Messages

Despite the fact that she read every bit of the discomfort and disdain in the curt smile and handshake she recieved, Amynta shook the offered hand as firmly as she could (which was not very) and returned his smile with a far friendlier one. There was no point in letting someone's bad mood get to her, although a petulant little thought in the back of her mind insisted that he thought she didn't belong here...and that he was right. When he mentioned the volatile medication, though, she was pulled back to the matter at hand. A glance at the vials told her he wasn't exaggerating; the contents looked as if they might burn through this deck to the next if they weren't careful. She should have known she was interrupting something, but it was a bit too late to turn back now.

"Sorry about that, Doctor. It should only take a moment, but if you like I can just leave a note on your desk about it--I'm just hoping to cancel a prescription that a crewman has had a bit too long; the sleeping pills he was prescribed by a family doctor are beginning to cause some unpleasant side effects. I don't have authorization for any medications, you see, and I thought you might be able to advise on the safest way to discontinue that kind of medication as well." She paused, then added, "It's not really an immediate issue, so if you'd prefer I could also help you with the inventory you're working on."

Perhaps a second pair of hands would help both their tasks go a bit faster, so that Dr. Trea wouldn't be saddled with this on his own. After all, the task seemed a bit boring for someone as well trained as a Starfleet Doctor, and that probably caused at least part of the irritation that she was seeing.

Oh, Great Fire, he'd caused offence again. The people on this ship really did seem to hang on each other for reassurance that they were all in this together, not happy to see each other unless they knew that they were all happy together. Codependent to the bitter, awkward, socially stunted end. But he didn't begrudge her that - it wasn't like most people on the ship were as dour and humourless as him, either. He wasn't even sure that he really was this humourless in real life - but then, this was real life now, so how he presented himself was just him, and would be judged in real time; such was the way of things.

"Don't be sorry," he assured her, "if this couldn't wait at all, I would've said so. I have five minutes to cancel a prescription. Haven't we signed you into the network yet, or don't counsellors get that access?" He was angling for the position at one point - but if there was red tape involved, he might be finding himself glad he didn't bother. "Who's the crewman, and what's the medication?" Oran headed to a surgical table and pulled his PADD from its surface, examining it for a moment. Then he looked at Amynta, face neutral and receptive, waiting with typing fingers poised.

[Sickbay]

After what had turned out to be one of the most confusing events of her life thus far, Amynta had absolutely crashed in her new bunk; she didn't even bother to unpack her things and it had taken everything she had just to change into a more suitable outfit.

After waking, though, she had immediately jumped into her duties as ship's counselor, and was surprised to find that several crew members had already made appointments with her using the digital scheduling tool. It was a busy first few days; meeting new patients and getting to know the medical staff was enough to keep her extremely busy down on Deck 9, and she hadn't had much time to spend on the bridge with those she had met during that eventful first day. She was admittedly a bit disappointed--she had enjoyed working as a team with Ardyn and Commander Jones--but there was sure to be plenty of time to make friends after things were a bit more settled.

Now they were embarking on a patrol of some kind, but she hadn't even had time to read the briefing that had been sent out very closely. As it was, she had a few things to accomplish in Sickbay first. One of the crew she had just met had been taking sleeping medication for more than six months, which had originally been prescribed by a family doctor back on Earth. For the last few weeks, though, the buildup of medication in his system had been giving him overly vivid dreams and night terrors--and he hadn't thought to share this with the medical staff until there was a counselor on board. She needed to speak with the medical staff about cancelling his prescription, and make sure that they stopped the medication in the safest way possible. It seemed that Dr. Buehler was busy with another patient, so she approached Dr. Trea instead, although he didn't seem quite as genial. She would just have to be as pleasant as possible, and try not to be intimidated.

"Hello, Dr. Trea. Do you have a moment to help me with something?"

