Re: Episode 3: Tears of Valhalla

[Admiralwood]

OOC: Confirmed. No fight yet and the anomoly has not yet gone crazy.

[Admiralwood]

====USS Redemption=====

" If I may, Sir, is something going on? I've been looking over the sensor information a little bit. I can't quite make anything out, but it definitely seems odd. I don't know all the finer details of warp theory, but the readings that "tub", as you put it, is putting out just seem odd. I don't know if it's because of the antique engines or something else, though. There are too many factors for me to nail anything down solid."

Wood nodded, "There's something off about this whole thing. The whole damn ship is- was- part of a private venture. Since when did we hear of private companies trying to start colonies?"

He paused for a moment, allowing for everyone who represented the departments who was left aboard to assemble on the bridge. Once they were all there the Admiral took stock, noting with a little disappointment that the science department was not among the represented.

Closest thing they had to purely scientific minds were Lt. Moondark - A Marine Medic and Pte. Creed whose sniper skill set required a working knowledge of Particle and Ballistic Physics.

"All right everyone, here's the deal. From what we can gather - which isn't much - we're trapped in some kind of spatial rift, one which has kept the ship before us trapped for over three hundred years. Having visited the Captain, my gut tells me there's something we're missing here. Their Captain Vasquez seems unaware of any passage of time at all. From his point of view it's only been a few months since he set off."

The viewscreen crackled with static.

"Until we know more about this rift and that ship, I don't want to get tensions boiling. So it's up to us to lock down what is really going on here. I know we're all about as un-scientific as it gets, but we're going to have to get our geek on to make this work.

Cassius - Our sensors are not giving us much so I want you and Private Creed to take a shuttle out and do a visual assessment of the hull. Miss Creed I'm sure has some nifty scope equipment that will come in handy for the job.

Danno - get down to Engineering and start finding a way to boost our transporter capacity. We may need to beam us and that ship's compliment out in a hurry if things go pear-shaped over there.

Miss Moondark - you and I are going to see if we can't figure out what is causing a three hundred year old crew to think, be and feel like they left Earth last week.

As I said before, I know this is well outside of all our comfort zones - but the others need us and I know we can pull this off.

Lets make it happen!"

{ALL}

[Guest]

| Bridge
| USS Redemption

She wasn't quite sure how she ended up being the Green representative in the meeting that was called up on the bridge. All she knew was that when the call for senior officers to go came through the senior marines on board turned towards her with grins and orders for her to report what the meeting was about.

So she had dropped off her medic bags by her locker, however she kept a hold of her rifle and slung it across her chest before she made her way up to where the others were gathering around the Admiral.

Along the way she grabbed her friend, deciding that if this whole mission came down to blowing stuff up Ziva would be handy to have involved from the get go.

Listening to the briefing she couldn't help but smile at the mention of getting their 'geek on' and exchanged a glance with Ziva. It reminded Beth of the time back at the Academy when Ziva had said the same line in a bar while the pair of girls eyed up a couple of cute science cadets. Said science boys kept them entertained for the weekend.

Turning her attention back to the Admiral as he dished out their assignments she bumped shoulders with her dark skinned friend “luck” she offered before moving over to stand beside the Admiral.

As the others headed off to their various stations she looked up at the Admiral “is it possible that they were sucked through some temporal hole thingy what was their yesterday and ended up here?” she suggested, her head already starting to ache just thinking about all the different temporal things that could go wrong with the time-space continuum.

TAG: Wood, any

[Clarissa Loki]

Clarissa wondered at Emily's trusting actions and fought hard not raise more than an eyebrow at her response. She turned her head towards on of the men who said that her crew was to go to the cryo tubes. That peaked her interest, she hadn't seen one of those, at least one so ancient outside of a museum. They were impractical and improperly maintained. But despite the curiosity, she looked back at the rest of the away team as she realized that indeed the groups were being divided.

*Divide and conquer?* She thought to herself, but as she looked at the men before whence time had forgotten she gave her head a mental shake. Her teams could handle their own. *A bunch of popsci-humans can't hurt us.*

Watching Tybalt the marine's commander, obey Miss Star's directive she figured she had nothing to lose either. She gave out quick orders to the four Primary medical team members she'd brought down. "Our mandate and my orders have not changed. You know what you're doing. Be cautious and alert." She repeated. Looking at the four medical faces, she calculated risks that no-one else seemed to be at least talking about. She didn't want all 5 of them sitting ducks. "Lieutenant Beta and Lubah." She pointed at the medical officers, "You two'll be joining the Warp Core team. They may need your skills if there's been a breech." Looking at her remaining two medical, "And you two are with me."

Looking over at where Tybalt was, she realized that many of the tubes were silent and dark. She wanted to know why so many had failed, even though these original tubes weren't the most stable, there were too many not illuminated for her liking. The thought that maybe people had backed out of this mission rose, but didn't equate nearly enough to her liking for this many tubes standing empty. The niggling thought she didn't want to acknowledge sat just at the edge of her consciousness for now, but she knew it was there... waiting to rear its ugly head.

"Alright, whoever is a part of your medical department can follow Evan down to the Doctor. Engineering can go with William and Devon and I will take the rest to the bridge."

Clarissa nodded and her medical team members moved into their assigned groups and waited to see if there was opposition to her diving up her crew members. She doubted anyone from the Redemption would say anything, it was the four strangers that stood before them she wondered about receiving push back.

After a few moments of continued silence Clarissa finally spoke and put some authority to it, "Alright let's get a move on then. We don't have all day, people."

She turned and gestured to her escort to lead the way. "Evan, I'm Commander Loki." She pulled out her tricorder, and checked to see if her back up access to the Redemption was working. She wanted to be able to go over her data later in much more detail, as she'd already anticipated being babysat by the colony ship's crew. She frowned slightly as she realized that the hunk of junk they called their ship was interfering with her link. She hoped she'd have enough data storage, she hadn't anticipated not being able to link up at 100%. She moved her head at the other two of her team and they nodded silently and each took a row.

