MSNPC Aleatoranna “Tori” Semara - Unintended Consequences

[Max]

((Deck 6, Isolation Room Three, Sickbay, USS Khitomer))

Being stuck in a recovery bed in an isolation room with myriad sensors monitoring her body and various IV fluids set up to keep her cogent and comfortable was not how Tori imagined her stay aboard Khitomer going.  Then again, she never really did have a solid picture in her head of how things would go after they finally made it back in time and met back up with the crew.  She expected them to need evidence.  She hadn't expected the aggressive attitude.

She took a breath deep enough it made her shoulder ache.

Tori: Well, I'm awake and lucid now.  We should talk before Talia comes back in here with a plan to replace the more irradiated half of me with a mech-suit.  :: A weird little grin ::  What do you want to know?

Things were not so empathically dull that Tori couldn't feel the strange mix of feelings in Ras.  Still, it was hard to place with the way things were still fuzzy and far-off.

El'Heem: Indeed. ::hesitating:: Coming back here…time travel…::long pause:: how did you crack it?

Tori huffed.

Tori: Starting off easy?  :: Beat :: It's a complex subject, and I'll try to give as much detail as I can, but I hope you'll forgive me if I simplify to start.

Tori took a deep breath, trying to keep her eyes off of Ras' hands on the end of her biobed.

Tori: You've already taken the first steps.  You've noticed the way Sencha radiation can cause time to slip forward and backward in biological tissue.  "Time cancer."  The same kind of thing happens to non-organic material too, it's just not very noticeable unless the area of effect is big enough for oxidation of metals or some other aging process to occur.  :: A pause. :: The first major problem is amplifying the effect to something that occupies a region of space large enough to be useful for transit, and high-energy enough to slip back or forward in time far enough to a time of interest.  The second major problem is surviving causality and paradoxes when you get there.  The Hobart Hole manages to solve both - the "how" is complicated, but essentially as long as the Hobart Hole exists there's a potential for us to exist here and now side-by-side with decisions that would possibly cause us never have existed.  Think of the universe we inhabit now as a quantum superposition of your timeline and my timeline.  When it collapses, then we feel the consequences.

She couldn't stop looking at one of those consequences, no matter how hard she tried.  It was almost a foregone conclusion the monitor on the biobed was tracking the slight upward tick of her heart rate and blood pressure.

El’Heem: What do you mean?

Tori had to know.  She had to see if there was some way she wasn't the reason Ras wasn't suffering because of her.

Tori: I mean... :: Hesitating. :: What happened to your hand?

El’Heem: It ::voice faltering:: happened last time we were here in the nebula.

The blanket around her suddenly felt very tight.  Tori's eyes bounced from Ras to Matthews, each flashing a look or frowning and generally dumping their own empathic malaise into the air around them.

Matthews: Please go on.

Frozen in her bed, she felt backed into a corner.  It felt like a lifetime since she'd seen Ras, but he was inextricably part of her girlhood memories - often some of the best ones.

She lowered her gaze, shaking her head one side to the other.  The guilty confession took longer to get out than it should have

Tori: :: Softly. :: I'm sorry...  That wasn't supposed to happen.

The towering Kressari's eyes snapped onto her, and Tori's head shot back up at the sudden movement.

El’Heem: ::Seriously and slowly:: What ::beat:: do ::beat:: you ::beat:: mean?

The monitors on the biobed spiked almost as quickly as Tori registered the feeling of plasma-hot adrenaline in her veins.  Her eyes blew wide as she tried to back into the pillows behind her.

If the hand hadn't been enough, the reaction was enough to make her finally understand in her bones.  This wasn't her Ras.  She knew over a decade of experience and life and illness would shape him a great deal by the time she was born, but the reality of meeting the younger version of him was something else entirely from her imaginings.  This Ras scared her.

Tori: I mean...  :: Hesitating. :: Whether we like it or not, there's already been consequences.  :: Beat :: We needed a Hobart Hole big enough to transit, so I found a way to make sure y'all made one.  Somehow, a little nudge must've been enough to change things in other ways... :: A grimace :: Like a hand.

She couldn't make herself explain more than that.  Not with the way the two officers looking at her like that.  Not with Ras looking like that.  It already felt like she was about to be lectured like a bratty teen.  Ridiculous, considering she was practically the same age as many of the bridge officers.

El'Heem / Matthews: Response

She forced her eyes to meet his, even if she wanted to just run and hide.

Tori: I'm sorry.  I knew what we were risking for ourselves with this scheme, but you didn't even know there was a scheme.  We -- I never meant to hurt you - I don't know how to make you believe that, but it's the truth.  If you want to blame me... Fine. :: head falling, then sullen muttering :: My actions, my consequences.

It all had to be worth it, somehow.  This wasn't going at all how she imagined.  First her mom, now Ras.  A categorical disaster, so far.  There was clearly no hope to be had for this Ensign Matthews engaging with her, either.  If she wasn't stuck in this bed, she'd be working out a way to get back to the Ouachita.  Just because Ras lost his hand didn't mean he needed to sacrifice more of himself and his life to a doomed future.

It was ridiculous.  Why were Ras and Matthews even here?  Why bother asking questions if the answers weren't to be believed?  Why only believe the answers that concluded how they wanted them to?  It was primordial reasoning: Time Traveler Bad.  Then again, with only bad results to show for it so far, what could she say?

Nothing good, probably.

El'Heem / Matthews: Response

Tag / TBC...

------- λ ψ Ω ω Ω ψ λ -------

Aleatoranna “Tori” Violet Semara

Former Science Officer

Daughter of the Stars

Heiress to the Golden Leaf of Semizad

as written by

Lieutenant Junior Grade Amelia Magnolia Semara

Science Officer - Special Projects

USS Khitomer - NCC-62400

A239710MA0