Strange New Worlds
Posted on Wed Jun 29th, 2022 @ 11:24pm by Allison Darrow & Lieutenant Njalia Sayffier & Lieutenant M'rrina & Lieutenant Rufus Marocain
Mission:
Between Realities
Location: Bridge
2259 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure
Allison leaned back into the command chair as she closed her eyes, she let the subtle smells and sounds of the bridge fill out her senses. The subtle hum of the engines reverberating throughout the deck, the vibration of the vessel at warp and the smell of the leather that made up her chair. All of these things were familiar, all of these things were comfortable and things that she knew for after all the Vesta was her ship, the one she commanded. It had been nearly six years since she had assumed command from Yoshi after he had retired leaving the ship to her. It had been his and Ewan's legacy it had only seemed right that she take over after him. Nothing else really would have done for Allison anyways.
There was still a hole in her heart where Ewan was supposed to go, it had been so long since she had lost him in that senseless act of violence that had altered the Federation so very much. Since that day and the Federations renewed its vow to help the Romulans helping them to escape the collapse of their empire only for war to break out with the remnants of the Tal Shiar. The newfound form of sentient androids in the Soong types had been given a seat at the table to talk with those that had created them only for them to pull back from the rest of civilization and hide themselves away from the rest of the galactic community. So much hope, then so much lost, she never really felt like she had had the time to mourn her husband.
Yet he was here, in this ship, in her ship and she wasn't going to let that go it was the entire reason she had reentered Starfleet after all. No one else bar Yoshi deserved to command this ship, not in her eyes.
There was a subtle shift, a sense of vertigo all of a sudden out of nowhere and then something felt off. The Captain of the Vesta opened her eyes and knew something was wrong. The ensign that sat in front of her was now a Kanian and... his uniform different. Subtlely different, but different. The ship itself felt the same, but also different, the vibration was gone, the hum was a pitch lower and the smell was darker, with more hints of wood. Allison looked around, taking in the bridge, there were more crewmen out of place, an Andorian at the Ops table, a Catian at the comms. Neither were supposed to be there, not on her ship at least.
But this was her ship, even though it felt wrong.
"Well.... This is interesting." She said aloud, a frown on her face.
Rufus' ears perked at an unexpected voice from the chair. He swivelled in his chair and his ears went from perked to lifted in surprise at the XO's wife sitting there with Captain's pips. Someone else might have blinked. Rufus inhaled - eyes might be deceived, but scent was true, and that was Allison Darrow. Or an Allison Darrow. Now that he was past the initial surprise, he realized she seemed ...older somehow... and her uniform wasn't quite right. Under other circumstances, his first thought might be that this was a bad time for a practical joke, but there'd been rumors about odd sightings... He sat up straighter, leaning very slightly forward, not threatening but tensed to spring if necessary. "It is. Last I checked the Captain was Mr Darrow."
Njalia glanced around. A new Captain? This was not as odd as the Andorian ship but still quite odd. Rufus seeded to recognize her, which was good? Maybe? Still, at least there were protocols for this sort of thing. "Welcome aboard, Captain," she said. "What is your current status?"
Allison stared at the Kanian in front of her, had he just said Mr Darrow? "Where..." She paused as she thought about it for a moment, when was she wouldn't be right, where was she would be partially right, but still slightly off, no where was probably the best one. "Where exactly are we? I assume this is the Vesta, this feels right but also wrong. The bridge is the same bar some... colour choices." She noted now as she looked around more. There was a deep royal purple hue in some of the wall furnishings that wasnt there for her own Vesta. "No I suppose where am I is the better question and who are you?" She looked at the Kanian then to the Andorian Ensign who had welcomed her.
"I'm Ensign Rufus Marocain, and you are on the USS Vesta," Rufus replied formally, adding for completeness that seemed prudent here, "Under the command of Commodore Minawara."
"Commodore?" She bit at her lip as she thought it over, "He's a Vice Admiral in my.. Would Universe be the right word? I supposed this isn't my universe as where I'm from I'm the commanding officer of the ship." She looked at the ensign sitting at the operations console, "Ensign is there any exotic particles around me, around the bridge at the moment?"
"Internal sensors have been damaged but I will see what I can do, Captain," replied the Andorian, her fingers dancing over the holographic controls.
"I'm M'rrina." The Caitain lieutenant said with a tail flick back and forth, just the lip but lashing with force, her watchful, poised-to-strike position much as Rufus' had been, but relaxing slightly. "And yeah, I'm guessing you are the wrong place somehow, ma'am." There was jsut an odd...vibe...that she couldn't quite explain; the predator's sixth sense that she found difficult to explain to humans but that signaled subtly to her that something diverge here.
That was a sense that Rufus felt too, though the sense was secondary to the plain fact that he knew Mrs. Darrow had retired from Starfleet years ago but this person had her exact scent. There were a very limited number of explanations for that. "I expect wrong time and/or dimension might be the issue. We had a run in with some Tholian tech," he explained. "So it would be less exotic particles and more evidence of interphasic particles to look for."
