Fight Or Flight

Posted on Mon Apr 23rd, 2018 @ 6:42am by Captain Remas McDonald

4,820 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: S1:2: Rubicon
Location: Deck 5, Sick Bay
Timeline: MD 16 23.40

Remas stepped away from Shadi's sickbay cubicle. He hadn't known what to expect really given the earnest young officer's penchant for direct action. But given the pain medication Dr Kal had her on, a conversation was out of the question.

So he'd stood there by her bedside, trying not ruminate to heavily on fall of the blanket from the thigh down. A mission like this was going to have casualties, had already suffered them in fact. But this time there was something to see, a lingering wound.

"Long day Sir?"

Remas tilted his head to look at the Expedition Security officer standing watch by another sick bay cubicle, this one entrance bedecked by holographic 'No Admittance!' hazard flags. Remas gave a rueful smile.

"Came for a reason I wager, but can I think of what it is I doubt I can," he gave a little nod towards the entrance to the berth. "This would be our guest?"

"You mean the stowaway Sir?"

"I mean what I let trip off my tongue. Every soul deserves the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. From the report, I read she claims to have no memory of how or why she was in a cryo casket on board the Acheron," he stepped forward.

"Ah, Sir," the guard held out a hand. "I was instructed not to admit anyone."

"Reckon I outrank whoever gave that order. Besides, us Rish are renowned judges of character. Tell you what, she has her way with me in there you can tell Mr Renyolds you tried your best to stop me. Ya really did," he patted the man on the shoulder and stepped through the holographic warning flags.

Biobed, beeping medical equipment, the institutional replicated chair that looked comfortable before you sat on it. It was as though someone had made the room to look like every other sickbay in the Fleet.

"Good evening. I'm Captain Remas McDonald," he said and gestured at the chair. "Do you mind if I sit?"

“Of course, please,” Daani replied, gesturing toward the chair. She’d looked up as he’d entered, offering a small smile in keeping with her charade.

“A pleasure to meet you, Captain,” she said, offering a hand. “I would introduce myself, but unfortunately I find myself at a bit of a loss in that regard.”

As she spoke, she studied him covertly. She’d been trying to get information for the past couple of days but her guards were diligent, and utterly paranoid. She hadn’t been able to get much out of them about anything to do with the ship. So she went with what she could see. McDonald was tall, dark-haired and good-looking, with an easy smile. Humanoid... but with so many similiar looking races, like her own, she couldn’t tell precisely what he was from just looking at him.

"As I read it, you have no memory of the how the why or the who of so many questions that we would like answers to. Though I can help you with some of those questions, if only in the generalities," he smiled and took a PADD from his pocket. The hardy plastic device fit into his palm easily enough, and he reached it out to tap it against the monitoring device. It pinged happily to itself.

"Ah, there we are," he said and pulled the PADD back and glanced at the screen, and the now loading medical file. "Well good news is I can tell you who you are if not who you are. You're a Llanarian. Second one I've ever met. Medical notes do go on a bit here...does the name ring any bells in your belfry?"

“Llanarian... it sounds familiar. I think?” She frowned as she looked at the screen then back up at him. “The second one? Then you’re not Llanarian yourself?”

She’d expected them to be able to pick up her species from a scan. Thankfully though, they didn’t seem to have been able to link her genetic profile with her records. It looked like a generic record on her species. Probably the only reason that she was still in sickbay rather than in the brig in chains. Because one thing was for sure, if they’d actually SEEN her records, they wouldn’t be taking any chances and they certainly wouldn’t have sent the senior officer aboard in here with her.

She eyed his physique, hiding her interest as she tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. Leanly muscled, which meant he could either be a desk jockey or a serious problem for her. But she needed to make a move soon, or she could lose the opportunity.

"No," he smiled with a chuckle. "Human base stock, though not from the homeland as it were. I am a proud member of that travelling community known as the adar’Rishsal: The Wandering Rish. Its how I met that other Llanarian, given us Rish are a welcoming bunch. He was a doctor, not much for talkin' but when he did you listened with a heavy heart."

He glanced down at the PADD.

"Medical scans show microscopic fragments of metal in your upper arm, and cooling marks from laser burns on some of your bones," he said, still looking down. "Doctor Gardener would say your War World has had its teeth on you lass. That was the name he gave himself. Saw it as a way to break his ties, and he was a fair gardener he was. Nearly matched his medical skills."

