Things that go bump in the night

Posted on Thursday February 21st, 2019 @ 11:12 hours by Mayterial Droz & Vysara Elani & Volok & Alexandria Farron & Samantha Jenkins & Ami Lewis & Canaan Serene & Ares Onasis

Mission: Pixie Dust
Location: S.S. Fawkes, en route to Langley Station
Timeline: MD02 - 0324 hours
2006 words - 4 OF Standard Post Measure

Now that the Fawkes had been en route the nerves in Mayterial were starting to settle down a bit. It had taken her a long time to retire to her bed, she didn't really need a lot of sleep to begin with and the brandy had kept her up for longer than she had wanted. A bit uncertain on her feet she had thrown herself into her bed and she was crumpled up with her covers barely earning their name and only covering about twenty percent of her body. Her leg twitched involuntarily as she fell into an intoxicated sleep.

Canaan had fallen into a deep sleep hours prior. His first official day as signaller was a productive one, albeit not to an extent as to have inflicted utter exhaustion. No, he'd succumbed to a bought of overtiredness in the realization of the mess he'd created for himself, his future, but most of all, for his parents. All of the bottled-up stress and anxiety burbled to the surface, spilling over in the confines of his private quarters where he'd paced the deck working out how he'd accept this spontaneous and, more than likely, ill-conceived decision to leave the safety of all he'd ever known for a naive desire to experience life on his own terms. Overwhelmed, it came as little surprise the night was filled with tumultuous dreams the moment his head lay upon the pillow.

Sound asleep, Alexandria had made preparations before tucking herself in for the night. Every sensor sweep they'd performed had indicated only mild turbulence, but her brief time in Starfleet's Aerospace Corps had bent her towards being prepared. She'd pulled out her sleeping bag, and used its built-in straps to secure it to the corners of her bunk. It was not exactly the same as the issued survival bag stowed in her starfighter's survival pack, but close enough. She'd gotten it from a military surplus shop. It was very warm, and she was still mostly dressed, so she'd turned down the environmental controls in her cabin to a chilly eight degrees Celsius to compensate. Her boots were mag locked to the deck right by her bed, so even if the ship hit some turbulence, they would be right where she expected them to be.

Under normal circumstances, a normal person would refrain from disassembling a phaser rifle and then reassembling it and firing a practice round on stun setting while under the heavy influence of alcohol.

Ares was not a normal person in any way, shape, or form.

Sitting cross-legged on her bed in her black sports bra and black short shorts, Ares broke apart her rifle, feeling the alcohol still flowing in her blood warming up her skin and tingling her hands slightly. This was the only thing that kept her mind focused and not lingering on other more heartbreaking thoughts. Now was not the time for even daydreaming about Colt. It served too much of a reminder.

Vysara had tried to sleep, honestly she did. She remembered falling asleep...and when she opened her eyes next, it had barely been an hour and her body had refused to re-enter dreamland. She did dream a little bit in that hour. Torlis VII again, the images of the massacre still didn't leave her, not after all these years. So, Elani did what she always did when she couldn't sleep. Old hardcover paper books. This one was a hundredth or so re-print of an old Earth series of novels that had somehow miraculously survived the devastation of World War III, Game of Thrones. Granted this wasn't the original text, as some of it had truly been lost, but Elani enjoyed the story so far anyway.

After most of the crew had already retired for the night Sam decided to work off some of that extra energy by running laps in one of the empty cargo bays. In the hope she would be exhausted enough to fall asleep easy. Without the nightmares that plagued her often. But after showering and changing to sleep shorts and a baggy t-shirt she was wide awake again. She took a PADD to bed and started reading some holo-novel. Apparently that did the trick because hours later she woke up when she turned to her side and discovered a PADD sticking to her face. She put the PADD away and hoped for some more sleep. With her arm over her eyes she almost started to drift away again.

Volok had just blown out the last candle after his meditation routine. Probably due to the new environment the session was somewhat cut short. He rolled up his mat, put away the candles and prepared for bed. He laid down on his back with his hands tucked on his stomach. He closed his eyes to slowly fall into a light sleep.

[0342, The S.S. Fawkes, en route to Langley Station]

It was as if the Warp engines had stopped dead in their tracks and the ship was falling in a vacuum, straight down. Only for about two seconds before it's momentum came to an abrupt halt. With a pounding headache, which wasn't caused by the brandy, May looked up from her position on the cold floor. Her couch had made a rather significant hop into the room, the table in front of it had toppled over. Her desk had missed her by about half a metre, "What the hell?" She pushed herself up from the ground and pressed her communicator, =A= All hands, red alert, report to your stations! =A= Her vision became blurry and she staggered backwards until colliding with the bed and falling down again, the room spinning around her.

