Lt Alex Storm - Doesn't Fit Into My Schedule
Karen Morris
((OOC: Any frustration Alex is experiencing is completely IC. I’m good.))
((Jefferies tube, Deck 4, USS Karnack))
Standing in the eerie darkness illuminated by a ghostly green chemlight, Alex repositioned herself away from Roy’s shoulder. Her fatigue wasn’t fair to him. She would bear it alone like she always had - even when she and Kona had been together - especially when she and Kona had been together. And at that moment in a Jeffries tube crammed with three other people, an emptiness sat down hard in the pit of her stomach, but she turned her face to the wall and blinked it away.
Storm: We should probably wait a little longer in here, just to be sure that they’re gone.
Silveira: Not too long I admit I am feeling a little cramped here.
Feet, elbows, shoulders, knees - four sets of them in a space that was meant to comfortably hold one. It was a fair observation.
Alex caught movement out of the corner of her eye - Jovenan had reached up to touch Sil’s cheek. She looked away quickly, feeling as if she had unexpectedly intruded on a private moment.
But she also noted that any noises were - at that moment moving away. Silence had slipped into the Jeffries tube through the hatch, but this silence had edges. It poked into sides and prodded at knees, and then it nipped at an ear when a creak of metal straining against gravity or a loud breath jumped into its territory.
Bancroft: Commander Silveira’s right – this is our window to think. And they will come back, unless we give them a reason not to.
Part of Alex wanted to resent him. She was tired. Bone tired. She felt it so deeply within her that it was hard to focus well. She didn’t care about the reason - the planet, her adrenals, the constant stress, and her new best friend - persistent pain and tightness across her back. But giving up wasn’t in her nature. She balled her hands into fists, but even as she did, they trembled.
Jovenan: We will fight. Not in their terms, because they’re sure to win, but in ours. We are smarter than them, let’s remind them of that.
Storm: So what are we supposed to do? I have a machete, do you want me to go do battle while you all close the gaps?
Regret was immediate. If she could have grabbed the words midair, she would have. But despite not being able to retract - the tone - if not the words, she knew she would have to eat them and they would taste bitter.
Silveira: We need to find a way to keep them out… All of them… Water, cold anything we can use… The fire supressors… Something…
Bancroft: ::deep in thought:: Compressed gas… released rapidly…
Jovenan: There’s not much water anywhere in here. The replicators are probably off for good, and a ship of this size wouldn’t have a cetacean ops.
Maybe only she could hear Roy’s muttering under his breath.
Storm: What? Compressed gas?
Alex craned her neck to look Bancroft in the eyes, but his looked past her through the Jeffries tube door.
Storm: Roy, what about compressed gas?
Silveira: We hate the cold and water…. If we combine or improvise something like that we can use it.
But at Sil’s ‘we,’ Alex pivoted slowly to look at him. There was a rawness … an edge to his voice that Alex had never heard before. His face had the same features it always had, but even those features appeared slightly altered. More angular? More … primal? More … dangerous? Something in his look sent her pulse thudding in her ears. Would she have to protect the group from Sil as well as the Dark Things? The palm of her hand barely settled on the handle of her machete before she shook her head, probably hitting Roy in the face with her greasy hair, and stretched her hand open, moving it away from the knife altogether.
Bancroft: We’re near Main Engineering. Jefferies tubes are spiderwebbed with support nodes – there has to be a damage control locker close. ::eyes sharpening:: One that has handheld fire suppressors inside it.
Jovenan: Hm? Um, yes. The automatic system with force fields wouldn’t be functional, but the handhelds are also a backup system that any ship has to have before it’s cleared to fly, even for the scrapper.
Several thoughts floated through Alex’s mind: Crazy, brilliant, easier to wield than a machete, better odds of keeping fingers intact. While it didn’t displace the ache slinking through her muscles, it did ease it a fraction.
Silveira: Response
Storm: Could it really be that easy?
Bancroft: Exactly. They’re simple – liquefied CO2 under pressure, nothing fancy, which is exactly why it works when nothing else does. The stream comes out cold enough to bite.
Jovenan: The discharge is something like -75 to -80 degrees Celsius. Even if it was the water and not the cold they’re afraid of, that temperature has to cause frostbites.
Continuing Jovenan’s train of thought…
Storm: And hardening of small appendages or teeth, and blinding of the eyes.
Silveira: Response
Bancroft: Agreed. Let’s introduce those things to consequences.
Jovenan: Okay. Let’s move. There has to be a damage control closet somewhere in here.
As the Jefferies tube narrowed, Alex found herself crawling behind Jovenan. As her arms pressed down in front of her, heat blossomed across the small of her back, biting at her muscles, clawing at her spine. With her jaw set, she pushed through, until an arm buckled - just for a second. But knowing that Roy’s keen eyes were watching her as he brought up the end of their file, she took a measured breath and moved forward again, but the words…
Storm: Hopefully it’s not far…
…still slipped out of her lips.
Silveira/Bancroft: Response
When Jovenan stopped to open one of the nodes, an electrical pop and hiss accompanied its opening. The smell of singed electrical circuits floated on the air past her nose. Alex took that moment to reposition herself, easing her back into a more comfortable shape.
Jovenan: Seems to be intact. ::hands the extinguisher over:: It creates a stream and a cloud of very cold gas, but it has a limited range, and it won’t stop the momentum. If the predator is jumping or running towards you, it might collide with you before it realises it’s hurting.
Alex took the extinguisher from Jovenan. It felt cold and solid in her hands. Easy to handle, but heavy enough to do damage if swung even if it was empty. She passed it along to Roy.
Storm: So we need something to slow them down before they get to us, giving us the advantage. That might be possible.
Silveira/Bancroft: Response
Jovenan: What’s next? We need to start working on our actual task, but is it better to wait until the predators find us, or do we, um, start hunting for them or luring them with fire or something?
Storm: I’ll defer to Commander Silveria’s expertise, but I think we need at least one or two more of those extinguishers before we do anything.
Silveira/Bancroft: Response
Storm: My concern is that if we try to attract them, we might get a whole lot more than we can handle. If we only had one opening to defend, it would be more possible, but with an entire corridor and four holes in the outer walls? That’s a lot of ground to defend, and we could end up with a friendly fire scenario, even. Or do you disagree, Commander?
Alex looked to Sil.
Silveira/Bancroft/Jovenan: Response
Storm: The first tactical rule of thumb before planning a major offensive is to have solid intel. That’s just not something we can get in this case. We’re walking blind.
Silveira/Bancroft/Jovenan: Response
Storm: I think our best bet is if we can get the majority of the holes closed up quickly, and there was only one way they could come at us, then we could try to draw them into an ambush, but not before then. That would be suicide.
She let the words hang in the air for a moment before forcing her lips to tip upward…
Storm: And dying today doesn’t fit into my schedule.
Silveira/Bancroft/Jovenan: Response
~*~
Tags / TBC!
~*~
Lt Alex Storm
Tactical Officer
USS Artemis