Lt. Commander Ayiana Sevo - And Then A Step To The Right!
Aaron Schimmel
(( Deck 15, Shuttlebay 2 - USS Gorkon, Sometime in the past ))
Sevo: If the shuttle is the “anchor” for the displacement, rather than a point in space, the loci would follow the location of the shuttle. Like I said, our best bet is the main shuttlebay. :: She did a quick scan of the space where it had been.:: The focal point is definitely not here anymore. Chroniton and tetryon readings are declining rapidly.
Gnaxac: Od-d-d-d that there’s both chroniton and tet-t-tryons, no?
Reynolds: We isolated—::she exhaled a sigh, the attempt clearly not successful::—well, tried to isolate the shuttle with a subspace field. The tetryons likely come from that.
Tahna: What if we modified a chroniton field to stop the echo?
Sevo: Could it be that easy? We’d need the correct temporal variance and frequency, I think. And this is assuming it’s one uniform time across the ship.
Gnaxac: ::He shrugged his uncertainty.:: W-w-would it bring us all back? The whole sh-sh-sh-ship?
Sevo: There’s no way to know until we get out there. If it is like a “wave,” it would decrease in strength the farther from the source it is. If the Kerla is indeed the anchor, and it’s still in the Main Shuttlebay, then there might be areas at the extreme for and aft of the ship that are back in our time. Everywhere else could be different times dependent on the amplitude of the “time wave”.
Gnaxac: An interesting hyp-p-p-othesis. C-c-could be that we are also t-t-the furthest back in t-t-time. The next corridor c-c-c-ould only be five years ago. Then f-f-four. Then three… My lob-b-bes hurt.
Gnaxac touched his ear, eliciting a squeak of pain. His fingers left his ears with a tinge of blood on them. Poor guy. He had just got here and had been thrown into the blender.
Tahna: We’ll need to be constantly adapting if we want to blend in.
Sevo: Trust me, it’s making my head dizzy, too. Or maybe that’s a concussion. Jury’s out. :: She patted her head. :: Anyway, I don’t think there’s anything else we can do from in here.
The Ferengi nodded and gestured with his unbloodied hand.
Gnaxac: L-l-lead the way.
Before they could head out, Quinn stopped them and gestured to join her.
Reynolds: Let’s have the medics take a look at us before we go anywhere.
Sevo: Oooh, yea, good idea.
With a gesture of command from Quinn, two of the medics peeled off to their location. After a couple of quick hyposprays and furrowed brows, the team received a round of treatments. Ayiana was given a hypospray of analgesic, immediately dulling her pain. That same hypospray was used on everyone else. Once ministrations were done and Quinn was satisfied, they followed her out into the corridor.
((Deck 15, USS Gorkon))
The corridor was similarly dishevelled like the shuttlebay with damaged or missing panels, wiring and other guts of the ship pouring out of the walls and ceiling, emergency lighting only, and scuffed carpeting mixed with a tinge of blood here and there. It was hard to see the ship like this again. Ayiana had walked (and sometimes crawled or climbed) these corridors for a year.
Gnaxac: It is me, or d-d-does it look less b-b-bad out here?
Reynolds: It does. Not by much, but it might be a little closer to our time.
Sevo: Maybe, it’s hard to tell. It wasn’t like the whole ship got a uniform dose of damage.
Gnaxac: Response
Reynolds: We’ve got six decks to cover, and the turbolifts will be out. ::She shook her head.:: We couldn’t spare the power or keep them in safe repair. I’m afraid it’s the Jefferies tubes.
Tahna: ::Dryly:: Six decks through the Jefferies tubes. We really know how to have a good time.
Sevo: Well, some of us — ::she eyed and smirked at Quinn:: — have ample experience in Jefferies tubes. Remind me to tell you all the story of how I *swam* through some once.
That had been even before this extra-dimensional trip, all the way back on the Tharsis. Then there was the Njörðr, with her, Quinn, and Cory traversing the inverted guts of the dying ship. Let’s not forget the maintenance tunnels on Nassau, which she and Tali crawled through several kilometers of, carrying a comatose Trellis Vondaryan with them. All that close-quarters crawling had mostly cured her claustrophobia.
Gnaxac: Response
Carefully, they moved along the corridor, careful not to step on a space butterfly or something. As they neared a corner, Quinn gave a silent sign to stop. The Admiral peered around the corner, and Ayiana could hear low voices around it.
Reynolds: ::Low,:: Sevo... you may need to distract them so we can get past. I don’t think we have the time to go around or explain why we’re in the wrong uniforms. ::She flicked a bird-thin hand toward the Trill.:: You’re the only one who looks period-appropriate.
