Spinning Out of Control (part 1)

Posted on Thu Mar 26th, 2015 @ 9:24am by Lieutenant JG Rami Miral & Lieutenant Commander T'kaarch

934 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: What Dreams May Come
Location: Ranger

ON

Miral walked down the corridor towards her quarters, a knife tucked into the palm of her hand. She'd seen three fights that day. Each time, someone had ended up in sickbay. If someone jumped her, she would make sure THEY would be the ones needing a doctor, not her.

Her shift was over and she planned on spending the next two days working from her room, safely locked away from the madness that seemed to be affecting everyone. So far she was unaffected and she planned on keeping it that way. But she couldn't ignore the niggling feeling that something bad was about to happen. That was why she was going to her room. She had a replicator, several boxes of crackers and nutrition bars, 2 20-liter bottles of water and two heavy-duty flashlights in case the power went out.

A noise caused her to spin around, knife at the ready. The corridor was empty. Or it looked empty. She slowly turned a full circle, listening intently. Nothing. She held tighter to her knife and continued on her way. 100 yards. Almost there.

And then someone grabbed her arm and pulled her into a room and threw her against the wall. She didn't recognize his face but she didn't have much of a chance to look at it before he slapped her across the face and then kissed her. Without thinking, she lashed out with her knife, stabbing him in his side. He jumped back and she ran. He bellowed in pain and came after her, but she had enough of a lead to get into her quarters and lock the door. "Rami to security. I was just attacked. The man is outside my quarters. I stabbed him in the side to get away. Please, help."

Someone banged on her door and she screamed. What if he got in before security came? She ran into the bathroom and locked the door. Then she opened the access panel and climbed inside.

She heard more yelling and more pounding on her door, but she stayed where she was. After a while her combadge chirped. "Security to Lieutenant Rami. We have him in custody. Can you give us a report?"

"I'm not coming out," she replied. "I'll send you a report, but I'm not leaving my room."

"We need you to identify your assailant."

"He's bleeding from a stab wound in his side and he was trying to get into my quarters. That should be enough for you."

"Ma'am, we need you to ID the man."

"Send me a picture. I'll identify him that way. I'm not coming out." There was ano way she was leaving her quarters. What if the commotion was her assailant attacking someone else? What if he was still out in the corridor, waiting for her? Nope. She was in her quarters and she had no plans on leaving.

She must have fallen asleep because she woke some time later to silence. No banging, no shouting, nothing. Slowly she climbed out and walked to the bathroom door, listening. Her knife had fallen to the ground and she retrieved it, wiping the blood on a clean towel. She listened at the door and then slowly opened it. Silence.

She checked every nook and cranny in her quarters. She'd carefully taped the lower edge of every access panel and checked to make sure the tape was untouched. So far, so good.

She went through a second time in case she missed something. Nothing appeared to be disturbed and no one was hiding. She didn't go near her door to the corridor.

Finally she went to her computer and checked her messages. There were two from security. One, asking for her statement and the other with the face of the man who'd attacked her. With a sigh of relief she recorded what happened and sent her report along with confirmation that he was the man who'd attacked her. Then she locked her computer, turned off the console and went into her bedroom, locking the door behind her. Tomorrow, she would take greater security measures, but for now, she was going to hide in her bed.

~~~~

Confused, T'kaarch ran on all fours through the ship. As far as he was concerned, he was a cat. And cats need to be loved.

As such, he tried to get Lieutenant Rami's attention, by trying to lick her. Far from the treats he intended to get, a blinding pain ran through his stomach, as Lt. Rami ran into her quarters. As he scratched the door, another man came. "What's going on here? Why are you bleeding?" Another man interrupted "You're coming with us, Lieutenant."

As T'kaarch was dragged away, he heard the other man check up on Lt. Rami. "Come on, big guy, let's get you to sickbay." As T'kaarch recognised the place, his hackles stood up. With a low hiss he started scratching and pushing against the person dragging him, which was so overwhelmed by this that he actually dropped T'kaarch.

Before he could do anything, T'kaarch sprinted away on all fours, still bleeding, but with a good head start. He was starting to get sick and tired of the people on this ship, and just wanted a good cleaning, and as such, he pounded into one of the air vents, and as soon as he was deep enough that it was unlikely he was to be found anytime soon, he stretched his body and started to lick the wound, his fur and everything else clean.

(To be continued...)

Lieutenant JG Romi Miral
Intelligence Officer

Lieutenant T'kaarch
Chief Science Officer

 

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