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Jalana

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Posts posted by Jalana

  1. ((Apex Hot Springs - Arentis))
     
    Kim sat quietly, feeling the odd juxtaposition of the warm water around her body against the cold air above her, and thought.
     
    She'd texted her parents about her promotion and awards. They'd been ecstatic for her and soon several messages had come in from subspace from friends and relatives. Cypria, the local social media and messaging service, had several messages congratulating her. Neocypriate Serving members of Starfleet were often given pages -- and sometimes shrines -- on the service.
     
    She thought of the sort of impact she might make on the ship. Her home, New Cyprus, had been a place of contradiction. Its past was dark and gritty, many of its buildings living on as husks of their former selves, surrounded by a bright and happy jungle of new constructions, the skyline promising a bright future in spite of where the world had been.
     
    Kim had contributed to that future, adding holographic elements to civic landmarks and town squares. She'd had a budding architect phase during her youth. At 16 she'd been obsessed with Theodore Frudagar's landmark textbook on holoarchitecture. The field had been mocked over the years for its transient creations and compared to laser graphiti, in which artists would tag buildings not with paint but rather temporary light displays. Such things had begun in the early 21st century in protest against political leaders on Earth.
     
    The holoarchitect's task is not merely to clutter a space but rather to embellish it. A building is not merely a husk but rather a trellis for the vines of thought and creativity borne out of the holoarchitect's interaction with her larger community.
     
    There had been something of a back-handed self congratulatory tone in that passage. Not merely a husk. While many criticized holoarchitects for doing nothing but defacing and twisting the intentions of the original architects who'd planned the spaces in which they worked, the holoarchitects who chafed under such criticism were quick to point out that buildings were just dead husks. A few called them canvases. The truth was that holoarchitecture and architecture itself were merely two sides of the same coin.
     
    Frudagar's premise rested on the idea of storytelling through both static and moving structures. New Cyprus's story was one of rebirth and transformation. Kim wondered. What was she transforming into? What parts of her were static? Which ones could she change?
     
    The water around her bubbled and frothed as the mountains beyond sat in stoic silence.

    --

    Lt. Jg Kimberly Stapledon
    Engineer
    USS Constitution-B
    I238601KB0
  2. (( This is the last sim in the exchange between the two, an emotional relatable end to this scene that needed to be shared :) ))

     

    ((Lieutenant JG T’Ama and Ensign Flores’s Quarters - Deck 19, USS Constitution-B))


    Rachel spoke up and lifted the light aluminum cane off of the floor below her, demonstrating that she had just gotten back from sickbay. She sighed and realized that she was going to have to come clean with what exactly had happened. It was not something that she could keep a secret forever. Her injuries were affecting her too much to hide.

     

    T’Ama: Oh… okay.

     

    Flores: There was an accident on Arentis. An anti-grav hoverboard suffered a serious malfunction and propelled me into a wall head-first at full speed.

     

    T’Ama: ::alarmed:: Were you wearing a helmet?

     

    The whole thing was embarrassing, cosmic justice for her arrogance. She shook her head, fully revealing the patch of missing hair and the small osteogenic stimulator over the burr hole in her skull. Obviously, given the severity of her injury, she had not taken the right precautions.

     

    Flores: No, I wasn’t.

     

    T’Ama: Fyrshi…

     

    It took a second to recall the medical terms for what had happened, how to describe the traumatic brain injury in terms worse than a simple concussion.

     

    Flores: I suffered contusions and subdural haema-something.

     

    T’Ama: Toma. How are you doing?

     

    Flores: Honestly, not great. I’m off duty and basically useless as an engineer. I can’t recall basic technical facts and have difficulty with decision making. ::She sighed:: And I sort of killed Dunsel.

     

    Bits of shattered monitor were still on the ground below the replicator with data lines exposed, and one of Dunsel’s googly eyes was just barely hanging on after being knocked loose by her swing with the cane.

     

    T’Ama: ::gasping:: Dunsel!! ::walking closer to survey the damage:: Ohhhh, he had a face!

     

    Rachel felt a single tear fall down her cheek. Even though it felt perfectly justified at the time, she now felt very bad about it. Especially since it also inconvenienced her friend and roommate.

     

    Flores: I’m sorry. ::She wiped her eyes. Her mouth twisted into a sad, forced smile.:: But don’t worry, you don’t have to deal with that anymore. Privileges of rank!

     

    It was bitter, jealous, angry, and self-serving. She was going to find a way to rain all over T’Ama’s parade and make her promotion an issue for herself, somehow. And it of course assumed the worst. Something she’d been doing since she woke up in the state she did. Of course her roommate would leave at the very first opportunity and she’d be left to cope with everything alone.

     

    T’Ama: What do you mean by that?

     

    Rachel frowned at the change of tone. As if she hadn’t just said what she said.

     

    Flores: Merely a statement of fact regarding quarters assignment policies.

     

    T’Ama: ::firmly:: That was a guilt trip, and I don’t do those.

