From: Shawn _ (alamo_nate_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2008 - 14:09:27 PDT
=Back to Work=
(cont'd from "Setting Up For The Chase")
LOCATION: GATEWAY Station
SCENE: CO's Ready Room
STARDATE: [2.8]0616.1339
Commander Daisy Davidson stared idly out one of the windows in her Ready Room. The tiny portal afforded her an excellent view of the wormhole, and often she would find herself admiring the bright swirls of random color and movement that eternally danced around the Celestial Temple. But now, her eyes were not on the wormhole, but on the surrounding space- she scanned the darkness of the void in a futile attempt to see the ship that had engaged the station and then fled, about 40 minutes ago. Of course, she saw nothing, but that didn't keep her from looking.
Drake's information seemed to indicate that the ship they'd encountered- and perhaps more importantly, the woman who commanded it- were not from this dimension. Daisy hated classes on interdimensional theory back in the Academy; they'd always made her head hurt. But she knew it was possible- there had been countless encounters with parallel imensions throughout Starfleet's history, and many of them had been on less than friendly terms.
Yet despite all that, Daisy couldn't shake the worry that the woman she had seen- identical to her in almost every way- wasn't just some refugee from some mirror universe. Daisy had been through a lot in Dominion captivity, and having her genetic information stolen from her to mass-produce a line of clones was something she could never forgive. Daisy wasn't sure she would do if it turned out this woman was a clone... she hoped it wouldn't come to that.
The door chimed, and Daisy spun in her chair to face it. "Come in."
Lt. Jacob Crichton entered, coming to a stop before her desk and folding his hands ceremoniously behind his back. He was still dressed in civilian clothes, and Daisy noted how out-of-character it was for Crichton to stand on ceremony like that. She wondered how the last few weeks had treated *him*.
"Commander," Crichton said. "Requesting permission to return to duty."
"At ease, lieutenant," Daisy smiled. Crichton relaxed now, looking more like his old self. "Good to see you, Jake."
"Likewise," the CEO said, looking around the office. "I see you managed to keep the station in one piece while I was gone."
"Mostly," Daisy said. "There *is* a replicator on Deck 5 of the Commerce module that's been acting up."
"It's so good to feel needed," Crichton smirked.
"I hate to cut our reunion short," Daisy said, rising. "But I'm afraid you've come back at a bit of an odd time."
"What do you mean?"
"We're about to leave, actually," Daisy said. "A little under one hour ago, GATEWAY was engaged by a vessel who's quantum signature does not appear to match that of our own dimension. We locked on a tractor-beam, but the ship managed to break the hold and escape. I've got the science department keeping an eye on it's warp signature... as soon as the CHANTICO is prepped, we're going after it."
"Sounds like fun," Crichton said.
"I'm supposed to put an official notice in the station log that you've returned to duty," Daisy said, "..but I think we'll hold off on all the official stuff until we get back. How soon can you be ready to go?"
"Just need to suit up," Crichton smiled, glancing down at his civilian clothes.
"Good," Daisy nodded. "Then get to the CHANTICO, do a final check on the major systems. I don't want that ship getting away because we have to fix a flat tire."
"Sure thing, boss," Crichton nodded, turning to leave.
"And Crichton," Daisy said, stopping him as he reached the door. He turned his head to look at her. "It's good to have you back."
"Thank you, Commander," Crichton nodded. "It's good to be back."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOCATION: USS CHANTICO
SCENE: Bridge
Crichton sat at the Engineering console, monitoring the diagnostic program he was running on the CHANTICO's major systems. He fell back into the rhythm of work almost immediately, and he was so focused on getting the diagnostic finished in time for the CHANTICO to leave that he didn't notice the person standing behind him until they decided to speak.
"I trust you have security clearance for that console, lieutenant?"
Crichton turned, and saw Eishnala sh'Kor standing there, something almost approaching a smile on her face.
"You mean this isn't a FedCom terminal?" Crichton grinned. "My mistake, I was just trying to brush up on local news."
"When did you get back?" Kor asked.
"Half an hour ago," Crichton said. "Daisy wasted no time in cracking the whip, as you can see."
"We *are* in a hurry," Kor shrugged. "The science teams report the warp signature is beginning to dissipate. We've got maybe another half hour before it's degraded past the point where we can follow it."
"Then I guess I'll just have to go faster," Crichton said, cracking his knuckles and returning his attention to the console.
"Good idea," Kor nodded. "We'll catch up later. Nice to see you, lieutenant."
"Thank you, commander," Crichton nodded. "Later."
==================================================================
Shawn Putnam
a.k.a.
Jacob Crichton, Lieutenant
Chief of Engineering
GATEWAY Station, GS-2
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Nov 19 2008 - 03:10:53 PST