The Search Is On

Posted on Tue Feb 23rd, 2021 @ 12:58pm by Liha t'Ehhelih & Executive Officer Jake Ford & Captain Rueben Gregnol & Jinx Jorasco & Chief Helmsman Eden Bowers

Mission: Mission 12 - Railway
Location: Bridge
1817 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Dixoho was nervous as the pinging of the ship tried to follow a signal. It had been an hour or more since they had gotten the signal and started following it. She had so many questions about the events that had happened just before they entered the minefield. Like what was the ship and who was onboard? Gregnol was refusing to talk about it, which was very much unlike him.

“Captain, what is going on with the person in sickbay?” she wondered, breaking the silence.

Jinx-Avalon looked up curiously. Now that they were through the worst of things and had a direction to follow, she could breathe easier. She still had to watch the minefield, but Eden had the difficult job. “Did he live?” she asked.

"Depends on whether his little jump-in stunt hurt our chances of getting to the refugees on time,” Liha muttered darkly.

"We do not even know really if it was a he," Dixoho piped up.

“Enough. We can talk about the ship and the person onboard when we find the refugees. Focus on them,” Gregnol finally said, losing his temper at the questions around it. He hoped the connection to the Rangers was muted when he did it. Dixoho made a face, but turned back to her console, suitably chastised. She did not dare look at everyone else for their reactions to it all. She suspected they all had their own worries about what was going on and were asking the same question: what was going on?


Eden could hear talking going on in the background, but her mind was completely focused on what she was doing, and so she was able to mostly drown them out until Gregnol snapped and startled her. She frowned at him for the briefest of moments before turning her attention to what she was doing again, making the ship turn more sharply than she would have liked.

Liha nodded Jake's head firmly, thoroughly approving of that priority.

Jinx winced at what she thought was a rather unnecessary reprimand and turned her attention back to the sensors.

Jake also remained silent. He figured it was in-character for Liha anyway, but he knew what was on Gregnol's mind: this was a delicate moment in their task and distractions might be dangerous.

The silence reigned for a long time where Gregnol thought to just come clean and confess that he was hiding Michael’s return when a floating ship came into view. It was an old ship, the captain could not tell properly, but it looked at first glance to be a Norkova class, but the former executive officer could never be sure so long out of Starfleet. “Is that them, Thrai?” he demanded, opening up the channel to the Fenris Rangers.

Danica looked over at Thrai, already starting to scan the old ship for life signs.

"It would appear so," Kaylin's voice responded over the comm. "We'll need to move closer to assess the damage, but from here their drive system appears offline."

"Can we tell if life support is functioning?" Liha asked. "Or get life sign readings?"

“Life support seems to be working,” Jinx-Avalon reported.

“And getting life signs now,” Danica followed up.

"That is fantastic." Gregnol finally let out the breath he had not realised he had been holding and smiled, a little relieved. It was a day where everyone won, it seemed. The refugees were important and now that they knew they were alive they could help them and get them to there new home.

The smile disappeared as the Fenris Rangers appeared on the bridge holding weapons. How they had gotten past the shields, he would ask later, but for now, he did not like the way they were looking at his crew or the fact they had weapons where his crew did not.

"What is going on?" he wondered, looking down at the weapon that Indigo was holding up before he realised that he was not Gregnol to them, he was Eden, and should not be seated in the captain's chair.

"No, you tell us what is going on and why you have a Mega-Tu on your ship?" Indigo demanded, looking around.

"Uh," Eden said. "A what?" she asked, pretending she'd been tying her shoe in the helm chair, even though she pretty much knew they weren't being fooled.

Danica grabbed Jinx-Avalon by the collar, pushing her against the science station, a Cardassian disruptor pressed against Avalon’s spine. “Ancestors!” Jinx exclaimed. By habit, she tried mentally reaching for Zambi to defend her, but that connection wasn’t there in Avalon’s body.

Liha took a half step before recalling she was in Jake's body and didn't have the speed or strength to grab anyone to force a stand off. She ground his teeth in frustration. "Is that some sort of synth? We don't have any of those here!"

Indigo lowered her weapon just a little as she looked at the stunned looks on the bridge crew. The body language was telling her they really had no idea about a Mega-Tu onboard. They were lucky enough that they had run into old records on an abandoned station where Starfleet Intelligence had been less than thorough with a cleaning sweep. It had given the Fenris Rangers a lot of valuable information. "A Mega-Tu...They exist in a pocket universe where the rules of physics, as it is understood, do not exist. You really have no idea..."