She looked at Evan as they walked and she scanned the tubes before her. "Why are all of these dark?" She scanned a third empty cryogenics tube. It made her uneasy. "I have a lot of questions. First off, how many did you start out with, how many have been awoken? How many have reoccurring issues from cryogenic sleep?" She scanned another and stopped, something had caught her eye and it raised a warning flag. "I'll need to look at the data gained from these tubes, let's start with this one."

Tag Evan

Tag William

[Emily Star]

"Uhh," Even looked at William, "We.."

"Suck it up boy," Devon says as he shakes his head and begins to head down to Engineering.

Charles looks the big blue guy over and returns his gaze to Emily, "I take it then you few.. are coming with me then." He motions for them to follow him, "The Captain isn't the most patient."

(Bridge Crew..move)

As people began dispersing, William shakes his head, "I'm sorry Doctor. We're a little unused to playing babysitter. If you're curious, the manifest should have the number of people we began with and you can access it from any panel on the ship. I would assume the reason there are dark, unlit tubes is because any of the dark ones were never filled." He motioned down the long corridor, "When this idea was first proposed its not like a lot of people were up for the challenge of being turned into a human popsicle.

"Especially with the tech.." Evan shrugs.

William nods, "You'll be fine with the lady. Alright for the Engineering team please follow me this way for the grand tour to the warp core." He bows gracefully in a most humorous manner before heading off.

(Engineering team..Danno?  Follow him)

Evan clears his throat, "The Doctor uh.." He says, "..his science is fairly invasive and new but it's stable from what his tests confirmed. The very trip itself was a little controversial back home."

(tag Loki)

[Clarissa Loki]

"I'm sorry Doctor. We're a little unused to playing babysitter. If you're curious, the manifest should have the number of people we began with and you can access it from any panel on the ship. I would assume the reason there are dark, unlit tubes is because any of the dark ones were never filled. When this idea was first proposed it's not like a lot of people were up for the challenge of being turned into a human popsicle."

"Especially with the tech. The Doctor uh... his science is fairly invasive and new but it's stable from what his tests confirmed. The very trip itself was a little controversial back home."

Clarissa knew that she was being guided with their answers, not the whole truth was being said. This wasn't a cut and paste run of the mill away mission, but more of an onion... lots of icky and smelly layers. She curled her lip at the thought. She moved to a console and accessed the rudimentary manifest, she noticed that there was 150 names of those in cryogenics. She noted only a few were children, children of the crew.

*Guess they'd be needed to perpetuate the future colony.* Clarissa guessed and thought about her own daughter Gracie. Quickly she pushed the thought of her daughter and the nightmares she was having in light of her missing father.

She scrolled through the names, nothing really jumped out at her until she realized that she was getting fleeced. She had been told that the unlit tubes were just because they were never filled. But from the roster she had just accessed, of the 150 tubes there were indeed 150 names associated with them. Williams and Evan were lying to her. She backed up and nodded and moved to the end of the row to check on her two other medical crew members.

They were running diagnostics and acted normal. She wondered if they'd caught on already or not. She was being watched too carefully to make them aware of a possible danger. Moving across to a new aisle, she wiped her hand across a blue back lit cryo chamber and felt the cold. This tech was old, old. It didn't last long, many had suffered debilitating limb dysfunctions and even loss of nerve sensation in their extremities.

"So tell me about the tech. Is there something wrong? I know we've learned from the past... err, I guess your present to make it a lot less invasive and space consuming." She looked around at the expansive area that the tubes consumed. "Your power supply alone is probably a huge concern most days."

<tag Evans>

She looked him and considered his words carefully, but nodded in agreement at his statement. She accessed another station and began downloading the row's information to her back up system. It was very rudimentary in it's systems but had in that time, been considered top of the line. Much like what the first versions communication on Earth had been like, compared to what they had now. "What do you know about the Doctor's tests, what makes them invasive" She knew the answer, but wanted to hear it from her babysitter. She rubbed another window and realized it was wet and not as cold as the previous one. She moved to another and found it too was warming and condensation had started to form on the inside. "So this Doctor. Where are they? I would have thought that they'd have wanted to meet with us immediately. ."

She had a bad feeling and wasn't sure she wanted to be here any longer.

tag Evans

[Ziva Creed]

| Bridge
| USS Redemption


Covering her chuckle with a cough at the way Wood had given their orders, Ziva couldn't help but share a knowing smile with her friend, knowing she was thinking the same thing-That had been a very enjoyable weekend... Snapping out of her trip down memory lane, Ziva gave Cassius a slightly toothy smile and a nod as she bumped Beth's shoulder as well. "Stay safe Doc." she said in reply to the given 'Luck'.

Turning her attention to Cassius, Ziva got down to business. "What type of shuttle are we taking? I have equipment down in the lockers we should probably grab." She stopped and looked at him suddenly. "A NX-class scope is on the shuttles, correct? otherwise you're going to have to fly me pretty close." she stated as she grabbed her kit bag from where she had dropped it by the bridge doors.

She didn't know much about the pilot, but then again the snipers and flyboys didn't hang out with each other much, although she supposed that would change a little now. "By the way, call me Demon, unless you prefer to stick with ranks, then Corporal is just fine."

tag Cassius, all

[Ramsey]

(ooc - going to post this here and Dushall can add to it, but wanted to get something posted)

== SS Grace ==
== Somewhere between Heaven and Hell... but probably closer to the Hell side ==

"Well, now can someone just blow us up and put us out of our misery?" asked Thrack, with a certain amount of pessimism. His actions, though, didn't match his tone. He was frantically working the controls of the small ship, trying desperately to get it going again. They had cleared the atmosphere, but gravity was still a factor and the Grace was already being pulled back towards the planet. With a snarl, Thrack stood up and landed the heel of his boot against the console with as much force as he could muster. There was a popping noise and a spark, and then the SS Grace came back to life. Thrack took the controls again.

