Dream analysis
Posted on 29 Aug 2019 @ 11:39pm by Commander Amelia Fox & Captain Jonathan Reynolds & Lieutenant Commander Aidan Datari & Lieutenant Commander True Keading & Lieutenant JG Lilura Karakalakss & Lieutenant JG Rosaline Belikov & Lieutenant JG J Haulval & Lieutenant Syvar MD
Mission:
Mission 1 - In the pale moonlight ...
Location: Observation Lounge Deck 3
Timeline: MD6 09:00
2525 words - 5.1 OF Standard Post Measure
ON:
Jon had called all the senior staff again first thing this morning. As Fox walked in he automatically handed her coffee, and did the same with True with a mug of tea. They were clearly getting into a pattern now which in better circumstances would have been nice.
Trying really hard not to smile as she entered and was handed tea, just the way she liked it, True took a seat and placed both hands around the cup. The warmth spread into her body and she let out a sigh of happiness. Despite what was going on around them she'd enjoyed a really pleasant few hours with Jon, just sleeping and feeling relatively safe in a new environment, a rare occurrence for her.
Lieutenant JG Haulval entered the conference room and took what was becoming his usual seat. Routine was good, especially when actual sleep had been just out of his grasp the few nights before. He was used to needing little sleep and the effect on him was, so far, minimal and non-evident.
Lilura came in with her usual large mug of coffee held by her tail as she was working on notes on Padds with her hands. She smiled and nodded to the group, sitting down. As she did, her tail brought around her coffee for her to take a swig of.
Amelia sat and took a sip of her coffee. "Well my dreams were a paradise meadow last night." She rubbed her temples "Have we figured out whats causing this?"
"Okay I'm going to go all out on a limb and guess everyone if not the majority of us have had a bad nightmare or hallucination. Some very negative experience in the last few days yes?" he didn't beat around the bush.
"With similar voices or imagery of fire," True interrupted him to point out quickly.
"I have a working theory, that hit me pretty early this morning," he did his best not to look at the blond counselor. "That this unidentified object is throwing out a warning about these dark ones. Starfleet want a sample of it and more information but as of last night Dr Hope went into a coma. These experiences are getting more dangerous. Do we concur? or have any different thoughts?" he threw out into the table.
"I have not had quite the same experience, but shielding my subconscious thoughts is becoming increasingly more difficult and taking a toll of its own," Haulval replied quietly from across the table. "If the hallucinations are a warning from the object, I believe it is appropriate to say that we have received the warning. Putting some distance between us and the object may be beneficial, for the safety of... everyone."
Lilura nodded, then added, "I concur. While I have only had a couple of shadow visions, a lot of engineering crew are reporting more vivid and real hallucinations. Can we find a happy medium away from the object with the main ship, then go in with a runabout crewed by those with known psi quotients and with trained shielding, or those known to have little effect from psi and subconscious telepathic interference?"
She paused a moment, then said, "My race is normally telepathic and telekinetic, but my Telepathy is not there. Others have seen it as a birth defect, but I have accepted not having it a long time ago. But, with it not there is probably why I have only seen shadows and not further, so I would volunteer for the away mission, that is, if what I asked is considered as a possible course of action."
Jon chewed his cheek. "Whereas I appreciate your offer to do that your not going in solo …. Lots of people who have had dreams and experiences are not telepathic or telekinetic. I'm not convinced that factor will keep you safe. You did thrash up some equipment in engineering from what you experienced. If you did that on a shuttle alone, who knows what could happen. You were convinced you saw a ………… a" he tried desperately to remember what it was called. "Arum …… Arumb …."
"Arumbarnaxtch sir," Amelia chimed in.
Jon didn't waste time being embarrassed he couldn't pronounce it. "Yes that wild animal thing." He sighed for a moment thinking.
Lilura got a confused look on her face. She never mentioned anything about going in solo, she only volunteered to be one of the personnel to go in if her idea of sending in a roundabout was accepted. She kept this to herself, though, as it was the Captain who had brought the notion forward.