Oran was annoyed. The AI had blown all the categorization algorithms out the airlock, and that meant that the medication that was physically aboard the ship - whatever they couldn't replicate due to its complexity, volatility, or fragility - was an unknown factor until they could work out what had been damaged, lost or tainted. Somehow, the program had managed to get into the physical crates and vent some of them. How it managed to do this Oran would never know, but computers thought blisteringly fast and this one had access to the whole ship's systems, so he supposed it was going to find a way to screw up his day.

He was counting hypos of a literally fizzing liquid when his fellow good doctor arrived, head loudly abuzz with thoughts. On board a military installation you were never more than ten meters from another person, so Oran had learned to keep his own head strictly structured and controlled for the sake of his own bloody sanity, a coping strategy that most of the telepaths on the ship seemed to employ. This one must not have known the problems a chaotic thought pattern would cause those who worked with her. At the very least, he picked out a couple of details, but he decided not to wax superior - it made people uncomfortable when they faced up to him knowing what they were going to say as or before they said it.

So he just straightened up from the table he was working at, turned and smiled curtly. He had no idea why a counsellor without some degree of telepathy would be hired, but Starfleet wasn't known for their acute skill in prioritising qualities. He was sure she was perfectly well-qualified either way. Extending a hand, Oran shook hers and said "Hello, you must be Dr. Lianez. This stuff is volatile, and I can't leave it too long, but how can I help?"

Kirok, fam, Oran is already treating Hawke. EQ can only get in the way and his hands are in the way of Oran trying to treat the wound.

["I assume murder was part of the team-building exercise,"]

[Holodeck 1, Victorian England, Dorchester House, Green Drawing Room]

Caelene smiled and nodded at James. He was right, it was quite the place. Part of her - the part influenced by Milara - was excited to be experiencing a different era. Everything seemed to be exactly right, which wasn't surprising. The computer was designed to emulate every aspect correctly to ensure that the experience was authentic.

As she watched, the last few crewmembers trickled into the drawing room - including T'Ra and Evan. The two found seats at one of the other tables nearby. With Evan joining them, it seemed that those in the medical profession made up the majority of those in the room. At least if someone needed a doctor there were plenty of options.

Caelene took a sip of her tea and eyed the food on her plate, debating where to start. The sandwiches seemed to be the proper way to go, but she had to admit to being more drawn to the scone.

A round of rather loud whispering caught her attention and the Trill looked over to her right, at Doctor Drury's (NPC) table. He seemed to be arguing with two of the staff members. After a brief conversation, both of them made a quick exit. One returned minutes later with a silver tray containing a teapot, tea cup, and a small plate with food on it.

Doing her best not to stare, Caelene turned her attention to her scone, splitting it in half with her knife and then spreading on a layer of clotted cream. She dolloped on some raspberry jam and carefully distributed it over the cream as she kept an eye on their host's table.

Doctor William Adams (NPC) followed her gaze and said, "Don't worry, he can get like that when something goes wrong. Most likely the staff somehow mixed up which tea was at his table and brought desserts that Miss Wright (NPC) wasn't fond of. It seems they've remedied the situation."

Actually, Caelene would have thought the staff would at least get the food and beverages for their boss correct, but perhaps some of them were new. She nodded and replied, "Hopefully they don't make the same mistakes at dinner as well..."

As the Trill was about to take a bite of her scone, she heard loud groans coming from Doctor Drury's table. This time she really couldn't help but look over.

Edward Drury was groaning loudly, clutching his stomach. Confusion and pain were written all over his face as he fell out of his chair and onto the floor. "Wha... What's happ.... It hurts!"

After what felt like an eternity, but was actually only a few moments, both Doctor Adams and Doctor Andrew Jones (NPC) got up and hurried over to their colleague. Andrew took Edward's pulse as William checked his eyes.

"Doctor! Doctor Drury, can you hear me," William asked urgently. His eyes moved to Andrew before glancing back at Caelene and James.

Nearly everyone had gotten out of the seats by now, including Caelene and her other table mates. For the most part, the guests kept a respectful distance, other than the Shran medical staff who were there and undoubtedly hoped to offer some form of assistance. James edged closer as well, probably a natural instinct due to his time in command.

