Unusual Circumstances

Posted on May 26, 2014 @ 7:06pm by Lieutenant Commander Aerdan Jos
Edited on on May 26, 2014 @ 7:39pm

Mission: USS Pendragon
Location: Various
Tags: Aerdan, Peter, Cade, Zel

“Unusual Circumstances” (Continued from “Who We Are and Why We’re Here”)

Location: USS PENDRAGON
Stardate: 2.140414.0045
Scene: Main Bridge

~*~

Peter had that look in his eyes. That look of asking a question that was hanging on his tongue, yet remained unspoken. ‘What happened?’

Aerdan knew that look. He knew it all too well, and his brain went on autopilot with the reply “Everyone is fine, it would seem to be a relatively common occurrence with
various groups trying to improve their status in any number of ways. “

Peter nodded, “It makes sense from what we know of how the society down
there has grown; but how did you get back here?”

Aerdan allowed a little of his suspicions and hopes to tinge his words,
“An artifact; a very familiar artifact.”

Peter’s eyes began to sparkle, could this be his way to send the crew home,
could this be a way to return to Matthew?

“Tell me everything?”

Aerdan took a long, slow breath in through his teeth. “We beamed down and were immediately attacked by a rebel faction. We still haven’t been able to tell if they were hired by the Ullithane – the ruling species on the planet, or if they were rebels hired by Terran supremacists.”

“Wait. Did you say Terran supremacists?!” Peter did a double take.

“Yes, Sir.” Commander Jos affirmed. “It appears that the station was drawing from the influence of the artifact across great distances… but also through dimensional anomalies.”

Peter let out a small sigh, feeling even better about the decision to blow the station to smithereens than he had before. “Ok. Go on.”

“We met some allies in the form of displaced alpha quadrant refugees. They harbor a shrine where a pseudo-religious figure called ‘The Keeper’ tends what appears to be a duplicate of the artifact we found on NIMBUS III.” The Andorian finished. “The Keeper bid me to touch the artifact, and I ended up on the bridge.”

Both of Captain Aspinall’s eyebrows hiked. He knew Aerdan Jos could take some foolish risks, but randomly touching unknown artifacts at the suggestion of mysterious keepers? “Forgive me for asking this commander, but are you ill?”

Aerdan perked a snowy brow. “I sustained minor injuries in the skirmish with the Terran supremacists, but I do not believe I am sick… why?”

“Did you trust this keeper? Touching this artifact could have killed you…”

The Andorian paused, mulling this over. In fact, he hadn’t actually thought about it until now. “I had no reason not to trust the keeper… and few choices for an alternative recourse. At the time it seemed like a plausible risk.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here safely. The question is, can the rest of the away team get back in the same manner?”

“I would rather take another team back and see if we can bring equipment with us to cut through the interference.” Aerdan admitted

“I think we need to go back, Captain. With transport enhancement beacons we could cut through the interference, and get the team back. And I would like to take a medical team with me.” Aerdan’s voice had taken on a pleading tone. “Some of the crew sustained non-life threatening injury, and some of the civilian allies took grievous injury.” The empathy of a doctor who had to make the call and watch a patient die weighed heavily in his voice.

“From your report it that sounds like a dangerous gambit.” Captain Aspinall returned, carefully weighing the consequences. “Rival gangs, infighting, slums? Is that a place you really want to lead a medical team?”

The Andorian frowned lightly. Peter had been on the STONEHENGE during the second Dominion war, but he had been on the front lines, as was the majority of the medical crew. While his brother might freak out, he was quite sure the rest of them would do marvelously well under fire as it were. “I think they can handle the antagonistic situation on the planet, Captain. Most of the team is well trained in wartime procedure. Those who are not should stay on the ship. I could head the team, Doctor Gorman could easily stay here.”

Captain Aspinall bit his lower lip, debating. In many ways having an XO who was once a CMO was as frustrating as it was useful. “I’m not saying no… but I’m not saying yes, yet.” He fixed his all too stubborn first officer with an authoritative stare. “You said you sustained injuries – go to sickbay, get cleared by them. While you do that, I am going to have another talk with First Aide Vartis.”

Aerdan considered this for a moment and slowly nodded his assent. Only the sparkle in his blue eyes showed the machinations and preparations to ensure a he would return to the planet with a qualified medical team. “Yes, Sir.”

~*~

Location: Civilian Cargo Base MIRANDA VI
Scene: Hallways

A baleful alarm rang out down the corridor of the civilian spaceport, a gut-wrenching reminder that no, they had not forgotten about him.

Pressed up against a stack of unused conduit, Zel Rohan felt his breath rattle through his lungs in hot dry pants. His mind was racing with possibilities, most of them ending in one dead-end conclusion: he was going to die.

Not that he wanted to die. He most certainly didn’t want to be in this predicament. His glory days of being an adrenaline junkie had faded into the distant past. He was too old, too sore and certainly too tired to enjoy running for his life any more. The worst was that he didn’t even try to put himself in mortal danger this time. He had actually tried to do the exact opposite, pay off some debts with old fashioned hard work and it had blown up in his face.

