By Rada Dengar and Dane Cristiane
80503.0
Later in the same day as Guardians and Angels
-=Personal Quarters of Rada Dengar=-
80503.0
Later in the same day as Guardians and Angels
-=Personal Quarters of Rada Dengar=-
“Aaaarghhh!”
Rada screamed in pain the second the door was closed. He buried his head in his hands in frustration. These departmental cross-training exercises were taking an exponentially increasing toll on him and this damned medication wasn’t helping.
He couldn’t concentrate. His stress level was through the roof at the moment with not only having to do everything which came with his promotion to Chief Engineer but also it felt like he had to do everything which came with every other job on this ship. He hadn’t slept at all last night which he spent going over and over in his head what he should and shouldn’t do today.
He had even spent two hours preparing for his time spent with Dabin Reece by studying every example he could find of irony to compensate for certain faults in the universal translator he believed he had experienced in past conversations with the Trill.
Still, he thought, at least for the moment, he had no where he had to be and nothing he had to do, so even if he couldn’t completely unwind until these exercises were all over he could perhaps take this time to remove some tension from the string and keep the breaking point at bay for at least one more day.
He took several deep breaths whilst pacing the room. This was one of those times where he felt like he had to do something but completely lacked the ability to decide what. He considered a sonic shower but didn’t feel like standing still for that long.
“Just calm down,” he told himself and as if on cue the klaxons began to wail. It was a Red Alert.
[Bridge to Dengar. We need you on the here now! Initiating site to site transport,] came the Captain's very serious voice.
Rada dematerialised before he had any time to object. He was quite glad he had decided not to hop in the sonic shower yet because being transported naked to the bridge would not be something easy to live down.
When Rada rematerialized, he was taken aback by the lack of action around him.
Aside from the warning beeps of the computer, the sound of various stations signaling malfunctions that Rada could only begin to imagine the locations of, and the crackling of flames in the distance, there was no sound. That was what scared him the most.
Where were the voices? Where were the orders to follow?
Where was the command crew?
He began to cough almost instantly- the dense smoke and smell of his surroundings was overwhelming. This was the acrid stench of destruction by fire. Melting polymers, upholstery, and wiring.
The rank smell of death.
Rada fought his way through the smoke to try to see what was really going on.
Unable to see a hand before his face, he shouted to anyone who may be able to hear him.
"Report!"
"Several charges have detonated beneath key bridge positions. Sabotage." The disembodied voice of Dane Cristiane declared, from somewhere in the vicinity of the security panel. He had beamed onto the bridge at the same time as Rada, and was shocked to discover that dead at his feet lay the man who had summoned him, Keiran O'Sullivan.
"Fire suppression systems are offline!" Dane added.
Rada was still trying to grasp the fact that no one else was speaking- or telling them what to do now.
"What about the Captain?" Rada shouted back, even as he heard Cristiane shuffling along the deck, growling above the noise of the continuing klaxons as they wailed on, and crawling over the bodies of their fallen comrades.
"I think she's dead," Dane shouted back. "I think everyone is dead."
Rada completely shut off, he couldn’t let himself process this information, not now.
His eyes were starting to sting and would no longer stay open. He started moving by feel alone but tripped and fell to his knees. His hand searching anywhere for a grip, a chill ran through his spine as he felt the Captain’s blood amassing between his fingers.
He tried to speak but the smoke was too deeply penetrating his lungs. His throat was suddenly very dry and the coughing brought a burning to his chest.
“We have to get rid of this smoke,” cried Dane, his voice becoming noticeably hoarse.
Rada removed a cloth to his pocket and brought it to his mouth to slow the smoke’s toxic invasion as he continued to crawl.
He managed to wheeze out “Life…Support…We need…” before the smoke over powered him again.
Dane could barely hear him over the klaxons’ brutal cry.
Rada forced himself to continue. “Non…oxidizing” he managed to force out before a flame roared in his face. He tried to let out a scream from the pain but nothing would come out.
Dane thought for a second and realized what Rada meant, but he couldn’t do it from here.