Spotting Margaret still sitting at the table, Caelene moved over to her. "I'm sure he'll be all right. We do have an awful lot of doctors here; don't worry," the Trill said, trying to help keep the doctor's fiancée calm.

Suddenly the room was bathed in darkness amid Edward's cries of pain. Apparently the house's electricity had gone out and nobody had lit the fireplace yet. Startled shouts and gasps sounded across the room, and then a louder gasp of pain came from a voice that sounded like James...

Caelene gripped the back of Margaret's chair as Edward's loud groans finally ceased.

William's voice from the darkness said quietly, "He's dead..."

Candle and lamp light flickered from the hallway as several staff members rushed in, then stopped suddenly. A maid in a black dress hurried forward, bringing her lamp to illuminate what was happening. Edward and the other doctors were where they were before, except that their host now lay still, no longer breathing.

"Give me the lamp, Miss Lowry (NPC)," Andrew said quietly. As he was about to take it, he noticed a look of surprise on Emma's face. The doctor turned and looked over her shoulder, startled to see another guest with blood on his shirt. Frowning, he took the lamp and moved to help.

Before Caelene could say or do anything, Margaret flung herself down onto Edward's body and started sobbing, "No! Edward! Come back to me! You can't be dead... Edward!"

Caelene's eyes moved from Doctor Drury and his fiancée to James, who was now laying on the floor. What had happened? There wasn't a drop of blood on Drury. It didn't seem like he'd been stabbed, but James... And James shouldn't have been hurt - the holodeck's safety protocols were in place and should have prevented any kind of actual injury.

Knowing that there was nothing she could do for her commanding officer, the Trill stepped off to the side and tried to get the attention of some of her crew mates. Presumably Drury's death was part of the holodeck exercise, but not James getting hurt. What was going on?

OFF: Tag all

[Medbay]

Ah, crap. There was some kind of holodeck bonding thing going on right around now, wasn't there? When the computer had tried to remind him, Oran had just silenced the notification, sat at a communal medical desk doing paperwork. Someone had to do it, after all. There was that one lieutenant who needed a visor and wouldn't take it, but whose sight hadn't quite deteriorated far enough to force her to get one or face medical intervention. The fine line cut between the freedom of life in the Federation and the deadly nature of life in Starfleet irritated Oran at times.

But now, he had to get into some strange old-earth clothing and pretend to be an old-earth human for the entertainment of people whose culture he didn't share and wasn't interested in. Whatever; he might learn something about the psychology of humans along the way. No other race seemed to be so obsessed with their own past - there definitely weren't any middle-ages Betazoid holodeck sims onboard, anyway. Maybe humans really, earnestly believed that their history and heritage was the be-all end-all of entertainment.

Nonetheless. He walked briskly from the medbay, and shortly after left his quarters in an archaic human suit. The exercise's provided uniforms seemed dumb to him, but he'd face a reprimand for not being a team player if he didn't pretend to be human. He already got some sense of the turmoil the group was in as he came to the holodeck door, picking up psychic signatures of confusion and dismay.

Entering the doors, the room around him materialized, containing Caelene and a bunch of random bots, one of which was dead, one of which was crying, none of which Oran felt any particular empathy for. They didn't give out psychic signatures, they didn't feel anything, so why would Oran care about them? He was much more concerned for the officer who laid unconscious in a ridiculous trenchcoat-hat getup. Bloody humans.

Kneeling beside him, Oran gave Caelene a brief nod. "I assume murder was part of the team-building exercise," he remarked by way of greeting. "Humans seem to think an awful lot of their past as a medium of entertainment, hm?" He checked Hawke's pulse. Stable. He was alive, but unconscious, which raised some pretty pertinent questions about what exactly had gone wrong. "I'm assuming there was a safety failure in the holodeck. Happens more often than Starfleet would like to admit to us, right? Can we leave, or have I just ruined our chances of getting out of here alive like a dumbass?" He sighed, and started pulling off the ridiculous overlong pretentious coat Hawke was wearing. "Do you know what happened, Ms. Tam? Ensign Jacob, I know you're in here, can I get a hand?" he spoke into the darkness, before looking up for a source of light. It was so hard to work in this subpar environment. He really should've prepared, but here he was within five minutes, out of his depth. Again.

