Mission 25: Masque of Reality

[Marionette]

A massive shudder coursed through the deck plates, throwing the group off their feet. A second then third shudder, each more violent that the preceding one shook the ship ... Fighting to regain their footing, Marionette firmly concluded one thing; Get to the bridge. Now.

"I will meet you on the bridge, sir." she said politely, nodding once at Torek, and then turned and sprinted at speed down the corridors to the bridge. (Blakus) =/\=.... Tell Marionette to step on it when you've all got back to the bridge.=/\= He slapped his commbadge off. Marionette heard it via her own comm-badge, now that she was in the turbolift ahead of the group, in the secondary turbolift (that would exit nearest the captain's ready room).

Afew moments later, the turbolift doors opened and she stepped out to leap-pounce over to the Conn console in a perfect Capoeira air-roll. Marionette then began efficiently typing in commands on the LCARS console. A grinding moan could be heard throughout the corridors, as the vessel did a tight (a very tight !) barrel roll (also causing stomachs to flip-flop?), as the Raven righted herself and strained to climb back into space.

Moments after that, the rest of the away team emerged from the turbolift, and moved to take their places.

[Calli Valente]

Calli watched in awe as the massive Star Ship plunged through the atmosphere. Inertial dampers and artificial gravity straining against the natural forces of a planets' unyielding gravitational pull. Slowly, the Raven began to right herself, Calli knew Andae must be doing everything possible down in Engineering. The horizon rotated slowly as the surface raced up to meet them. Then, with less than fifteen thousand kilometers remaining, the massive ship began to lift her nose from the dive, then, degree by degree, it came past the horizontal and began a slow climb. Blakus was having to reduce the speed of the Galaxy Class vessel through the burning rupturing air outside. After what seemed an eternity, the sky darkened to become the welcoming blackness of space ...

< tag : Andae / Marionette .. You're take on saving the ship guys >

The Raven finally settled back into a high orbit, Andae was struggling in Engineering despite the fantastic job he had done in saving the ship, and was calling for help. He needed another pair of hands automating several systems then he could transfer controls to the Bridge. Calli was about to offer when Marionette pointed at the screen:

"There is a vessel on an intercept course with us." Carl almost shot out of his seat and moved to the screen, as if standing closer would help, as Calli moved to the Ops station. T'brel frowned then spoke:

"It's a Romulan War bird. Valdore Type ... They are locking weapons on us Admiral."

"We're in no condition to fight." Torek said, frustration in every word, "Calli, can you contact them ?"

"No answer to our hails." she replied as the War bird closed the distance between them. Peers suddenly found he had full weapons available. He raised shields quickly then brought phaser's and torpedoes on-line. He locked onto the war bird and awaited instructions .....

Aboard the Hinori:

"Admiral ... We have lost contact with the Raven. It seems to have impacted with the surface." Captain Hara said quietly. Sato slumped back in his seat, silently grieving the loss of over one thousand men, women, and children, "Captain ... A Valdore Class war bird is approaching. They are locking weapons on us." the Vulcan Tactical Officer said, somewhat surprised.

"Inform they we are on a rescue mission and have no wish to enter conflict with them at this time." Hara said, quickly turning to face the screen of the Excelsior Class Hinori. He watched as the Romulan ship continued to come at them, almost as if they were trying to goad the Federation ship into a fight. As it happened, Hara didn't have to ponder the decision for long. The Romulan fired !

"Shields ... Bring weapons on-line." the Captain ordered, turning to glance at his life-long friend before giving his full attention to his duties, "Lock onto their weapons systems and stand by ... Comm, please give the Romulan vessel a final warning no to continue or we will be forced to retaliate ... Too late !"

The ship shuddered as two Romulan torpedoes slammed into the shields. Hara had no option now but to return fire. He ordered the Tactical Officer to fire a sequence set to disrupt the opponents weapons and shields. If they could stop the ship firing they may well retreat. A second and third volley lanced across the space between the two ships, this time they damaged the forward and dorsal shields, a forth volley followed. The Hinori turned her damaged shields away and took the full brunt of the new volley on the port nacelle.

