Nemesis

Posted on 06 Aug 2024 @ 7:27pm by Ensign S'Ers-a M'Lyr'Zor & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius

4,269 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Episode 20 - Reconstruction
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 4, Main Shuttlebay
Timeline: MD 01, 1723 hrs

[ON]

Sera's boots echoed on the deck of main shuttlebay. Given the warp core's less than perfect performance during the systems test, she thought it would be prudent to inspect the cores of all of the vessels currently under the command of Captain Tarin.

She walked around one of the shuttles, and noted the name Virginia. Very well, Virginia would be first. Efficiency. Sera opened the rear hatch and stepped inside, reaching into her tool bag to obtain the phase coil resonator. Much of the shuttle's mandatory maintenance appeared subpar...if the documentation was to be believed. So it was to be a full rundown of both the shuttles. It was going to take hours.

However, before starting, Sera took a moment to look about the interior. It appeared well maintained, but looks could be deceiving. She walked over to the seating, drawn to one of the bulkheads. It was pristine smooth, and then...not.

Her nails scored neat lines in the bonded plating of the bulkhead to gain enough purchase to remain upright as waves of pleasure flowed through her. She felt hands shifting around her waist, gripping her hips tightly as she was pulled backwards--

Fvadt! Sera groaned, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were at risk of falling apart. Her breathing had increased to almost a breathless pant. She really should go to sickbay, however, how exactly was she going to explain all of this? Further consideration was needed.

"Um, excuse me...what you are doing inside my shuttle?" suddenly asked a firm male voice. A tall and well-built red-collared man had rounded the side of the open aft ramp and now stood with his arms folded across his chest, staring curiously yet cautiously at this unknown yellow-collared woman. "Shuttlebay's off-limits to all unauthorized personnel."

The voice startled Sera out of her internal reverie, and she forcefully relaxed her arms and responded to inquiry.

"I am authorized." Sera began as she had composed herself as much as was possible and turned to face who had confronted her. "Whoever has been keeping the maintenance logs for the ship has a rather...unorthodox method of documentation. It appears that the core had not been adequately serviced in..." Her voice trailed off for a second as internally she said, "37 days 16 hours and 29 minutes." Meanwhile, she outwardly settled on, "...some time."

He shook his head with a slight double-take after she spoke. "What? I maintain the logs. Well, most of the time. I can't vouch for anyone else's record-keeping who comes in here and starts 'looking around' without telling me," he discreetly chided again. Darius then let out an annoyed breath to calm himself and approached until he was standing about five feet from her tall and lean form. Her body's physique beneath her tight uniform certainly was attractive, he couldn't deny to himself. "Lamar Darius, conn," he then said, extending his hand to her in a formal greeting while noticing her pointed Vulcan ears and fair bronze skin with a green-blooded undertone. "And this gal here is Virginia," his dark brown eyes flicked to the Type 6 shuttle.

"Sera. Engineering." She responded simply, not even attempting to given this Lamar her actual name. The odds were not in his favor that he'd pronounce it appropriately. Most off-worlders could pronounce 'Sera,' at least. She pointedly ignored his territoriality regarding the shuttle craft. Perhaps if he had documented the maintenance appropriately this interaction could have been avoided. Kaiidth. "I am aware of this shuttle's designation."

Sera then looked down to his outstretched hand and then back to his face. She made no move to take it. "Are you aware, Mr. Darius, that one of the strongest taboos in Vulcan culture is making uninvited physical contact?"

He started to express a smirk but suddenly experienced something different and his brown irises became distant. A vivid hallucination overcame his mind.

"Right. I'm," he tried to phrase it in a way which wouldn't make him sound like a stereotypical uneducated pilot, "performing maintenance on a couple of our Type 6s and trying to increase the maximum power generation output across the local C and D bands. Which means 'tinkering' with their warp cores' magnetic constrictors. But I don't want to start the re-calibrations without the right tools...or expertise?"

"One does not simply 'tinker' with the warp core magnetic constrictors. Do you have certifications to perform maintenance on this?"

"Sure. I'm qualified to service any Class 1 through 5 shuttle. Wouldn't be much of a conn officer if I wasn't..." he smirked with jest to her.