"I'll take that lantern, please, my friend is hurt." He snatched it from whatever automaton was holding it before, and held it down to Hawke's stomach. Gut wound. Ugly. Gritting his teeth a little, Oran started ripping the trenchcoat into shreds. It may have been pretentious, but it'd make nice bandages to get his commanding officer at least stable until Oran could find a more permanent solution. "What was the point of this exercise, anyway? Brainstorming a more interactive way to play Cluedo?"

I think I've already been welcomed by the kind crew of the Churchill, who are just as awesome as I remember. Thanks, everyone! ;3

[[Engineering]]

Within moments Flashes of Light was seen  as over 40 Vessels Appeared Surrounding the Churchill

[Bridge]

~Computer:Red Alert Iconion BattleCluster Detected~

[Engineering]

The deck turned red, and Estal's face erupted in a fierce grin. For days, weeks, months, she'd stopped keeping track, there was a pitiful lack of things to do aboard the Federation installation she'd been drilled, regimented and bored out of her mind in. Then the world changed, and she was aboard something moving, something alive. The ship throbbed and pulsed with life, and the crewmen working it sat here as if sat among the inner-workings of some great starbeast that carried them from place to place. When faced with an actual warp core, with actual people and a real, present need for radiation shielding aboard a ship that actually, really needed her to work, it was easy to forget just how tiny a cog she was. But this... this worked. The red lights, the klaxons, and all the cogs jumped from their specially - and sometimes arbitrarily - assigned tasks, and into roles set in drills thousands of times before. Estal herself was at a power redirection console. An admittedly boring job, a little like playing a dance-rhythm game, in which one basically just put plasma through pipes as one was told. Dance-rhythm games, however, had a lot more polish than the cold, utilitarian console before her, which suited her just fine. She liked fun, colourful things, but there was something to be said for having nothing standing between oneself and one's job.

In any case, the deck sprang into action, and all across the red-lit space people of all races sprang into their cog-fittings with the same precision they'd practiced for months or years before, and would practice for months and years after. Estal, herself, was ready to watch something burn. Goodness knew, she'd spent far too long keeping the ship running to no avail. She wanted to see the titanic powers that ended every Federation war before. Come on. Show me.

As he walks threw he reaches engineering and sees Estal, he quickly ducked behind something having turned bright red, he shot back into the corridor. Chira I need you help at engineering. Thompson out.

It figured that sec-tac would be in the most sensitive part of the ship, watching for boarders, but that one looked... edgy. In the split second that Estal saw of him, anyway. He walked past her, looked in her general direction and... saw something scary? Was it some kind of non-Federation alien? She had nothing to do until shots were fired, having put her little corner of the ship into standard red-alert patterning for now, so she dared take another look in the opposite direction, trying to find... whatever it was he'd been looking at. She thought he'd looked at her, but she wasn't as scary as she'd like to be... right?

She knew one thing for certain. The dude was creepy. She hoped the Federation navy's civil rights laws were as well-enforced as the Trill's were individually.

He seemed somewhat flustered both in a good way and bad. "Well I went for a walk because Booth took away the two things I had left of my parents so thankfully shift was ending and I went for a walk in this direction. That's when I saw her." He said point to Estal. "Nothing bad, quite the opposite; frankly I'm just nervous is the main problem now." He started blushing again.

There he was again. Estal was just standing there, snapped to attention, gripped onto the console and ready for the inevitable waves of kinetic force that were so goddamn common on Federation ships - why did it never occur to anyone to build in shockwave protection? - and the weird sec-tac guy was there, talking to someone from... the red flashes made it hard to tell, but... medical? What, was this some kind of a race thing? Something against Trills or something?

