Escape Clause

Posted on Fri Apr 14th, 2023 @ 10:17pm by Caeda & Endia
Edited on on Tue May 16th, 2023 @ 4:25pm

Mission: In-Between (S1:E4-S1:E5)
Location: Various
Timeline: Mission Day 7 at 1825
2411 words - 4.8 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

Crawling through the jeffries tubes was hard on the knees, but over the past few months the things that she considered hard now were wildly different than what they had been before she had boarded this ship. The innate thrumming sound of the Vengeance and all its power and circuitry was magnified in the narrow duranium plated passage; it was unsettling if she lingered on the sound too much. Instead she focused on the steady taps of her hands and knees - hand, knee, hand, knee. Ahead she saw the sealed door and the steady tapping became more rapid as she moved faster. Getting to the door, she swung her body around so her feet were against it and then opened it.

“Sorry, I know I’m late.” She said in hushed apology. “I have what you need, do you really think this is going to work?” She lifted the much more sensitive medical tricorder up and offered it to the other woman, a frown playing on her delicate lips. It wasn’t an expression she used to wear when they had first met each other. She had of course taken every precaution before she had come here and made sure her movements couldn’t be tracked. Those extension courses had come in handy after all.

“We already talk about this.” The other woman said, her brow furrowing as her light brown hands met with each other before the skirt of her service gold uniform. “Being late could get us caught. And if that happens, we’re dead.”

“I was careful.” The first insisted, frowning as her pale hand tightened around the device. “There was a surprise inspection. I couldn’t get away from it and had to wait for it to be over to get this. Now is it going to work or not?”

“It’s going to work. I know Emmy way around a computer system. But the key will be to convince these Terrans that the issues result from the plasma storm. This medical tricorder should slow me to get better readings.” The second one said, reaching out and taking the PADD roughly. “And then we can see about the transporter systems..get out of this damned place.”

“Alright…” The other sounded less than confident, but she relinquished the pilfered medical tricorder. “Is there anything I can do to help?” There was eagerness born of tension in her voice.

The second woman activated the tricorder and ran her cylinder fingers along the controls, looking through the logs, and observing the features to make sure that everything checked out. With a pretty frown, she closed it and put it on her belt.

“If you can distract the transporter chief off the record, I can make the necessary alterations. I just need him to still be logged in when I get to the controls.”

“What… kind of distraction are we talking about here?” There was a frown. “How distracted are we talking about?”

“Distracted enough that he won’t come back for ten to fifteen minutes, for safety’s sake.” The second woman said, her arms crossing over her slender body. “Be creative, but not so creative that he knows something is going on.”

The first made a face. There was a tried and true method for distracting Terran men, but she didn’t exactly want to go that route. “Alright.. I’ll figure something out for it, yeah. Anything else?”

“If they catch me..” the second one said, frowning seriously. “Forget me. Save yourself. Deny. Find a way home on your own. Do you understand?”

“Would you do that if it were me who got caught?” The question was posed and the first’s brows lifted.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” The second woman said, putting her fists on her hips and lifting her eyebrows.

“Everything.” The first replied and grinned despite their situation.

“Well, whatever I would do, it…wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do.” the second woman said with a slightly softened expression. She looked into the first one’s eyes and, slowly, put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. It was such a soft gesture that the words that came after it almost sounded like a metaphorical slap. “No matter what, survive and get home. That’s an order. And I do still have the authority to give you orders, no matter what universe we might find ourselves in.”

“Well, you’ll just have to court martial me when we get home, because respectfully: fuck that. I wouldn’t leave you in this place no matter how much you tried to order me to.” She reached up and squeezed the hand on her shoulder. “We’re in this together.”

The second woman grinned despite herself. They had grown close since they had arrived in this God-forsaken place. They were a team, and the second woman knew it, even if she was still rough around the edges. She leaned in slightly, as if she was going for a hug, but then she pulled back and took another step away to confirm it.

“Let me know when you’re ready for operation transporter chief.” she said, her smile still lingering at the corners of her mouth. “And we’ll see about that court martial in a few days, deal?”

“Deal. I’ll go first. Give me five minutes to get going and follow?” The first said, not seeming put off by the lack of hug.

The second woman nodded and stepped away from the entrance they had taken. She would wait the requested amount of time and then she would make her way after her partner in crime.

—

“Come on, chief.” She said, sighing and leaning on the console. “I could really use the help checking over the buffers and you look really bored standing here. Help a girl out, won’t you?” Her pretty eyes were beseeching, feminine. She played with a lock of her dark hair. “Please?”

Micah Courtney wasn’t typically considered an easy mark, but he was on his ship and had no reason whatsoever to suspect something untoward was happening. He looked at the girl opposite him and offered a smile, guarded but containing interest.

“I still don’t understand what a nurse wants with pattern buffers.” he said, his voice sounding hesitant, “besides, I’m really not supposed to leave my post right now without a replacement.”

“I have to make sure the biometric filters are functioning properly. It's routine maintenance. I just owed someone a favor. It is only going to take like ten minutes, I promise I’ll go fast.” She offered up with doe eyes and pouting lips.

He was and had always been a sucker for a pretty face, so he relented after a long pause of thinking.

“Oh, Gods, fine. But it better only take ten minutes.” he said, stepping around the console. “And if my boss finds out I’m missing, I’m telling them you drugged me.”

