What Of Those Left Behind Part 1

Posted on Wed Apr 3rd, 2024 @ 4:50pm by Elara ‘Kara’ Vance (*) & Teresa Forrest & Chief Comms Rivek & Chief Armoury Rormu Yazlin & Owen Mathieson

Mission: Fractures
Location: SS Mary Rose
Timeline: Present
2196 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Elara found herself in a state of bewilderment. One moment, the ship had been buzzing with activity, tackling the pirate base head-on, and the next, it fell eerily silent. The computer remained unresponsive, leaving her alone in a seemingly frozen environment. Realizing that remaining in the deserted operations center served no purpose, she resolved to search for any sign of life aboard the vessel.

With each passing moment, Elara's anxiety mounted as she scoured the ship in vain, checking sickbay and then the mess hall, only to find them empty. Normally composed and level-headed, the purple-skinned woman found herself consumed by worry, her nerves fraying with each unanswered query. Just as her apprehension threatened to overwhelm her, the door of the mess hall swooshed open, offering a glimmer of hope amidst the uncertainty.

Inside, was man looked as though he'd been through the wringer. The situation was a conspiracy—or perhaps a practical joke. "Is hazing usual on starships?" wondered Rivek, his thoughts racing as he tried to rationalize his way through the mounting anxiety. His fingers were a blur over a communicator he was attempting to hack. Despite his best efforts to reroute circuits or initiate emergency protocols, the device remained silent, not even a chirp to show for his trouble.

The sudden noise of the door opening made him jump. The communicator slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor. He looked up to see a woman with violet skin entering. She was a stranger to him, yet she seemed familiar with the layout of the mess hall. "W—what's happening? Where is everyone?"

Elara found herself shrugging. She had no idea herself and there was no sign of anything everywhere that she had been so far. “I really have no idea. I have only been onboard a couple of months but this seems really out of the ordinary.”

The Bajoran security Chief Yazlin entered the mess hall, her tricorder indicating that she had found other people with a rythmic beep that seemed to get faster the closer she got to the others in the messhall. She held the phaser rifle pressed against her shoulder as she slung dufflebag around her other shoulder to the ground. "I don't know, but I'm not waiting to find out." The bag folded open slightly, revealing additional weapons. "We need to secure the vessel and figure out exactly what happened."

Elara turned as the door opened again and looked at the woman she had met several times over the last couple of months to watch sports with relief. There was at least one familiar face still onboard with some sense of what to do in a situation as she had found a tricorder. That was sensible to say the least and it calmed the inner workings of her anxiety to a dull ache. “So the bridge then?” Elara decided.

"Bridge sounds like a good idea," sounded another voice, belonging to one of the newest engineers onboard Mary Rose. Though she disliked the term engineer, it made her sound more important, and at times more capable, than she felt. Though she didn't know of a better term. She'd say that she was decent at turning a screwdriver and could often talk a computer into dancing. She too was armed, though with a spanner rather than a phaser, a tricorder in her other hand, to be used much like Yazlin was. "Hi. Teresa Forrest. Greasemonkey," as evident by the stains on her clothes.

“I know who you are. We’ve all been onboard a couple of weeks now.” Elara commented as she glanced at the bag that Yazlin had dropped to the floor. “Is that for all of us or you planning to take on the universe alone?”

Tree shot Elara a glance. "Yeah you do, but I haven't met some of the others yet. Nevermind~"

Rivek was familiar with the lot of them, but wasn't sure whether it was because he read their dossiers or because he had actually met them. To cover his bases if he didn't, he said, "I'm Rivek. I work with comms, but it seems like the system is completely offline. Are we the only one's aboard?"

If there was anyone who could attest to the difficulty that came with keeping track of new acquaintances, it was the man responsible for the sudden open-shut, open-shut of the doors behind the group. Many might have argued that the mechanism, and the algorithm that sat behind its operation, shouldn't have allowed for such a pantomimed entrance but Owen had already confirmed his capacity to find calamity in the mundane the first time he'd booked a passage on the cargo vessel. Now that fate had permitted a second crossing, this time as a return trip, he was well out of options for pretending there wasn't just cause to limit the amount of buttons he touched on any given day. He aborted the first attempt to enter as the doors abruptly attempted to close in his face, only to get halfway and retreat back again. Thus, curtains parted, he stood alarmingly exposed on a centre stage of his own devising and just stared at the group currently paused in expectation.

"That was weird." An uncertain smile saw him shoot the doors a wary glance before he stepped, more of a small leap for haste's sake, well past any opportunity for it to squash him. "Which makes it about the seventh strangest thing I've experienced today."

“What were the first 6?” Elara asked quietly as she crouched to look at the weapons and picked out a phaser. It was small enough to tuck into her belt. She would have to thank the Captain and blue haired woman she had seen carrying armoury storage at the last port of call for making sure they were stocked. She did not know who the blue haired woman was but that did not matter when the weapons were secure the ship if it was something to do with the Sons Of Cheron ship that they had been fighting.

"At least four involved people just disappearing on me." Reaching up, Owen rubbed the back of his head in lingering bewilderment. "Starting to think that wasn't just artful dodging or an attempt to pass comment on my hygiene."