"More cantankerous than an old Romulan whore... and probably as dirty as well", he muttered. Sensors are at 87%. We seem to have a blind area off our port aft. Engines are humming fine, weapons... damn. Non-existent sir."

Thrack looked over at Dushall. "Where are we going now, sir? Meeting up with the Redemption?

Dushall didn’t answer, but Thrack saw him enter something into the computer console. The console pinged confirmation of the coordinates that dushall had entered. Without waiting for a verbal order… or for the ship to fall apart, spacing them to a deep space vacuum death, Thrack pressed the button on his console, sending the SS Grace to maximum warp, bound for who knows where. After Thrack was mildly sure that they were not dead, he finally allowed himself to relax. Turning to Dushall, he asked.

“So what is a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

Dushall turned towards the Marine Officer. He still wasn't sure how he felt about the officer. Let alone a Cardassian Starfleet Marine. "I was on a mission when I was kidnapped from my runabout. I woke up in a room on that planet being rescued by those kids." It still amazed him that those young kids pulled off a jail break of not only one man but two. He looked at the console and according to the last coordinates of his subspace beacon the Redemption's last recorded coordinates were 6 hours away.

"It looks like we got a little bit of a ride ahead of us." He turned towards the Marine, "How did a Cardassian end up in the Starfleet Marines? And I hope it's an interesting story."

Thrack shrugged. There wasn’t much to do except talk… and watch for a warp core breach that would literally peel the skin from his bones in a second and reduce his body to ash shortly there after.

“After the Dominion War and the Cardassians won their freedom, we were a very poor people. The war had taxed us and we lost a lot of lives in that last few months. Genocide is what some people called what the Dominion tried to do to us. You Starfleet types didn’t help that much either, though I guess I can’t blame you.”

“Anyway, we were at a crossroads with several of our high council officer thinking that we should turn inward… ya know, only rely on ourselves and the Obsidian Order to help us. That type of thinking was dangerous as history tends to repeat itself. Unfortunately, it was popular. I, and a few like me, decided that the opposite approach was needed. We needed to get out there and join the galactic society. I chose Starfleet, suffered through the indignities and punishment at the Academy. I took my lumps and joined the Marines. By the way, for all the tolerant crap your Ambassadors spout, there is still a lot of classism and hatred towards certain species in the Academy. I was not well liked. Just above a Borg Drone actually.”

“I worked my way up the Marine Ranks, probably suffering more than the next cadet, but I took it and gained a fair amount of respect. I’m hoping to change the view of Cardassians, but it probably won’t happen in my time. Plus, now I’m an exile from Cardassia Prime, so it was this or the Klingons. You all are a little more forgiving than those Lobster Ridged Headed warriors.

As for that planet, I have knowledge of somethings that are happening on Earth that would be a political firestorm if they ever got out. I didn’t really know where I was going, but far enough from Earth that your Emperor couldn’t get to me. I guess I didn’t get far enough."

Thrack looked at the timer. They still have 5 hours and 47 minutes left until they reached their destination. He could surmise where they were going... some unknown region of the Beta Quadrant most likely.

"You know, I think I want a nap. Nothing like being refreshed when you get another round of rifles shoved in your face." Without waiting for a reply or kiss goodnight, Thrack rose and went to the back of the shuttle. There were two small bunks in the back, but really no privacy. After what I've been through, privacy is the last of my concerns, he thought. Unzipping his jumpsuit, Thrack let it drop to the floor, becoming instantly naked. Then he crawled in on the bunk. "I can't help it. Being naked now is so freeing. I hope you don't mind." Then he was off to sleep.

[tag Dushall]

***************

== 5 hours and 46 minutes later ==

Dressed in his dirty, soiled jumpsuit, Thrack was back at his console, watching the timer countdown to zero. At the right moment, the shuttle dropped from warp into the dead of deep space. Thrack looked up at the monitor and then out the front of the shuttle.

NOTHING!

No Redemption, no planet, no nothing.

Thrack looked over at Dushall.

"I know I've never been on a Soveriegn Class Starship, but I was expecting it to be bigger... or here!"

[tag dushall]

[Admiralwood]

====Redemption Bridge====

It was nice to be back on the bridge of a starship, figuring out some situation they found themselves in. It felt comfortable, warm - like home. He reveled in those feelings for a moment as the remaining senior staff went about their tasks.

As the others headed off to their various stations she looked up at the Admiral “is it possible that they were sucked through some temporal hole thingy what was their yesterday and ended up here?”

Wood considered it for a moment. The suggestion sounded reasonable enough and he could vaguely recall something like that having happened to the Enterprise way back when, but something about this was just...weird?

"I'm sure something like that happened to the Enterprise once," He voiced his train of thought out loud, "What did they call it? A Temporal Causality something or other...Lets do a high intensity scan and work from there.

He paused, asking the computer to run a detail sensor scan of the area and let out a small chuckle.

"Funny really," He said, "They teach stuff like this at the Academy. If I haden't been smart-assing it around with Janice Richards...tell me something, do Marines get to have fun memories at their Academy - is it all work and no play?"

To be honest he had no real idea why he felt the need to talk, maybe it was because there he been some fledgling connection between himself - which he was sure was there - or maybe because he suddenly lacked friends he could hold a conversation with. Dushall was missing, Serita Duchene was off goodness knows where and Earth-bound friends were either locked up or in hiding. Rebellion sure came with a high price tag socially speaking.

And he wondered why most of the other Admiral didn't like him...

