Mikali sh'Shar - Delirious Blendings of Heroism and Pain From Another Place, Another Time

[David Adams]

(( Song for this sim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4x27RgBSyc ))

(( Red Carrier Employee Domicile 14, Stardate 239711.09, Day 22 of 365 ... And Also Simultaneously, Bridge, USS Independence-A, Nine Years Ago ))

Multiple places, multiple times, swirled around her like ash blown in the wind, blended and into a confusing mismatch of misaligned realities.

Ensign sh'Shar sat at the Helm console, drenched in sweat, her hair slick to her head, staring down at her bowl of breakfast hasperat as though it might provide the answer to their situation.

The ship was being pulled into wormhole laden with chronometric particles. They were being sucked into another time and place. Almost like the wormhole near Bajor, the planet where she had spent so long in prison. She remembered seeing the blue light of it opening; almost mockingly, offering an escape to another quadrant that was ever so slightly out of reach. The prison had been built with a view of it. Just to mock them all. And the hasperat they would have for morning meal... delicious, delicious hasperat.

Good food, terrible experience. And it was hot... hot every day. That was why she was sweating. Why her head felt like it was stuffed with red hot coals.

Catscratch: Mikali, please listen to me. You are not going to work today. You can barely sit straight in your chair. You need to sickbay at once. Seriously. You're not well. Please. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please listen to me.

Other voices echoed around her, commanding her to remain at her post.

Sharkey: Why so gloomy Mr sh'Shar? ::smiling at sh'Shar:: This is where it gets fun.

sh'Shar: ... because that thing looks AWFULLY familiar, and I really can't afford to go back to Bajor...

Catscratch: What? What are you saying. Bajor? This isn't Bajor. This isn't a ship. This is Iana Station. You're in your room. You were just saying you had a work shift today, and I was telling you that that is not going to happen, and now you're... talking about Bajor?

No, that was not right, she was on the Bridge, and she was fighting to save the ship from doom. Everyone was relying on her. They needed her to pull through despite the pain. Despite the agony.

Townson: We're going in!

Tyriden: We are going in too fast! Shield harmonics will not be able to compensate at this rate!

sh'Shar already had the engines at full reverse. Clack was encouraging her — well, no practically begging her — to let them go in...

Riley: Stop fighting the gravitational pull, take us in Ensign.

Yes. Ensign. This was after the demotion. She would become a Junior Lieutenant again, soon after, but not now. Not now... she had to earn her redemption. For all the things she had done. She was doing it for them. To repent for all her sins.

She just had to keep going and everything would be fixed.

sh'Shar: All engines stop! That'll give them a chance to rest at least...

Wulfantine: Into the darkness we go..

Catscratch: Engines? Who are you talking to? There's nobody here but us two.

Catscratch grabbed her shoulders, shaking her firmly, a wild look stamped on her face.

Catscratch: You're saying nonsense, Mikki! ::Suddenly concerned,:: Are you high? Are you high right now?

No, she hadn't taken anything in years. Not since before she was in prison. Right?

The ship flew headlong into the swirling centre of the wormhole. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion as the ship rocked about. The klaxon continued to sound, alarms began to go off all around the bridge.

Clack: Steady. ::break:: What is the ship's structural integrity?

Sharkey: Holding steady at eighteen percent.

Mikali couldn't believe what her console was telling her. Everything was wrong and twisted... she was trying to fly with no eyes. No eyes...

sh'Shar: All my instruments are messed up...

Catscratch's face was right in front of her own, the Caitian's nose twitching in disgust. She could smell the eyepatch. Smell the truth.

Catscratch: Mikali, what's behind that eyepatch? What are you hiding? Show me. Now. I want to see it.

Mikali tilted up her head, looking at Catscratch with her one good eye. Her fingers flew over her console, knocking over her bowl of hasparat, trying to right the ship, keep it from tearing itself apart. She leaned over, looking for additional power to bridge into the various systems when her console exploded directly onto the left side of her face.

The force blasted the left side of her head and upper body, peppering her body with razor-sharp fragments of metal that whizzed through the air, slicing through her blue skin, turning her left hand into hamburger meat.

Slowly, gingerly, Catscratch hooked a claw under the eyepatch and lifted it up, revealing the full horror of what was below.

And it was indeed horrible.

All the colour drained out of Catscratch's face, leaving the exposed skin near her eyes, nose, and mouth bone white, giving her face a recessed skull-like appearance. Her pupils shrank to tiny dots, yellow eyes widening like saucers. Her nose wrinkled, and a disgusted, fearful tremor ran from her tail up the back of her spine to her ears.

Slowly, and with deliberateness, Catscratch lowered the eyepatch back in place. Upon releasing it, her hands cupped her hands around her mouth in shock.

Catscratch: Aiz'kala ven de'moor a'chen... H-how long has your eye been that ghastly?

Mikali's antenna jerked. She felt a burning, stinging pain on the left side of her face, followed by a similar one on her left hand. Sparks flew everywhere and her hair — normally ghost white — was blackened and charred by the explosion. Instinctively her left eye closed and she threw her hands up to protect herself, emitting a pained cry.

There was no time to focus on her injuries. The force of the explosion nearly threw sh'Shar out of her seat, but she stayed in.

Townson: It appears to be some sort of time-wave distortion effect.

Catscratch took two steps backwards, her hands still over her mouth, as slowly she began to realise that — like a cat hiding her sickness — her friend was much more unwell than she was letting on.

Delores: I wonder what is on the other side? This is surely exciting!

Clack: This is nothing ensign. Merely a taste for what is yet to come.

With a shaking hand, Catscratch slapped her combadge.