"I thought everyone had beamed off in an emergency," said Rivek. "It seems that is not the case." He still stumbled with the communicator. Even if he could get short-range signal, that would be ideal to no communications at all. "What are we hoping to find on the bridge?"

"Answers. Logs. Comm badge tracking. Anything," Tree interjected. "No, everyone didn't beam off. There's some sort of time shenanigans going on, from what I gather. I haven't experienced it, but I've spoken with people who have," She hesitated a moment before putting two and two together. "Elara, I know you're new to the ship. I am. Any of y'all been here longer than 'recently arrived'?" She looked pointedly at the others.

"I was picked up at one of the last ports," said Rivek.

"I was offered the job in December of last year." Yazlin chimed in, she didn't know what would count as 'recently arrived' but it was relatively recent in her mind at least.

Elara stayed quiet as the group spoke about when they had joined and played with her PaDD looking at the quarter assignments. "None of us have been on longer than 2 months. December 2397 is furthest back any of us go." She confirmed quietly. "Me and Owen joined together last month are the newest."

"Technically, I've been, gone and come back again," Owen pointed out.

“Five days.” Elara said grinning.

"I know correlation does not equal causation and the sample size is small, but - this doesn't feel like a coincidence," Tree agreed. "Guess it's up to us newbies to save the ship." She considered the wrench in her hand versus the weapons in the duffle bag for a moment, before deciding to switch, feeling considerably safer with a Type III compression rifle. Not that she believed she would need it, but rather have it and not need than vice versa.

"Uh, not to sound pessimistic, because I'm theoretically on board with heroic gestures if not perhaps a little under-qualified, but...what exactly are we saving it from/" Owen glanced around the group, finding no immediate comfort in any of their expressions. "Crew disappearances are a good start, I'll agree, but that feels more like a symptom, doesn't it?"

"Whatever it is, we're not going to find it comparing resumes in the messhall." Yazlin shoved the dufflebag with phaser rifles forward towards the rest of the group. "So let's take a stroll to the bridge. Does anyone object to using the turbolift?" She knew that in emergencies you'd usually be better off avoiding them, keeping them free for damage response units and medical. But there wasn't any damage, and nobody had been around to call for medical assistance.

“Not in the slightest. Quickest way.” Elara agreed already having used it to get around the ship a little. “They seem safe.” She shrugged revealing that she had used them to try and find someone or some type of clue to explain what was going on.

Rivek followed along with the group to the turbolift. His mind was still stuck on trying to get some sort of signal up. "So if it's some sort of time thing, does that mean everyone is in the past or future? Or in a different timeline entirely?" He was talking to process his thoughts more than garnering an actual response. "Maybe we can leave a message that someone can find if they are in the future?"

"Like what?" Tree offered. "I don't know what's going on, like, are they really going to the future? Or just seeing something? How far into the future? Our own timeline, or an alternate one? Are we changing said timeline with what we're doing now?" She asked, shaking her head, even as she followed the others towards the turbolift. "Just too many variables."

“Who have you spoken too?” Elara wondered trying to make sense of what was going on so they were all on the same page.

"Whatsherface - Cami or Callie I think she introduced herself as. Bajoran. Fellow engineer," Teresa furrowed her brows. "To be honest in all that's going on I'm not sure. Never been great at names anyways."

"Cami." Elara fixed on. The woman was a bundle of energy but exactly what was needed in Engineering on a ship like SS Mary Rose. "So Bridge it is then." She mused pointing to the door that was still struggling to decide if it wanted to open or close from Owen coming in.

"Laurier's good people." Yazlin turned on her heels and made her way over to the exit, fully expecting the rest of the people to arm themselves and follow her to the turbolift, having wasted enough time standing around jawing at each other in her professional opinion.

Elara followed already armed. She had several questions but the bridge would certainly give them answers. She offered a smile to everyone as they squashed into the lift. This had to be outside some of their comfort zones for sure. Some of them had not been on ships let alone a ship that was having temporal issues.

It went without saying that Owen felt ridiculously out of place. It had only a little to do with being surrounded by confident women with more idea of what to do then he, in as much as gender probably barely made a difference and certainly wouldn't have improved his contribution had the mix been more varied. Bringing up the rear felt like the right thing to do, up until the point where it meant that he was last in the turbolift, and then it became altogether too clear that he was a tall weed amongst roses. Stuck with his back to the doors, staring right ahead because looking down on the top of a bunch of heads seemed somehow more impolite, he cleared his throat and attempted to embrace his very obvious role of morale monitor. Of the current list of priorities, it seemed the only thing he we remotely qualified for.

"I wonder what's got Cronos' giblets in a twist this time." It took him a split second to realise that a Terran reference was likely to go right over the heads of at least two-thirds of his current company. "If, of course, this is actually his doing. Over 357 documented references to temporal deities to choose from." His left eye twitched. "Give or take."

Elara glanced up at him and offered a bit smile. “Give or take. My species adds about ten to that.” She agreed shifting just a little to move closer and squeeze his hand in a comforting gesture. They were friends despite their often awkward interactions when she flirted and he got all blustered she was glad he was okay. The gesture was hidden by the tightness of quarters.

Lets just hope Elara had never pissed any of them off.