{Moondark}

[Guest]

| Bridge
| USS Redemption

While the computer started off its scan Beth turned and leaned her hip against the console as she turned to face the Admiral as he spoke of why he hadn't paid as much attention about this sort of thing at the Academy. She laughed at his question “we work our butts off, we just learn quickly to party even harder” she admitted “so I have some very fond memories of being at the Academy, some hilarious ones that I've shared with Ziva, the sort where you only need to say one word to get them laughing in remembrance and others so cringe-worthy you need a drink just to remember them.”

“Mostly doing Marine and Medical at the same time just means when you aren't learning one your are doing the other, I'm sure you've heard the reputation most medical students get and trust me most of those stories are tame compared to what we got up to but when you tie in being a marine and expected to be up before the dawn for PT then things can get a bit crazy” she wasn't quite sure why she was revealing so much to him but maybe it was just a way to keep her from thinking about all this temporal trouble they were trying to work out.

She frowned slightly, temporarily causing her forehead ridges to deepen, “I guess that those classes were the ones I switched my brain off for, I've a pretty good memory so I could learn what I needed to pass the tests and forget it all as soon as I was done with it” she gave him a rueful smile “unfortunately it might have proven useful to us now if I'd paid more attention in those classes”.

“If this is some weird temporal thing we are stuck in it will be a bugger to get out of so I guess we had better research what others have done in similar situations that doesn't involve something crazy like sacrificing crew to ancient Gods, summoning a Q, or blowing up our own warpcore while doing the Highland fling” she half joked as she turned and started a database search based loosely on what scant information they had about the anomaly so far.

She disappeared for a moment out to the briefing room only to return with a couple of large mugs of strong coffee and a basket of triple chocolate cookies. “Studies show people think better with a dose of caffeine and some sugar in their systems” she told him setting the basket to one side and handing him one of the gently steaming mugs, which just happened to be made exactly the way he liked his coffee. She might have checked the replicator logs to make sure she got it right.

TAG: Wood

[Admiralwood]

Moondark was right about one thing - this was starting to hurt his head. So when she vanished for a moment and came back with coffee and cookies he was, at first, skeptical of the idea.

Then he tasted the coffee.

Triple cream, triple sugar genuine columbian blend. One sip and it hit the spot. Maybe she had a point, it was helping.

"Nice touch," Wood held up his mug appreciatively, "very nice indeed. I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't anything you don't know about me."

He was sure the reference to that scan she'd done on the Captain's yacht, when that weird old fellow teleported him there, would not be lost on her - those are results you don't see in a Starfleet guy.

"You mentioned what others have done," Wood took another sip of his coffee and took a seat in the Captain's chair, motioning Moondark to sit in the XO's seat. With a few deftly tapped commands from the console built into his armrest, a holographic display appeared to float in the air before them both.

"Got me thinking about the Enterprise and how she found the Bozeman. They called the anomoly a Temporal Causality Loop - looks like they got out by breaking the repeating chain of events. Now it seems to me that this one might be a little more complex, as it has shown it reacts quite wildly to antimatter..."

{Moondark}

[Emily Star]

SS Valhalla

::CryoChamber::

Evan looks at the Doctor, “You know as much as I do. The man in charge of all this tends to keep to himself.” He gets the feeling she doesn’t believe him and shrugs, “But if you don’t believe me, go ask him yourself. His office is on this level.”

<Loki>


::Corridor heading to the Bridge::

Charles walks a few feet ahead leaving the team to follow. He says nothing. His footsteps are loud, hard and quick.

Emily looks over at Tybalt, a little unsure of what they’re doing but confident that it’s better than the firefight that had almost erupted, “I- “ Her words halt as do her feet, “Someone just died…”

Charles, hearing her footsteps halt, turns just in time to hear the words she’d spoken, “Died?” His brow furrows, “And how would you have this information?”

“I'm empathic...” Emily replies with little care for his confusion, “You said there were a limited number of people aboard so that gives us a limited number of places to look. Where could you fire a weapon without others hearing it?”

“The cryochambers are pretty sound proof, however there are no other weapons aboard.” He looks the group over, “Except yours.” His hand moves closer to his own weapon.

“No no..” Emily pales, “We’ve been with you.”

“Your others haven’t and if one of them reported a death then it had to be by their hands,” He concluded this with a rather ominous growl.

“I told you, I'm empathic. That means I can sense death. If someone had informed me, you'd have heard it as well." Emily raises his brow, "And logically if we had something like that planned why would I say it outloud for you to hear."

"Do I look stupid?" He asks her, "I know Vulcans are many things but they aren't empathic."

Emily looks at Tybalt, “A lil help..”

OOC - Let's see what happens!

[Guest]

| Valhalla Corridor

Tybalt had just been gearing up his drill sergeant tone to force the situation calmer when the effort was completely sidelined by an ear splitting wail; discordant and insistent as it announced that something, somewhere was going seriously seriously wrong.

In fact it was both worse and better than the alarm made it sound, because nobody was actually being killed right at that moment. On the other hand with more than two dozen of the Cult's most fervent fanatics being insta-defrosted and with them already somehow having been armed before they became popsicles, the whole 'nobody being killed at that moment' situation did not look like lasting.

That many of the armaments that the nut jobs were now clutching into their thawing fists were entirely unsuitable for use inside a pressurised container, let alone one with all too fragile explody bits, wasn't exactly good news either.

In the corridor to the bridge however none of this was immediately obvious, all they knew was that their leader had just all but accused one of the alien newcomers of murdering one of their own, and now there was an alarm going off. Already twitchy the small group of security people reacted without really bothering to think, going for their own weapons, or in one case, that of a certain Devon with his 'small man' issues, simply attempting to punch out one of their 'guests.'

Things went downhill from there, and might have gone right to the toilet if the baton that Charles had drawn actually connected with anyone.