Sevo: I’m not sure if I should feel lucky or cursed.
Gnaxac: Response
Tahna: ::Quietly.:: Good luck.
Ayiana hoisted her phaser rifle over her shoulder. Since no one knew when the next Jem’Hadar raid would hit, everyone carried a sidearm, and that phaser rifle had become her close friend. She wasn’t sure what to say to distract the people down there. With a deep breath, Ayiana rounded the corner. She made sure to walk on eggshells, looking like she was equal parts on alert and exhausted, which was exactly what she did back then.
It was a small group of crew standing next to the broken turbolift, with the Jeffries tube open in the wall next to them. She recognized most of them; there was Chief Frorr: looking out of place here instead of watching the brig, reading novels to pass the time. Ensign Zhang: who had joined the ship not long before this excursion. Lieutenant LaMarr: a bright young woman who had been determined to make Chief Engineer one day. Except that Ayiana knew the young Bajoran wouldn’t survive. She had seen LaMarr’s name on the 413 memorial. Ayiana vaguely recalled something about an explosion in a Jefferies tube, but she didn’t know when it will happen. This was going to be hard.
Taking a deep breath, Ayiana moved forward to them.
LaMarr: I’m telling you, this way is the shortest! ::pointing to the Jefferies tube.::
Frorr: No, we can climb the turbolift shaft to deck 10, then cut through what’s left of the Arboretum. The Mess Hall is just twenty meters down the hall from it. Then its glorious rations for all!
Zhang: Speak for yourself, I’m sick of those things. I’d rather eat Peek’s Potato Soup.
The three of them let out a simultaneous “blegh” at the thought as Ayiana approached.
Sevo: ‘Fraid both of you are wrong.
LaMarr: Commander! ::They stood as attentative as their exhaustion would allow.:: I-I thought you were down on Deck 17?
Right. Deck 17, where her CSO office was, or probably what was left of it. There had been little science to do Over Here, so virtually all science officers had been reassigned to other roles across the ship.
Sevo: I was in Stellar Cartography, checking the latest sensor sweeps. Tried calling the Bridge, but there must be a severed connection, so I’m running the data up myself. :: She held up her tricorder.:: I had the same idea as you all, using the turboshaft to climb up, but there’s a blockage somewhere near Deck 12. And don’t even think about that Jefferies tube. ::she pointed to the one LaMarr had been arguing for.:: I checked the route; there’s a plasma fire fifty meters in; it’ll cook you all alive.
Frorr: ::Her eyes went wide.:: Wh-what do we do? Are you saying we’re cut off from the rest of the ship?
Sevo: Try Jefferies tube 15-087. Go back down the corridor, turn right — ::The opposite side of the corridor junction which Quinn, Tahna, and Gnaxac were hiding:: — then left, then go straight for…mmm…ten meters. Should be clear. At least that’s what my scans said ten minutes ago.
The three looked at each other and nodded heads, then looked at Ayiana.
LaMarr: Thanks, sir. You may have just saved our bacon.
Zhang: See, now why couldn’t they make bacon rations? I’d eat that.
The three took off casually down the corridor and turned the corner. Ayiana followed to the corner and peeked around, making sure they had turned the next corner down the corridor. When the coast was clear, Ayiana looked across the hallway and gestured to the team.
Sevo: Whoooo. :: She bent her legs, resting her hands just above her knees.::
Reynolds/Tahna/Gnaxac: Response
Sevo: I’m fine. It was just hard seeing them. Especially Lieutenant LaMarr. She doesn’t make it out of this.
Reynolds/Tahna/Gnaxac: Response
Sevo: Or… she didn’t. She dies in a plasma fire in a Jefferies tube as she’s passing a damaged plasma relay that explodes. We only know because she was with two others who managed to pull her out of the tube, but it was too late. It couldn’t have been Frorr and Zhang and that tube — ::pointing to the opening in the wall:: — could it? Did I just save her life?
Reynolds/Tahna/Gnaxac: Response
There was no time to dwell on the possibilities. If she did indeed change the future, she’ll find out later when they get back to their time. At the very least, it was an interesting hypothesis. Was this time malleable, or fixed?
Sevo: I wasn’t lying about the blockage in the turbolift. I remember doing the scan for a route from Stellar Cartography to the bridge. There’s a car stuck between Decks 12 and 13, offline and jammed by debris. I’m… not sure about the Jefferies tube, now.
Reynolds/Tahna/Gnaxac: Response
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Lt. Commander Ayiana Sevo
Mission Specialist
U.S.S. Gorkon
Image Collective
Wiki Ops
V239109AS0
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