     

    Which it absolutely was. As much as she wanted to be mad some more and deny it, it was absolutely true. She was still angry about everything that had happened. She was disappointed with her inability to manage her condition. And she was honestly a bit scared of having to deal with it all without somebody regularly around to talk to. So maybe it was okay that she…

     

    Flores: oO Nope, don’t you dare say that Rachel. That’s not an excuse to treat a friend like crap. Oo

     

    She still wasn’t herself. Hell, she should probably still be in sickbay if she was going to break replicators and say terrible things to people. Less than one word into trying to mount some defense or excuse she gave up and admitted defeat. It had been a rude, ignorant thing to say. And it had been exactly as T’Ama called it. A guilt trip.

     

    Flores: Well- ::Beat:: Yeah, it was. You’re right. I would give a heartfelt apology but I’d already started thinking about other stuff…

     

    Apology undercut by a defensive bit of sarcasm, it seemed that her roommate had lost her patience for the Rachel Flores Mental Acrobatics Exhibition.

     

    T’Ama: Okay, I’m getting overwhelmed and I have a shift starting in 37 minutes. I’m sorry this happened to you and that you have to deal with this. I hope you fully recover. I’m going to go now.

     

    There were no more words to say. It was a bit too late to say something to actually apologize. She watched T’Ama do a quick inspection of her uniform in the mirror before heading for the door. As much as she wanted to ask her to wait, to say something to try and salvage the conversation, she had to respect T’Ama’s wishes not to talk about it further right now.

     

    T’Ama: Bye, get better!

     

    Rachel replied quietly.

     

    Flores: ::Meekly:: Bye.

     

    T’Ama left and Rachel thought about what had just happened. She’d certainly made better choices than that. Looking down at the cane she thought about hobbling back to sickbay where she couldn’t hurt the feelings of anyone besides the medical staff. Ellie had mentioned that emotional and behavioral control was something that her brain injury could impact. Although that didn’t make her feel any less awful about it. She cursed under her breath and wished she could immediately fall back asleep and not have to think about what she had done.

     

    Flores: You’re an idiot, Rachel.


     

    • Like 2
  3. Quote
    Stapledon:  Well, we can try running this version of the code...
     
    She ran a few more tests on it, floating like a hovering genie at the desk.  At last, she pushed the updated headers into the computer core.
     
    Stapledon:  And now we have the gravity control terminal up.
     
    The terminal appeared with an ASCII art picture of a happy looking dinosaur.  Kim was instantly embarrassed, realizing she'd forgotten to remove the ascii art from her old school computer science project code that she still used for some utilities.

    Whoopsie!

    • Haha 3
  4. Quote

    Nugra: I have seen quite a few terrifying things, Lieutenant, but do you know what the scariest thing I have ever seen? It's not the destruction of ships or the blood of battle. Not even a star consumed by a supernova. What is scary to me :: Nugra lowered his voice:: is when Commodore Rajel loses her temper. I would rather face the Dominion on my own than anger her.

    Could think Jalana tried to bite off his head! :D

    • Haha 4
  5. ((Stellar Cartography - Deck 9, USS Constitution-B))


    Down in Stellar Cartography, Kiris was singing to himself. The semi-spherical room had a nice reverberation to it. So he sang while he ran another set of scans of the dense nebula the Constitution had come across. At least he had something to do to pass the time while the computer worked through all the readings. The nebula was a tough nut to crack. The sensors were giving basic info but the special characteristics of the nebula were still a mystery.


    The doors of Stellar Cartography slid open, admitting a tall Vulcan officer. Sylok had returned. He stopped his singing and spun his chair around to face his new partner in crime in Stellar Cartography.


    Seti: Welcome back, Sylok.


    So far, he liked the Vulcan science officer. Dependable, detail-oriented, and willing to listen to him go on and on excitedly about his favorite subject. Or one of his favorite subjects, anyway. When the Vulcan officer returned from whatever lab or office he had been helping out in and back to stellar cartography he waved, receiving a Vulcan salute in response.


    Sylok: Greetings, Lieutenant Seti. Is there anything new to report on the astrometric front?


    Seti: Well, I had been running some long-range scans while were doing our survey and found something pretty interesting. ::He called up the earlier long-distance scans.:: Right here, this comet. I’ve looked at extrapolations of its course, and it is quite unusual. It isn’t traveling fast enough to reach the escape velocity of most main sequence stars. And yet, here it is, in interstellar space. Most interstellar object comets are much more massive. It must have been at the exact right time and place for a subspace eddy or microscopic black hole to give it enough of a gravitational push to get it out of orbit of its home star.


    The curved walls of Stellar Cartography faded to black as the projection of the nebula they were in was replaced by the inky void of interstellar space, dotted with a scattering of stars. The projection zoomed in on a certain point and froze. A comet streaked across the ceiling and the long-range scans he had been working on were projected on the wall in front of them along with the comet’s path through space. Sylok looked all the data over and nodded approvingly. It certainly was an interesting comet.


