Loss of Power

Posted on Mon Apr 3rd, 2023 @ 1:47am by Lieutenant Commander Rin

Mission: Season 6: Episode 2: Survival
Location: Medical Supply Shed
Timeline: MD2
1411 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Rin's eyes snapped open.

Last thing she remembered was stepping into her alcove, that makeshift monstrosity that had been assembled in the medical supply shed. It was awkward too. The Med staff knew when she was there, but if supplies were needed, she knew they would come in, and she could just imagine what a disconcerting sight she was, the xB stowed away in a closet quietly charging like a Borg. (OOC: this is established in a JP that hasn't yet been published.)

Now, the room was dark, and her head was fuzzy. There was a proper order to things in her regenerative cycle, and when that got disrupted, the results were... unpleasant.

She didn't particularly like the dark. Once upon a time, she could see through just about anything, before her optical systems had been disassembled. The dark always reminded her of how much more fragile she now was, how much she had lost.

She waited several long seconds for power to be restored, but the room remained dark. Stepping off the platform, Rin used her hands to navigate around the shelving that stored precious medical supplies. At last she found the door, but she had to manually slide it out of the way to escape.

Everything was quiet, almost exactly as quiet as it had been inside the shed. The artificial lighting was all gone in the caverns, although enough light spilled in from the cave opening to make it clear Rin was alone.

No tents. No pre fab structures. No one walking briskly to wherever they had to be, spending as little time in the cold as possible. The cavern seemed even bigger empty than when it was full, large and echoing.

She climbed the incline toward the landing pad outside the cave system. The snow underfoot was still packed down but the hundreds of feet which regularly stopped over it. But there were no shuttles. She was utterly alone.

She pushed down a moment of panic in her chest. Surely, they hadn't all packed up and left, despite the evidence before her. And, surely, nothing could have swept through here so completely in the span of a couple hours without leaving a trace of itself.

She shivered. The medical shed was heated, so she hadn't been wearing her coat when she stumbled out of it.

Things went black.

---

Rin's eyes snapped open. She was standing in her alcove again.

Shit. Clearly the power had cut off while she was mid-cycle, probably when her neural caches were being cleared. No choice but to report to Medbay now for full diagnostics before her brain got anymore glitchy than it was.

The door still wouldn't open automatically, so she once more muscled it aside and stepped outdoors.

It was dark, but that didn't matter. Everything was crystal clear to her: the world was ash.

The whole planet had been strip-mined: organic matter re-processed, metals pulled from the ground, worthy technology assimilated while the rest was left to crumble into nothing.

Screams echoed in the distance, which made no sense, as the citizens would have been taken long before this level of destruction had been inflicted.

She looked down at her hands, knowing what she would find. Implants, plating, integrated tools and weapons erupting from gray flesh.

She realized she was still unconscious, trapped in one version of a hundred nightmares that cycled through her dreams.

Wake up, Rin.

---

Rin's eyes snapped open. She was standing outside an unfamiliar door. From the design of the corridor, she was clearly on a Starfleet ship, although she had no idea which one.

She momentarily looked down at her hands. She was carrying a bottle of Riesling.

Her attention snapped back to the door as it slid open, revealing a woman maybe in her fifties, with red-brown hair hanging to her shoulders. This was Katie Addison. They had never met in person, until now, although they had spoken over subspace coms.

"Come in!" Katie welcomed, moving aside so Rin could enter.

"Thank you," Rin said, offering the bottle.

Katie looked a little surprised, although not upset. "You remember his favorite wine?"

Rin was, in fact, puzzled by that. She was pretty sure he had never mentioned it, nor that she had remembered it, until now. Yet here the bottle was.

Something felt off, but she shrugged it aside. The room was bright and warm and welcoming. It almost felt like home, even though she had never been here before.

But it had James Addison, who was stepping out from a back room as Rin had entered and Katie was running off with the wine.

"I'm so glad you could visit," James said, throwing a big hug around Rin.

"Me too." For a long moment she just stood there being held, not wanting to let go of that sensation. "We need to talk," she murmured. She had been waiting for this conversation for months: a chance to share her feelings for her ex-husband, just as Tate had suggested she do.

"It's ok," James said. "I know."

He does?

"I don't think you do."

"Of course I do. I know you. I know you couldn't help it."

What? That didn't sound like James at all. He would never make that kind of assumption, and he had long since accepted the reality of her situation.

There was something very wrong. It wasn't just his words. It was his voice. It was...mechanical.

She knew what she was going to see even before she looked up: his skin turning gray with black veins, implants blossoming to the surface as the nanites raced through his bloodstream.

She looked down to find her assimilation tubules retracting from where they had pierced his neck.

Rin spun as she heard a crash behind her. The wine bottle had fallen to the floor as Katie staggered as the assimilation process quickly claimed her as well.

No, no no no no no... Rin realized she was still unconscious. Or, at least, she hoped so. She really, really hoped so.

She also had no idea how to get out of it.

Wake up. You have to wake up.

But she didn't.

She couldn't watch this, so she darted for the door. Didn't matter if this was just a dream. She couldn't watch it. She dashed down the outside corridor, even though she had no idea where she should go...or how to even get there if she did, considering she had never been on this ship before.

She kept looking at her hands, but they never changed. They were still hers. They were still Rin's. But they were cold. Almost blue. Everything was so cold now, the warmth of James's quarters long behind her.

You have to wake up.

---

Rin's eyes snapped open.

It was dark and cold, with a wind that threatened to knock her off her feet. There wasn't enough light for Rin to see her hands, but she could feel that they were hers - for the moment at least. They were also half frozen, and she tucked them under her armpits in a desperate attempt to keep them warm.

The snow was coming down hard. She thought she spotted lights off to her left, although she couldn't be sure, and she wasn't at all sure she wanted to see what new nightmare awaited her there.

And then, a presence. A sense in the back of her mind that she wasn't alone. A sense she hadn't felt in weeks.

Ebi.

She heard him chuckle. Not a mocking one, but a genuine chuckle, as if she had just said something amusing.

"I miss you," she said.

"It's OK. I'm safe. I'll see you soon."

"You're not real. I want you to be, but you're not. You're gone. And I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. My time on the Elysium was some of the best I've had in years. And I'm not gone. I'm just...lost."

She couldn't see a damn thing in the snow. And she knew she wouldn't. At least nothing real.

You're still in the alcove, she reminded herself. You have to wake up.

Buffeted by the wind, she fell back into the snow, and every part of her that came in contact with it ached from the cold.

And she still could not wake up.

(to be continued)

 

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