His body hit the floor with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs. He'd rolled several times before abruptly impacting the far bulkhead with a sickening thud, teeth clattering. Canaan's hands instinctively cradled the back of his head, guarding it from harm as a groan escaped his chest with what little air remained. Pushing out, he forced himself to cough. The room had turned itself upside down, the few pieces of furniture not secured to the deck upturned or strewn about. He'd not yet unpacked what few sentimental items he owned, they remained safely stored away in the single footlocker. Canaan dragged himself to a sitting position, arm wrapped around his stomach as he glanced around the cabin trying to figure out what had happened. Droz's voice crackled over the ship-wide speakers; he repeated aloud her command for all hands to report to their station, goading his cowering form into action.

Due to her preparations, the hard jolt had not been enough to fully wake Alexandria up. It had roused her to an extent, but still half-asleep she'd passed it off as part of a dream and started to drift back into slumber. Then the intercom blared with the Captain's voice, followed by the alarm klaxon a moment after. That woke her up. With some precision she unzipped her bag and rolled out, immediately dropping her feet to where she expected her boots to be. She had them on and tied well within thirty seconds. Her green long-sleeve thermal top and black leggings were decent enough so she didn't bother throwing anything else on, and she tended to sleep with her beanie cap on anyway. She was on the bridge within ninety seconds, ready to see what had happened.

Ares’s fingers stumbled a bit as she slid the assembly rod out, causing it to slide out of her grip and clink on the floor next to her bed. One moment the buzzed woman was reaching down to grab it, the next thing she knew she was slammed against the far wall of her quarters, feeling a warm liquid drip down both her cheek and her torso. Her left hip and right knee were already pulsating from the impact of her sudden tumble. Ares let out a long groan in pain as she squeezed her eyes together and opened them back up in case she possibly had been dreaming after unknowingly passing out from the Brandy.

But when she opened her eyes, Ares found herself staring at her ceiling from the dirty floor of her quarters. Mayterial’s voice brought her back to reality and forced her to stand up and pull herself together. There was nothing better than a knock around to sober someone up in an instant. Ares was lucky she specialized in chaos. Her mind immediately went into work-mode, her body feeling its muscle memory flex. It was like she was a police officer again. When a crisis happened, Ares always stepped up to the plate.

She didn’t even have to think before making the next vital moves; the woman was already putting her rifle back together, locking it up above her bed, and strapping on her hip holster and her black military boots. Double-checking her phaser pistol and securing its energy pack, Ares slipped it into the holster and headed straight to the supply rooms to evaluate the damage. Ares would find out what the hell was going on later. She completely ignored the fact that she was still dripping blood from her face and waist and she was still in her slightly revealing shorts instead of her more professional-looking tactical pants.

There had been a brief hint a micro-second before the engines gave out that something was wrong, an unusual shift of the in the deck plating and a tug in the artificial gravity harmonics. Not enough however to trigger a reaction in Vysara. It was only when she found herself on the floor, her book rolling under the dresser that the gravity of the situation came to light. The Bajoran got up quickly and grabbed the closest shirt and pants she could find, pulled on her work boots, grabbed her communicator and darted out of her quarters towards the other end of the ship. "Vysara to Bridge, on my way to Engineering now. Any idea what's happened?" She opened up a channel as she jogged towards the nearest lift, though with how slow those were, she knew she'd probably get to Engineering through the crawlways faster.

Ami slowly picked herself up off her cabin floor, shaking her head as she groggily pushed herself to her feet. She blinked owlishly, then grabbed her bed as the room rocked again. "I thought this was a civilian vessel, not a fucking starship!" She grumbled. Ami picked up her jacket and shrugged it on over her nightslip. Medical. She needed to get to medical. She ignored the captain's voice as it distracted her as she moved out of her cabin and down the halls.

The abrupt movement caused Sam to be thrown out of her bed, the content of her desk on the floor and the PADD she put away minutes earlier managed to smack her in the head. This wasn't good. She quickly got up from the floor, grabbed a hoody and was putting on her shoes when the alarm came in. She probably looked ridiculous in her sleep clothes, but she didn't care. This was an emergency, no beauty contest. Leaving her quarters she headed for the place she was supposed to be in case of an emergency.

Volok was almost thrown clear across his room due to the sudden jolts the ship endured. Because he had been sleeping very light he could quickly react to the involuntary movement and brace himself for the inevitable impact. When he got up he heard May's call over the comm. Looking around to see where his communicator had landed, he quickly found it and replied =A= Acknowledged. =A= He quickly put on his pants and a jacket and headed over to the bridge to assess the situation.

[OFF]

Mayterial Droz
Captain

Volok
First Mate

Samantha Jenkins
Boatswain

Ares Onasis
Quartermaster

Ami Lewis
Ship's Physician

Vysara Elani
Engineer

Alexandria Farron
Navigator

Canaan Serene
Signaller

"All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land."