Follow the yellow brick road…

Posted on Wed Nov 9th, 2022 @ 6:44am by Senior Chief Petty Officer Thral Skrit & Lieutenant Anthea "Thea" Mariatis

Mission: Scylla and Charybdis
Location: Ready room
Timeline: Immediately between bridge jp & ghost things
938 words - 1.9 OF Standard Post Measure

“Ahhh targ smell…..” Thral swore, squinting at the proximity klaxon on the tricorder on the floor as it flashed on the right hand side of the small device, still in an invisible contact with the perimeter of the subspace bubble. His attenae twitched wildly, left to right as his senses panicked to pinpoint the person, or indeed persons, on the other side of the door. “When the ‘ell did that door shut?!” He asked the pair, concerned that not ten minutes ago he had been observing the away team, and that at some point in the rush to lock off the EPS grid they must have closed the ready room doors and he didn’t even notice. “They’re gonna come through Guv!” He shouted, sincere fear clearly carried on his voice. Looking at his female colleague, he didn’t even need to offer his excellent skills at manually signing what he was talking about; his wide eyes and now rigid antenna would say it all; are we about to die?

She would know as well as he, that all of those devices the away team were carrying to passively cut through subspace; comm badges, personnel locator beacons in the suits, tricorders, were going to have some kind of effect on their bubble. Far less so than her superior knowledge, he didn’t have the first clue exactly what that effect would be however. Sharply raising a hand to his right temple, his head felt as though a plasma torch were being set to it once again, his colleagues seemed in similar discomfort. “The bubbles! They’re interactin’ wiv ‘em”. Evidently more affected than they - perhaps due to his enhanced peripheral senses afforded by his antennae - the Andorian engineer dropped to his knees in crippling nausea. “We’re goosed…” he spluttered, as he detected finger taps on the door panel on the bridge side. They were getting closer, and the fields were become less stable as they did so.

"We can't stay here." From her self-imposed isolation, Thea roused herself long enough to draw her fixated gaze away from the door to scan the room. As unnerving as her silent retreats could be, and unhelpful as it appeared on the surface to have such a font of valuable knowledge stifled by a solitary woman's penchant for her own counsel, Mariatis hadn't squandered the time Skritt had spent blathering, nor her husband's long-suffering willingness to act as a buffer. Speculation, theorising, forecasting... Locked in deep analysis with herself, Thea had not shut herself away for selfish preservation.

She had a plan. Perhaps. Of sorts.

She pointed to a Jeffrey's tube access and focused her gaze on the Andorian, having limited scope for any sympathy. "Where does that lead?"

The head pain abated once again. The multitude of smaller, fractured bubbles was having a less consistent affect on him enabling him to at lease organise some thoughts. “Deck one access shafts…” he replied, taking a deep breath in to steady himself. The foggy floating bubbles nearest the ready room door momentarily pulsed and then disappeared in a brief flash, evidently some of the remaining remnants were less stable, the Andorian only hoped that ones containing he and the other two were sufficiently stable to not spontaneously collapse. “You can take it right down to the ventral aero wing bay, and anywhere else on board….”.

Broken from his explanation, all three suddenly turned as the ready room doors slid open and an EV suited Starfleet officer awkwardly stepped into the room with a phaser held out ahead of them. Noticing rather quickly that said officer didn’t acknowledge the trio in any way, a new wave of dismay found the Andorian and be felt his antenna sag. “Bollocks….” he mumbled. “I fink we need to split up, if these bubbles are unstable it’s better we’re not all in the same silk n lace at the same Vulcan rhyme ain’t it?”. He looked back over his shoulder, the EV suited officer was looking to the tricorder on the floor; “space man over there might find the SOS on the trike…I’ll stay ‘ere n try n get someone’s attention….maybe you two should ‘ed back to the labs…try n reintegrate us now we got a bit more goin’ on like…” he suggested urgently.

"All right Chief. But be careful: we've no idea how long the bubbles will sustain themselves. And what happens if we interact with the wrong things. A stray power relay...a phaser..." Winfield shook his head. "No telling what that would do." He looked to Thea, a concern still ringing in his mind about the precarious nature of their situation. "We should be able to get to the labs, barring anything unforeseen. Do you think we can re-signal the Starfleet crew there?"

Thea, whose scrutiny of their escape plan eventually resulted in movement towards the access point, answered whilst distracted by her own forward planning. "They'll have deployed a team to work there." She spoke with confidence, though it didn't take much thought to see why the science labs would be a focal point for any recovery mission. "If we are lucky, they are astute enough to already be anticipating contact." She'd left behind as many breadcrumbs as time had permitted; deciphering them would take some finesse, as there had been a need to hamper any non-Starfleet attempts to extract the information. Ducking to enter the tube, Thea paused a moment and turned her head back to regard Skrit, making direct eye contact for the first time. "Be careful."