A Sudden Reversal
Posted on Sat Jun 11th, 2016 @ 8:28pm by Lieutenant Riley Sukotav & Lieutenant Seren Hawke & Ensign Six of Ten & Suresh & Vic & Niro & Lieutenant Commander T'Rowl N'Riss C.Phil & Ensign Leela Carter & Ensign Reva Madhava & Lieutenant Janus Heyerdahl
Edited on on Sat Jun 18th, 2016 @ 10:48pm
Mission:
Further Challenges
Location: EFS Kohanna
* EFS Kohanna *
At this point, N'Riss merely continued to stand there as he had hoped to appear relatively innocuous. Considering his Caitian visage, he didn't feel that was too difficult. In a few moments, however, he was silently allowing his claws to issue forth from his paws, hopefully without anyone noticing the glint of light that this might have produced in the process.
As soon as the lift doors closed, Vic turned to N’Riss. “If it’s not one thing it’s another. The good news is, Reva knows what she’s doing. We lost a team to an alternate dimension once before, and she and Riley, our Riley, were on the team sent to get them back. Let’s hope this Riley knows as much as ours does.”
"My guess would honestly be that both of them have identical memories, at least to some degree, but that would also indicate that if they had wanted to use something that they remembered against us, then they would very well have been able to do that as well." N'Riss frowned at this admission, soon once more punctuating it with a purr, which was of course a predictable action on his part.
“My real concern is Niro,” Vic admitted. “Not that I really trust the other two either but Riley seems alright. Mostly.”
"Do you have any other input on Niro that I should know about?" N'Riss purred once again.
Vic’s eyes opened a little wider. “Oh, do I? You mind if I tell you the fast way?”
"The fastest would be preferable, merrow!" Soon enough the Caitian officer's eyes were wide open.
Vic kept a close eye on N’Riss as he filled the Caitian’s thoughts with a list of Niro’s exploits. “Now you know. I don’t think this one is any better.”
Well, most certainly that wasn't a comfortable way to handle things, but he was able to take it for the time being. Swallowing deeply, N'Riss tapped the side of his head cautiously and looked back toward the other individual. "I...appreciate the rapidity with which you were able to do that."
“Now you see.” Vic checked his console. “Tractor beam holding. Everything looks alright for now.”
"Well, I should just keep watch then, considering that I now have a very good understanding of the situation, murrrr." N'Riss silently thought that it would have been a good way to share information in other situations, but he filed those thoughts away for another time.
* Sickbay *
Stepping into the medbay, Leela frowned at the sight of Six stretched out on a biobed. “EMH, what’s her status?”
“Lieutenant Carter, Ensign Six is stable. I have her sedated currently, but only because one of her implants is still marginally out of alignment. It would cause her some blurred vision, leading to headaches if she were awake.”
“Well... we’re going to have to inflict a headache on her, then. Wake her up, please,” Carter ordered.
“Yes Ma’am,” the EMH stepped over and manipulated the console to adm a stimulant and pain reliever. “She should be awake in just a moment.”
The visions in Six’s head began to fade and those looking at her would see the easing of the tension in her body. Suresh frowned as he stepped closer to the biobed. “What happened to her?”
“We’re not entirely sure. Her implants were out of phase and she called for help, but we’re just... It might have been tied to whatever caused the rift that sent us here,” Leela said.
“She was also contacted by the Borg, via her neural transceiver,” the EMH informed them. “So, they know we are here. Or were there to be more precise. But we’re not there anymore I understand?” He looked to Leela for confirmation.
“We’re not where we were,” she nodded. “But now we’re somewhere, though we’re not entirely sure where. Or when. Or something. Reva understands it,” Leela admitted.
“It’s 2388,” Suresh muttered. His gaze had not wavered from Six.
Seren frowned and looked over to Leela. I am going to stay close. I don’t trust this one. Are the shields still up?
They are. “Well, same year at least,” she muttered. “Six? Can you talk, Six? Suresh is here but he’s not your Suresh... We’re in a different universe.”
Six’s eyes fluttered as she heard voices. It was Carter’s voice she knew, which hopefully meant she wasn’t dead. She also heard ‘Suresh is here’. If that was true, then they were at home. Her eyes opened fully and as the EMH had predicted, her vision was blurred. She could make out Suresh’s outline standing by her and she sat up to throw her arms around him.
“We’re home then?”
Suresh stiffened at the contact, but then his arms encircled her, holding her close.
“No, no, Six, we’re in a different universe. This isn’t the Suresh you know,” Leela said, stepping forward to see about easing them apart. “So, stop this.”
The emotions Six picked up from him were at once overwhelming and confusing, anger mixed with longing. She let go and pulled back.
“Oh. Sorry. You just look...yeah, alrighty then.”
Suresh’s eyes narrowed at Leela, but when he spoke to Six, his voice was soft. “No problem.”
“Satisfied?” Seren asked Suresh. “What exactly did you hope to accomplish with this?”
Suresh shot him a glare. “None of your business.”
“I see. You won’t mind, then, when we cut this non-reunion short. The EMH will likely agree that Six needs to rest,” Leela said.
“Yes, she does need rest,” the EMH agreed.
“There’s something you all need to know.” Six finally spoke up. “The Borg are close. In this universe as well.” She closed her eyes for a moment and then the view screen on the wall came to life. On it was a view of space showing two Borg cubes. The readings gave a position that was just at nine hours away. “There.”