Catscratch: =Y= V-V-Vexaǂprymmalʘyersevva to Iana Medical, medical emergency in Red Carrier Domicile 14! Dispatch an additional psychiatric team and a security detail! Hurry! =Y=

Tyriden: ::spinning around abruptly:: What?! :: sh'Shar saw his eyes roam over the blue blood spatter on the consoles and dials, then to her left hand.:: You need medical attention!

No! That thought snapped her back to where she was. No, no, she wasn't ready to go yet. The med-techs hadn't taken her away yet. Not until they were through...

Reality began to sink in again, just a brief blip, a subtle intrusion into her delirious state. Mikali grabbed her own combadge, squeezing it until it chirped. Who could she trust? Who would help someone like her?

sh'Shar: =/\= Mikali sh'Shar to Tasha MacFarlane! Tasha, Tasha, don't let them come take me away, I haven't saved the ship yet! I have a work shift today! =/\=

MacFarlane: Response

Townson: Sensors going crazy. I can't make any sense of my readings.

From nearby, Catscratch shouted so she could be heard though Mikali's combadge.

Catscratch: =/\= Miss MacFarlane, Mikali is very sick! If you're nearby, we're having a medical emergency here and if you can help talk some sense into her I would very much appreciate it! =/\=

MacFarlane: Response

Wulfantine: Mr Sh’Shar, are you alright?

sh'Shar: =/\= Eh, Wulfantine, I've had worse. Just a flesh wound! No, listen, I'm saving the ship, Doctor Velana will patch me up later, she doesn't know I'm pregnant yet and neither do I, the doctors on Earth are going to give me a new hand, don't worry about it! I just need to push on a little longer! Everyone is counting on me! =/\=

MacFarlane: Response

Wulfantine: Oh my!

She cut the channel and looked at her left hand. It was right above the section of the console that had blown and was shredded; blue blood flowed down her arm and her fingers hung loosely from her palm. Tucking it in under her armpit, she flew the ship -- fortunately it had very little in the way of options at the moment -- with one hand and one eye.

She couldn't abandon her post. The whole crew needed her. 175 souls on board and she was the only one who could fly them through the wormhole. The ship was breaking up around them, debris flying past, but even crippled as the vessel and its pilot was, Mikali was fighting with everything she had to keep the Prometheus-class ship intact.

They needed her. Everyone needed her. Their lives depended on her.

It was her proudest moment, one that had maimed her for life, but where every one of the crew owed her their lives. Where her skill and bravery had pulled them through a situation they were not designed to survive.

All she had to do was stay at her post.

sh'Shar: Nnnnng- helm is practically unresponsive! All I've got are thrusters!

Catscratch: You're not on a ship, Mikali! You're delirious, none of this is real!

Events passed in a blur. Things were getting jumbled. Her head felt like it was on fire from within, burning and hot. Sweat dripped onto the table, her console, her fingers stabbing at nothing.

sh'Shar: There could be any number... of...

Something caught her eye. A delicate blue finger, the fingernail painted red, resting ever so comfortably on top of her console, leaking blue blood onto her tactile interface. The index finger from her left hand. But she hadn't worn nail polish in almost a decade.

Mikali reached up with her right, casually picking up the severed digit and slipping it into a pocket. Why did it smell like hasperat?

sh'Shar: ... reasons why it's like that. Can we even trust our sensors at the moment...?

Catscratch: You can't! Listen: focus on my voice. Just listen to me. Okay? The med-techs will be here shortly. Your Human friend Tasha is coming, you remember Tasha, don't you?

Tasha. Yes. She remembered Tasha. The Human with the strange accent. Her friend.

Andorians were tough. That was one of their characteristics. sh'Shar, having experienced much pain in her life, was no exception. Another glance down at her mangled left hand. She felt the pain, of course, but a combination of adrenaline, shock and stubbornness kept her focused. It seemed surreal, but she glanced around the bridge, blue blood pouring from the left side of her face. She still couldn't see out that left eye and any attempt to do so just lead to blackness.

She was dimly aware, in the corner of her fuzzy and twisted vision, of extra people arriving at the Bridge. Medical technicians. Goldnecks. And Tasha.

sh'Shar: Anyone seen my bluey-finger...? ::A Human might have said pinky-finger.::

Tasha...

Mikali's eye lingered on her. The Human's arrival was a shock. An incongruous piece. What was she doing here? She was never on the Independence-A. She would have been an Academy freshman during the time the ship was hurled through the wormhole and practically torn to shreds. How was she on the Bridge of a ship that had been destroyed nearly eight years ago?

The presentation of objective reality shook her, once again, from the delusion. The Bridge became less real, her quarters much more real, although the two continued to blend together in a confusing mishmash of realities.

Velana: I can't promise anything, but we will do our best to reattach the fingers.  I'm a little more worried about your facial injury.  Can you see anything out of that eye?

MacFarlane: Response

sh'Shar: Don't make a fuss, okay? I'm... I'm good. I can still fly.

MacFarlane: Response

Reality became more dorm-like than bridge-like. They were here to take her away...

Covered in sweat and trembling, her skin ghoulishly pale as an Aenar, Mikali pushed back her chair in a panic, staggering backward until her back was up against the bulkhead of her quarters, cowering against the wall fearfully. A splotchy black-blue stain had spread out from under her eyepatch, swelling up the left side of her face, akin to dark tea spilled on a cyan surface.

sh'Shar: Tasha! You have to stop them from taking me away! I can't abandon my post! Everyone's in danger and I have to save them! Evil people are coming, wicked copies of us all, and they're going to try and seize the ship... kill everyone! Get Wulfantine to the brig, he needs to contain the breakout before it's too late!

MacFarlane: Response

--

Lieutenant (j.g.) (ret) Mikali sh'Shar

Civilian

ReachOut Project

simmed by

Ensign Serren Tan

Security/Tactical

USS Gorkon

O238704AT0