Instead Tybalt followed through on the half plan of earlier and stopped the swing at half cock, before rotating the big human's wrist and throwing him over the top of it... into a wall.. minus the baton that the veteran marine now turned on the other eascorts with equal, simple, efficiency.

[Guest]

| Bridge
| USS Redemption

Her lips twitched and her eyes twinkled mischievously as she shook her dark head “there are a few things I don't know about you yet” she admitted thinking of the fun finding out what some of those were would be. Like finding out if his body was a good under his clothes as his tailored uniform made if appear. Not that that was ever going to happen but she could ponder it.

“However one of the first things you learn when you go into a branch of the marines like recon is to find out how your senior officers like their beverage of choice. Finding out is good for testing our reconnaissance skills too” she sipped at her own mug of coffee and reached for one of the soft, chewy, slightly warm cookies and followed him over to the central chairs.

She was more than a little startled to be offered the XO chair and as she sat down she had to fight the impulse to squirm. This was definitely not somewhere she ever wanted to find herself. She knew that some people aspired to sit in the central chairs, to even have a ship of their own but that wasn't her dream. Being chained to a ship meant she couldn't get out and trudge through the mud, she couldn't get out in the field and get dirty.

Shaking off the uneasy feeling she looked at the holographic display of the anomaly in front of them. She finished off her cookie while listening to what Wood had to say. Beth wiped her fingers on her BDUs before tapping on the controls to zoom in on the hull of the colony ship “something about that doesn't look quite right” she frowned not quite putting her finger on what. Turning and leaning slightly towards the Admiral she lowered her voice “could their power source be the problem why this is different from the Bozeman incident?”

Suddenly something about what he'd just said occurred to her “a causality loop? Doesn't that mean a groundhog day effect? Can we tell if we've had this conversation before?”

TAG: Wood

[Admiralwood]

It occurred to Wood that these Marines were far from the knuckle-dragging Viking-like barbarians that some of Starfleet's snobbier (and yes, there were plenty of them) Flag Officers liked to lump him in with. Part of him wished he was recording this conversation to send those folk.

He noticed that Moondark seemed to be a initially ill at ease in the XO's chair, something he didn't agree with. Granted there was plenty of officers that made the chairs they both occupied into their Gods to be worshiped and coveted, fact of the matter was - symbolism aside - they were just very comfortable chairs.

Then she raised the question about the causality effect, which chilled him to the bone. How DID they know they hadn't been there as long as the Valhalla had? Would they escape to find a vastly different future universe?

Crikey...

"I don't think there really is any way to tell, no." He replied with a grimace, "But that's something I'd rather not think about right now. If we come out of this in the 31st century we'll cross that bridge then."

He turned his attention back to the power source question. Antimatter had some very unique properties which, even in their time, was not completely understood.

"So the Antimatter is interacting with the phenomenon in some way. Antimatter is kept in vacuum containment, so my question would be - how is the anomoly getting in? Maybe it's phased in some way, able to pass through normal matter and then interacts with Anti-matter. Try scanning for chroniton particles. If I'm right there'll be tonnes of them around us."

{moondark}

OOC: Shall we?

[Admiralwood]

OOC: Unfortunately Hatter is encountering some issues in Real Life and has need for a bit of time off to deal with that. With his blessing, I'll run his evil Doctor character for the remainder of the sim. Please keep Hatter and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

===== SS Valhalla======

This was getting messy. More messy than the Canoness Doctor Linn had anticipated. Muttering dark inanities under her breath she left her lackey to clean up the mess her last moment of disappointment left and calmly turned her thoughts to the order of things to come.

By now the other brothers and sisters of The Way should be coming out of suspended animation, weapons to hand, ready to stage the hijacking they had worked so hard to bring to life. The prospect of all her hard work paying off sent a frisson of excitement through her body. 18 months of stalking, murdering and identity theft just to take the places of 75 real colonists - plus all the computer hacking and programming required to allow them to climb on board with weapons to hand and defrost at just the right point in the journey.

It was perfect - even if she did say so herself.

A gunshot rang out from above, muffled a fair bit by the metal decks between them. Linn cursed, knowing what that meant. Sure enough her handheld radio crackled to life.

"Canonness," She forgot the name of the voice she heard, "We had to open fire. Shall we begin now?"

Linn sighed, "We will have to, won't we? Very well. Execute the plan."


With that order, the 75 defrosted Cultists - all armed to bear - split into four distinct groups, each aggressively moving to take over the Bridge, Cyrosuites and Engineering. The fourth was a sweep and clear group, all acting without regard for the lives of the nonbelivers.

{Tag Away Team. They'll shoot on sight - have fun!}

[Guest]

| Bridge
| USS Redemption

It was no use the damn chair just wasn't made for her 5'2'' frame, her booted feet were practically dangling in the air so she gave up on looking prim and proper and shifted so her legs were curled under her “much better” she muttered under her breath.

Wiping her cookie crumbed fingers down her BDUs she reached over to tap on the console in the arm of her seat setting a deep level scan for chroniton particles. While it ran she looked over at the Admiral “aren't those the do-hickies that can cause people to jump around in time and cause harm to the likes of the Bajoran Phophets?” she asked meaning the particles “is it a good thing or bad if we find them?”

“Perhaps the engine on the colony ship has an antimatter leak?” she suggested “we could get the away team to do some quick scans of their engine housing to see if its all intact as it should be”. The scans they could take of the other ship from here were hampered somewhat by the radiation that the ship was putting out. She dreaded to think what effect all that radiation would have on the popsicle would-be colonists.

She pulled a padd out of one of the pockets of her trousers and noted down the names of all the away team members, the Admiral included, along with Ziva and Cassius since they would be flying closer to the colony ship. She would need to do follow-ups on them all to ensure that they weren't suffering from radiation poisoning. She wasn't worried about the marines as they were regularly treated for exposure to high levels of radiation depending on what planet their latest training exercise or mission led them to.