    Sylok: Fascinating.


    Kiris took that as an agreement with him that it was a discovery worth getting excited about.


    Seti: Isn’t it? I managed to get a few compositional scans and we have its trajectory. With a bit of detective work maybe we could narrow down exactly where it came from. Oh, we could petition the Federation Science Council to name it! I’m thinking… Seti-Sylok One.


    He expected a reminder about the standardized naming conventions in catalogs of interstellar objects and how few comets truly needed a name along with their catalog number. Instead, Sylok retorted with a simple question.


    Sylok: Using your name first?


    It was stated plainly, but beneath the surface were strong undertones of Vulcan sass. Kiris shrugged and responded.


    Seti: It’s alphabetical.


    Sylok: A logical nomenclature.


    Sylok sat down in the other chair next to Kiris, letting silence hang in the air until Kiris struck back up the conversation.


    Seti: Anyway… that was about it until I came back here and l noticed we changed course towards this nebula. It has some interesting properties, but getting detailed scans of it has been difficult. So what about you? Anything interesting yet today in the world of Sylok?


    Sylok: The ship’s crew is unusually excited today. The distress call from the Enterprise has piqued the interest of many. Given your areas of expertise, I am somewhat surprised to find you here and not in uniform at the chief’s office begging to be part of the science team.


    For once, his Vulcan colleague had him at a loss for words. A distress call from the Enterprise. What was the flagship doing out in the Marchlands? And he was in uniform. Did he mean… another Enterprise?


    Seti: The what from the who-now?


    Sylok: ::Matter-of-factly.:: The distress call from the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701.


    Seti: By the Prophets… ::He took a moment to process before getting up from his chair.:: This I’ve got to see.


    Between his first and third postings, Kiris had spent seven months with the DTI providing analyses and writing up reports about temporal mechanics and the cosmological mechanics behind such incursions. But it had been two years since then and he never expected to run into a temporal anomaly himself. Especially not something so famous. He’d read all about the voyages of the Enterprise at Starfleet Academy.


    Sylok: Deck 12 is off-limits as a recreation of a ship’s interior of the era and people are getting uniforms from the operations department. Did you not hear or see any of that?


    He shook his head. He had gone from Stellar Cartography to the Subspace Systems Lab and then back only to find Sylok gone and their course changed. And he hadn’t heard anything about a distress call from the Enterprise.


    Seti: I was either here in Stellar Cartography or up in subspace systems lab doing some compositional scans on Seti-Sylok One. You said the uniforms are in operations?


    Sylok: Yes, but- ::He was stopped short as the Bajoran cosmologist bolted out of the room.:: as to be expected.


    Sylok didn’t need to say anymore. Kiris was off to find the nearest turbolift to go see if it was true. His Vulcan colleague wouldn’t be pulling his leg. He still found it hard to believe, though.

     

    ((Timeskip: As fast as his legs will carry him.))

    ((Operations Department (Wardrobe and Requisite Division), USS Constitution-B))


    He slowed down as he got closer to the operations department. He passed people in the corridors dressed up in the bright primary-color uniforms of Starfleet history. It was true. Kiris took a breath and composed himself before slipping in to the operations department. Officers and crewmen were still all over the large room, so it was easy for the short Bajoran to squeeze his way through the crowd and get to one of the racks of uniforms.


    Kiris flipped through the available uniforms before finding a nice blue science uniform with a broken stripe on the sleeve. It was a beautiful light blue, much better than the teal of his own gray-shouldered uniform or the dark blue of the brand new uniforms that Starfleet Operations had rolled out on deep space nine. It was bright and welcoming. He combined it with pants, boots, and a 23rd century tricorder. He got changed and caught a glimpse of himself in one of the comm panels that lined the corridors.


    Seti: oO I look like I walked right off the cover of a Starfleet history textbook. Oo


    Except for the earring. And the nose ridges. Those would need to go if he wanted to be on the away team to head over to the ship. Which would be the hardest part. He prepared himself to go speak to the chief science officer (whoever that was, the department leadership seemed him flux when he arrived) and join the likely dozen other officers also begging to be picked for the science team. But he did have one advantage: practical experience related to the mission at hand.


    Along with the fact that he really, really wanted to go.

     

    ______

    Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Seti Kiris
    Cosmologist
    USS Constitution-B

    ===as simmed by===

    Lieutenant Laria Herren
    Mission Specialist
    USS Constitution-B
    A239402AG0

     

    • Like 1
  6. Quote
    As she stepped out of the shuttle, standing before her was the classic trio: Captain James Kirk, Commander Spock, and Lieutenant Commander Doctor Leonard McCoy. It was common enough among the cadets in the academy to argue about which of the three was the handsomest. Many said Kirk, others Spock, and a few McCoy. 
     
    Azura found this reductive: McCoy was obviously the handsomest, Kirk the prettiest, and Spock the hottest. Not all of them needed to be measured on the same scale.

    Can't say she's wrong :D

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