(BackSIMM) Ensign Jocelyn Marshall - Slowly Keeping it Together

[Jo Marshall]

(( OOC: Quick backsimm for the in between months of getting away from the Dominion and getting the signal from the other side. Don’t mind me. ))

(( BackSIMM - Sto’vo’kor Lounge Upper, Deck 8, USS Gorkon ))

:: They had escaped the Dominion station and headed back out into deep space. Once more on the run from a vengeful predator that had been driven back in their universe and once more on half rations from the make-shift hydroponics farm. How they powered that Jo wasn’t even sure. She was half convinced Stoyer had set up an archaic generator and pump somewhere in the bowels of the deck. One that still required greasing most likely::

:: Yawning widely, she covered it with the back of her hand and got comfier in the large armchair, with one leg curled underneath and the other raised up, knee near her chin. It was comfortable. It was almost quiet. The dim lights in the lounge and the lack of anything that resembled alcohol deterred most visitors and that was exactly the way she liked it.::

:: However, all of those reasons were also why she was finding it hard to stay awake. Jo lolled her head onto the back of the chair and closed her eyes. The ambient sound of the warp core thrumming through the decks was ever present. The chatter of others on the deck below, putting makeshift beds up, discussing repairs and procedures for the months that still lay before them, getting ready for another inane shift, drifted up over the balcony. The monotony was enough to drive a usually sane person for a jolly around Jupiter and back into orbit.::

:: And how did she feel about it all? She didn’t really know. Since the evening spent with Tonya in the same place, Jo hadn’t given their situation much thought at all. She had kept her head down, plowed on like a workhorse, got it done. She had volunteered for extra shifts in Engineering and Science, where she could. Operations was little use when there wasn’t anything significant to operate. Busy was where she had kept her mind, focusing on anything but her own mortality and the tangible prospect that this was it. This was life.::

:: And once the river of thoughts had started, it was difficult to tame them back into their cage.::

:: She covered her eyes with her hands and refused, point blank, to consider that this was the only outcome. Where had her positivity drained to? Where was the leaky valve she could plug? What if this was it? What if this was the only life they were going to lead? On the run all the time. Fighting for what they could. Scrounging for food, supplies, parts. Negotiating with races they’d never had to before to get what they needed.::

:: She thought of the brief times she had worked with the alternate Quinn Reynolds in Main Engineering, and how this was all she knew. She didn’t know a life with Starfleet, with the Federation in the hot seat, with a future that she could plan and know it might actually happen. It was the same for all the Triumphant crew, who didn’t know what kind of alternate universe they were helping the Gorkon return to.::

:: Opening her eyes to the darkness wasn’t any better. Stars flashed past the viewscreen windows. It all looked the same. Every starfield looked the same as the last; every planet, every nebula, every galaxy.::

:: She leaned forward, dropping her leg down and unfurling the one underneath her until she could rest her elbows on each thigh. Her hand reached up to scratch the back of her neck and she sighed, long and deep, fully deflating her chest before she inhaled a lungful of recycled air again, longing for the stupefying details of life on a planet, like clean air and fresh water.::

:: The doors at the other end of the deck opened, ruining her solitary confinement, and a small group of dwellers entered, ready to set up camp for the evening. A mixture of Junior Officers and crewmen; those who would have had bunks on the lower decks that were now totally out of commission. Making the best out of a bad situation. Sticking together. Being the moral support for one another.::

:: Jo picked her PADD up off the table as one of the group, a dark haired young woman she’d seen running laps of the outer saucer section, smiled and waved at her. It was brief, and lovely. A moment in the darkness. Jo returned the smile and watched as the woman was dragged on by her friends. Jo wondered if it had been any other time, in any other place, she would have had the confidence to ask for her private contact details.::

:: Instead, she was hit with the sudden realisation that she hadn’t smiled, genuinely, in a very long time.::

Ensign Jocelyn Marshall

Operations Officer

USS Gorkon

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