"Tactical ..." Tetsutaro said, Quantum torpedoes. Full volley." The man didn't need to wait for confirmation from his commanding Officer, he made the required inputs and fired without waiting to be ordered to do so. The first two of six torpedoes slammed into the shields, demolishing them easily, the third and fourth breached the hull plating and caused untold damage to the interior. The last two smashed into the Engineering Section and destroyed the core. The Romulan lifeless vessel rolled over and began a slow arc into the atmosphere of the planet below. Scans showed zero life-signs .....

Aboard the Raven:

The Raven was taking a battering from the Romulan ship. Calli scanned their shields for a weak point then transferred the information to T'Brel. He confirmed her co-ordinates then locked them into the firing solution before informing the Admiral.

"Quantum torpedoes Commander Peers." Torek ordered, silently thanking Blakus for keeping them moving, and Marionette for maneuvering them away from most, if not all of the incoming fire. They were in a bad condition and needed this to end quickly. Maybe it was another scenario, maybe the Romulan's were caught just like they were and Eris was sitting watching the scene play out for her warped amusement. Frankly he didn't care, "Fire full spread ... Commander marionette, turn us away and drop into a lower orbit, let's see if we can't hide just in case those torpedoes don't do the job."

"Aye Sir." the two replied in unison.

Calli watched the first of the torpedoes slam into the war bird, the starboard nacelle severed from the wing and exploding spectacularly. She didn't see the others as the Raven tipped away and down. hopefully, they would not need a rematch ... She wondered idly when Eris was going to clap her hands and move them to yet another of her little pantomimes ..........

[Alex Watson]

As the Raven plummeted through the atmosphere below, one thought kept running through Alex’s mind. Again and again.

“This isn’t real…this isn’t real…”

He knew it, he was certain of it. The problem was that there was no way he could escape it. Andae was right – Torek’s Vulcan side was the diminished side of his personality. It was highly unlikely, impossible really, that he would be able to create the necessary mind bond to enable the crew to break out of this illusion. But there had to be a way. No system was without weakness. No holodeck simulation was constructed without an emergency exit.

As the ship righted itself he breathed an involuntary sigh of relief. They were safe…for now. And then the warbird attacked.

<<<>>>

Picking himself up from the massive shockwave that had rippled through the Raven on impact, Alex closed his eyes, delving deep into his memory – desperate for anything that could be relevant to their current situation. His studies of ancient Earth history of the 20th century, his laboratory work at the academy understanding the biology of different species, his experiences with Q…what was it that Q had said…something about the final move in a game of chess…something about discord and order…

None of it made any sense! He imagined, or thought he imagined, Q’s mocking laugh. He imagined his smug voice – “Oh, Alexander. You disappoint me…it’s so simple. It’s always so simple…”

He thought back – his mind flashed to everything that he knew about their mysterious captor, the being known as Eris. The chess, the cats…games…the way she had asked Torek, with that look on her face, whether or not she’d done well…

He had a new idea, but he would need to be alone to test it – he couldn’t risk the problems it would cause if he were right, and he tested it in a crowded space.

“Sir, I’m going to go and run some checks in Science,” he said to Carl. “I’ll keep in touch.” Carl nodded as Alex turned and left the bridge.

<Tag All>

Alone in the science labs, Alex breathed deeply. This had the potential to go horribly, horribly wrong, but it might just work.

“Eris?” he asked quietly. “Eris, come out, I want to talk to you.”

“Go away!” came the response – loudly. “You’re not my friend! You just want to shout at me again! You’re all so mean! You all shouted at me! I don’t want to play with you any more! I hate you!”

So far, so promising – at least for Alex’s suspicions.

[Carl Torek]

Surprisingly, Carl understood the premise that he could make use of his Vulcan side in order to help his Senior Staff, but he had effectively suppressed that aspect of his life for so long that it would be impossible. The crew understood this. Carl 'could' utilize some of his Vulcan traits, but not to the point of carrying out a mind meld.