He was now just as blind as Rada. He was only able to navigate by the walls. They were running out of time. He dragged himself in spite of failing knees by sheer force of will to the needed console, with the smoke so thick he had to input commands by touch and memory. He gave the final order and the room seemed to shake.
The life support systems which should provide oxygen in exchange for their carbon-dioxide began to instead to release a non-oxidizing agent.
Time seemed to slow and the next few moments seemed almost surreal. The smoke was clearing away and they could see a blur or an echo of the room around them through the nearly transparent agent. Such carnage filled the bridge. However no oxygen was being brought in now and it seemed as though they were dying. Their eyes fought to focus on readouts, to see what had happened to the crew which remained.
The flames shrunk slowly away as their sight began to regain definition. Allowing them to truly absorb their surroundings as the last oxygen left their lungs, all of this senseless death, their Captain, their friends, all dead.
They couldn’t wait any longer. Dane reinstated the life support and air began to flood back into the room.
Both men continued to cough, finally inhaling as deeply as they could to take in air.
Dane reached over, and with a slap of frustration, he finally silenced the roar of the Red Alert. He looked over at Dengar, who was still standing, mute and motionless, in the center of the destroyed bridge.
Dane continued coughing between breaths and moved closer to Dengar, taking a moment to try to fathom what had just happened, before standing formally, at attention, before the Chief Engineer.
"Orders, Sir?"
Rada was too absorbed in his own thoughts- the gears in his mind turning so quickly, he could barely keep up with it. What had happened? Who of the crew could possibly have been transformed into part of an entity so dark that it would order the sabotage and destruction from within of a Starfleet ship, and her crew?
"Lieutenant Dengar, your orders sir?"
Rada blinked, and then turned to Dane.
"What?"
"You're the ranking officer left alive, Sir." Dane droned, emotionlessly. "What are your orders?"
"First we have to be sure I am the ranking officer left alive." Rada moved to one of the few operational stations and rerouted what functions he could to it- but it was no use. He could not make a definite conclusion if there were still others of higher rank still alive on the Serendipity.
He had a choice to make. As he made it, he remembered the oath that each officer had taken when accepting a position as part of The Alchemy Project- the ship had to come first.
"Alchemy? Is she still in her bay?" Rada asked aloud, even as he began to try to scan.
"Here, let me see if I can help," Dane used what he had learned from Lair Kellyn recently about shortcuts in rerouting emergency power and computer data and he hurried from station to station, rerouting every shred of remaining power he could to the panel Rada was working.
"There, I see her," Rada said, and he sighed. He did not look around at those at his feet- he did not want to remember his friends, his crew mates, this way. He wanted to remember them as he had known them- at their posts, doing their duty, and he would carry out their last and most overriding order for them, in their stead now that they could not.
He activated the ship-wide comm and made a general announcement.
"This is Lieutenant Dengar to all hands. The command crew has. . ." he stopped. Dane looked at him, staring almost through him. "The Sera is lost. We must save the Alchemy. Any and all hands within the sound of my voice, you must report to the Alchemy bay immediately. If you are unable to reach the bay, you must use the escape pods to abandon ship. If you can't reach an escape pod, I promise we will do all we can to beam you off the Sera once the Alchemy is safely free." He stopped, clearing his throat as he once again repeated the order he had never imagined he'd ever be the one to give. "Abandon ship."
Dane was already working on trying to establish a site to site transport from the Sera’s bridge to the Alchemy, but as the reality of their situation began to sink in, his hands started to shake, just slightly, as they hovered over the panel, poised to execute the final command.
"Ready, Ensign?" Rada asked, as he moved up to Cristiane and put a steadying hand on the younger man's shoulder.
Dane nodded.
"Energizing." Rada tapped in the command, instituting transport from the bridge of one ship, to the other.
As soon as the command was input, the bridge around them vanished, but both men were astonished to find that they did not reappear on the Alchemy- instead, they were standing on the bare-bones, black and yellow grid of the holodeck.
