Do You See What I See? (part 1)

Posted on Sun Oct 12th, 2014 @ 9:20am by Captain T'mpest Michaels & Commander Rylie Cattmor

1,124 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: What Dreams May Come
Location: Ranger, various

ON

Of all the things she'd seen, of all the things she'd done, the video logs of the Edmorn were some of the most disturbing images that Rylie had ever seen; and she'd seen a lot. It was like viewing old vid-records where the imagery was so terrifying or erotic that it would be virtually impossible to erase it from your mind - even utilising the memory altering techniques of her home world - and it played on her mind all the while through decon proceedings that the actual act was almost a blurry after image.

After getting through decon, she headed back to her quarters in an attempt to freshen up and change, to clear her head, to enable her to make a report, any report to T'mpest. The journey wasn't helping. She could feel the tiny hairs on the back of her neck standing in sharp relief every time she turned a corner, and the familiar tingling around her eyes was even more evidence that something didn't feel quite right; it was almost like she'd beamed back aboard the wrong vessel. Everywhere was quiet, too quiet, and the view to the turbolift at the end of the corridor seemed to stretch and distort, making it appear that it was a lot further away than in fact it was.

She pressed the control pad to call the lift to her location, when a tingling feeling travelled up her spine like a mild electric shock, giving the sensation that she was being watched. Rylie quickly turned to see nothing, nothing but an empty corridor. The doors to the lift suddenly opened, making her jump slightly as she whirled back around to stare at the waiting, empty lift, massive amounts of adrenaline flooding her system. She stepped inside, "Deck three." The doors immediately closed, and the lift sped its way through the ship to deck three. Once it arrived, the short walk from the lift to her quarters was tense but uneventful, the feeling of being watched all too evident.

Her quarters seemed colder than normal somehow, yet nothing had changed. Cattmor cautiously stepped into the rest room, and filled the sink, before bending her head down into her cupped hands. The image in the mirror that greeted her when she rose again visibly shocked her.

"They'll never accept you, y'know? Never trust you. You're always going to be the outsider."

Rylie spun around to find the apparition had gone, and didn't return when she faced the mirror again. Her heart felt like it was beating about three times its normal rate, thinking of a man, darkened skin, black slick hair, she knew had been long dead for the past sixteen years. She knew, she caused him to die.

~~~~

T'mpest worked late getting caught up on her reports and information from Starfleet. She'd spent much of the day reading everything Sammi found on the system and the gas cloud, hoping to glean any new information, but there wasn't much. A could instances of missing ships, but in the early years of space travel it wasn't unheard of for a ship to go missing from time to time. Still, she couldn't discount anything in case it later turned out to be of relevance.

Now it was late into Beta Shift and the corridors were quiet. Almost too quiet. Or was that due to her continual feeling that she was being watched? If it wasn't for her Vulcan training she might say she was paranoid, but even though she was very much her mother's daughter, she was still too Vulcan to let something like a quiet ship give her the heebie-jeebies.

She turned a corner and stopped at the sight of a junior officer lying by the wall in a pool of blood.

T'mpest hurried over to check on the woman, but she could see s soon as she got close that the woman was dead. There was no movement of her chest to indicate she was breathing and her eyes were staring unseeingly at the wall. She carefully avoided contaminating the crime scene as she looked for what may have been the cause. As she walked past the body to get a better look at the head, she noticed a small blade sticking out of her ear. Effective and deadly.

She reached for her combadge, but was stopped by a voice. "It won't do any good." It came from the body on the floor. "There are no fingerprints because there was no hand."

"What do you mean, there was no hand? How did someone wield the weapon?" T'mpest asked. She wondered why she was taking to a corpse, but she had seen strange things before.

"It wasn't anyone with hands," the corpse said. "Not real hands, anyway. It was the rabbit."

Rabbit? T'mpest immediately thought of Alice in Wonderland. "What rabbit?"

"The one with the pocket watch. When I asked him for the time, he stabbed me in the ear."

"Why?"

"Because I ate the mushroom," the woman said, her head slowly turning to face T'mpest. That in and of itself was quite off as the head rotated so that the woman was looking out of the top of her head, her eyes still fixed and lifeless.

"You ate the mushroom," T'mpest repeated. She surreptitiously pinched herself as you did not feel pain when you were sleeping. The pain was real, but she could not possibly be awake. She reached up to tap her combadge, but it was not there.

"Ask Alice. I think she gave it to the caterpillar."

Music began to play over the comm system. Something about painting something black. "Computer, stop music."

"There is no music playing," the computer replied.

Of course not. T'mpest closed her eyes and mentally listed the periodic table of elements. When she opened her eyes, the woman and the blood were gone.

T'mpest hurried to her room and locked the door behind her. "Salem, run a level one diagnostic of the computer. Something is wrong with the holographic system."

The black cat was curled up on the couch, simulating sleep. When she spoke to it, it opened its eyes and looked at her. "Something wrong?" the cat asked.

"I saw a woman who had been stabbed in the ear by a small blade. She said it was the rabbit," T'mpest explained.

The cat blinked. "Odd. There are no sentient rabbits on the ship."

"The woman disappeared with no trace. I suspect a computer virus."

The cat nodded. "Diagnostic will take 7.23 hours. I will inform you of the results."

With a nod, T'mpest went into her room and lit her meditation candle.

(To be continued...)

Lieutenant Commander Rylie Cattmor
Executive Officer

Commander T'mpest Michaels
Commanding Officer

 

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