Human. That, she could handle.

“Thank you,” she murmured as she moved. One hand snaked out to grab the glass from the bedside table, and she smashed it against the side of the biobed in the same movement. Normally, the glasses used in sickbay were toughened, but she’d spent the last couple of days scoring the edge so it would break just as she wanted it when struck right.

She spun him around, one hand snaking up and around his arm and shoulder to lock it as she jammed the broken edge of the glass against his throat. He was taller than she was, but she’d accounted for that.

“I’m afraid it more than had it’s teeth in me, Captain,” she said quietly. Calmly. “And what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger they say. Now, we’re going to walk out of here nice and easy, you’re going to tell your guards to stand down and no one is going to get hurt today. Sound good?”

"Your a courteous one to be offering me a say in all of this," Remas grunted, pulled a little off balance by both the sudden upheaval of events and the disparity in their heights.

To the credit of ExpSec officer on door duty, his phaser was already in his hand when the pair made their exit from the room.

"Stand down!" Remas said with a bark to his voice, just a light seasoning of panic to sell the tale. "We're just gonna go for a walk."

"Sir-" the guard began.

"No need for more of an escort," Remas stated firmly. "Though I would imagine more of your fellow officers turning up along the way would not be something appreciated. This is on me, not you. You can think of it as an order if you want."

“Sensible. Less people die that way,” she commented lightly, as though they were chatting over afternoon tea, and keeping Remas between herself and the security officer as they backed out of sickbay. “Now, we’re going to take a little trip down to the shuttlebay and I’ll get right out of your hair.”

They made it to the corridor but she didn’t let go, her grip firm as they walked. It couldn’t be comfortable for him but she couldn’t give him any leeway. The Rish weren’t known to be combative, but then again, he was also Starfleet...

“I apologise for taking advantage of your welcome,” she found herself saying, quite out of character. But then, McDonald hadn’t offered her the same paranoid welcome the security team had... even though he really should have. “I really have nothing against the Rish.”

"Oh everyone's got something against the Rish. Once got chased out of a mining colony because our mere presence was creating ghost echoes in their deep ground penetrating sensors. I reckon it was because the colony administrators son was interested in joining us and our wandering ways. But what do I know?" he said, keeping himself from a nonchalant shrug that might be taken the wrong way. "Could be we curse wellsprings and cause herds of livestock to drop dead at the sight of us. Once saw a Ferengi run away in terror, convinced the look of a Rish was all it took to turn Latnum into lead."

The nearest turbolift was soon reached, and the two entered. Given that the ladies hands were full of hostage taking, Remas thought it the right thing to select the shuttle bay as a destination.

"Thought people of the War World do tend to keep to yourselves. So who were you? Doc Gardener once said he part of the Northern Rim Coalition? Reckon that was some sort of organisation not made for herbalists," he asked.

“Opposite side. Southern alliance... Your doc got out at the right time. The NRC got wiped out toward the latter part of the war,” she replied, pulling him to the side of the lift and keeping an eye on the door. “And I’m not superstitious in the slightest, so the scary stories you Rish spread about yourselves don’t worry me.”

She eased up a little with the makeshift blade at his neck. “Daani Black.”

"That a name or a col-" Remas began to say with a smile, before he got more pressure put on his arm. "Name, got it."

Why the seven hells she told him her name, she didn’t know. Perhaps because he was being so damn co-operative. Which was also making her edgy.

“Is there going to be a welcoming committee waiting in the shuttlebay?” She asked, keeping her voice calm and level. “Because I warn you, that plan of action will result in you losing crew.”

"Well I've not begun rationing the replicators yet so I think the crew find me a favourable taskmaster. So hopefully they want to see me about a might longer," he said. Quietly he hoped someone hadn't gotten the bright idea to try heroics. That sort of thinking worked in stories, like the tales of Talballen The Great or the Penitent Navigator. And those heroics worked because they were utterly fictional.

The doors to the turbolift opened, and across the corridor, the heavy pressure hatch to the shuttlebay sighed apart. He was lead out first, naturally, but no sign of Expedition Security. The cold shuttlebay prickled the skin on his face.

"So what are you after? You want something quick or something with long legs to go far?" he asked casually. "I can't say you'll get a good price for any of them at the end, seeing as they all came used and with a few hundred light years on'em."