Literally.

He had the sinking feeling from the very moment the cargo ship Annabelle’s Lament had blown itself to smithereens half a parsec from being loaded up at the spaceport Geneva VII that something was very, very wrong with the universe and his place in it. And now, alarms blaring, and entire squadron of vicious, humorless and beefy private security guards on his tail, he was very, very sure.

As the ring of boots against the polished floor rang out in a side corridor Zel ducked down under a shelf of spanners and rolled to the edge of the wall, feeling for an escape route. Bulkhead…bulkhead…bulkhead… ah ha! Ventilation duct.

He pulled his old Cardassian hand pistol from his boot, set it to the finest beam possible and sheared the heads of the bolts that locked the grate across the duct. Sliding it to one side, he tucked the disruptor into his vest and slid down, praying this duct had a gentle slope.

Slope, yes. Gentle, not so much. Careening like a suicidal Olympian down Satan’s personal luge course, the little hybrid bit his lip in a desperate attempt to not shriek and give away his position. When the duct suddenly ended in a 40 foot drop, with a lazily turning fan below, Zel lost his resolve and decided that screaming his fool head off was, in fact, entirely justified.

“Oh Prophets…” he cursed, snatching the sharp metal edge of the ductwork and dangling from it over a pit of certain doom. Taking a quick stock of the situation Zel was pretty sure that no matter what else, the Prophets were not on his side. The duct had no visible handholds for climbing up, so he took in a breath and looked downwards. He could see other ventilation shafts intersecting this place, as well as the massive nemesis of the fan below. And one lone access ladder running along the wall.

Narrowing his eyes Zel started to calculate the odds of making that jump before deciding screw it, he had no choice. His options were dangle here until his fingers slipped and die chopped to bits by a giant fan or try for the jump. With the sharp metal from the duct already cutting into his hands and making his handhold increasingly bloodstained – and slippery, the decision to jump was ensured.

Swinging his legs, the motion fueled by a surge of adrenaline, Zel Rohan launched himself at the wall and reached out for anything he could get his hands on. As his chest made a dull impact with the rungs of the ladder, he forced in a breath and his hands clawed for purchase. He felt a surge of victory of he found something to grab a hold of, if he could only get a grip.

Sliding downwards, blood-slicked hands trying to stay stuck on any rung they caught, he felt bile rising in his throat until he decided to simply lean forward and catch as much of the ladder as he could with his arm.

Coming to a sudden stop, he gave a groan as his shoulder wrenched upward, catching his body. He locked his arm around the rung, hanging on for dear life. As the haze of panic and pain cleared, he slowly righted himself on the ladder and laboriously started to crawl down.

“Well… I’m not dead. Yet.” He muttered to himself, using his disruptor to negotiate some hinges on a door at the bottom of the shaft. It gave him a little hope, but he still hadn’t cleared off the station and every minute he lingered here was another minute closer to losing the goal of staying alive. He knew darn well that the cargo ships and passenger liners wouldn’t be cleared to leave until they had him dead or captured, and that didn’t give him a whole lot of wiggle room. If only…

What if he was ‘dead?’ The thought smacked into his brain, a growing kernel of a good idea. If he faked his death they would release the docked ships and he could hitch a ride or smuggle himself out. All he would need was a little DNA and a nice good plasma fire. Maybe it wouldn’t pass due with decent investigators like the Cardassian Empire or Starfleet, but for a backwater civilian spaceport run by a criminal boss who had more latinum than brains it would most likely work. Or at least work long enough to be long gone.

It was a chance he had to take.

~*~

Location: USS PENDRAGON
Scene: Sickbay

Cade Foster loved medical mysteries. He loved the process of solving cases through niggling little biological clues. He loved even more the ability to brag about his genius to any pretty girl who would care to listen.

Administrative mysteries, on the other hand, he despised.

Like how, exactly, could a patient who had suffered severe head trauma and was supposed to undergo cryogenic stasis to mitigate the damage miraculously thaw himself out and get out of sickbay.

Now that patient being the former commanding officer of the vessel had some bearing on the gravitas of his inquiry. But as Dr. Foster gathered the mass of on duty sickbay officers and staff to do a quick interrogation he had the sneaking suspicion that he would not be finding answers. At least not right away.

Suvek was Vulcan and Cade had never known the man to tell a lie. He probably had some sort of code against it that made him intellectually superior to everyone else. Still, Suvek professed no knowledge of it and yet a concern as to the implications. Damn straight there was a concern. Plenty of concern. A frosty zombie Aaron Williams strolling around the PENDRAGON could be terrifyingly amusing and Cade was missing out.

Arjan Jos, ever the trickster, also prided himself on his medical professionalism. The idea that he would thaw a patient and endanger their life crossed him off the list. Sef Yelena was too good at following orders, Zabrielle Liden didn’t have the clearances to get into the stasis bay, Xordin Mondaray didn’t have the clearances or the know how.

And Marcus Ford was a saint. He certainly didn’t do it.