Njalia looked over various readings and tried to enhance some data. "There is something there, Captain, but the internal sensors are not able to give a clear resolution. I will keep trying. In good news, short-range sensors are at over eighty percent."
"Point of clarification, Captain, since you probably don't know what's happening in this dimension. We're recovering systems after battle damage," Rufus offered. Some explanation seemed like a good idea since she was in the big chair and if she gave any problematic orders he didn't want to have to decide whether she really counted as a Starfleet captain or not. He glanced toward M'rrina. "No offense, but we should probably call Captain Darrow... er, the other Captain Darrow about an unexpected visitor on the bridge."
"I... yes that might be a good idea," Allison said as she bit at her lip trying to think it all over. "Reality shifting, yes that makes sense, but the full crossing over and not even just momentarily but an extended period. Long enough for me to interact with you. I expect actually that my Quantum signature is slightly off compared to yours.... It's all rather fascinating, it's been theorized before but no one has ever done it that at least we have reports of."
M'rrina flicked on ear assentingly at Rufus, and turned to call in the message, tail tip still twitching back and forth slightly.
Silence fell on the bridge as the crew waited for the Captain to come to the bridge. The other Captain Darrow that was, since of course there already was one on the bridge even if it wasn't the one from their own reality. Allison turned to stare at the massive display at the front of the bridge and the swirling nebula that surrounded the Vesta, protecting it in its own beautiful way as the ship itself recovered from its apparent battle. After the Helmsmen had talked about it, she had noticed some of the signs that she had missed before of the fire and explosive damage, missing panels here and there.
What had this ship gone through?
There was a subtle hiss of the turbolift door opening as Captain Ewan Darrow stepped onto the bridge, arm still in a sling despite being set simply to allow it some time to fully settle and the muscles to move back into their proper places. It was convenient in a way, an easy place to slide his mug of tea and forget about it freeing up his one good hand. He strode out onto the bridge and looked towards the Caitian Ensign who had requested he attend the bridge. With a swish of her tail and a glance, she pointed his attention towards the centre of the bridge and the command chair.
Allison had heard the hiss, funny enough it was slightly different from that of her own version of the ship but nonetheless similar enough that it drew her attention back towards the door. She turned towards the sound and stopped dead in her turn as she saw him. There he was, older than she remembered but still the same old short hair that always seemed to hold its form no matter how much product he used or didn't use, his bright hazel eyes that always seemed more green than brown to her. It was Ewan.
She let out a sad sigh and wiped at her eye attempting to bat away the tears that were forming there. Yes it was Ewan, but it wasn't her Ewan.
Ewan stopped in his tracks confused, there was Allison standing in the middle of the bridge. She was a little older looking, a little more tired and with far more grey in her hair than he could remember. She stood there staring at him, a sad startled look on her face as tears started to form. "Allison?" He asked a little confused as to entirely what was happening here.
"Hey Ewan," She replied, a slight hitch in her voice as she took a small step forward before stopping aside the Captain's chair and grabbing hold of it, stopping herself from moving closer. "It's not actually me..." she paused for a moment, "Well it is, its just I'm not your me. Alternate reality stuff actually I'm thinking."
"I... well you definitely still look like my Allison," was all the Executive Officer could think to say as what she had just said raced through his mind and the implications of it, not to mention the sheer fact that she existed here in the first place. There were past reports of previous crossover's with Alternate realities and universes, namely that of the mirror universe as it was more colloquially known to the senior staff of Starfleet. This Allison thought was most obviously not apart of them, she still wore a Starfleet Uniform even if slightly different, and as far as he could tell wasn't trying to murder all of the non-humans on the bridge. He had heard the mirror universe people liked to do that sort of thing, or so the reports said.
"Well I suppose we're close enough branches that there are enough similarities," Allison responded as she bit at her lip trying to think more on it, "My universe has theorized that extended use of the Quantum Slipstream Drive could potentially be damaging to levels of subspace and other levels of.. well space and time really that we weren't sure of yet."
"We had the same thoughts but determined that the quantum signature of a reality was rather unique and they don't tend to intermix well thanks to some previous interactions with a different reality Starfleet has had." Ewan said as he moved towards the holo table in the middle of the bridge. "They naturally repeal each other or something like that, you'd have to ask Yoshi for the specifics it's his engine after all." He pulled up the information on the mirror universe that could easily be accessed from within the ships own databanks and decrypted it for display.
Allison too was now more distracted by the situation than Ewan himself as she moved towards the table. "Has something happened recently that could have damaged the walls between our worlds?"
"The Tholians new ship, it has to be that!" Ewan said as it clicked within his thoughts, nothing else that the ship had dealt with recently would have been out of the normal for them to have dealt with. That ship was the new variable in the equation. He looked over at Allison all ready to thank her for possibly helping to figure out something to do why the ship was trapped there when he stopped dead. "Allison your arm."
Allison stopped her trek towards the table and looked down. Her left arm was missing, and whatever was going it was slowly spreading to the rest of her. "So it is... I guess whatever brought me here is now bringing me back to my own reality." She paused for a second as it began to spread more rapidly, "Good bye Ewan..... I... just I will always love you."
With that, the other Captain Darrow disappeared from the bridge.