Paranoia was the last thing she needed. She turned back to the console.

The Lord Admiral Jump to action pressed a button on his wrist as three Vessels changed Course and Rammed the Vessel the Flash of Orange Light flashed as the Ship shook everyone fell as sparks and bulkheads started flying

...And just in time. The deck shook and the stupider crewmen were sent flying as brightness filled the room. Estal, herself, was knocked low by the blast, but she held on. It didn't occur to her to wonder what the hell was happening, but the life support was suddenly losing viability on her screen - she shot a report to damage control teams, and kept working on control. Containment fields, deck sealings, and the eternal problem of power balancing were all a concern. She, herself, just had to be grateful that most of the power on most ships was taken up in the warp drive, and that wasn't engaged right now. She gritted her teeth, and waited for orders.

I noticed people are trying to write me in - which I can roll with. I'm just saying here that I've noticed and I'll get a post down soon. I was planning to jump in next mission, but it all works out c:

Good lord. Another Scotsman.

Why can I not escape you people.

We're omnipresent. Eternal.

And we're watching.

Forever.

Lance Krol, actually.

Eh, I know. I'm kidding. Reece, you're not gonna have me killed, right? Right...?

-sweats nervously-

Hold on, kiddo. You get an officer posting, but I get to start at the bottom? How are we defining 'past service'?

[Character Details]

Character Details

Character Name: Estal
Character Age: 24
Character DOB: 19/06/1990
Character Image: Here.
Character Species: Unjoined Trill
Gender: Female
Character Family: Aefave, mother, Federation ambassador. Jobyl, father, frycook. Somehow, they manage to get along.
Character Bio: Estal was born to a normal-ass Trill family, except that her mother was a high-profile ambassador and spy for the Trill and the Federation alike and everyone knew it. Officially, she was employed, but nobody knew what as. Nonetheless, she was a present and loving mother, even as she was part of teams stopping wars and encroachments into Federation space in the endless shadow wars waged every day with empires like the warlike Klingons and Romulans. Estal grew up normal and appreciated, went to school and graduated, and her mother and father both wanted nothing bu the best for her - a high-paying civilian job. But there was trouble in paradise, as there ever is in stories such as these.

A long time ago, a great man said that no man is an island. That man was absolutely, categorically wrong, in all cases except for Estal. For as her mother and father read the news and saw the death tolls of the countless galactic wars that were raged every day, Estal looked at the papers, the PADDs and the television screens and saw a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a family pet lost, and an entire consciousness dead forever. In a society as life-worshipping as the Trill, she wondered at how blase her mother, her father, her teachers and friends could be about death. While she was training to become a civil engineer, she scrapped those plans, much to the consternation of her parents, and at age 23 entered Starfleet. She's been through training, and now she's just waiting for the chance to make a difference to the ongoing, tenuous Federation efforts to maintain some semblance of peace in this broken world. She's an idealist without limits, and she's hoping she'll find them soon, for as long as she doesn't meet them she can't rest easy.

Your Details

Previous Role-Playing Experience: God only knows, enough for this position.
Department Preference: Engineering
Secondary Department Preference: Medical
Commissioned, Enlisted or Civilian: Commissioned, ideally.

Sample post: Estal neatly opened the panel and checked wiring as if it was actually at all relevant to what was going on with the ship at large. Everyone knew she was capable of better, but still they set her on menial jobs. She was pretty sure the CEO was testing her. Nonetheless, she changed oil and fixed plasma conduits like a good ensign and that was her lot. Blowing her life on basic tests and tasks. What she didn't know, of course, was that this would be the day it all changed. The next second, she did know - the entire deck went red, and the klaxon nearly blew out her ears as her face split open in a wide grin. Now was her time.

Additional information: I was Lance Krol in a previous life.

How did you find Shadow Fleet?: I've always been here. I was here when Kawolsky was a thing. My presence here is older than the hills the servers sustaining this site are housed on. I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.