He had been thinking hard on this when all hell had broken loose. The next ten minutes were consumed in saving the ship from crashing and fighting off the surprise visit from the Romulan war-bird.

"Sir, I’m going to go and run some checks in Science." Alex said to Carl. "I will keep you informed." Carl nodded as Alex turned and left the bridge.

*****

The Raven successfully fought the Romulan vessel, destroying it with only superficial damage to themselves. The remainder of the ship was now spiraling lifelessly into the atmosphere. But where the hell had the ship come from, and why was it allowed to open fire on a Federation ship ? ... These were questions Carl couldn't answer, and frankly, he wasn't sure anymore if he actually wanted to know why ! ... He was trying to convince himself that it was yet another ploy of Eris, but if this was indeed a facsimile of their Raven, then why allow the damage. More realistic, he supposed, but what if he had simply refused to fire on the Romulan, what then ?

"Admiral." T'Brel said, approaching the center seat, "Sir, would it not be prudent for us to move away from the planet, if we're going to come under attack again I think we should be in open space when it happens ?"

"I doubt we'll have any more trouble Commander." Carl replied, convinced it was Eris playing one of her games, and she wasn't in the habit of repeating herself, "Let's move to maximum orbit Commander Marionette, that way we'll at least 'see' anything coming from the surface, OK ?" he said, looking back at his Tactical Officer.

"Aye Sir." Peers said, returning to his station. Carl tapped the Comm link:

=^= Torek to Engineering .. How we doing down there Commander ? =^=

=^= I'm getting there Admiral =^= a breathless Blakus replied. Carl nodded to Calli.

=^= I'm sending Commander Valenti down there to assist .. Keep me informed Andae .. Torek out =^=

He sat back, eyeing the Bridge around him. The scant crew working hard at various stations, trying to find any snippet of information that could help them, but he knew now it was all down to 'when' Eris would tire of her little games, and what then, like some disinterested child, would she just toss the Raven aside in favor of her next attention-grabbing pastime ? ..........

[Andae Blakus]

The Raven nose-dived towards the surface of the GR 190821 moon. The shriek of tortured duranium and the strained structural integrity field filled Andae's senses. Inertial dampeners were compensating; as he scrambled about engineering, he felt as little of the impact of atmospheric flight as the dampeners made possible.

But a Galaxy class was not a vessel designed for re-entry into a planetary body's atmosphere, as had been proven historically on more than one occasion.

As the strain became unbearable, the sound of tritanium-duranium shearing against itself, willing each other's constituents to tear asunder, he felt the Raven begin to level out. Observing the attitude readouts fed to him from the bridge, he saw the Raven's terrifying descent smoothing into a passage of level flight - still under tremendous strain - before its impulse drives flared and took her into a steep ascent to space.

"Good job..." he murmured, thinking of the skill Marionette must've applied to allow for an escape from as high as 10,000 km above the surface.

Flickers of other realities revealed themselves through hull breaches rent by the pressure of the atmospheric environment. Andae stared over, shock combining with a strange sense of prescience, as if somehow he'd expected this. Spacetime contorted itself at the edges of the breaches, blurred with mists of kaleidoscopic colour; but it's what was within the breaches that caused him the sudden sense of deja vu.

There was the distorted image of the hillock, capped by some fort and caught in the mazy glare of Earth's sun. A solitary figure climbed the winding path to the fortress, red banners snapping in the breeze. He blinked; the sight was familiar but he couldn't pin it. Abject horror coated his mind when he concentrated on the fortress; something he knew lay within, something he'd consigned to the back of his mind, an intimate memory repressed, necessarily blasted from his mind during the last 24 months with the Cordovin affair. Cryptic words, 'Trapped like you' and a hollow laugh beat through his mind.