"Of course we don't," Liha snapped. "A pocket universe race? You know that sounds crazy, right?" She looked around to comms. "Someone call the Doc and have them scanned for hallucinogens."

The blue haired woman looked around as no one moved, but the man did look around as well. "Move and I shoot Ford," Indigo assured with a blunt look. She was the one in charge here, and there was nothing crazy about this situation. "They have what we call magic," Indigo explained.

"Magic?" Liha snorted. The thought occurred to her that it would explain the body swap, but that would require believing in something as primitive and absurd as magic. Besides, she wasn't about to cede a single point to former allies holding disruptors on them. "This is madness. We're trying to save those refugees, and you're over here holding weapons on us over some old spacer story."

"They're dangerous," Kaylin reaffirmed, her hand holding her disruptor low between the captain and his first mate. "And this is no madness. Indeed, the madness is more likely taken hold of you if you are not aware of her presence."

"There's no madness here,” Jake started, sensing the touch of Taev's hand on her shoulder. He figured Liha would have pulled some fast move to remove the hand from Taev's arm, but he wasn't capable of that. So he played safe and did his best to glare. "We're not hiding anyone," he added. He almost said 'anything,' but that wouldn't have been true.

“I’m sensing they’re...relatively truthful,” Danica told Indigo. “I don’t think they really know. But something is odd with them,” she said, keeping Avalon’s body pinned to the console. “They are hiding something.”

"Seriously, we are not mad, but you might be truthful about a Mega-Tu onboard and magic,” Gregnol said slowly, thinking through everything as he finally stopped being silent and looked at Kaylin. "I am Reuben Gregnol," he announced, finally thinking this needed to end. They had gotten the Fenris Rangers there, and it was time to go on a bit of faith here.

"It's true," Eden said. "We woke up and our minds were in different bodies. I'm the helmsman, I'm Eden," she said, feeling like she ought to do something silly that the rest of the others would expect her to do, except these people did not know her like the crew.

Fvadt But if they were going to do this, better if everyone came clean, especially if the one by Jinx was an empath of some kind. Liha looked at Taev. "That's Jake," she said, jerking Jake's chin at her body. "I'm in this one, feanna amton'wi-kha."

Taev blinked. No one but Liha would call him that. "It's her," he said, gingerly lifting his hand off her shoulder. At least this explained the weirdness from the other night.

Danica eyed the crew member she was currently manhandling. “And who are you, then?” she asked, holstering her phaser.

“Jinx,” she said. “The science officer. This is the body of our hydroponics manager Avalon. Ehm...nice to meet you properly, sort of.”

Indigo looked around amazed at the group seeing them all in a new light than the one yesterday. “For reals?” she asked, knowing now why she was the one who had led this, as she was less likely to shoot first. “Why did you not tell us?” she demanded.

"I know you, remember?" Liha rolled Jake's eyes. "Look at how you're freaking out over this Mega-whatever. How would you have reacted if we said we were all in different bodies, but, hey, it's fine, trust us?"

“Because they are dangerous,” Indigo surmised, but she took the feedback. They really did have a point; they would have never trusted them if they knew the truth.

Kaylin shared Indigo's assessment. Reluctantly she lowered the disruptor, but didn't holster it. "So...Captain Gregnol?" She looked at the young woman staring back at her, trying to understand the situation. "And...not First Mate Ford?" She gazed at the man she'd flirted with just the previous eve. It made sense, in an ironic sort of way, that it was another Romulan beneath that skin. "We have little time for games. The refugees still require our help, and while that Megas-Tu is on the loose none of us are safe. We should divide our efforts to achieve both goals."

"Makes sense," Jake piped up. "Two objectives, two teams. I'll take some of the engineers and secure the other ship. Rest of you will be needed here."

Gregnol had been having a thought, but we would not share with the crew for a moment, as it seemed everyone had decided what to do without him. Maybe he was getting too old for this all? “Looks like I am securing my ship. Any of you want to stay and assist in this search?” Gregnol asked the Rangers. He wanted to say hunt, but for all they knew the person was unaware, as nothing had alarmed them onboard.

"Ooooh, I want to help!" Eden enthusiastically hopped over, not an easy task in the wrong body. "What are we looking for again?"

“I’ll help with the search,” Danica offered. “I’ve never met a Mega-Tu, but I can try and detect if she’s lying.” Danica wasn’t sure she really believed in magic, but there was the unexplained.