Reality snapped back into place and he blinked his eyes several times. It felt like he'd never left the shuttlebay, yet the visions and strange new recalling of a prior conversation within main engineering with this woman left him momentarily stunned. "I...what were you saying?" A light frown formed across his brow.

"I was informing you that I would not shake your hand, Mr. Darius. I am here to ensure that the shuttles' warp cores are are in optimal condition. After the failure that occurred during the systems' test, it is logical to run in-depth diagnostics and to bring the maintenance logs back into compliance."

"Oh. Yeah, right." His hand dropped down to the side of his thigh while he reached up with his other digits and wiped his eyes as if to refocus. "The shuttles are fine. I could have told you that. You don't need to worry or come up here and check them. Well, not without notifying me, first," he then lightly retorted. "Because I do keep good maintenance logs...and I can do my job just as well as you do yours, Ensign Sera."

This was incredibly inefficient. Sera had not 'budgeted' time to engage with a, what she presumed was a territorial display. She was uncertain how best to engage here.

"As you say, Mr. Darius." Sera then turned away from him and back to the small core. She pointedly avoided looking at the bulkhead. With the resonator already in her hand, she crouched down and opened the panel that exposed the small matrix chamber that housed the dilithium and began scanning with the device to look for micro fractures or energy gradients within the crystal matrix.

That was it? A half-assed placation then back to messing around in my shuttle? Nope. Not on his watch. He stepped closer to her within the shuttle while shaking his head to himself. Vulcan taboos be damned. "Hey, I don't care where you come from or what your 'culture' is, you should learn some manners." He reached out and placed a firm hand on the back of her shoulder to force her attention. Suddenly an intense wave of heat overcame him and he momentarily stumbled backward.

~~

It was ungodly hot. His mouth immediately parched from the lack of humidity in the air. Looking about at the desert landscape he saw he was under the shade of an outcropping of rocks standing next to...her. Well, a younger version of her. She crouched behind a particularly large cluster of wickedly sharp looking succulents. Off in the distance...there appeared to be a group of people, riding strange-looking animals that appeared to be roughly the same size a horse. The juvenile Vulcan engineer darted out into the open and extended her arms in a neutral manner to show she was unarmed.

"T'Kahr Shi'yah..." The words came from somewhere...it was the name of the desert travelers on migration through Lyr'Zor lands. They represented an honest freedom. Her world, meanwhile was a prison of secrets.

"Child. You are far from home. Are you lost?" one of the robed males asked as they pulled up to her. All that was visible was his dark eyes as the rest of him was covered with a hood and facial wrapping to keep out the elements.

Another voice, a female's chimed in, "Look at her. She's Lyr'Zor, most likely on kahs'wan. Leave her be."

"Take me with you."

~~

"...T'Kahr Shi'yah..." Darius mumbled in the aft compartment of the shuttlecraft before stumbling back into one of the rear seating arrangements and softly landing on his butt. He widened his eyes then blinked in an attempt to alleviate the visceral sensation of dryness from convective desert heat.

Sera was quite perturbed at the conn officer's words. Manners? Human manners, perhaps? Typical. Turning her head, she readied herself to tell him so when she felt the weight of his hand against her back. He was touching her?

"Nirsh!" Sera said in an emphatic tone while whipping her body around in a defensive manner, however in doing so she witnessed Darius stumbling backwards with an indecipherable expression on his face...however his strange actions were less concerning than what he said. T'Kahr Shi'yah? How would he know such a word?

She quickly stood and looked at Darius with a pointed expression. "Who taught you the words you just spoke? Why..." Her voice trailed off upon seeing the slightly akimbo position the conn officer had assumed on the shuttle bench seating. "Are you unwell, Mr. Darius?"

Clear vision finally returned to his eyes after several seconds, this time not obscured by thermal shimmers or the intense albedo from the ground's bright desert sand. The Vulcan woman was now looking (and speaking?) to him and he was somehow sitting down in one of the shuttle's small aft couches. "...What?" he managed to say, both figuratively and literally with a slightly discombobulated frown spreading across his brow and wandering gaze.