In another breach - artificial or not, he hadn't the faculty to deduce now - was the image of the Starfleet HQ recreation. The dancers and socialites and oddities continued their merry confused dance. The third breach was the most perplexing: an image of a sparse forest, a primitive shack bursting into flames, sounds of death emanating from the windows as the presumed occupants were immolated. As he drew closer to the breach, unafraid of death as there had been no explosive decompression, he espied a figure, wearily casting about at the blackened corpses that lay under him. Andae watched as the figure - who again seemed familiar - peered into the empty eye sockets of one of the corpses. At the moment recognition of the figure overtook him, the breaches dissolved, replaced by pristine duranium.

He collapsed to the deck, breath rushing out of him. What'd that been about?! It'd seemed familiar, a forgotten memory, a memory of a memory, or someone else's... But nothing in him, now or from the distant past, stirred a precise recall. He could feel the Raven around him levelling into the quiet vacuum, returning to its comparative safety, although of course still within the simulation, mental reflection, whatever...

Minutes later, after the Romulan Warbid encounter...

Eris's prank of shutting down the warp core prior to atmospheric descent had been a good one. He'd repaired most of the problems now: the plasma from the dilithium chamber was flowing again, with acceptable regularity. There remained a slight imbalance in the M/A-M intermix and the crystals had degraded bizarrely; near fresh before, now at a level he would've expected of a ship returning from a long-term exploratory mission. These crystals had undergone years of degradation inside only a few minutes...

=^= Torek to Engineering .. How we doing down there Commander ? =^=

=^= I'm getting there Admiral =^= a breathless Blakus replied.

=^= I'm sending Commander Valenti down there to assist .. Keep me informed Andae .. Torek out =^=

=/\=Aye, Admiral=/\= Andae paused, wondering if Carl was still on the comm, =/\=Admiral? If this isn't the Raven, where is the real Raven?=/\=

Blakus had assumed they were still locked in Eris's game on the surface, but if just hypothetically this was real space, the Raven with her complement of a 1000 crew remained out there, presumably desperately searching for them, or finding some way to infiltrate the illusion in which the senior staff had been entrapped. Torek asked Blakus to elaborate.

=/\=Well sir, the Romulan ship... The ease with which we destroyed her... It didn't seem right. It was as if their ship had already sustained damage. Perhaps Eris meant for it to be so, but why would she weaken a known enemy? Surely she'd want it to put up a better fight, if only for her further amusement. If we have been placed in real space, real Raven or not, then where is the Warbird's attacker?=/\= he finished as Calli arrived.

<Tag Torek, All>

[Calli Valente]

OOC:

This post will include our new Science Officer, who has joined the ship today. We should take it that she has been aboard since leaving Star Base 47 ... Hopefully, this should explain her absence until now.





IC:

=^= ..... she'd want it to put up a better fight if only for her further amusement .. If we have been placed in real space .. Real Raven or not then where is the Warbird's attacker ? =^= Blakus was saying as Calli arrived in Engineering.

"What can I do to help ?" she asked, casting an experienced eye over his jury-rigged department. Andae put her to use re-routing power back-up's to the Bridge, they would need them if he was to leave the department for the foreseeable future. Calli got to work, then noticed something on one of the monitors. She stopped what she was doing and put the information on a main viewer ... She couldn't quite understand what she was seeing for a moment, so turned to the Chief Engineer:

"How many did we say were on 'this' version of the Raven ?" she asked, puzzled. Blakus halted what he was doing, despite the urgency, he knew Calli didn't ask question's for the sake of conversation. He turned to face the Commander:

"Nine of us in total ... Why ?"

