Around The Maze Part 1

Posted on Fri Feb 7th, 2020 @ 6:46pm by Captain Rueben Gregnol & Chief Helmsman Eden Bowers

Mission: Cosmos
Location: Starbase 621, Medical
Timeline: 2396
1840 words - 3.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Lake stepped out of his little room that he'd been kept in the last week and looked around. The station looked terrible. He'd felt the rocking and knew something bad had happened but everyone looked so busy he didn't have the heart to interrupt anyone. He simply grabbed his stuff and decided to head for his quarters. Perhaps he could put a uniform on and help though he didn't know what a simple stellar cartographer could do.

Spending a week in that room had made him all stiff. He really needed to stretch out. He flailed his arms while he walked down the corridor, trying to loosen them up. He kicked out a leg just as he came around a corner and realized that a woman was about to walk right into said leg. He reached for her, hoping to spin himself around her and avoid a collision but didn't let go of her in time and ended up bringing her down with him.

The sound Ledeya made was not graceful or at all small as she was hauled first around in a poor attempt to avoid someone but then pulled down onto someone hard. It hurt her and more so it hurt her pride a lot. She had been on the base mere hours a as bs it was not dignified at all.

“You can let me go now.” Ledeya said feeling the mans hands on her hip. It would not look good for the Task Group Commanding Officer to be caught with a random persons hands in places that they should not.

Lake had been inches from her face staring at her intently. He didn't think he'd ever seen a more beautiful woman, but when she spoke he scrambled to his feet. "I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have been doing that in the corridor." He practically picked her up and set her back on her feet then realized her rank. "Oh my god, I knocked over a Captain. I literally have the worst luck in the universe. First the virus and now this. Oh don't worry, I'm not contagious anymore. What's going on around here?" He said this all very fast and at the end seemed to realize he should be standing at attention.

The woman surprised to be set back in her feet like she weighted nothing. “No harm. No foul.” The woman quickly dismissed the comment about Captain. It was not the time or place to be standing on ceremony. She raised an eyebrow at the contagious comment, she would learn more later no doubt. “There was a simultaneous attack across the base.” How was he so out the loop?

"Really? Wow, I guess I better get out of the way then." He bit his lip. "Can I help with anything? I'm only a scientist but I have an extra pair of arms that aren't doing anything."

"Follow me then." The Captain told him looking him overseeing the patient clothes he wore. "Wait...Have you actually been discharged properly?"

"Yes . . . oh don't worry. I just had a cold. First cold any human has caught in a couple of hundred years and I have no idea how I got it. But you're not human, so you should be fine and they told me I wasn't contagious anymore anyway, actually with everything going on I think they left me in there a bit longer than I needed to be. Makes me a kind of weird experiment I guess." Lake said this all really fast and then blinked and looked at her again. "Sorry, I'm Lakeland Smith, most people call me Lake. My parents were kind of strange in the naming department." Why could he not shut up? He pressed his lips closed and told himself to just breathe.

"Ledeya Ehestri." The woman introduced herself. She was on her way to check the state of Sickbay bay as the Chief Medical Officer could not be found. "It is a lovely name." She assured quickly leading the way back towards sickbay.

"And," Lake continued following along after her. "You're Betazoid? I just assumed, the dark eyes." He'd gotten quite a good look at them when he landed on top of her.

"Indeed I am. Why?" The woman confirmed glancing back at the man following her down the corridor. It was not a far walk at all but the man's presence was a shock to her when she had thought she would have, had some alone time between meetings, medical emergencies and communicating what was happening to Starfleet.

"Oh no, no real reason. I just wanted to get it right. I mean it doesn't matter to me." He wondered if he should stop talking, she seemed to be annoyed by his presence, he didn't understand it.

The woman stopped dead in her tracks as she glanced back and saw the confusion written on his face. "Sorry, Lakeland. You have caught me at a man time. I am normally a little more refined."

He nearly bumped into her when she stopped right in front of him. "It's okay, I'm sure you're distracted by all the stuff that's gone on around here. Worrying about the crew and all that." And without thinking, without filtering anything that went from his brain to his mouth he spoke again. "You have a lot of walls around you don't you?"

