Saturday, August 22, 2015

Only a Small Medical Emergency II

Continued from Part I

The inside of the building opened up into a large, four-story concourse that echoed just slightly with the occasional voices and crisp footsteps on the hard tiled floors. The entire building seemed lit to create the illusion of a perpetual early afternoon.  Sri turned to search the open areas of the upper floors, but was unable to see any Starfleet uniform standing out among patients, visitors or staff.  She reached out with her awareness, and the murmur of the concourse became a deafening roar of emotion.   Waves of frustration and worry, but none of the usual static that came with a Ferengi presence.  Nath was not nearby, but the sheer volume of emotion concealed a great deal.


Friday, August 14, 2015

Light Show

James Bridgeway’s first conscious moments weren’t of sight, or even sounds, but instead a scent – a sweet, charred smell, that at one time invoked memories of hot, thick cut bacon soaking in that last puddle of maple syrup. That was before he had been part of an engineering team trying to keep an alliance Klingon cruiser’s warp core from going critical. There the smell had come from the nearby plasma conduit which had ruptured near one of the targ pens. The conduit still flashed occasionally illuminating charred targ statues, caught in mid panic with brilliant white light. Other bodies, the parts that hadn’t been caught in the plasma wash, steamed. A few twitched. Others screamed. He remembered being mesmerized by the stench and the sound until the Commander had boxed her ear, screaming into it. “Want to wind up like them? Get that coolant system running!”  Afterward he’d stopped eating bacon – the pleasant memory; the warm hominess had been replaced by carbonized statues and screams.


Monday, August 10, 2015

Only a Small Medical Emergency - I

Oppenheimer’s departure from Deep Space Nine had been an experience to try the most beatific of Vulcans. As a hub of crew transfers, supply drops, and ship refits, occasional logistical mistakes at a busy station were only natural.  When that station is overloaded with novice crew and staffed with officers less familiar with the mix of Federation and Cardassian technology, one accepted the mistakes as commonplace and tried to avoid total catastrophe. Oppenheimer's supplies had been mis-appropriated to three different ships – all unwilling to release Oppenheimer's supplies until their supplies were found.  Her departure window had moved so many times the deck crew had to be re-briefed on adjusted procedure and contacts twice. Post departure, just as Sri was counting herself lucky, the quartermaster on watch discovered five crewmen milling about the mess hall who thought they were on the USS Lyons.  Not minutes later, the Lyons sent out a hysterical alert; the furious captain declared the crewmen deserters and demanded they be arrested and detained.  Despite Chief Security Officer Tran’s eagerness to put them in irons – he hadn’t had a chance to use irons, after all --   Lt Commander Sri decided they were merely lost and to make sure they had some lunch before transfer.  However, instead of bowls of hot plomeek soup,  the replicator produced a hypo of nutrients that resembled that of plomeek soup.  Closer inspection revealed the replicator to be a medical replicator, not a food replicator and that several crewmen had used the replicator to make hundreds of medical hypos – mostly stimulants controlled under Starfleet regulations.  Sri merely sighed and  ordered and enthusiastic Tran to head up the investigation to track down the hypos, mentally contacted D’Shyv to swap out the replicators, and sent the errant crewmen to sickbay for a bowl of soup.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Dreamer and the Dreams that Were : Part I

Dr. Fenna’s glare could have melted neutronium. Instead its target was one Lieutenant Commander Sri.

“Give me one reason I should help you after you reassigned the Aenar to your team.” Her voice betrayed a bitterness so jagged Sri didn’t need her empathy. Sri had accepted the doctor’s pent-up rage as normal --just in this case her rage wasn’t nearly as pent up.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

The Borg In Fate Acellerated Terms

This a take on the Borg, using the Fate Accelerated Bronze Rule, also known as Fate Fractal. This is a work in progress, and meant to represent the Borg as an abstract threat for a scene.  This take does not detail each Drone or even the Queen, and may not be granular enough for some uses.

Friday, July 24, 2015

By The Numbers II: A Full Accounting

Even though most of the officers in the ready room were off their duty cycle, sleeping was not on their minds. Syvok, stood stonily at the head of the table. His gaze abruptly went between the assembled officers which as Sri knew, passed for agitation for a vulcan.  The darkness didn’t help the mood. The yellow alert combined with wan emergency lighting created heavy shadows that turned empty spaces into lightless voids such Syvok appeared sinister instead of efficient and the officers around the table appeared sullen, bleary and agitated instead of -- 

Sri decided that part was actually pretty accurate. The stress around the table radiated out spastically around her, and she focused tightly to hold it off.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

A Perfect Join: Delta I

Lahn sat on the ledge overlooking a knife-cut ravine as a chilly morning zephyr nudged a dense shroud of lead-vermillion clouds – crowned marigold by the rising sun -- across the opposing summit. The evergreens on the top tore away at the bottom of the cloud leaving them draped in a milky veil. The silence was that of the woodlands -- not the ever present thrum of a starship that she had long gotten used to but the soft cacophony of a living world of which she was both alien and participant. The rock was damp from the morning fog that prickled against her face and hands and beaded against her uniform, but she sat anyway, content to feel any sensation through her skin when scant days before, there had been no sensation – only input.