Awaken Prospero
Posted on Wed Aug 23rd, 2023 @ 11:05pm by Captain Remas McDonald & Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra & Lieutenant Commander K'tala Valj & Lieutenant Mar Megara MD & Lieutenant Dinui Locke (loch) & Innocent Bystander
2,117 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
S3E1: The Tempest
Location: USS Traveller, Unknow Location
Timeline: Unknown Time
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
(Caliban, Act 3 Scene 2)
+++
-sound.
The gentle whooping of the alarm was the first thing that caught Captain Remas McDonalds attention. Or was it the pulsing red light that tracked along the edge of the holobridge, twin beads of light orbiting around the bridge consoles in an empty error screen-riddled sphere. He was still in his command chair, as he had been...
As he had been whilst awaiting the return of the away team from the Dyson Sphere.
"Re-" he began to speak, but his voice was dry-burned as he spoke. As he coughed the taste of acrid smoke filled his lungs. One of the bridge stations was a ruined crater of isoleaner chip sets and bio neural gel wafers. "Report, who'se alive in here?"
Ono nearly jumped out of the first officer's chair next to Remas for the shock and awe of his sudden surroundings. When the familiar sight of the Traveller bridge registered in his senses, he immediately began to doubt it. "Readings! I need readings!" He fumbled around with fingers outstretched as a man who did not believe the world presented to him. "Did... did you beam us out, Captain? Are we truly back onboard?"
"Tactical Station present, Captain." K'tala announced. She was supine when she awoke and had quickly returned to her station. With a quick cursory exam of her display, something seemed off.
Remas reached out, and pinched Ono's blue cheek hard.
"Yeah, you're real," Remas said after his impromptu medical exam.
"Lieutenant-" Remas began turning his attention to the woman on the tactical station. He paused for a moment. His memory was good with faces, and names, it was something he has a commander of a ship's company prided himself in. And he knew this person, K'tala, former Klingon SDF, was a member of his crew. But her rank pips...he shook his head. "Commander K'tala, give me a sensor report of our surroundings. Where the hell are we?"
K'tala stared at her consul in disbelief. "I cannot get a reading, Captain." She replied with frustration in her voice. "Every time data starts to form, the information cuts out and restarts." K'tala's fingers danced across consul. "Maybe my station was damaged?"
Remas glanced over at the Operations console.
"Maybe," he said softly as he got up out of his chair and walked to her console. He glanced over the diagnostic telltales. "LIDAR, radio pulse, gravimetric and electromagnetic...I think your consoles fine but the sensors are dragged. Can you pull up an outside view from a hull camera?"
The Klingon woman tapped rapidly at her station. "Negative, Captain. The armored shutters are closed and I cannot reopen them. The Traveller is blind."
"Well isn't that just fine," Remas muttered. He flicked a finger over the damage control readings on K'tala's console. "We're not venting, no breaches and no cyberwarfare warnings so that's good. Doesn't look like battle damage took us out, so...why the hell are we dumb and blind?"
The whole situation was was testing K'tala's sanity. Her captain, the crew, and this ship were only vaguely familiar to her. She had zero memory of getting into her situation. She was searching for a reason the ship would be acting like this.
"Captain, could the Traveller be running a simulation that we are not aware of?" K'tala asked, fishing for answer.
"FAMINE TAKE YOU!" Shadi screeched into the void. Only it wasn't the void. Despite the pitch darkness, the cushion-less bed in her quarters was distinctly known to her, particularly for the grooves she had scratched into it. "Goddess! Wasss it all a dream?!"
“How did I get here?” Meg queried the deck plating under her face.
She found herself lying face down somewhere in a Jeffries tube junction, med kit still strapped around her. She carefully peeled herself off the floor, making sure she had no broken bones or other serious injuries. But no, she was fine. She was just lying face down somewhere she didn’t really have any business being. How had she gotten here? Had the Traveller beamed them all back aboard somehow and the transporter had dropped her here for some unknown reason?
Once she got herself off the floor and made sure she was uninjured, she glanced at the three tubes leading off from the junction. She had no idea which one she should try and stood half stooped over in the small junction, puzzling over them for awhile.
Dinui sneezed and blinked in confusion as she took in her surroundings. She was in the middle of one of the Sakura blossom trees from the science lab. Her head didn't hurt like she remembered and her stomach was settled as normal. She frowned as she looked around the lab. Her tricorder was on ground almost nestled between the visible roots of the tree. She sneezed again and muttered as she started climbing down the branches and then the trunk of the tree. She had a few bright White and crimson Sakura blossoms tangled in her hair. She reached up to start removing them and paused at the communication from the Captain...
"All hands, this is the captain speaking. We are attempting to power cycle the onboard sensors but at this point we're not succeeding as much as you'd think. If any crewperson is near an exterior hatch or viewport, please report in immediately. Until then all senior staff please report to the bridge. That is all."
Dinui left the blossoms tangled were they were picked up her tricorder and checked it's status. It was fully functional and undamaged. With a shrug she headed for the doorway and beyond to see what she could find out.
Somewhere in the bowels of the ship, Meg cursed. The Captain’s call couldn’t have come at a worse time. She tapped her combadge. “Mar to McDonald,” she said, propping herself on her elbows in the small tube while she spoke. “It might be a minute. I am lost in the Jeffries tubes. I think I am going in the correct direction, but… well, we shall see.”