Sera was uncertain what to do here. Her eyes roved over his physical form, looking for something out of place, but she knew so little of human physiology that no doubt if there was something wrong, it would not be obvious to her. She did not know this man, and his behavior towards her had been rather...aggressive, perhaps? Should she call for assistance - perhaps alert sick bay?

"You...you spoke that I needed to learn some...manners, and then you chose to touch me physically after I informed you that doing so without invitation was taboo. I am more concerned over what you said after...T'Kahr Shi'yah. Do you recall saying this?"

He tried to recall his recent memories and decently succeeded. One of his hands reached up to his eyes where his knuckles rubbed against his cheekbone. Darius remembered his past words in relation to her manners - or lack thereof. And he also remembered the entirety of his very recent and vivid daydream. "Yeah, your manners do need some work," he confirmed before answering her question. "T'Kahr Shi'yah?" the Vulcan accent with which he spoke the foreign phrase was uncannily pure. "Don't know anything about that but I think they're nomads from Vulcan. Your homeworld. I can't really tell you how I know that. It just...came to me when I touched you. But you were in that desert...weren't you?" When in doubt, test the impossible.

"I am not human. Perhaps it is your manners that require adjustment." Sera retorted, somewhat irked at the arrogance yet again on display from humanity. How much subsumption of her culture and beliefs were required to please these mercurial, impulsive creatures?

Forcing her pique down, Sera continued, albeit in a calm tone which belied her inner musings. "They are nomadic peoples who frequent my clan's holdings for trade and supplies. They are not well-known by most secular Vulcans, let alone off-worlders." And now onto the difficult part. "I grew up in an ancient city on the edge of The Forge. At times I ventured out into the wilds. I...met a small group of them once."

She did not desire to share personal details with Mr. Darius, but the cause perhaps was sufficient given what he had told her. It made no sense that he would have gotten that information by simple contact.

Darius listened to her elucidation surrounding the strange visions he'd seen. The context seemed appropriate enough; he didn't believe her to be lying. But yet, how could he possibly know this? He'd never stepped a foot on the surface of Vulcan. Holographic or otherwise. The extent of his knowledge of the alien culture came in passing from several of their kind who he'd once served with in the Corps during the Dominion war. "I don't..." his hand reached up and lightly scratched his short and tightly curled dark hair atop his head, "know how I know any of this." His mind raced to obtain a rational explanation to explain this. "Do I know you from somewhere? Before Galileo?" Maybe his memory was fading as the years passed.

"We have never met before today, Mr. Darius." Sera answered. "And I have no theory regarding why you would have such information. It is of no particular value. Again, I ask, are you unwell? Perhaps you should report to sick bay to be evaluated." She was trying to be helpful, but she was also Vulcan.

"I'm fine," he shot back somewhat defensively. It wouldn't look good for him to have held this Vulcan engineer accountable for tinkering around in his shuttlebay only to subsequently be diagnosed with some sort of ailment he didn't have. Both his pride and competence as an officer were on the line. Unless something was wrong... He shook his head at the idea and smirked. "Are you okay? Maybe we did meet and you're losing your memory," he proposed.

Sera stood ramrod straight at his retort to her suggestion. Hevam. He was impacting her timeline with whatever this was.

"My memory is not faulty. I am not the one who is acting in an aggressive and borderline irrational manner, Mr. Darius. Now, unless you have something meaningful to add, I must return to my duties."

He rolled his eyes at her then folded his arms across his chest again, now rising from the shuttle's rear seating arrangement and turning his back to her in silence. Was he supposed to just stand here and take this? An engineer in his shuttle quite possibly re-configuring the optimal antimatter flow matrix ratio he'd tuned the warp core to over the past couple weeks? The absolute gall of this woman. But she was pretty. For a Vulcan. Especially her unorthodox blue eyes.

Minutes of awkward silence passed while the conn officer meandered in and out of the shuttle's aft compartment. Finally he spoke again, unnerved by the audible stillness within the hangar bay. "So, um, what's The Forge? And why did you run out into the desert on your own so much? Family issues? Because I know what that's like..." Oh boy, did he.