“Used and broken in is perfect. Something quick and entirely forgettable is even better,” she said, quickly scanning the area for any sign of hidden security officers. She stopped talking to listen out... waiting for something, anything, that would give them away. The scuff of a boot, the brush of a uniform jacket against something.

Nothing. She made a small sound of approval. “Seems your crew do like you, Captain. Must be because you’re cute.”

"Bah, story of my life. Kept tellin' the wife that rings are an Earther tradition, but she canny wear the ribbons of a bashful Rishian bride. I am cursed forever to seen as available to all," he sighed and pointed to a shuttle at the near end of a row of four. Angular, a wide canopy and the aerodynamic affectation of wings. "That'll do us proud. Good for space and air. Just the thing to fly through the hash of a world whose skies are full of flak."

She did chuckle at that. “Llanarians use tattoos,” she commented, pushing him toward the shuttle he’d indicated. “Gets a bit crowded in a multiple marriage situation, so you have to make sure the geos are small if you’re going that way.”

She stopped them by the hull of the shuttle, near the cargo door panel. “Open it, if you would.” Her voice was polite, but with the option to be not so polite if she needed to be.

Remas reached out, pressed his hand to the cold metal of the shuttle. The hull plate under his hand glowed slightly, and diagnostic holo appeared over the crafts hull identifying fuel ports and intakes. The hatch then clicked and slid open, the whine of the crafts turbines beginning to fill the air. Inside lights flickered on, revealing two crash couches in front of the main controls, as well as seating and space for a score more.

"I assume you'll want me to pilot? Hard to keep me in check and go through the preflight, more than likely to blow us all up if you skip the wrong step," he offered.

She was an experienced pilot, but he made a good point. She nodded, pushing him ahead of her and securing the hatch behind her with a slap of her palm. Once the door had locked in place, she threw the physical deadlock, a safety feature in case of electronic failure.

Since he was still being co-operative, it was easy to navigate the small space inside the shuttle and she pushed him down into the pilot’s couch. “Pilot. No funny stuff and once we’re clear I’ll transport you back. Piss me about and I’ll be transporting a body back,” she hissed by his ear. “And believe me, I’ll know if you deviate from correct procedure.”

He nodded so she moved the makeshift blade from his throat and eased back. Still watching him out the corner of her eye to make sure he just went through preflight and nothing more, she flicked open the weapons cache just behind the second crash couch.

The feel of a rifle in her hands made her breathe a sigh of relief. With just the glass blade she’d felt woefully unarmed but the assault rifle, although not the type she’d carried for years in the wars of her home planet, was familiar enough that it felt like an extension of her being. She checked the charge cell and turned it over to check the safeties.

“Shit.” It was dead. Unresponsive.

“Crew locked,” she gave a hiss of realisation, quickly disengaging the power cell and tucking it into her pocket. If she couldn’t use it, she didn’t want McDonald to be able to either.

Looking back in the cache, she removed the heavy combat daggers, tucking one in her boot and the other in her belt. Making sure she could draw it quickly, she turned her attention to the rest of the crewlocked weapons, rendering them useless as she watched Remas out of the corner of her eye.

“You’re a half decent pilot,” she commented as she slid into the crash couch next to his.


“Learned from the best,” he said as with a throaty rumble the ship main core came to life. More lights began to flicker on, a dull chitter of a open comm link became apparent. He reached out and slide his fingers over a control, reducing the volume. “They’re just going to tell us to power down and stay in the barn.”

His fingers danced across the touch screens as the rumble grew more prominent, and with a barely perceptible jolt the shuttle rose into the air on its thrusters. With gentle coaxing gesturing, as though the shuttle were some flighty beast with a want to panic at the first hint of danger, it drifted out of its docking berth and onto the main taxiway at the centre of the shuttle bay.

The main armoured doors had risen up to reveal the flickering after glow of the warp drive distorting the fabric of reality. He goosed the engines and the shuttle began to accelerate forward towards the air curtain that kept .

“Hang on to something, transition to N-space from warp is always a little rough from a dead drop,” he said in a calm voice as the shuttle popped through the curtain and into the space between the starships twinned nacelles. For a moment nothing seemed to happen...and then they exited the trailing edge of the Travellers warp bubble.

Alarms came first, followed by the gut wrenching nausea as distortions in space time played merry havoc with the inner ear. The warping nature of reality subsided, and left the shuttle eerily quiet as Remas slapped alarm safeties back into place on the overhead controls.