"Fox you will go with Lieutenant Karakalakss," Jon said happy he was getting to grips with pronouncing her last name.
Amelia nodded "Aye Sir."
"No one seems to have had a folie a deux in any of the reports, that's right yes Counselor?" He turned to True to check he had his facts straight. Everyone's experience that he knew about seemed to be unique to them but she had talked to a lot more people. It was a nice break for a few seconds to look at her face despite having to be so serious.
"They are all different with some of the same themes as I mentioned earlier, fire and a disembodied voice." True answered quietly with a small smile. "Some of the phrases are the same but it's definitely not the same dream. The crew seems to be dreaming about what they fear most or a past traumatic event."
Fox nodded "Mostly getting warning as well about Dark ones coming......"
Lilura had a considerate facial expression. For her race, the most dire thing was being snatched by a predator when you were young, asleep, or ill and not able to defend yourself. They were the dark ones... well, behind the fact that a sentient has free will and can choose to do good, or evil, and there were a lot of very evil people in the universe. But, Lilura had not really ran into any, and thus, her worst fears were the predators coming for her future kids, and thus by extension, the crew under her. "As the Arumbarnaxtch would be considered one of a Soliodaran's dark threats... it stands to reason, Sir."
Amelia nodded "That would confirm our hypothesis."
"Doctor," he turned to the young Vulcan. "I want you to monitor everything. I want to know if either of them so much as blink on that shuttle,"
Wide eyed, the youngster nodded. "Yes sir," he answered slowly, feeling very out of his element. This was his first senior staff briefing and he felt he wasn't worthy of being here, being very, very junior compared to the rest.
He still seemed nervous Jon mused but was handling it better than last night at least. "I want the bridge piped through to the shuttle the entire time, you get in chip a sample off, scan the hell out of it and get straight back. In fact, Belikov and Haulval you both will control the shuttle from here. Both of you will be locked out of any controls for your safety onboard."
Lilura had a slightly surprised moment on her muzzle. Nothing had been said her idea had been accepted, and now here was Jon fully proceeding with it and having already chosen two crew, the XO and herself. She sure was being slow today. She nodded to Jon and replied, "Understood, sir, I like that idea."
However, this now also set Lilura heavily thinking. If either of them needed to be knocked out, what would be able to take her down without killing the XO? Her stun factor was 5x human, and that would kill Amelia. The knock out gasses for her were potent and could paralyze to the point of death for Amelia. What to think of...
Haulval gave a nod of understanding. He would have preferred to have been there on the shuttle, but doing the job remotely was a novel idea and he wasn't sure he had any real counter theory to argue against the point, anyway.
Rose nodded. She was disappointed, but she figured remote piloting the shuttle would be safer after all.
Amelia raised an eyebrow but managed to keep her voice cool "Would it be a good idea to give us some sort of emergency manual override just in case the worse should happen?"
"If the worst happens you will be beamed back here," Jon stated firmly. "But should you need to take control I shall use my command codes to provide authorization. As long as I am convinced you have not been compromised."
"I think I should go too," Aidan said slowly, "though not fully trained, I do have empathic abilities...they are documented in my medical file. I can't control it but it's there. And I think it'd be of value to have Sherlock present sir...he can fly ahead if needed and just wink back if it's too dangerous."
"Negative Lieutenant, you have a far more important job. I need you on the data coming in from any scans we manage to get from this thing. And I'm not willing to put a third person in the path of that thing. And Sherlock is a pet. No pets will be going on any away teams," he couldn't quiet believe his ears at that suggestion.
Amelia scoffed, "Oh I see how it is. Science officers are valuable but XO's are expendable. Is that why I am wearing this red shirt?"
Jon could sense she was joking so he allowed to lighten the mood. He quipped back, "Of course number one, XO's are a dime a dozen," he joked. "Besides your supposed to be the best XO out there."
Amelia smiled. “I’ll remind you that you said that someday..... Sir.” She added on the end quickly.
The Trill science chief sighed softly. "Yes sir," he answered, though he clearly wasn't happy about staying behind. He felt he'd be better served being on hand.
