Lieutenant JG Amelia Semara - I'm Too Young for This

[Max]

(( OOC: Kinda a lot of tags for the captain, but I checked and things are good! ))

(( Computer Core Control, Deck 5 - USS Khitomer, en route to Alpha Trionus II ))

There wasn't any one particular reason Amelia chose to duck into the computer core.  It was a quiet place she could scarcely remember ever seeing anyone step into.  It was right next to the holodecks.  She needed a place to have some privacy, just for a minute.  The acoustics really were rather remarkable from atop the tiny platform on the middle level she stood on.

Just because there were no words for everything she'd discovered in the last few hours didn't mean there weren't a variety of other vocalizations for venting the impossible one-atop-the-other of feeling.  It all needed somewhere to go, and where better to let it out?  The isolinear chips didn't care about a Betazoid allowing herself a thirty second meltdown.

Noise ejected, she took her time just breathing and looking inward. Feeling her feet under her, her spine straightening and her shoulders softening.  A simple meditation, searching for the flow and balance of in and out.  Something she'd practice every day with her daddy for years, only out in the wilderness with the wind on her face.  Out here in space was a different kind of wild, she supposed.

Finally, she trusted herself not to crush the communicator when she pressed it and her voice to stay steady when she spoke to the captain.

Semara: =/\= Semara to Shayne. =/\=

Shayne: =/\= Response =/\=

Semara: =/\= I've got a coupl'a things to report.  You alone, sir? =/\=

Shayne: =/\= Response =/\=

Amelia spared a glance for the computer room, but her telepathic senses already told her she was alone.  The only thing in here was soulless blinking lights, various temperature and flow gauges, and logs spewing out on a console too fast to make sense of for an ordinary humanoid.  One had to wonder who that was even for.  Binars, perhaps?

Semara: =/\= Great.  I just sent up a summary of our findin's on the shuttle, plus a listin' of logs we pulled.  Among other things, there's a log for you.  By name. =/\=

Shayne: =/\= Response =/\=

For some reason, it made her smile a little that she even had to answer.  Professional pride, perhaps, to confirm the obvious.

Semara: =/\= Didn't open it, sir.  :: Beat :: We also found another communication - only this one they sent through what I can only call a micro Hobart Hole.  :: Beat :: It's a match for the Khitomer's orders from our prior mission.  Michaels and Zerva are unaware a' that particular, far as I know. =/\=

Heh.  Micro Hobart Hole.  Did Shayne know about the informal (and expedient) moniker for their friendly subspace anomaly?  Hopefully, but she could totally imagine the XO scrubbing that from the logs.  She rather lacked the energy to self-censor a perfectly fine name.

Shayne: =/\= Response =/\=

Shayne: =/\= I don't think it changes much now.  Still, I thought it would be good for you to know.  :: Beat :: But there's more. That transmission was followed by a sequence a' Sencha pulses to close the Hobart Hole they created.  If I'm right, we'll also need to close the one in the Lagoon Nebula in order to protect the timeline from possible further changes... After.  :: A breath :: A normal deflector ain't gonna work.  Usin' the Khitomer's SDA might work, but I ain't sure. We might need the Ouachita. =/\=

After what?  Now that was the million-soul question.  There was simply no polite way of putting it.  Amelia didn't know what to do.  All she knew was that killing went against everything she believed in.  Even if her own daughter was the one begging her to do it.

Shayne: =/\= Response =/\=

Semara: =/\= Will do, sir.  :: Beat :: Last thing - Lieutenant Michaels volunteered our first alternative.  It's in the summary.  I ain't gonna endorse it personally, but... It's somethin'.  Progress, let's call it?  :: Beat :: It makes me think we need more info on the POW camp.  Somethin' ain't addin' up there. =/\=

Duty demanded she pass the idea along, no matter her personal feelings.  Amelia wasn't even totally certain how fond of the concept Lera herself was, but it was true what they said about nature abhorring a vacuum.  Someone was bound to come up with a creative idea.  Maybe choosing to believe it was the first of many was foolish, but it was a pleasant kind of foolishness.  One that clung to the spirit of better things.

Shayne: =/\= Response =/\=

Semara: =/\= Aye, sir.  Let me know if you've got questions when you're lookin' things over.  Semara out. =/\=

Huh.  Among the more pleasant things that had happened in that conversation, Amelia's fingers had released their death grip on the railing.  Stretching them out, she had to wonder how they still had anything in them after the beating she'd put them through this morning.

After the computer helpfully located Commander Dewitt, there was one more call to make.

Semara: =/\= Semara to Michaels and Zerva.  We're meeting up with Commander Dewitt in Cargo Bay 2.  I'll join you there. =/\=

Zerva / Michaels: Response

Semara: =/\= Great.  Semara out. =/\=

She had to wonder what the two had gotten up to with their time.  A younger Amelia with a love interest would have accomplished a lot with the five minutes those two just had.  With the way things were going between those two, Amelia almost had to wonder why it wasn't a half-Trill, half-Vulcan child coming back in time to warn them of their ludicrously grim futures.  Good for them - finding something worth having even now.  It was worth a smile.

(( Short Timeskip; Cargo Bay 2, Deck 14 - USS Khitomer, en route to Alpha Trionus II ))

As it turned out, torpedoes weren't the only explosive thing to be found in the Khitomer's cargo hold.  In the middle of the cavernous space, Commander Dewitt worked side-by-side with his son from the future and Miss Sparks.  The conversation felt viscous and goopy with emotion, coming out in lumpy, sticky chunks.

Amelia approached delicately, trying not to invade or overhear, but very much needing to interrupt briefly.  When the trio finally turned to acknowledge her, the hazey mirror of recognition in Kael's aura was confirmation of what Amelia already knew.  She had survived into their future - but not all the way.  The expression on their faces sent her brain into a factory reset.

There was only one thing to do to cover.  She curtsied.

Semara: Commander.  Miss Sparks.  Kael.  Sorry to interrupt.  How d'you do?

Connor / Sparks / Kael: Response

Semara: Lieutenants Zerva and Michaels will be joinin' us shortly.  :: To Kael :: May I borrow the Commander for a moment?  I promise I'll give 'em back.

Apparently even time travelling children couldn't erase her need for properness.

Connor / Sparks / Kael: Response

Semara: Thank you kindly.

Amelia walked beside the Commander to a quiet spot behind a few crates, and finally let out the gulp of air she'd taken once it was appropriately private.  She had at least as much to report to Connor as she had to the Captain, but his teetering aura told her he needed a moment just as badly as she did.

There was something else she'd been meaning to tell him in addition to everything else... What was it?  It escaped her.

Semara: :: Shaking her head. :: This is... ridiculous. :: Beat :: How are you doin'?

Connor: Response

Connor's familiar, easy company seemed to finally relax her.  There was something reassuring about sensing some of the currents in him that she had for herself.  She wasn't totally alone in this insanity.

Semara: I'm too young for this.

She couldn't help a little, sparkling laugh.  The first real one in hours.

Connor: Response

Tag / TBC...

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Lieutenant Junior Grade Amelia Magnolia Semara

Science Officer - Special Projects

USS Khitomer - NCC-62400

A239710MA0