Well, IB considered. That was weird. Fortunately for his sanity, weird sorta came with the territory, and while his suspicions were raised with regards to whether this really was a real reality or simply a perceived imagination, he could clarify said doubts by interaction. Interaction, he knew, would push the narrative forwards for better or worse.
So, he needed to locate another sentient in this new slant on the here and now, in this oddly structured present. His immediate go-to was his own ship - left beyond the Dyson Sphere upon entry - but when IB allowed his consciousness to drift in that direction, it felt as if he had reached towards a power breach. Icy warm lay beyond that simple outreach, not immediately gifting him pain sensations but threatening to from its smug and close proximity. His attempt to view the universe beyond the observation deck in which he currently sat gifted the same results. Shuttered windows and doors, sensor blackout, blanket of relative silence. Blind and deaf and wearing noise-cancelling headphones, it seemed the Traveller was.
IB stood up, stretched his constructed body's hands above his head, and sought the Traveller's AI systems in the hope of more useful information. Computer Innocent Bystander thought the words directly to said AI with no need to vocalise them out externally. What is our current timeframe and location?
Predominant temporal analysis concludes time is sixteen trillion to the eight power past that point which cannot be computed. Location unknown, the nearest stellar object is sixteen inches from the port nacelle and fourteen point nine lightyears from the bow of USS Traveller. The local stellar medium contains boron, carbon, potassium, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, manganese, oxidation primers, phosphorous-
The computer kept uploading more and more and more of the periodic table into IB's query. A nonsensical answer with no quantifiable means of measurement.
Dinui paused by the airlock attempting to look out the small view port, it was covered with the ship's shutters, she knew there was another proper word for it, but at the moment it escaped her recollection. She tried a few other places where it was normally possible to glance out at space around the ship. All blocked or covered. Scanning with the tricorder didn't help matter either it seemed to be in a system rebooting cycle. She muttered under her breath and headed for the nearest lift to head for the bridge as requested by the Captain, as she spun around she bumped into another crew mate, she excused herself as her cheeks flamed. She was usually more careful about running into others. "No problem." the voice of the other was a richly baritone with a slight accent that she could not place. A puzzle for her off duty hours, her reminded herself firmly as she stepped into the lift to go the bridge.
Shadi ran onto the bridge without a stitch of clothing, either her duty uniform of bed clothes, hissing like a leaky valve. "THE CLOCK MAKERSSS ARE COMING! THE CLOCK MAKERSSS ARE COMING!" She ran to Remas with her clawed hands outstretched. "CAPTAIN REMASSS! THE CLOCK MAKERSSS ARE COMING! THEY ALMOSSST GOT ME AND THEY'RE COMING!"
Behind Shadi, K'tala slowly pulled her side arm loose and set it to stun. She could not remember any reptilian crew nor if they went around duty naked. But this is Starfleet, so anything is possible. It was times like these that K'tala wished that she was back at the monastery eating Brother Akathu's bland river fish. She waited for Remas to give her the word.
Seeing the Klingon pull a phaser on her, Shadi turned about face, scale-ass naked and all, and glared her giant eyes at K'tala. "Who the famine are you?"
"This is K'tala," Remas explained. "How security chief...though I will pass to you the honest truth, I do not how that came to be. I know you're on the crew roster but, in my mind, you were Lieutenant last time I checked. Shadi, just let it ride for a time and bide. Get your self covered up, we got problems a plenty and you not wearing protective overalls need not be one of them."
The turbolift behind Shadi opened, and Dinui arrived.
"Ssssorry..." Shadi said. "I'll be just a moment." She ran off toward the emergency cabinet and retrieved a relief blanket for emergencies like climate control failure.
"Has anyone seen Innocent Bystander an' Clee'san?" Dinui asked as she saw more of their original away team now gathered on the bridge. She wasn't sure if she should be concerned or not with those two not in current visual.
The lift doors opened once more to reveal Dr. Mar, a bit disheveled, but otherwise unharmed. “If anybody can actually explain how I managed to make it into the Jeffries Tubes, I will eat my uniform,” she commented irritably, then devolved into muttering in Spanish. The words “Dios los ayude” featured prominently.
"Doctor! Start ssscanning for space ghostsss!" Shadi shrieked. "They could be anywhere!"
"Or, instead, the ship for injuries," Remas said with a sigh. "Okay...okay so we're blind, but are we blind by choice or circumstance. Locke find me some way of finding out where we are, rope Clee'san into it if you can. K'tala, we've got crew whole be scared and frightened. Show the flag about, be showy. And maybe break out the toys in case we're not the only ones who've made a miraculous arrival on the ship."
Remas looked over at Shadi.
"Get some clothes on, get down to engineering and find out our status. Bump into IB if you can, see if they can be of any help getting the ship back up and running," Remas said. "Let's get the ship righted, and get to work."
The warriors of the Ragolar tribe of Saurians traditionally went to battle without clothing their bodies, but this was a struggle of another sort. Shadi knew better than to argue. She didn't win battles of wit. "Yes, Captain Remasss. I shall find the Golden One and together we shall make the Traveller tasty again!"
“Make the Traveler tasty again,” repeated Meg, who had already made her way to an open console, pulled up the medical display and begun searching the ship for injured crewmen. “I am going to put that on a T-shirt.”
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