"Well as TGCO I've been called here to lead and fix this mess." She murmured looking around everyone before she looked at him. She glanced at him properly trying to work out what he meant about walls. "I do not understand." She finally said.

Lake blushed a little bit. "Well it's like you said, you're in TGCO mood and I just wondered. It's really none of my business. You just seem on edge with me, like you don't like people talking to you in any other way. And I'm way overstepping things here. But maybe you don't like to let people close." He winced as if she were going to smack him.

The woman opened her mouth a few times before closing again. She did not have time for this type of conversation at all, it was distracting but quite possibly true. "Are you telepathic?" She wondered having been thinking on many things the moment she had bumped into him.

"No, I'm just a regular old Human. I'm just . . ." his face colored again. "Good at reading body language is all. Sorry, I keep distracting you. Where are we going?" He finally asked, he could talk to her later about this.

Ledeya wanted to throw at him that her body language was nothing to do with him but she found herself shying away from him. “I am heading to sick bay. I am a doctor.” It would be logical now that he knew that she was firstly a doctor before she took the command route.

"Ah. I just came from there. I could have just stayed." He mused, hoping to keep the subject far away from her. She was so nervous or something. As soon as they entered sickbay he went to the other side of the room to see if he could help in any way. He was no doctor, but an extra set of hands might be helpful he thought.

Ledeya was relived when the man disappeared off to help somewhere else whilst she started rounds. She was relieved to see that her own officers were there trying to help where they could. It was easy to see that things were easily under control after 30 hours since the emergency started.

“I’ll start stocking up your trollers then.” She said brightly much to the shock of the nurses that the Captain was doing such menial work.

Lake just let himself be ordered around. He had to explain several times that he was just offering to help because he'd been cooped up and hadn't gotten to offer any assistance while in quarantine. The fact that he'd followed the Captain in with her looking frazzled seemed to offer up a bit of gossip for them.

He didn't know what made him look but suddenly he heard a thump and turned around to people falling around him, hitting the floor as if they were dead. He glanced frantically around for Ledeya who hadn't seemed to notice that all of the nurses were now unconscious before launching himself at her and pushing her into the very room he'd just come out of, the quarantine area. She was really going to be afraid of him now. "Sorry," he managed to breath out once the door was closed. "But I think there's some kind of gas pouring in and this room has a separate filtration system than the rest of the station."

Ledeya was sure she had never been more manhandle by a man more in her life but as soon as they got into the quarantine area she realised just how woozy she actually felt. “Thanks I think. Ehestri to Bridge. Medical emergency main sick bay.” She breathed as she slid down the wall.

"Are you okay?" He was standing several feet back from her, not at all sure what to do.

“Yeah but I breathed in some of the gases.” She admitted feeling horrible as she explained to the person who answered her communication.

He waited until she was finished talking through her communicator before he sat down across from her, keeping a close eye on the color of her face and her breathing. He didn't want to get too close though, he had just basically knocked into her twice in less than an hour. She probably thought he was some kind of beast. "Do you want to lie down on the bed?"

Ledeya took a few deep breaths and leant her head back a little closing her eyes. She really just want to rest and slump to the floor. “I am okay here.” The woman assured opening her eyes blinking away the orbs of light. “I should thank you really. Why did you grab me?”

"I don't know . . . I guess I just thought it seemed like a really good idea to keep you safe after bowling you over. Ironically I nearly did it again trying to get you in here."

Ledeya nodded as she got rid of first her jacket and then rubbed her boots off. “I do not think irony has anything to do with it.” The woman shrugged a little as she rolled her jacket up and put it on the floor like a pillow.

He wondered what she meant but didn't dwell on it. Lake got up and pulled the blanket off the bed. He draped it carefully over her as if giving her permission to rest. "Sleep." He said, curling himself into another corner. He wasn't tired but there was going to be plenty of time to think about things.

OFF:;

Lieutenant Lakeland Brown
Stellar Cartographer
SB 621
(PNPC Bowers)

Commodore Ledeya ‘Ed’ Ehestri
Commanding Officer
USS Cosmos / TG 72-B
(PNPC Gregnol)