Sera's eyes widened and she dropped the phase coil resonator in shock at what he had said to her. Oh, not the question about the Forge, but rather his questioning regarding her running out into the desert, and then to ask if she had any family issues...where was this coming from? Standing up, Sera turned to face him.

"What? How...?" This interaction was becoming rather unnerving. "Why are you asking questions as if you have intimate knowledge of my past?"

Darius cocked his head subtly to the side with a tiny bit of self-satisfaction. So, Vulcans did have emotions, even if they tried to hide them like she was doing now. He could see it in her behavior. Something was driving deep. "I don't know...why are you denying we ever met? Was it on Archanis III during joint fleet exercises back in '89? Obviously we did or else you wouldn't be wasting your time pretending we're strangers. Did-" his voice suddenly lowered a bit as clarity came to him, "...did we, you know...have relations...? Because it's fine, we don't need to talk about that if you don't want."

Sera tilted her head and studied Darius with an unblinking stare having been rendered momentarily speechless. She focused on remaining absolutely still, as if doing so would help to bring the turbulence in her mind under control. Where would she even start with his rather outrageous reply to her?

“I can but only repeat my earlier statement. I have never met you prior to today. I was in my final year at the academy in ‘89. Regarding your insinuation that we had somehow engaged in…that...are you certain you are not dreaming, Mr. Darius? I only ask, because a scenario such as what you are describing would only occur during that particular mental activity.” She began picking up the tools, putting them neatly in her satchel. This assignment would have to be deferred to another crew member, unfortunately. It would be prudent to…withdraw.

Was he dreaming? It certainly felt like it in some respects, but how could a dream possibly impart knowledge he'd never possessed about her and her childhood into his waking and conscious state? Surely he couldn't be the only one who felt confused by this. He folded his arms across his chest again, this time in more silent thought while he stroked his goatee and watched her collect her engineering equipment. "Okay - let's assume you're somehow right and we've never met before Galileo... You don't think it's strange that we just had this conversation? That I know these things about you from when you were a child?"

"A number of the crew have been experiencing unusual hallucinatory episodes." Including myself. Sera added silently. "and you are human. There are countless interactions I have had with your kind that are utterly incomprehensible." It was a non-answer if there ever was one, but in truth, Sera had no idea why any of this was occurring.

"I have no answers regarding you having such a memory of my childhood. However, you did grab me. That was when this vision occurred, yes?" She finished putting her tools away and adjusted the satchel over her arm to better distribute the weight on her shoulder.

"I didn't grab you," he protested to keep the record straight, "I touched your shoulder because you were ignoring me. But yeah, that's when I saw all of that." He frowned and now stepped forward a half pace toward her following something important she'd just revealed. "What do you mean by the crew's 'experiencing hallucinatory episodes'? Is that what just happened between us? You knew about this and didn't say anything until I asked??"

She most certainly was not ignoring him, and the urge to tell him so was quite strong. However, in Sera's mind, that was focusing on the wrong thing. "I happen to have very good hearing. One can learn a number of fascinating things just by sitting in the mess hall and listening.”

Sera tilted her head and studied him for a moment. “It is not in my nature to disclose unasked for information. I learned at the Academy that unsolicited guidance is often unappreciated.”

Darius wanted to roll his eyes again. "Uhm, didn't they also teach you to always tell the truth?" he countered. "Sure you didn't technically lie, but you withheld information which would have helped earlier. That's the same thing in my book." An attractive woman or not, she had a lot to learn about Human expectations; his expectations, whether they were relevant or not.

Sera raised a brow. "I do not lie. I have answered all of your inquiries, Mr. Darius. If you are dissatisfied, might I offer some advice? Ask better questions." She knew that her answer would most likely elicit an emotional response.

What did she just say? What an arrogant and condescending statement after coming into his shuttlebay, performing her own desired tasks without consulting with him, and then implying that she wasn't at any fault for casually concealing this new crew ailment? "Oh, I'm definitely dissatisfied now," he said between gritted teeth and a glaring set of dark brown eyes. "And I'll offer some advice to you, too: put your Vulcan ego in check and don't come in my shuttlebay again without asking." A self-satisfied and silent chin-raise visually conveyed his ownership over this small portion of the starship.

