Another Blip (part 1)

Posted on Mon Feb 2nd, 2015 @ 1:14pm by Captain T'mpest Michaels & Commander Rylie Cattmor & Lieutenant Jensen Foster

1,041 words; about a 5 minute read

ON

Now that the crew was back together, T'mpest was eager to find the other lost ships and get out of the cloud. The noise from the crew's thoughts was distracting and she was quickly gaining a new respect for telepaths. She spent more time in her Ready Room where she had telepathic shielding than she did on the bridge. Still, she couldn't hide there forever and forced herself to spend as much time on the Bridge as she could. Fortunately, her Vulcan training helped her remain focused, for the most part. But there was a persistent whisper at the back of her mind that kept telling her she couldn't handle this job, that she needed to step down and give command to someone else or get the crew killed.

She turned to Rylie as she walked back onto the bridge. "Status report."

With the ringing in her ears and the constant internal mutterings of the bridge crew - among others - reverberating around in her head, Cattmor almost didn't hear T'mpest's question, let alone her coming back out to the bridge. She almost jumped when she actually realised something was being directed at her, and a number of answers danced about before she settled on one, "We passed the two million kilometre mark a few minutes ago, about forty-seven percent through the cloud, but sensors have yet to pick up anything else. The scanning range and arc is at maximum, or as good as we can get through here, but we may not even be heading in the right direction."

T'mpest sighed. She'd hoped they were on their way out. She wanted to be done with this assignment and leave the cloud far behind. "How is morale?" she asked softly.

Glancing around the bridge for a quick check-up, Cattmor shook her head lightly, and lowering her voice to almost inaudible levels she responded, "Most are just putting on a brave face. But there's something about this cloud, and given what most of the crew have been experiencing, a lot of them are just running on adrenalin. And everyone wants out."

"Agreed. Get science onto it," T'mpest replied quietly. "Covertly. I don't want to cause any undue panic."

Petty Officer Sinhta was working at the aft master systems display on the bridge while all the chatter was happening around him. They'd yet to locate the other ship which had gone missing in the area, and even with the away team now back aboard after the momentary comms failure, tensions were running high. He was feeling cold, yet his hands were clammy pressing the controls, leaving almost damp residue on the shiny surface. His head was pounding and his heart racing as the buttons and the controls were ceasing to make sense. Glancing around at the other personnel on the bridge, none of the others seemed to be in any distress, only making the matter worse. He looked back to his reflection in the screen just to the left of the Captain's yacht; the image looking back at him made him jump and shiver--the face looking back at him was disfigured and scarred, its naked body covered in bloody lacerations; and it was his.

He stepped back in shock and fright, and the ghostly figure followed him, stepping out of the control panel towards him, as his lower back slammed into the rail just beside the first officer's chair causing all eyes to suddenly turn to him. "They're coming through the walls, they're coming through the fricken' walls!" he stammered as he tripped backwards down the short flight of steps in front of the Ops position and pointing in thin air. He couldn't understand why no-one else could understand, their expressions those of confusion, starkly contrasting his own of desperation.

Rylie immediately looked away from T'mpest to the aft of the bridge, "Mister Sinhta, what is it, what's wrong?" she asked urgently rushing to the rail, then she suddenly caught a flash of what Sinhta was seeing, just as T'kaarch and Blake approached him on the other side of the rail.

T'mpest stood, turning towards Rylie and Sinhta.

Sinhta watched as the ghost of himself was moving ever closer to him with crisp steps as he shuffled back on his backside by kicking his legs, but he couldn't get any real traction. "Don't you see?!" he said, exasperated. The figure knelt by his side and clasped his fist around Sinhta's throat, strangling all life from him. For all anyone else could see, was that Sinhta was grasping at his own neck trying to extract something that only he could see and feel. His pulse had already quickened faster than it was ever really possible, and the capillaries on his face and neck showed it, some already bursting, the vein on his temple pulsating in sharp relief. As others rushed to him, he made a final choking breath, and before anyone could do anything, he was quite, quite dead.

Jensen Foster had just finished treating another crew member for severe hallucinations and was about to sit down to compile a status report about medical department, when he heard the XO's over the comm system, "Medical emergency, teams report to the main bridge, stat." Quickly, he gathered himself and Ensigns Collins and Sito, while leaving sickbay in Dr. Quinn's care. Riding the turbolift to Deck One, Jensen couldn't help but worry as to what he'd find once he and his team arrived on the bridge. With how badly the crew's mental states were deteriorating he couldn't help but assume the worse. Though he hoped it was just another case of an unexpected coma.

Stepping out of the turbolift and onto the main floor of the bridge, it didn't take Jensen long to see why he'd been summoned. Lying on the floor not far from the back wall of the bridge was crewman Sinhta surrounded by a few others. Walking briskly forward, he pushed aside the officers and took out his tricorder to begin the preliminary scans, while the two medical ensigns worked on calming the crewmembers near Sinhta.

(To be continued...)

Commander T'mpest Michaels
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Commander Rylie Cattmor
Executive Officer

Petty Officer Sinhta
Engineer

Lieutenant Jensen Foster
Chief Medical Officer

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