Lieutenant Ras El'Heem - Oh pwincess, pwincess where are you?
Ras El'Heem
((Deck 9, Life Sciences Lab, USS Khitomer))
Ras hadn’t been there long, but it was long enough for the sound of the lab’s filters to slip beneath his thoughts and PADD shuffling. His notes were arrayed across the console under the scattered tablets in organized chaos. Logic chains and schematic projections that refused to spit out data as cleanly as he needed them to. No matter how many parameters he fed them, the models all diverged at the same place and then the outcome past that was uncertain. He’d stopped trying to fix it and was now staring at the same meaningless spike in the data, wondering if it was the universe’s way of telling him “No.”
Behind him, the sound of gentle water splashing cut through the silence. Baba Yaga hovered like a silken ghost in her tank; one curious arm stretched toward Talia’s hand. She sat on a stool beside the tank with slack shoulders and the look of someone avoiding all the problems not associated with an anomalous cephalopod. She’d been there, in the dark, when Ras arrived and hadn’t left, and he wasn’t going to ask her to or turn on the lights to interrupt her peace. The lab had become a kind of quiet refuge for a lot of the science and medical staff who just needed a breather. Baba Yaga was always happy to oblige.
Ras spun on his own stool and faced the tank as the octopus twirled lazily through the water, spit out a ring of tiny bubbles, and then tapped a colored pad at the base of the tank. He watched her seemingly happy visage celebrate with a dance as she was awarded with shrimp, and it juxtaposed the look on the CMO’s. The tranquility was interrupted by the lab doors swooshing open and Richard walking in like the weren’t facing a universe-wide conundrum.
Before he could say anything about the dim lighting and the distraught Haliian, Ras offered a dry explanation while I returned his focus to the PADD.
El'Heem: Shhh…She’s hiding.
Ohnari: I'm not hiding, I'm...::blowing out a breath:: Yeah, I'm hiding.
Matthews: :: Staring down at the officer on the floor :: Not. . . Not well. Remind me to introduce you to Graves. :: He glanced around the room :: Who could be here and we’d never know. Anyway, why are you hiding?
Ras shook his head and continued to work without looking up.
El'Heem: ::lazily:: Temporal woes and what not.
Ohnari: Well? Lets see....I have a son, who's kind of a jerk and I don't know if that is my fault, Connor's, or growing up in a warzone...and now everyone looks at me like I am going to personally torpedo the entire ship in order to protect a kid that won't even possibly conceived until like, what? Twelve? Fifteen years from now? So I'm doing amazing. Obviously.
Ras held up his finger and mouthed “Temporal Woes.”
Matthews: Connor’s a pushover, the attitude is all you, which is good. I happen to really like your personality. The kid will go far.
El'Heem: He’s definitely got attitude, Miss Ohnari. We’ll have to nip that in the bud. Add it to the list of things we’ve been warned about with time travel.
He turned, crossing his arms and watched Richard cross the room.
Matthews: Since when have we had a pet octopus? They’re not registered for any study, are they the ship’s pet or does someone own them like Lady?
El’Heem: They’re a rescue.
His eyes dropped to his left and tried to telepathically smirk at Talia unsuccessfully.
Ohnari: Response
Matthews: :: Nodding :: Cool, cool. I’ll have to remember to look up octopus treats. :: Turning to the others :: Anyway, I’m here cause I have orders. :: Pointing to Ohnari :: And you’re here to hide. :: He moved to point at Ras :: And you’re totally here cause we’ve been having a great day working together, and you just don’t want the good times to end. I get it.
The Kressari groaned and swiveled his chair back and forth.
Ohnari: Response
Matthews: So my question is, who wants to avert a war and our possible deaths, and can we do it in the next three hours? Sounds doable, right?
Ohnari: Response
Richard stared at him clearly expecting an excited affirmative, but Ras just dropped his arms and grabbed a PADD behind him.
El’Heem: ::leaning forward and offering PADD to Richard:: Alright, time lord. What do those results in your hand say?
Matthews / Ohnari: Response
El’Heem: No, it says “Causality does not allow ripples in the timeline this large.”
He sighed loudly and dropped his head in hands. The day had already been far too long and it would be even longer dancing around Richard. He loved the man, but he just didn’t have the capacity.
Matthews / Ohnari: Response
Ras turned back to pile of PADDS and sifted through them until he found the one he was looking for.
El’Heem: Obviously I don’t want that. Sooooo ::handing new PADD to Ohnari:: I’ve stopped looking for specific solutions and have instead identified the parameters that needed to be met in order for the models to only say “Inconclusive” instead of “Catastrophic desynchronization.”
Matthews / Ohnari: Response
El’Heem: First and most importantly: whatever we do to prevent the bad timeline, we must account for the Admiral, Tori, and ::looking at Talia:: Kael.
Matthews / Ohnari: Response
TAGS/TBC
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Lieutenant Ras El’Heem
Science Officer
USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)
K240106RE3