TAG: Wood

[Cassius]

Cassius listened to what Wood was saying as they waited for the requested officers to join them on the bridge. It would be a little bit of a hodge podge group, but he knew the crew that assembled would do everything that they possible could to get this all worked out and get everything taken care of as quickly and safely as possible. Cassius mulled over in his mind that this was, apparently, a privately funded venture for this vessel to even be out here. That was almost unheard of in the day and age when that ship would have been launched. And any company that would have had the kind of capital resources to build their own ship the size that the Valhalla was certainly wasn’t out for simple colonization. There was some kind of gain to be had with these people’s mission. Cassius made a mental note to look into that when he had a chance. Wood was right, there was something definitely not kosher about this whole thing.

But Cassius continued to monitor activity on the bridge until the others had arrived and were assembled. Cassius moved over to stand with them as the Admiral addressed the group, giving the run down of the situation as well as the assignments. Cassius was glad to be doing something he was much more familiar with. As soon as he heard he was going to be flying, he immediately started to analyse what ship would be best and the kind of sensors it would need, making a mental list to relay to the deck officers in the flight bays for preparations.

She didn't know much about the pilot, but then again the snipers and flyboys didn't hang out with each other much, although she supposed that would change a little now. "By the way, call me Demon, unless you prefer to stick with ranks, then Corporal is just fine."

As they all moved off to their assigned tasks, Cassius looked to Corporal Creed and smiled back to her, chuckling to himself at the barrage of questions that got launched his way. He nodded a little as he lead the way toward the turbolift waiting a moment as she grabbed her go-bag from the floor and waited for the lift-car to arrive,” Demon, huh?” He smiled a little wider and nodded slightly,” That works. Most people call me Grizzly. I guess that’s what happens when you last name is German for “bear” though. But it stuck after the first time in flight school.”

Ziva chuckled as they waited on the lift. "Yeah, not very original I know, but with my eyes and skin it fits- I actually can't remember when I was first called it, but it's stuck." She smiled as she looked at him. "Grizzly isn't bad, I met a pilot once with 'Duckie' as his handle-try putting the fear in your enemy with that handle." Her scarlet eyes twinkled in mirth as the lift door opened.

The lift car arrived and he motioned for her to go first and then stepped on afterward. He told the turbolift to take them to the Marine barracks so that Ziva could retrieve her equipment. He took a moment to tap his combadge and tell the flight chief of Shuttlebay 2 to get one of the Gryphons ready and then looked back to Demon,” I figure we’ll be taking one of the Gryphon class assault shuttles. They should have a bit more detailed sensors on them than the shuttlecraft we have. Plus, I want to have some room for people on board in case something goes south with this whole thing and we have to bail out the away team. Transporter signal is getting touchy due to interference, so I want to be able to hard dock, if we have to get them off. But yes, it does have some of the best optical scopes onboard. And I’ll be getting up close and personal with that ship. I want to be able to see the welding on the seams.”

"Gryphon's are good, I can work with that." She agreed as the lift door opened and she lead the way to the locker room for her gear. "If we're getting that close, I can use my modified scope, should give us an idea of the makeup." There were perks to having SO parents and family members, and Ziva's Auntie Kayla was the best engineer tinkerer she knew, she had crafted Ziva's specialty scope she used on her rifle, something Ziva treasured mightily.

Entering the locker room, she was quick to grab her gear and after slinging her favorite rifle with the aforementioned scope across her chest by its strap, she snagged the box containing a few extra toys, should they need them.


Cassius waited by the door to the corridor as Ziva grabbed the the gear that she would take along on the outing. He became aware of the fact that he hadn’t even taken off his flight jumpsuit from when the fighter pilots had all mustered earlier. But that saved time for him now, though. He wondered what kind of modifications had been done to the sniper’s scope. It had to have some impressive sensors integrated into it, from the sounds of it. It would be interesting to see what she could bring up with it.

Part of him was very worried about the interference that was coming off that old hunk of metal that floated not too distant from the Redemption. The fact that nobody could really pin anything down was bugging the crap out of him. Hopefully this little foray would tell them something they hadn’t noticed. But that was yet to be seen. As Demon seemed to have gotten all the kit she needed for the trip, Cassius nodded slightly and then stepped back out the door into the corridor and headed down to the flight deck. “ So the pilot’s call sign was Duckie? Sounds like a bad bar bet or he lost a hand of poker or something.” Cassius continued the general banter with her as they walked. He didn’t want his mind focusing on the nagging sensation he had on the back of his neck,” Don’t tell me a fighter pilot was stuck with that name.” he chuckled slightly as he continued on down the halls.

She nodded as a chuckle escaped her. "His actual handle was 'Ice Duck', but of course something-- I never found out what-- happened that shortened it to Duckie."

“Well, I guess that’s how it goes sometimes. Poor schmuck.” Cassius stopped a step short of the door to the flight deck and let Ziva enter first. He tried not to let rank get in the way of being a decent human being. The flight deck wasn’t as busy as it had likely been earlier, but there was still a bit of noise as the flight technicians went about their daily duties. One of the massive Gryphon shuttles, named the Executor, sat before the shuttle bay doors and was being prepped for launch. The engines already emitted a faint hum as the ship waited. Cassius smiled and looked to Ziva,” Go ahead and get aboard. I need to check with the deck officer quick.” And with that, he strode off to talk to the man who was bossing around some of the other deckhands.

Snapping off a two finger salute to the man, Ziva boarded the shuttle and started putting her gear away, as well as taking time to set up her additional lenses for the onboard scopes. She took her time, knowing that flight checks could take up a few minuets. "No pressure Creed, none at all." She muttered softly to herself as she went over what each of her special scope lenses could do. The one she would use most would be the special 'bomber' scope, it attached to the ships console one, snapped on top of it and would let her read the other vessels shielding and outer hull plating. It was designed to find weaknesses in enemy ships, and was used by SOC teams to hone in on possible breach points and 'kill' shots.