“Thank you!” She said excitedly and grinned, though the excitement stemmed purely from the fact she had succeeded and nothing else. “I owe you.” With that, she began to walk back out of line of sight of the console to the buffers, waiting on him to come and open them for her so she could pretend to be busy.

A few short moments after the two of them stepped into the alcove where the buffers were, the doors swished open again and her partner entered the room. She came bearing nothing and walked up to the console like it was the simplest thing in the world. The first thing she did was turn off the console’s sound and then she got to work entering in the complex coordinates and additional programing required for the journey they wanted to take. The entire process took about three minutes and she then spent several more checking and rechecking what she had inputted, then, quickly, she concealed the settings in a hidden file. After encrypting it, she turned the console’s sound back on and then scurried out of the door again.

“No, that’s the tertiary buffer again.” Micah said with a chuckle. “Jeez, did you pay attention in your transporter and holograms course at the Academy? Or did you just get by on your looks?”


“No, no. I’m sorry. It was just a really, really long night.” The woman said in apology and sighed. “I promise I’m not usually like this. I don’t really know what’s wrong with me. Thanks for being patient and helping.” She did her very best to control the nervousness trying to creep into her voice and she was doing a relatively good job of it. It wasn’t like she could go out and check if everything was going as planned. She just had to stand there and hope.

“No, it’s okay. I won’t tell on you, believe me.” he said, closing the panel to the buffer assembly and standing up straight. “It doesn’t seem like you got whatever you were here for. That makes me think you’re down here for a different reason.”

“Huh? What do you mean? I just needed to look at the readings and logs and get an eye on the buffers themselves.” She frowned a bit then, grabbing her elbow with the opposite hand.

“Sure, sure. And all at 2300 hours instead of during Alpha shift.” he said, smiling. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were here for something else.”

He paused and looked at her, his smile growing.

“Don’t worry. I like spending time with you too.”

She managed a small but convincing smile. Her heart was racing in panic, and she gave a nervous laugh to try and redirect some of that to a believable reaction. “Okay, okay… you caught me. I saw you were on this shift and used it as a bit of an excuse.”

“That’s insanely cute.” he said, shaking his head. “But you could get me in trouble. How about I take you out sometime when neither of us have work to do?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I guess I just thought a few minutes so late wouldn’t be a big deal.” She frowned and looked away, pushing her hair behind her ear as if she were sad she were being chastised for wanting to spend time with him.

“That’s okay, I understand.” he said. “Just..think next time, ya know?”

He offered a smile, asymmetrical and condescending, yet it was still a smile.

“Yeah, of course.” Doctors did no harm… doctors did no harm…

“Well I’ll get out of your hair then.” She said and smiled a bit brighter.

He offered a wave and a smile but said nothing else, only deciding to watch her as she turned to leave. His looks, at this point, were more than what was required by professionalism.

—

Computer Control had been heavily occupied since the trouble first started aboard ISS Vengeance as engineers and Ops officers with computer expertise worked around the clock to properly identify what was going on and to fix it before something terrible happened. Traffic flow was heavy.

A woman with beautiful smooth light-brown skin and her black curly hair stood at a console aside from the rest, taking in readings with a tricorder and inputting commands in turn. On her collar was the rank of a Chief Petty Officer.

“Check the secondary core again, Collins,” she called out over her shoulder. “Use the power control subroutines as a reference and go through them line by line if you have to.”

“Aye Chief, though we’ve already checked it twice and well…” The man hesitated and shook his head, thinking better of continuing and instead just focusing on his job. It wasn’t like they were getting anywhere with this, and it was starting to get under peoples’ skin more than anything else they had encountered while they were out there.

“Then direct your attention to the intermix control code.” she said, dismissively. “Come to me if you find anything so I can make sure we aren’t wasting the officers’ time.”

Collins turned to do as he had been asked without any more protests. They wouldn’t have worked and would have just wasted time anyways. He focused his attention on his station, and not five minutes after he had been tasked to it, he cursed under his breath. His fingers found the console, and then he picked up a PADD next to him before he moved to find the Chief again.

“Chief, look at this. The fluctuations just seem to be getting worse?” He offered her the PADD, “and much more erratic.”

She picked up the PADD and noticed exactly what she had been looking for. After months of work, and planning, and stress, it was finally happening. She suppressed a smile and put the PADD down next to her.

“I’ll study this further on my own, but I think we might need to suggest a core restart tomorrow. I suspect that purging the system might help.” she said, and then logged off of the console she had been using. I’m going to go study this elsewhere, Collins. Good work.”

“Shouldn’t we alert Lieutenant M’Tras…?” Collins asked with a slight note of hesitation in his voice. There was something about this woman he found perturbing and he didn’t really want to make her angry, but he also knew it should probably be mentioned to their chief.

“Who do you think I’m going to make the suggestion to, Collins?” she asked, her eyes shifting to meet him. They were cold, not at all inviting further analysis from him. She’d never had a reputation for being the nicest woman in the world, but the last few months had made it worse. “Now get back to work and stop asking stupid questions.”

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Collins replied and practically skittered away from her to do just that. Scary woman.

As he walked away she gave a slight sigh and lowered the PADD to her side. She had finally put the last phase of their plan into motion. Now all that was left to do was to wait for the right moment.

END