Welcome to the Nightmare - Part 2

Posted on 03 Mar 2025 @ 10:17pm by Ensign S'Ers-a M'Lyr'Zor & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater

2,470 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 21 - Helix
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 7, Arboretum and Main Engineering
Timeline: MD02, 0526 hrs

[ON]

Previously on...Welcome to the Nightmare

Sofie turned her head to look at Sera, she intended to begin discussions of repair but the jarring beauty of the scene stopped her before she could begin to speak. It was like a carefully composed painting, the tangle of pipes an machinery framed the ensign and the duck, quiet and calm, in pure white contrasted the black professionalism of the uniform. The seeming lack of emotion on Sera's face was deeply contradicted by the care with which she held the small bird. It read as a sublime expression of innocence and care and duty and and dependence.

And Sofie found herself feeling very jealous of that duck.

And now the continuation...

She longed to have Sera hold her with the same affection, to touch her with the same tenderness, to... Ullswater scrunched her eyes shut, took a couple of deep breaths and stood up and straightened out her uniform. "How..." She stopped and again took a couple of breaths, pinching the bridge of her nose "How do we deal with the brick situation?"

"I will have to run a diagnostic on the unit. I will know more once the algorithm is complete." Sera replied and gently placed the duck back down on the grassy 'carpet,' and watched for exactly 2 seconds at the little bird waddled away in a most endearing fashion. Ducks were fascinating creatures. Irrelevant!

Sera opened her satchel and pulled out a tricorder that appeared to have seen better days. With a quick flick of her wrist, the device flipped open and chirped at the ready. A quick input command and the device was off analyzing away. Another cheery sound indicated it had found an issue.

"Impellar malfunction; most likely secondary to debris build up...hmm...I will have to disassemble the filtration unit to ensure there isn't something malfunctioning to cause a such a buildup. It will not be a clean job." These assignments were less-than-ideal, to be certain, but it was necessary. Perhaps Lamar could assist in clean-up later? Her inner chorus was really unmannerly with the unsolicited advice, and her body was becoming unmanageable as well as it took every ounce of her control to keep the traitorous urge to go to him now at bay.

"I do love them but waterfowl are not very clean animals, I've got used to it." Sofie was no engineer, she knew she might not be the most useful in this process but to understand what had happened and how to prevent it in future kept her from just leaving things alone. "I will let you take the lead but let me know how I can assist."

"Your offer is accepted. This will progress faster with additional appendages. Please reach into my satchel and remove the sonic screwdriver. You can begin by removing the covers of the filtration unit while I see if I can access the impellar from here." Work. The switch occurred seamlessly in Sera's mind; focusing on her work allowed all of the superfluous--and rather distracting--thoughts to be moved to the peripheray.

"Got it." Sofie nodded, it was good to feel at least somewhat useful. It didn't take her long to locate the tool and begin on her part of the operation.

The whole pump mechanism was large. There was enough room, more than enough room, for the two of them to work on these two tasks without being in danger of touching. Still Sofie leaned in from the side, wanting to keep as much distance as possible. It wasn't subtle. Focus on the task. As she began opening the casing for the filter she couldn't help but think that at any moment Sera could leap up like some kind of leaping predator and... And... Well, Sofie wasn't sure what the goal of the ambush would be but given her eyes were fixed on the filtration unit she would definitely not see it coming. This is why mice do not fix machinery: takes too much focus away from watching for danger.

Three of the screws had been successfully removed before Sofie dropped the screwdriver. "Clumsy," she murmured as she crouched down to retrieve it. She balled and stretched out her hands a few times before recommencing. Just focus on the task. The rest of the screws came out without issue.

Sera noticed. The other day at the wedding...Sofie's curt dismissal of Lamar, Sera presumed that something had occurred between them, but given her behavior here...was it her? She could not think of a logical reason why Sofie would behave in such a manner towards her. Sera had only engaged once with Sofie after her promotion. Now that she thought about that interaction, it appeared Sofie was trying to get away from her then too...Sera had simply postulated the chief science officer was uncomfortable with the personalized attention as a whole, but perhaps...

Her thoughts rolled around themselves as they worked in silence--with the exception of an occasional self-criticism from Sofie--until all of the covers had been removed from the science officer's part. Sera had one more bolt to remove from the impellar cover, but that bolt was the only thing keeping the plate, and a temporarily induced high-pressure system, in its current state. The cover liberated itself, and Sera found herself covered with organic silt and duck effluent.

Sera looked down at herself, blinking. It smelled of decomposing plants and ammonia...but suddenly it smelled of something else. Putrescence...rot...a rancidly sweet undertone that cloyed and choked. For a moment Sera was back in the dark, shadowy corridor of the nightmare on the planet feeling the tearing bites and hot acidic poison as it tracked up legs from the fleshy appendages' disfiguring 'touches.' Bile rose up in her throat, and it took all of her controls to keep from losing her breakfast on the otherwise idyllic space.

For a handful of seconds the situation Sofie was observing made sense. Pressure had built up in the system and the ensign had been covered in the mess that a system like this is designed to deal with. She could smell it and it smelled bad. Sofie was starting to formulate something to say, some kind of reassurance that this was not an embarrassment. Having worked with these animals for a year she was used to these sights and smells, it was nothing that hadn't happened to her. Everything followed logically and could be dealt with on a rational level.

Then that handful of seconds came to end and things fell apart.

It was an instant of sensation, Sofie smelled the same smell as Sera, saw the same sight, felt the same touch. Everyone on that away team had experienced the nightmare differently. For Sofie those corridors had been a furnace filled with the scent of burning flesh but every element was still instantly recognisable. It was also instantly and completely terrifying.