Cassius and the chief quickly moved through the preflight checks on the shuttle. The flight team had everything taken care of, but Cassius still always did a visual inspection before ever leaving the deck. But it was a quick one as they were on a time line. Cassius quickly boarded the shuttle and settled into the pilot’s chair, taking a moment to flip through a few quick internal systems checks and diagnostics. He radioed up to the control tower to obtain clearance for departure for looking over to Ziva to make sure she was settled. he hit his combadge for a second.

=/\= Admiral Wood, This is shuttle Executor. We’re off on the mission now. We’ll keep you appraised of any information we glean.=/\=

{Wood}

He nodded a little and looked over to Ziva,” Well, here we go.” And with that, he kicked up the engines, lifting the shuttle off of deck, creeping toward the shuttle bay doors as the pushed open to reveal the star dotted blackness of space before them. Once he was sure the doors were open wide enough to slip past before hammering the throttle down and shooting forward. He quickly brought the ship about and headed off toward the old colony ship that floated off a short distance away. He looked over to Demon once more, smiling,” I’ll keep us steady, you start working your magic. Like I said, I’m gonna scrape the hull with as close as we’re going to get.”

Ziva chuckled at his enthusiasm. Pilots she thought with a grin, before turning her attention to her scope. "Ready when you are Grizzly."



First of a multi post JP between:
Cassius "Grizzly" Bar
and
Ziva "Demon" Creed

((Sorry for the delay in getting this first part posted.))

[Admiralwood]

OOC: Ziva and Cassius...Wow! Well worth the wait guys, that post was awesome!

======Redemption Bridge======

'Maybe I will have one of those cookies', Wood muttered as he realised just how difficult figuring this whole thing out was becoming. He would have preferred fighting alone against a trio of Breen ships to brain-strain in some weirdo spatial anomoly. Frustration with it was starting to build up, so he used the action of taking a large chunk out of his cookie to take a deep breath and push those feelings to one side, turning his mind onto the subject of antimatter.

"I don't think Antimatter could leak and not interact with matter," Wood mused, "not without a nasty reaction between that and normal matter tearing the ship apart. But these scans, sketchy as they are no thanks to the anomoly, seem to say there's a good deal of radiation leaking out. What if that is attracting the phased particles toward the Warp core - causing a pocket of weird wibbly wobbly temporal...stuff to form around the ship. A pocket we have the dubious honour of being inside of right now? That might explain why our match got postponed - because the bubble was the turbulence we felt when we entered this."

Okay, so a lot of this was spitballing - but just looking at past timey-wimey encounters on the record floating before them it made sense to him.

=/\= Admiral Wood, This is shuttle Executor. We’re off on the mission now. We’ll keep you appraised of any information we glean.=/\=

That dragged him away from his line of thought, =^="Thank you Executor. Wood out."=^=

Back to the subject, Wood quickly tapped some commands into his chair console. While he waited he turned his attention to Moondark, "Out of interest, how much sharing of information do you do with our Medical regulars?"

{Moondark}

[Guest]

| Bridge
| USS Redemption

It was going to take time for the scan for any chroniton particles to run so she sipped at her coffee looking over the results that the computer had compiled of other cases similar to this and who they had gotten out of them. She was a little disheartened to learn that a surprising number of ships had disappeared in deep space with no explanation and a hint of those pesky temporal particles.

She smiled as she heard the call from the hotshot pilot with Ziva, she hoped her friend was playing nice with the flyboy, which was why she was momentarily startled by the seemingly abrupt change in the direction of their conversation.

“Um” she frowned “kinda?” Realising that she made that sound more like a question than an answer so took a sip of her coffee and ordered her thoughts to explain what she meant by 'kinda'.

“I mean that they have access to most of our medical files should they need or want them but since most of the injuries our guys have sustained since we arrived here can be dealt with at the 'Hut' we haven't had to bother them for more than access to their medical replicators for the restricted drugs that regular replicators can't make” she explained looking down into the depths of her rapidly dwindling coffee.

“There are only a couple of files that only I have access to” she added looking up into his eyes, she didn't voice just whose files she kept restricted and encrypted she really didn't know what Fleeties on the bridge they could or couldn't trust. However she didn't want him worrying that the scans she took of him when he had first arrived suddenly on the Yacht were viewable by anyone who knew their way around a medical database.

As she held his gaze she noticed that the shade of blue reminded her of the blue heather that spread across the high moors on the Gael homeworld. During the summers she spent there as a child she could often be found wandering through the blooming heather with one of the Aunties learning what she knew about the medicinal properties of the various plants that grew in the Jewel Box.

TAG: Wood

[Guest]

| Corridor
| Valhalla

The trio of other marines and Emily made very short work indeed of their little security escort. Even when the big lug that was clearly their muscle somehow got back up from his wall denting visit to the fixtures, it was only to step into a kick from one of the officers that left the other males in the small section a little teary eyed and wincing.

Much to his (and others')relief he was properly stunned a moment or two later.. just in time for the small knot of Federation peoples to hear another very distinctive report.

The federation and most of their contemporaries might have thoroughly moved over to energy based weapons, and have done so literal centuries ago. But, especially with the recent Borg troubles and the continuing efforts of exploration and protection, the average even second tour Starfleet crewman or marine could easily recognise the distinctive audible of a closed chamber chemical combustion.

"Fire arcs, cover!" Tybalt ordered immediately, suddenly more cheesed off than he really should have been that they had opted to go with the light loadout of hand weapons rather than heavier (more aggressive looking, and wider utility) carbines.