“Now,” Remas said, turning to Daani with a smile and gestured to the view port. “Which star would you want to be heading towards.”

Out beyond the nose of the shuttle...was nothing. No stars, no glowing filigree of a stellar nursery, not even the glowing traffic lanes of congested orbital traffic zone. Seeing her next question he tapped the attitude controls, sending a jet of pressurised gas from the nose ports to slowly spin the shuttle down along her nose to show they weren’t facing the night side of a planet.

She blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. But there was no making sense of it all.

“What the… Where the hell are we?” she twisted, looking out one of the side ports in the vain hope that would make any difference but the same sight met her eyes. She turned, looking at Remas directly. He’d been too calm, way too calm. Now she knew why.

“You knew this all along? That there was nothing out here? And here I was just thinking you were being sensible.”

“Ah!” He said with a smile, leaning across the console and accessing the canopy’s holographic overplay. “I am being irredeemably sensible. Because there is something out there, its just that our eyes aren’t perfect light absorbers and their not twenty meters across. Or else we’d see...ahh there it is.”

He nodded at the curving glass canopy, as a holographic marker slowly rose from the bottom of the screen. It shone a pale icy white as it rose, boxed by scientific annotations and scrolling number fields. It was marked ‘Llanarian’.

“Looks a smidge lonely out there by its lonesome. Let’s increase the optical sensitivity a little,” he whispered. Slowly, as though that icy pale dot were freezing the glass, other spots appeared. They congealed into a solid stream of stars, that branched out and curved into elongated spiral arms of a familiar galaxy.

“Sagittarius, Norma and Cygnus,” he said, reaching out to tap the three closet arms. “Perseus is on the far side. How could anyone say the sky is empty when it is so full of stars?”

She swore softly. They were so far away. There was no way she’d get back, not in this… and there wasn’t anything around them. She couldn’t work her way back slowly if she tried.

“Well played, Captain,” she said, slumping back in the couch and closing her eyes to sigh. “I’ll admit, I totally didn’t see this coming. I should have paid far more attention to what pod I stole.”

She opened her eyes to look at him, raking her loose hair back with a heavily tattooed hand. “So what happens now?”

"Well," Remas said, crossing his arms over his chest tapping his elbow contemplatively. "Far be it from me to say, but you might be in a fairly deep pot of gently steaming water as it stands. Like I said, folks like me, tend to get in a fuss when things happen to me."

He then reached out, and nudged the controls, setting the shuttle on a lazy spin to one side so that the enhanced visual of the Milk Way slid off the canopy. After a moment a new smear of light appears, a squat rounded sphere of bright stars.

"That's Messier 4, our destination. And its got a very special opportunity for folks like us. Right now the light streaming up from the Milky Way is nearly eight thousand years old. The same light that shone down on the first human beings to domesticate wild animals for farming, and we're catching it in our sails," he grinned and looked at her. "That also means the light of every bad choice, every wrong turn, is 8000 years behind us. The record of those things hasn't happened yet. Those choice don't have to weigh us down out here. Maybe you see it as a great misfortune that you stowed away in the wrong pod and landed here on a far and distant shore. But maybe, just maybe, this is your chance for fresh start."

She tilted her head slightly to the side, eyes narrowing a little as she considered him.

“So… what are you saying to me? That I can start again here?” She pulled the dagger from her waist, spinning it easily over the back of her hand and slid it home again with a practised movement. “That you’ll be willing to forgive and forget that I abducted you from your own ship? Sure… you might have known I wasn’t going to get far but you had no way of knowing whether you would be safe or not.”

“You have no idea who I am, what I’ve done or why I’m running in the first place.” Removing the knife in it’s sheath from her belt, she held it out to him, hilt first. Then she smiled slightly, a crooked quirk at the corner of her lips. “The best place you can put me is in your brig. And your security officers had the right idea. Solitary confinement and never let your guard down.”

"That's certainly the Starfleet way of things," Remas nodded thoughtfully, reached out and pushed the knife gently back into her hand. "Though seeing as we're a might out of range of them at the moment, reckon I get the final say. And at my core I am not Starfleet, I am adar'Rishal. We wander hither and yon as we want, choose the star which guides us on whims and more mystical means than you can count. But we never turn away those who come to us to start again. Even them who land among is most unexpectantly."