Tensing, Leela looked over the data then stepped slightly away and opened a comm to Reva, N’Riss and Vic: “Six is awake. She says that the Borg are nine hours from our location and heading this way.” She didn’t wait for any conversation back. Instead, she looked at the Suresh in the room and said, “You’d best warn your crew as well.”
Suresh nodded. “Your Reva can inform Riley since he’s with her. I’ll inform Niro. You realize, if they arrive before you all get back through whatever rift brought you here, and we get away, we’ll have a fight on our hands. Unless….” He looked back at Six. “You can stall them. Given the appearance of this ship, tell them the assimilation has already begun and there’s no need for them.”
“That might not be a good idea.” Six’s voice was tense. “I’m the reason they are coming.”
Leela asked, “Can we cut you off from them? Make the Borg think you’re dead?”
“Possibly. While I was out, I went to a place called Unimatrix Zero. It’s a frequency where Borg can meet outside the Collective. Apparently I used to go there but haven’t since I was reclaimed.”
“Wasn’t it destroyed?” Seren asked.
“During Voyager’s time, yes, but it’s been recreated. A...friend there is part of the Queen’s Guard. He promised to keep us informed. If we disable my transceiver, they will think I am dead, yes, but that will cut me off from our early warning, and can also just be for a short time or I will die,” Six answered.
“Die?” Leela blinked; she hadn't realized the transceiver was so integral to Six’s life. “Well... Then we’ll find another way around that. Blankets of containment fields, perhaps.” She knew that was unlikely to work for long and would take a massive amount of energy.
“Maybe, with the ship as it is, Reva can open a rift to get us back home. The ship will help her,” Six assured them. “I can keep watch on the other side and hopefully find Yanos with some news.”
“Right,” Leela tried to sound positive.
* Engineering *
“... and we’ll route the Korenna’s power through here, once I convince Leel... uh, Lieutenant Carter, that we should let the Korenna fire on us. The power will surge along the phaser ray.” Reva smiled up at Riley, grinning that she had it figured out. Her enthusiasm radiated out.
Riley silently studied the display before them. He glanced back at Janus, then finally nodded. It will work. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting Niro to agree to fire. The corners of his mouth twitched in amusement.
“We’ll have to change the shield frequency just before the phaser hit,” Janus noted. “It will have to match that of the Korenna. I’ll take care of dealing with Niro.”
“Okay. Thanks, Janus,” Reva called to him. As she kept working on the power conduits, she spoke quietly to the Korenna’s Riley, “Just a couple more relays to shore up....” She paused then hissed, “Oh shit... crap, crap... Janus!” She watched as one of her relays flickered with too much power then failed as the Borg tech sapped the power out of it. It was a relay powering the shields. “Shields are down!”
Janus tapped his comm badge. “Janus to all hands, shields are down. Working on a fix now.” He turned to Reva. “Can you ‘talk’ to the ship? Get it to compensate?” His hands tapped rapidly at his console. “It would be faster than me.”
“Yeah, yeah, working on it,” Reva slapped her hand against the bulkhead and started thinking at the ship. It felt weird, but she could see it was working on the relays and power couplings, rerouting power to the shields. After just a moment, the shields were back up. “We’re good! We’re good! All fixed.”
Riley checked the display and made one minor adjustment, then nodded. That should prevent a recurrence.
Moments later, the red alert began to sound. “Weapons are charging!” Janus called out. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Ah...,” Reva looked at Riley, wondering why he wasn’t speaking. It was a little weird; her Riley didn’t rely on his telepathy all the time, even with her. “The ship did that! Someone transported to the Korenna.”
* Sickbay *
“Red alert!” Leela shouted as Six and the new Suresh disappeared. She tapped her commbadge and repeated herself: “Red alert! Vic, N’Riss, meet me on the bridge.”
“Already there,” came Vic’s reply. “Trying to get a lock on her now.” There was a pause and he cursed loudly. “Their shields are up.”
Having been following along, N'Riss watched the doors in front of him open up on the bridge. "There might still be some way to diffuse them as such, though I do not like it any more than any of you do I should say, merrow!"
Leela arrived a moment later and ordered, “Open a channel to the Korenna.” She waited a heartbeat till N’Riss nodded that one was open. “Niro, drop your shields. We’re beaming our crewmember back over here.”
Niro appeared on the main viewer. “You are?” He leaned forward, propping his arms on his knees. “I might have other ideas.”
“We will fire on you, Niro, and our firepower is greater than yours. Our shields are stronger as well.” So long as they didn’t go down, at least, Leela thought. “You have one minute to lower your shields and beam her back over.”
“Give me ten and she’s all yours.” Niro smiled slowly. “Assuming I can get her away from Suresh.”
“Let’s say five,” she answered, compromisingly.
“It always was hard to say no to you, Leela. Five it is, barring unforeseen circumstances. And may I say now, thank you.” The screen went black.
“Thank you for...what exactly?” Vic asked.
Leela frowned, thinking that through. “Shit. If that were my ship and I’d just seen this one, I’d want the source of the Borg tech to make my ship stronger. And look what he has now.”
“This is not going to end well,” Vic predicted. “I’m not sure if we should worry about Six or feel sorry for Niro.”
***********************
Lt. Commander T’Rowl N’Riss
Lt. (jg) Leela Carter
Lt. Seren Hawke
Vic
Ensign Six Of Ten
EMH
Ensign Reva Madhava
Lt. Janus Heyerdahl
Riley (Alt)
Suresh (Alt)
Niro (Alt)