The thought was cut off as a half dozen roaring cultists tried to rush them from a dark dogleg they had passed along the way. The words they were creaming were well past unintelligible, intermingled and buried under the staccato reports of their submachine weapons. Fortunately whatever rudimentary training they had been given ha concentrated more on 'fire lots' and 'shout lots' than actually aim and within bare seconds of their arrival they had not only managed to empty their magazines but also hit one of their own in the back of his shoulder.

The replies that came back were not only better aimed, but also fired from what scanty cover that could be gained from the repeated passageway supports that re-enforced the pre-molecular fusion build.

It was ridiculously one sided, with everyone of the cultie rushers down within heartbeats of their well announced rush, and the only people having been hit on the other side being two of the local escort team who hadn't been either conscious enough to move themselves or tended to by others in the haste to fort up.

"To the corner, by bounds" Tybalt declared, tapping up the first marine to move with his pairing, manoeuvring the whole of them to secure the direction they had been rushed from, and the stunned folk now lying around it. Somewhere in his mind was the sincere hope that they could use one of them to find out what the frakking heck was going on, but he wasn't holding his breath.

"Coms to the Reddy, or the Doc?" he asked, without turning, hoping that someone was already on that and might have some good news for him.

[Admiralwood]

=====SS Valhalla=====

It was a sound Captain Vasquez had spent many a day fervently praying he'd never hear again, echoing up from belowdecks like a vicious spirit come to haunt. Frantic footsteps approached, the voices were not the calm, collected communication of professionals.

"Sir." The one former Marine standing guard on the Bridge got the Captain's attention, "We gotta secure the bridge."

Their eyes met. He could see 'that look' written across the Marine's face, the one on those who were going to die - and knew it. The Marine cocked his weapon in a show of resolution.

"Good luck Jarhead." Vasquez offered the man a brisk salute, the signal to get to work, "Sidearms!" He snapped as the Marine rushed through the Bridge entrance and sealed the door behind him. The guy at the communications panel jabbed the intercom button.

=^="All security personnel to the Bridge. Code Red. I repeat we have a Code Red Situation. All Security to the Bridge!"=^=

{Away Team}

[Ramsey]

== SS Grace ==
== Redemption's Last Known Location ==

"Hey, I have a ship approaching at full impulse. Sovereign Class... ID Transponder says that is it the... sh*t! It's the Thunderchild!"

The Thunderchild was the commanded by Admiral Allen Reynolds, one of Carpathia's lapdogs. Whether he was here for the Redemption or the them didn't matter. The SS Grace couldn't hold up to an onslaught of spitballs, much less Soveriegn class starship. Heck, they could even ram the ship without much damage.

Firing up the controls, Thrack dove the Grace away from the approaching starship and then hammered it back so that it would pass as fast as possible at a 45 degree angle from the Thunderchild. The smaller ship blasted by with the larger ship, obviously expecting the craft to flee away from it, was left to do a slow, long lumbering turn.

That gave the Grace a few handful of seconds to enter the Nebula that was nearby. As soon as they entered, their long range and short range scanners went offline. They were effectively blinded by the nebula... but so was the Thunderchild.

"Looks like it is fly by sight, Dushie. Now we just wait it out until the Admiral there gets tired of hide and seek... or the Redemption comes back."

On the bridge of the Thunderchild, Admiral Reynolds growled with frustration. "Why am I surrounded by such imcompetence? It was an unarmed ship. Find it and either bring it to me, or destroy it. NOW!"

The bridge crew of the Thunderchild complied and the Sovereign class Starship entered the nebula... searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

[Admiralwood]

=====Redemption Bridge======

It was a Flag Officer's perogative to keep secrets. The nature of the job demanded that such an officer have a level of knowledge and information access far beyond the average member of Starfleet's vast personnel. Sometimes those officers, Wood included, used that authority as a justification to hide secrets of a more personal nature. This was one of them.

But the cat was, sort of, out of the bag here. With a deep breath he locked eyes with Moondark.

"It's about that thing you picked up during your scan," He said, "You see,"

He felt nervous and tried his utmost to hide it. Nervousness was unbecoming of an Admiral -especially one of his repute. Still, he had a weirdo device in him and that scared him. He was - after all - human.

"I don't even know how it got there. I don't remember anything happening. I have no idea what it does or why it's in me. I keep it a secret because I know how paranoid things have become since the Andromedan Crisis. I dont want nothing to become something, you know?"

{moondark}

[Guest]

| Bridge
| USS Redemption

Beth nodded as she listened to him talk and picked up on his reluctance to talk about it. She idly wondered if he had told anyone about it, surely he must have a trusted physician to do his physicals otherwise someone would have mentioned it in his accessible medical files or tried to do something about it already. Beth supposed he might just have swore any other medical personnel to secrecy under some secret Admiral ruling, she even wondered if he had been to see Commander Loki since they had returned to the ship. She doubted it given the evils a certain Chief Medical Officer was giving the Admiral during their last briefing.

Keeping her voice hushed she leaned slightly closer to reduce the chance of anyone overhearing her “does anyone else know about it? Have you gotten some doctors or eggheads to look it over and see what it does, or how to go about removing it?” she asked wondering if the device was so deeply embedded within the tissue of his brain to make removing it far too dangerous.

Beth had served some time as a medical student on placement on Starbase Valhalla under the tutelage of the station's Chief Medical Officer, Commander Bridget O'Malley, who was treating one of the Station's senior officers. The Colonel had had a device similar to the one in Wood's head inserted in her own head while dealing with a mirror ship of the one she had been serving on. The device was slowly killing her so doctors had taken the very risky option of modifying some Borg technology and inserting that into her brain and spine to counter the pain device. The operation had initially been a success but had some unforeseen side-effects like her being able to merge her mind with that of the Station's vast computer systems.

Of course she wasn't about to suggest anything like what had been done to Colonel Vansen but she was willing to run a variety of tests on the device in his head to see if she could find out anything about it or discover a safe way to remove it.

TAG: Wood

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