Jon sensed his deflation of mood. "There will be other dangerous away missions Lieutenant," he soothed amused but understanding at the same time. He had been in that position. He was pretty sure everyone at one point had been in that position.
"It's not about the danger," the Trill answered sourly, "what if we don't have any proper connection? What if data can't be received? I need to be there."
"I said negative Lieutenant. No further discussion," Jon said firmly.
Lilura had some ideas about secondary and tertiary links for redundancy and also a life sense with multi-shot stun idea and waited to bring it forward. However, with the current discussion underway, she found no place to break in to voice her ideas.
True frowned slightly. That was the second time in public that he seemed to have put his foot down with Aidan. Now True had seen Ryon get cross with him once but that was because someone on his away team had wandered off during a mission and as the commander of the mission he was responsible. But she found it odd that he seemed to be particularly hard on the trill from the get go.
"Lieutenants Haulval and Belikov," Jon said, "Would you like to fill the room in on the other development you brought to my attention."
Haulval stood up and nodded to the captain. A map of the sector appeared on the screen behind the captain that highlighted the ship's present location and the location of something else. "We have received an encrypted communication. It is an invitation to an uncharted outpost. It appears from Starfleet's long-range intelligence, that it is a trading post of some kind. It is our working hypothesis that whomever sent the transmission may have intelligence to share with us regarding threats in the sector. However, we have no information about the person who sent the transmission nor what their true motives may be."
"the legitimacy of the message is still in question, and we cannot tell who else this message may have been sent to" Rose added
"I think we can all agree that sounds very interesting," Jon added after they had brought everyone else up to speed on their encoded message. "I'm already thinking about the away team," he glanced at Aidan. "I will want you on that one Lieutenant." He didn't add how tired the man was still. Perhaps he needed a word in private there.
"So any thoughts on this development?" he tossed out to the table.
Aidan gave no indication he had heard anything that was said. He just stared at his PADD, inwardly fuming.
Jon looked round the table to see if anyone was going to speak. He could sense the trill was angry. It stabbed at him like white hot bullets but his face didn't betray his discomfort there. He definitely needed a conversation with the man he figured.
"I've always considered myself a fairly optimistic person, but that has me advising caution Captain. I'm sure the crew of the Andromeda won't underestimate such an invitation. I'd like to volunteer my services for that away team." True choose her words carefully.
"From a diplomatic stance point I think thats a good idea counselor," he said outwardly. Inwardly he wasnt that comfortable with the idea but professionally that was the right call and he couldn't argue with it.
"And yes we are erring on the side of caution. The Andromeda will be staying back out of sight in case these are unfriendlies. Lieutenant Karakalakss I want you to work with Lieutenants Belikov and Haulval and retrofit a shuttle so it looks like a civilian ship. I want us to get the lay of the land before sending in a full fledged starship. So that means you will all need to be incognito. Counselor as your volunteering I'll trust you to look into some civilian wear for everyone."
"Yes sir." True replied with a slight smile but her eyes did not linger on the Captain. Instead she glanced around to see if anyone else had anything to add.
Lilura chimed in, "Yes sir, I look forward to working with Belikov and Haulval. One incognito shuttle for the second mission coming right up." She smiled, realizing that now was her chance. "Sir, for the first mission, I would like permission to modify the runabout with enhanced internal life tracking, enhanced anti-personnel stun weapons, and put in an old school Tachyon Communications/control system."
Jon nodded. "Permission granted Lieutenant. Okay well if no one has anything further, lets get too it!"
OFF:
●●● Commander Jonathan Reynolds
Commanding Officer
USS Andromeda
●● Lieutenant True Keading
Chief Counselor
USS Andromeda
●○ Lieutenant JG Lilura Siana Karakalakss
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Andromeda
●● Lieutenant Aidan Datari
Chief Science Officer
USS Andromeda
●○ Lieutenant JG Rosaline Belikov
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Andromeda
●● Lieutenant Amelia Fox
Executive Officer
USS Andromeda
