up here to check on your boys, Rita. Orion pheromones can mess the brain up for quite a while." Looking around, Thex politely asked. " Where do you keep the flight jumpsuits? I'd like to have something other than this on as we get this to deck twenty."

Snapping her fingers loudly to get attention, the gold-clad chief turned to point at one then the other of her crewmen. "Garabaldi, Francisco, get the Commander a flight suit, size medium. Pair of boots too, size..." Paris turned her head to eye the bare blue feet. "Size seven. With socks. Now, lollygaggers!"

"As for the rest of you," Paris eyed her moon-faced dumbstruck crew, still high on Orion pheromones and more than a little distracted. Paris swaggered a step or two, then stood with her hands on her hips like a recruitment poster. "Don't you all have some work to do? You there, fetch up that engine and make sure it's safe, we're going to need that. Step smartly now, bring that to me. You, secure the Orion flyer here so it's ready to be reassembled later. Why is there grease on my flight deck? Let's get this place ship-shape before the captain sees this!"

As the flight deck crew scrambled into confused action, Garabaldi and Francisco handed Thex a white flight suit with blue piping and shoulders, with the matching blue boots. Rita then leaned in to Thex's space to mutter conspiratorially at her. "You want to change in my office or just put it on over your showgirl suit?"

" No point in hiding, your guys have already seen me in this. Not like a few more seconds will matter. " Thex said as she took the jumpsuit and began to pull it over her outfit. " Well that was by far the most oddest thing I've done in my carer in the fleet. " She said as she pulled the zipper up of the jumpsuit.

Picking up the engine they had come down to fetch with a grunt, the pilot parked it under her arm on one generous hip, then draped her arm over the engineer's shoulders as she walked them off the flight deck. "Stick with me, Thex, and this'll tame by comparison eventually."

" Lead on, Rita- let's go make trouble!" Thex jokily said, hoping the universe wasn't listening.

After having been thrown violently from her bed in the middle of the night, then hurling up her toenails, then being summoned to a senior staff meeting, Rita Paris was told that the ship had been hauling ass so fast that when they ran into the dark matter ion storm it took them three light years to skid to a halt.

That was impressive.

So not only an ion storm, the very magical crucial ingredient for dimensional travel, but a dark matter storm interspersed with it. Which apparently no one had ever survived, but Paris had a theory about that. What if those lost in such a storm were never heard from again was because they transposed universes? If you left your native reality, it considered you to be most definitely 'never heard from again'.

Which was optimistic, she recognized, but it was definitely a possibility. If nothing else it was a way to try to escape one of those fates worse than death, although how they could move the entire ship... by using the shield harmonics to balance the transporter signal across the shields and create a capsule for the starship to traverse dimensions through the ion storms where the veils between worlds thin...

Sitting at the desk in her office, the loopy lieutenant snapped awake from the doze she had been leaning into. Exhausted as she was, she had just been imagining how to pilot a starship between dimensions. Which was interesting, since she lacked the knowledge base to make such connections. Of course, Sonak could likely intuit it from what she had studied of the relevant systems, which is what the lost navigator suspected she was experiencing. A little bit of his katra- little by comparison- she carried within her, and he still tried to lend science to her outlandish ideas. Which to him had always seemed to make perfect sense.

Standing, Rita Paris extended her arms over her head and stretched, good and long. Then she reached for the floor and stretched a bit more, shifting her weight at her hips to stretch out the leggy lieutenant's calves as well. Even with good socks, twelve hours even these boots was taking it's toll on her calves and her feet. Rising up to twist at the waist a few times, the buxom bombshell settled into a set of thirty waist twists to get the heart rate going and work on the waist. Even contained by a good bra and a snug uniform, the visual effect was a prime example of fluid dynamics in motion.

When she was finished, the retro Starfleet throwback took one more stretch upward, then grabbed at her bellybutton, which was where the bottom of her uniform currently resided. Tugging it down with practiced ease, Paris cracked her neck, then out of the corner of her eye noticed movement in the hangar. The crewmen and officers on the shuttle hangar flight deck, apparently emboldened by the leftover Orion pheromones they had been dosed with earlier, were now applauding.

In her fog of exhaustion, Rita had forgotten all about the flight deck and the big deck to ceiling windows in her office. The ones there behind her while she had taken herself a good energetic stretch, letting her dress ride up and giving the flight deck crew a thrill. Taking it with the only grace she could, Lieutenant Paris owned it, waving to the men before taking a bow to their applause.

This would look good at the next staff meeting.

"I don't care if we're still stuck in this dark matter cloud," Paris muttered to no one in particular. "There are... Computer! How many crew are aboard the USS Hera?"

=^=There are currently 721 crew members aboard the USS Hera=^=

"Swell. That means that 720 of them that are working on this problem. Well, except for those guys," Paris chucked a thumb over her shoulder at her appreciative flight deck. "I got beat up by a video game character, escaped quicksand, hid from a mugatu, chased my damn plan all over the ship, damn near drowned in tribbles... I'm done, I'm going to bed. Cap'n can fire me if she wants."

That pronouncement declared to her empty office, Paris began to stride, but quickly tapered off to a sort of half-speed version of her usual ratcheting locomotion. She dozed off in the turbolift, on her feet, and rode it for a full five minutes before someone woke her up and asked what floor she was trying to get to. That embarrassment woke the lost navigator up enough to gave her the jolt of adrenaline she needed to get back to her quarters.

11:24 hours, she had barely been up for 12 hours and it was still technically her duty shift, but it had been one hell of a 12 hours. A trail of uniform parts were dropped as the old school officer moved across her cavernous quarters, Rita stripping as she staggered toward her bed. Eventually she ended up tugging her bra over her head, tired of fighting with the snap. Her stomach growled and her lips were dry, but she was too tired to care.

Crawling onto the bed, she paused long enough to grab her old communicator off the nightstand, then clutched it to her prodigious bosom. Sometimes she imagined that if Sonak ever found a way to send her a message, it would come through her old communicator. Thus she kept it charged by her bedside if she wasn't carrying it, and for the past few nights she had begun what was to become a long standing ritual of sleeping with her black and gold flip front clamshell communicator. She set the alarm for four hours, and a backup for 5.

"Four hours, Cap'n cn fire me if she wntzz..." Paris muttered as her body shut down.

The exhausted extradimensional explorer had enough time to wonder if she would dream, and if so, whether the dreams would be good or bad.

It was a peaceful sleep, with no dreams at all.