"What the f-. . ." Dane muttered softly, and before he could complete his breathless expletive, the arch opened and in walked someone that they were both amazed, and very happy to see.
Zanh Liis slowly strode over to them, her intense eyes beaming with pride, though she was not smiling.
"You all right?" She looked at Rada, then Dane.
"Captain?" Rada could say nothing else.
"You have both just proven exactly the type of men you are, at the very core of you." She looked back and forth from one to the other. "Dane, could you give me a moment? Just wait, over there?"
Dane stumbled silently more than walked to the corner, slid down the wall, and sank to the floor. He blew out an exasperated puff of air, and ran his hand through his hair before leaning his head back against the wall and staring at the ceiling.
"Why?" Rada asked softly now, finally able to find his voice.
"No one doubts what you know, Danger," Zanh said softly, her hand on his shoulder. "The question was, could you walk away from those who have become your crew, a family to you, in an uncertain situation to save all that we've worked for? This was your final exam, Rada. Your Command aptitude assessment." She squeezed his shoulder gently, once before letting go. "I am so very proud of you."
Rada could hardly fathom what she was saying, it had to be true and yet, he felt disconnected from it all, it didn’t feel like anything around him was truly happening. An experience like this can make you question the validity of any reality.
Whilst almost frozen in the moment, the only clear thoughts he could muster were those of gratitude that as horrible as what he had just witnessed had been, that it was, in fact, a mere fabrication.
"You're dismissed. You have tomorrow off. Do something relaxing."
Rada caught himself, tilted his head up and down once again, but as he moved toward the door, he stopped. "If it's all the same to you, Sir," he said in measured tones, "I'd rather come to work."
Now, Zanh did smile. "Very well. See you in the morning, Rada."
Dengar shot a look toward Cristiane, who gave him a half a wave as the Angosian made his way through the arch and beyond it.
Zanh moved over toward Dane, and, just as he had done, she leaned her back against the wall and slid down to the deck to sit beside him.
"I hate you." Dane grumbled, still staring up at the grid over his head.
"I know." She tilted her gaze toward him. "Do you understand the purpose of this exercise for you, little boy?"
"Don't call me that." Dane snapped, then he adjusted his tone again, as he glanced at her sideways and her pips shone in the dim lighting. "Please." he added.
"All right." The 'please' had gotten to her. She couldn't remember having heard him use the word before, not with sincerity.
"Why did you do that to us?" he turned toward her now. "Couldn't you have warned us first?"
"No." She answered firmly. "That would have removed the reality from the simulation. You didn't go to the Academy, Dane. You didn't go through the testing or the Kobayashi Maru. I know that TI had its own little field trips to Hell that it sent you on. But what I needed to know was, at the end of the day that even as big as your ego is- and as much in-depth and specialized training from TI as you have received in the past two years whatever you think of it- that you could take orders in a situation where someone who was barely older than you but outranked you, was giving them." She looked at him, and her features softened. "You just proved that you can."
Cristiane finally felt as if his knees were steady enough to support his weight once again. He slowly made his way into a standing position, and he offered his hand to Zanh to help her up from the floor.
She accepted and a moment later, looked him in the face. "Have you anything else you'd like to say before I dismiss you?"
"Yeah. I still hate you."
Zanh's lip curled at the edge into just a hint of a smirk. "I hate you too. Now, get your punk ass out of my sight."
"Wait. You were going to give Dengar tomorrow off. What about me?"
"Nothing doing. You have security training rounds with Keiran in the morning. Don't be late."
Dane almost smiled- for a second- when he realized that like the others who had 'died' before him, that O'Sullivan was still alive.
"Yes, Sir." He offered her a cocky, two fingered salute before disappearing through the doors of the holodeck.
Zanh let him go without another word and watched as he made his way, she was certain, to the turbolift, headed for the bar to try to forget what he had just seen.
------------------------
LT. (jg) Rada Dengar
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Ensign Dane Cristiane
Communications Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
LT. (jg) Rada Dengar
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Ensign Dane Cristiane
Communications Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012