Take Out The Trolley

Posted on Mar 01, 2019 @ 6:39am by Captain Kassandra Thytos
Edited on on Mar 01, 2019 @ 6:39am

Mission: The Uncertainty Principle

"Take out the Trolly "

(Cont. "Meeting oneself")

* * * =/\=* * *

Location: USS Phoenix
Stardate: 2.19.0224.2140
Scene: Battle bridge


Kassandra listened as Jasmine relayed the story of her adventures to the other Phoenix to Kane, her hackles rising as she listened. She listened to Kane’s questions, Yu’s responses, and when the silence fell, she could contain herself no longer.

“Beggin’ your pardon, Sir, but we need to seriously consider the eventuality that we’re gonna have to destroy them.” She could feel the shock rolling off of everyone else in waves, even if her sensor nets hadn’t caught the sudden tensing of muscles, the sudden skyrocketing blood pressure. “Don’t look at me like that. The other Kassandra’s probably sayin’ the same thing. If she hasn’t already. You ask me, it’s mighty suspicious all our problems have happened when they claim they were trynna help us. Hell, for all we know, all those weren’t to help us, they were botched attempts to DESTROY us, awfully convenient their ship ain’t got no damage. You guys are takin’ it at face value, why, because the other Jake told Yu it? Well, wake up, the Jake we all loved and trusted is dead, an’ that guy? He might look like Jake, might sound like Jake, but he *ain’t* and he ain’t the guy we trust.”

[[I don’t think we’re at a stage that we need a nuclear option.]] Eve’s voice said soothingly over the comms, clearly thinking that Kassandra was a little overwrought. Kassandra’s blood boiled a little bit. Eve’s tone of voice was the Counselor’s equivalent of ‘calm down’, a phrase that had never ceased to have the opposite effect on the counselor.

“No? Because from where I’m sittin’ they’re basically tryin’ to get us to destroy ourselves. You think this thing is going to make another transwarp conduit jump? It AIN’T! Malin Argo ain’t ever going to admit it cos he thinks he’s god, but chances are, we do this their way, an’ *WE* die. An’ don’t give me any crap about ‘well maybe if someone has to die it should be us, since we’re more damaged, and just think all the people who died here are still alive over there’ because they *ain’t* us, and I *ain’t* sacrificin’ myself for some cheap copy of myself, and you shouldn’t either,” Kassandra growled, massaging her head. “Now, since I sense a lot of moralizin’ and even more technobabble comin’ on, I’ll excuse myself. I’ll be right outside the door if you need me. Sir.”

Kane nodded, and turned back to the remaining crew.

Kassandra stepped out into the corridor. It didn’t take a genius to realize that what she’d said had fell on deaf ears. The undying optimism and altruism was simultaneously one of her favorite and least favorite things about her friends and coworkers. Favorite, because in most situations it was charming, endearing; least favorite because in some situations, rare and far between though they may be, it was potentially deadly.

Kassandra wanted to be an optimist, but the truth was she was pragmatic. She knew that survival wasn’t always nice and tidy, sometimes it was a mess, and sometimes people had to get hurt, and one thing was damn certain that she was not going to let it be her.

She sucked down a cigarette leaning up against the bulkhead, one leg out to prop herself upright, the other, bent, sole of the foot against the wall. She flicked her lighter on and of as the acrid smoke filled her lungs, bringing a semblance of clarity to her thoughts. She tapped her comm badge.

“Thytos to Bellecote,” she said brusquely.

[[Harry here. What’s up Kass?]]

“Need you guys to do some preparations. On the DL though. We have people still stationed in Engineering?”

[[Yeah, why?]]

“I need you to swap them out with our A team, seasoned fighters, good order followers. And I need you to get McQueen to rig us up an explosive. Doesn’t need to be fancy, just needs to make a big boom.”

[[How big of a big boom?]]

“Like, ship killer big boom.” There was a long silence. Horatio trusted her implicitly, Kassandra knew this, but ordering up an explosive big enough to destroy a ship was butting up against the limits of that trust in a big way.

[[Do I want to know why?]] Harry said slowly.

“Yeah, the thing that’s destroying our ship? A copy of our ship. Turns out they’ve known all along and have been trying to ‘help’, only I’m not so sure that they’re actually helpin’, and I think the space cadets are going to do somethin’ stupid, and get us all killed. They arent willin’ to be ruthless an’ do what needs to be done to save us, so I think I gotta do it for them. Might not come to that, but if it does, I’ll need you to lock down engineerin’, and we’ll send those explosives through to the other ship and blow em’ sky high. Only way to save ourselves.”

[[Right. I’ll see what we can be arranged.]]

“Don’t tell the others. An’ this is my decision, okay? If it comes to it, you’re gonna act real surprised, and say you were just followin’ orders, and you thought I was speakin’ for the Captain. I’m more n’ willin’ to take the fall for this to protect everyone on this ship.”

[[Gotchya. We’ll be ready to take over Engineering and get them to open a path to the other ship and be ready to send the package on your say so. Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that.]]

“We can only hope.”

* * *=/\=* * *

Scene: The intact PHOENIX


“You do realize you’re basically asking them to die, right?” Kassandra said into the silence as the other Jasmine disappeared back to her own ship. “If their ship is as bad as the other Yu intimated, they ain’t gonna be able to do the transwarp conduit thingie without sustainin’ massive damage, if they don’t outright go *boom* when they try.”

{{On the other hand, they don’t really have a chance at all if they don’t try.}} Byte said from his console, working on gleaning what information he could from the temporary connection the other Yu had made to her dimension.

“Sure, they got a chance. Blowin’ us up first. Just sayin’. It kinda feels to me as though this is a trolly problem though, you know? An’ they’re the one person on the track we’re gonna run over t’ save three other people? Only I’m pretty sure the one person’d much rather solve they problem by blowin’ up the trolly, just sayin!”

“Yes Kass, but it’s *us* we know we wouldn’t do something like that, so I think we can trust them.” Crichton said, rubbing the stubble of his chin.

“Wouldn’t we?” Kassandra said dubiously.

“No, we wouldn’t,” Jake said firmly. Kassandra grunted her disagreement and shrugged.

They were probably right, and it really was the last hope for the other ship. She barely understood the mumbo jumbo from Dr. Eden, but the gist had been that the unfortunate other ship had the bad luck to be just a hair closer to this universe than it’s universe, and because of that, damage was happening to the other ship as this universe tried to expel the invader, and restore balance, much the same way the body attacked and expelled a splinter. If the damaged PHOENIX didn’t try to create and transwarp tunnel to disengage itself then it would be shaken to a million pieces by this universe.

**I hope Jake’s right,** she thought to herself. **’cos I can’t help think that I wouldn’t be taking the situation very gracefully.” Her sensor nets flickered over the Captain. **And somehow, I can’t imagine the Captain being sanguine either, he’s like me, a survivor.** She’d read about BYSS. Kane’s actions made hers on BARBOSSA look like a child’s temper tantrum. **When push comes to shove, he wants to be the last person standing.**

* * *=/\=* * *

NRPG: Sorry it's short but I don't want to be holding anyone up. Seems we're moving towards the climax of the story, so I thought I'd help make it EXTRA! DRAMATIC!

Alix Fowler
as
Capt. (Major) Kassandra Thytos
Marine who doesn't play nice with others
USS PHOENIX