And so, hands on his hips like a self righteous drill sergeant, Cade asked the million credit question. “So, where is Doctor Gorman?”

There was a murmur of curious questioning through the assembled doctors, and finally Suvek spoke. “While on duty, Doctor Gorman has not been present in the main sickbay for the past 165.5 minutes. His wife entered and indicated there was work in the labs. They left together. As there were no critical emergencies, with both Doctor Jos and myself on duty, it was not logical to assume there would be an issue with this course of action, though I did log it in the report logs.”

Cade frowned. He could not fault Suvek’s logic. And as much as he wanted to get angry, no one here was to blame. And he had been getting remarkably better at aiming the brunt of his acidity towards those who actually deserved it. So he bit his tongue and paced a bit more. “Why in the world would anyone thaw a patient with severe cranial trauma out when we don’t have a way to fix him yet?”

“Who did what?” a new voice entered the conversation, punctuated by the swishing of the sickbay doors.

Cade spun and frowned. “When the hell did you get back? I thought you were planetside.”

“I was.” Aerdan furrowed his brows. “I was transported back under unusual circumstances.”

“Define unusual circumstances?” Cade queried, walking over to him. “And why do you look like you were just in a fight?”

“I was just in a fight, there are injured on the planet, I need you to prepare a medical team and there is another artifact down there.” Aerdan spit out in quick succession.

Cade’s jaw lolled, ready to speak, but unable to get the words out.

“Wait, did you say Artifact?” Sef Yelena asked, her eyes going wide. “Like… an orb or like the one that sent us here?”

“Like the one that sent us here.” Aerdan replied. “It has the power to transport people from ship to surface at the very least. I do not know the extent of its power… but we are certainly looking into it.”

That prompted an inquisitive murmur from the assembled doctors, a guarded excitement over the news. Still, there was the original, unanswered question still lingering. “Now, who did what again, Cade?”

Cade snapped himself out of his reverie of uncharacteristically optimistic thinking, and cut to the chase. “Someone thawed out Williams and according to sensor logs he walked out of here on his own two legs.”

Both of Aerdan’s brows raised sky high. “I though Doctor Gorman was monitoring his coma, where is he?”

“The mystery deepens. Gorman isn’t here.” Cade returned, his expression growing suspicious. The original intent of the medical team was to place Captain Aaron Williams into cryogenic stasis to preserve him until he could be brought to a medical facility tht could repair the damage. However somewhere in between Cade’s injuries in the Jeffries tubes and now, Doctor Gorman had completely taken that project over. Now Cade was seriously suspicious if Williams had ever been frozen in the first place.

Still, he had done the initial diagnosis on the damage. Williams should no be up and around. Doctor Foster was sure of his skills more than pretty much anything else in life. Arrogance aside, he could back up his terrible attitude with pure genius.

So what had happened?

“Yo. Blue boys. You are both neurosurgeons. From the damage Williams sustained when he was brought in here, is there any way that he could be up and walking around, even with the super scientific bullshit over on the FLUFFY BUNNY?” Cade put his hands on his hips.

“No.” Arjan was the first to speak. “Neither ship has the neurological regenerative equipment needed for that kind of recovery. And even if it did, Williams was set up with sustained life support to keep his body alive while he was undergoing stasis treatment – that’s enough to keep him with us, but not enough to undergo a drastic neurological procedure.”

“Ok, then tell me how that man recovered?” Cade snipped back, not liking this mystery at all.

Aerdan steepled his fingers. “On the planet there were refugees pulled not only from vast distances in the galaxy, but from other dimensions. It is possible the artifact has the ability to affect dimensional stability, perhaps even time stability.”

“So you’re saying Aaron Williams was thrust back in time to a point where his head wasn’t smashed open?” Cade looked incredulous. “Or he’s what? A dimensional duplicate?” He chuckled darkly. “He would look good with a goatee, you know.”

“Have you tracked him to find him?” Aerdan asked.

Cade shook his head. “Me personally, no. But after I did a few scans, I sent the information down to security and they are looking for him. You probably want to call them while we’re setting up for your marvelous medical rescue mission or whatever other fool errand you’re bringing us on.”

Aerdan rolled his eyes. “Right, Cade, I get it. I’ll call them. You mobilize the team. I’ll let my brother check and see if this fight bruised my ribs or broke them.”

Arjan’s jaw dropped and his was immediately over there. “Stubborn idiot, go sit down.”

“I have to call security…” Aerdan protested.

The elder brother snagged a hypospray full of sedatives and wagged it in a vaguely menacing fashion towards his first officer. “Sit first, then call.”

“Fine.” Aerdan gave a melodramatic sigh and did as the doctor ordered.

~*~

NRPG – just some bits to move things along, but early work tomorrow says I must cut this here.

~*~

Jamie LeBlanc
Lt. Commander Aerdan Jos
Executive Officer
USS PENDRAGON

And

Civilian Zel Rohan
Irritating Pain in the Ass
Wherever he can weasel into…

"Why do we fly? Because we have dreamt of it for so long that we must"


~Julian Beck