“Your shuttlebay?...Fascinating.” Her reply was ever so calm and careful. He now stood between her and the exit. Unfortunate. The ability of ending this interaction by withdrawing was not a possibility at this moment.

Sera really did not understand why Darius was reacting so irrationally - in her mind, anyway. She was well within her rights to inspect the small warp core. It was required to perform scheduled comprehensive inspections beyond the daily and after-flight assessments, and given what happened to Galileo’s warp core, Sera had considered the extra evaluation prudent. However, this seemed to bring out a strange territorialism from the human male.

It was the lift of his chin that sent Sera’s reality on yet another ‘magic carpet ride.’

"I'm Lamar," he replied in kind, trying to suppress the friendly grin from his lips. Though not versed in Vulcan traditions, he dipped his head then raised his chin to formally introduce his intentions. Was that how it was done in their culture? He tried to recall the firepit stories with his fellow Vulcan SFMC troops during the war, but for some strange reason, he couldn't remember any of them speaking about their spouses or families even during the most casual of times. It was probably best to not push his luck even further.

"So..." his eyes raised up to the rafters of the shuttlebay to avert Sera's intense eyes for a short reprieve, "let's look at the old gal then? Not you, of course. I mean, I know you're probably older than me - I'm talking about the shuttle. No, don't mean you're older than the shuttle..."

Sera stilled in a manner which was quite alien. She did not speak for a few seconds longer than what was generally considered appropriate. It was just...Never before had she observed a human make such a head gesture. It was quite a specific overture to a Vulcan. Clarification was required.

"Are you demonstrating amorous intentions?"

"Well, yeah..." he admitted with a covert brightening of his dark brown irises. "Is that, um, acceptable?"

"It is not...unacceptable. Simply unexpected. I know very little about human sexuality other than a personal observation that many of your kind have an overreaching preoccupation with that aspect of biological functioning."

"Um," he semi-nervously reached up with his free hand to absentmindedly scratch the back of his neck while averting her gaze for a short moment. She was a very forward individual and intimidating with her tall Vulcan presence, even more so than he'd expected. "Yeah. I guess we do. When we see something we like, it's hard to keep our mouths shut. And since we're all about to die here in this future - or already died...why not make the best of it?" He then motioned to Virginia which was on the launch pad. "Want to see my shuttle? I mean, our shuttle?"

"I am considering your proposition, Mr. Darius..."

Sera blinked as if trying to clear her vision and she considered sitting down momentarily, however as the focus of this last insane hallucination was standing before her, she forced herself to remain still. Inwardly she reeled. Why would her mind fabricate such outlandish scenes, and with a human…with him? She had to get out of here.

“Please move. I wish to leave.”

He wasn't one to object to the request and personally wish she'd said something similar minutes ago. Finally his workspace would once more be empty and free from tinkering grease monkeys. Stepping aside to present a clear opening down the shuttle's aft hatch, he extended a faux-courteous arm and open palm to direct her toward her new destination - outside of the support craft hangar. "Your wish is my command."

Lifting her chin slightly, Sera looked every inch an 'ice-princess.' She silently passed by Darius, not even casting a glance at him. Stepping down the ramp to the shuttle bay floor, she finally turned to face him.

"I will allot 48 hours for you to bring your maintenance logs into compliance, since you apparently hold engineering certifications I was not previously made aware of. If this is not completed within the time-frame specified, I will submit my report to Captain Tarin regarding said deficiencies along with my recommendation that the shuttle be grounded and a Level 1 diagnostic be performed on the vessel. Safety is our operational imperative."

His eyelids narrowed while he glared at her. The calmness with which she'd just given him impossible orders - and the Vulcan smugness in her neutral-toned voice - he hated all of it. His fake open hand gesture quickly turned into a firmly-pointed finger and a not-so-subtle cue for her to get out of the shuttlebay. So, this was how it was going to be? He, the humble pilot, versus she, the conceited engineer? The games were about to begin.

[OFF]

--

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Tarin]

&

Ensign S'Ers-a M'Lyr'Zor
Deputy Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A

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