She knew what would come next and made it about a step and a half away from where she was standing before what was one moment a starship's chief science officer became just a woman on her knees, shaking, and divesting herself of her half-digested breakfast. A hand tried to shoo away waterfowl that couldn't understand. Barely audible between retching, coughing, sputtering came her voice, sad and confused "You weren't even there."
-----

You weren’t even there.

How did the chief science officer know where she was—or had been—exactly? There. That. Something to focus on beyond the most discomfiting sensation inducing hallucination. That again? Wasn’t all these unauthorized visions not becoming tedious?

“Kroy-kah!” Sera forcefully cried out at her Inner Chorus that had lost their ability to keep their thoughts to themselves? Sweet Surak, this ongoing, unauthorized inner dialogue was becoming somewhat intolerable. Was…was that laughter?

In…out. In…out. Focusing on her breathing, Sera forced her mind—and body—to calm. The source was irrelevant. What she experienced was not real. She was currently standing in the arboretum, somewhat saturated in pond water, plant debris…and duck shit. It was a ‘normal’ day in the life of an engineer…well, almost normal. There was a statistically significant amount of duck shit, which was not an everyday occurrence. The filtration unit and pumping system still required maintenance and reassembly. The waterfowl—and yes, even the chief science officer—were counting on her to complete this task.

Focus. Sofie’s words echoed in her head and Sera stilled, staring down at the female with growing concern. How did Sofie know where she was internally? The science officer’s physical response was almost exactly in-sync with the memory of the nightmare Lamar shared…gave?

“I have no answer for you that will satisfy, Lieutenant Ullswater.” It felt like an excuse, this uncomfortable truth.
Sera walked over to the woman who was currently on her knees in the grass. Crouching down she sat on her knees and looked at Sofie with a gentle expression. The silent investigation into ‘hows’ and the ‘whys’ were tabled for the moment. What did humans do to offer support to one another? Physical contact was a common tactic, she observed. Not knowing what else to do, Sera steeled her controls and reached out to take Sofie’s hand.

Sofie saw it just in time.

Her hand shot back with the immediacy of an instinctual reaction, like she had touched something hot. "Do not touch me!" She tried to imbue her words with forcefulness, but they came out with fear.

She had spent the last ten days making sure that nobody made any contact with her hands and that had just been on the chance that something happened. Here, in this room, after what she had just experienced? She knew that it would have been catastrophic. There was part of her that wished she hadn't pulled away though. Part of her that longed for Sera's touch and reassurance in this moment. And that part of her was just making the situation all the more confusing and upsetting.

Though she was doing her best to fight it, there were tears forming in Sofie's grey eyes. She wiped her face on her sleeve, trying to pull herself together. There wasn't much left to pull together, but she tried anyway. "Please don't touch me, you'll just make it worse."

Sera immediately retracted her hand and placed it on her knee. The pressure she applied to her leg with her hand with caused the lichtenstein ferning from the plasma burn she sustained on Juneau to become overtly visible due to impedance with capillary refill. She was uncertain of what to do but felt responsible for Sofie's current distress.

"It will just make what worse?" Sera asked for clarification.

"The nightmare." Despite it all Sofie managed to sound incredulous. What else?

She shuffled round a little to face in Sera's direction properly. She wiped her face and dried her eyes with the back of her sleeve, it felt like a futile gesture though. There was nothing she could hide behind, here she was: a complete mess.

The quacking of the ducks and Sofie's sniffles filled a moment of silence as she tried to work out what to say next. One of the little creatures waddled over to look at the two women. It was probably just curiosity or the hopes of being fed but Sofie chose to imagine this little duck expressing concern for them.

"How much do you know about us? About me and Lamar I mean. Do you ever..." She'd faced a torrent of emotions, desires and memories coming off the couple every day for the last two weeks. Part of her had just assumed that Sera knew as much about her as she did about Sera but the engineer didn't seem to know what was going on at all. "Do you ever get my thoughts in your head?"

Sera blinked. How much do you know about us? Us. Two. A pair...a couple? Lamar had designated Sofie as a 'friend.' To a Vulcan the designation of friend meant something so different - she had automatically presumed it was the standard designation of someone one has a close, platonic association with...had she misread his word choice?

"The wedding...He wanted to introduce me to his friend..." Sera could not say anymore. If they had a deeper relationship outside of platonic friendship, then Sera's interposition into the dynamic had effectively ended any future that Sofie and Lamar might have had. Something within her cringed rather painfully, and she dropped her eyes to her lap.

Enough. Kaiidth. What is, is. Sera returned her eyes back to Sofie's countenance. Sofie was overtly suffering. Sera considered exactly what Sofie had said to her. "I do not know anything about...the two of you other than he considers you, his friend. I cannot say whether I have experienced your thoughts although I do not have enough data to extrapolate why I would experience your thoughts given I have never engaged with you. Have I...interfered?"

Sofie took time to consider her answer. She offered a hand to the curious duck. His beak pecked; he seemed happy. She took strength from that. After a couple of deep breaths she began to try and explain "You've formed a connection with him. It's not just physical, it has a telepathic component. Me and Lamar share a deep connection too. It wasn't our choice. We were bound together by circumstance," her voice was shaky, but she looked to the duck at her hand, she was grateful for his support "by the Cold Station."

Sofie understood the importance of eye contact but her dark grey eyes hadn't looked up to Sera once since she started speaking. She glanced up for an instant but couldn't maintain it. As her eyes darted back to the floor though she noticed a pattern that she hadn't seen before on the ensign's skin. Her eyes lingered there, where Sera's hand met her ankle. Maybe another thing that they shared. "You formed a bond with him, so you've formed a bond with me too. I can feel it, pulling at me all the time. I pick up on your and Lamar's thoughts and feelings and memories. It makes me desire you. It makes me feel sick. I hate it."


To Be Continued...



[OFF]


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

&

Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

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