The canopy flashed, and a sensor bracket locked onto the approaching form of the USS Traveller as she dropped out of warp and drifted closer.

"I'll talk to my Chief of Security. Might need to set some of his feathers back in his plumage after, but we're too far and gone to be letting talent go to waste. You fought for a cause once Daani, now you get to see if you can fight for yourself with no banner save your name at your back," he smiled and tapped the edge of the console. "Said you were a dab hand at the astrogation I think? You've seen me fly, consider this a vocational assessment."

She inclined her head, tucking the dagger back into place in her belt and turned her attention to the flight controls. They weren’t exactly the same as she was used to, but most systems designed for humanoids operated along very similar lines. Her hands moved easily across the controls, bringing them about and setting them on a course back toward the Traveller.

“They let you loose with a Ronin class?” She slid a glance sideways at him, gently altering their course as the doors to the shuttlebay came into sight. “One of the Rish? You must be popular with more than your crew, that’s for sure…”

"I promised them bountiful opportunities and adventure unsurpassed. So far, I have kept up my end of the bargain," he said with a small measure of pride in his voice. He nodded proudly out of the viewport. "Literally no ship like her in the Fleet. She was Ronin when I found her in the Mothball Fleet, to powerful for her heart to sustain like a foal eager to gallop a moment after their born. New next-generation power core, upgraded shielding, aerodynamic stabilizers for when she goes cloud dancing for fuel in a gas giants atmosphere. Not always the honest way to the goal, but ye canny argue the results aren't beautiful. I pulled some of her teeth though, weapons pod atop ship got gutted and fitted with every seeing eye I could lay my hands on. Those I left in were sharpened and metal capped. She sports a pair of 20" phaser cannons in her bow. Enough to turn the cheek of even the most righteous of souls."

The shuttles hull let out a soft pinging chime as it passed back through the air curtain and into pressure. At the end of the taxiway, a veritable posse of Expedition Security officers in their black and gold jackets and hats waited.

"The Traveller was designed as a ship exploration in a time of war. Now she is an explorer fit to defend herself, but not fit to wage a war. This is what she was always meant for , from the moment they laid down her keel above Mars, to the day she sang her lonely song to me. For she knew her sailors had a new love, much prettier than she, and it causes her to weep for all Cydonia," he said the last part in a soft lilting voice. He smiled. "Pardon me. If I don't let the pipes air from time to time, I'm fit to burst."

She’d expected the security officers. She had, after all abducted their captain from under their noses, which meant there were going to be some very bruised egos. She hadn’t expected the song though, sliding him a glance as she set the shuttle down gently.

“You have a good singing voice,” she commented, initiating the rundown procedures. “My brother sings well. Me? I sing like a duck with a cold. Always used to get things thrown at me in the trenches.”

The engines shut off, she slid from the couch and looked at him.

“Okay. How do you want to do this?” she asked curiously, honestly not sure how he would answer. She didn’t think ego was an issue with him but offered anyway.

“Am I stepping off here in your custody or what? No one would think it odd for someone your size to have over-powered me,” she grinned. “As long as they can’t read Llanarian anyway.” She flashed her marked hands quickly. She’d disengaged the sub-dermal camouflage that had covered them and the story of her life was there to read in geometrics...and it was a violent one.

"I'm thinking I step out, tell'em all that we're a friendly bunch, and then you step out behind me with your hands held out at your sides," he said, getting up from the crash couch and moving towards the door. He stopped, and sheepishly turned about and grinned. "I will be askin' one of those fine officers out there to frisk ya. So whilst I'm opening the hatch, if you want to put anything down that's going to cause a fuss, that'd be right thoughtful."

He nodded, turned to the hatch, and began undoing the physical deadlock.

"Its not that I don't trust ya, its just I trust your sense of self preservation more."

She actually laughed at that and nodded. It took her less than a minute to lay the blades she carried on the floor and empty her pockets of the power cells. She didn’t drop those, bending down to lay them lightly on the floor. She even removed the one she’d concealed in her boot, winking at Remas as she put it with the rest.

“All done,” she said, as he opened the hatch. She lifted her chin as the door opened and waited for him to step out, following a couple of steps behind and really hoping they didn't shoot on sight.

"Well, lets go introduce yourself," Remas said, his hand halting over the controls. "Oh, and welcome to the Traveller."


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