"Then who are they ?" she asked, pointing to three small red markers blinking on and off. Blakus quickly moved to her console and mad e a few inputs. Calli reconfigured the read-out and her eyes widened, "Three people !" she said, running from Engineering. Blakus hit his comm badge:

=^= Blakus to Bridge .. We have company .. Three life-signs all stable .. They appeared in the last few minutes .. Deck thirty eight .. Brig .. Commander Valenti is making her way there now =^=

=^= I'm sending T'Brel and Aeryn =^= Torek replied, turning to Marionette, "You have the Conn Commander." he said, heading for the turbo-lift.

~~~~~

Calli took out her phaser as she approached the Brig. There was complete silence ahead, but that didn't mean the newcomers were laying in wait, they may not even know there were others aboard. Taking no chances, she inched forward until she was beside the Brig's door. Like every other on the ship it was open and non-functioning. Taking a breath she glanced into the large open area, it was empty ... She turned, raising a finger to her lips as the Chief of Security and the Senior Marine Officer approached. She silently counted down from three and the group entered, weapons ready. Aeryn moved to the first of the holding cells and tapped on the bulkhead. Calli and Peers joined Aeryn, and all three stood in shock. For there, on the floor of the cell was three Star Fleet Officers, but not 'any' three .....

Moments later, Torek entered along with two Security personnel. He was stunned to see who they had found, given the last time the Marine Lieutenant, the Security Lieutenant, and the Raven's Science Officer, they were all on the chess board, and had all succumbed to the same fate !

Lieutenant's Yang and Epps were sat against the bulkhead wall, coming around. The Marine Medic was waking Ensign Handren. The group waited while he worked, knowing better than to interfere, regardless of the urgency. Once the three seemed lucid, Carl knelt beside the Science Officer:

"Ensign ... What do you remember ?" he asked quietly.

"Remember ......" the woman asked, confusion crossing her face, "Where am I ?"

"You are on the Raven, well a facsimile of our Raven." Calli explained, "You came to the surface on the Piper, we were in a simulation of Star Fleet Headquarters. You remember the chess game, no, well, you were erm, for want of a better way of putting it, you were killed on the board ... Or so we believed." she finished.

"Do you remember playing the game ?" Carl asked, trying to establish what happened.

"The last thing I remember Admiral ..." second Lieutenant Yang said, her voice shaking with fear, "Was, was, the flames. The White Knight approached the, the square I was on and, as he neared I could feel the heat, building, building !" the woman said, before burying her head in her arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Carl, Calli, and Peers stood while Aeryn and the Security Officer's attended to the new arrivals:

"Let's get them to Sick-bay and checked out." Torek ordered.

"Well ... This is certainly an unexpected development." Calli said quietly ..........

[Amanda Handren]

Amanda shuddered as she slipped back into unconsciousness. Her mind filled with dreams, no they were not dreams, they were nightmares. Her memories filled with flames, pain and more flames. "Help ..." her voice echoing in her head as her cries were only heard by herself.

~~Flames rose around her as she stood on the chess board. Her body writhing in pain as they rose higher and higher.~~

She slipped deeper, moving towards the darkness. Lost and alone she fought to rise out of the black.

~~Why do you fight? Give into the dark~~

A voice said in her head. Amanda looked around in the darkness trying to find the voice as it taunted her.

"No!" She cried out.

Her voice rising above the sounds around her. The voice in her head taunted her more before fading into the blackness. ~~Come find me if you can~~

Amanda fought to find light in the dark. Fought to find the voice, to follow. As she fought she slipped deeper into unconsciousness.

[Marionette]

"Let's move to maximum orbit Commander Marionette, that way we'll at least 'see' anything coming from the surface, OK ?" he said, looking back at his Tactical Officer. "Aye Sir, Maximum orbit." she said, touching and sliding the graphical controls to execute programs and commands, establishing a spiral trajectory that would keep The Raven in orbit of the planet, but not so far out as to encounter any orbits of its moons, or other orbiting abandoned starships.

Torek replied, turning to Marionette, "You have the Conn, Commander." he said, heading for the turbo-lift. It was, for a brief second, almost like they had escaped this mind-warping playground of Eris', and had resumed their routine when not on a specific or given mission. Almost. Marionette saw fit to keep to their maximum high orbit, when a dull clank echoed through the ship. Looking up at the ceiling from her station, Marionette again demonstrated her talent for understatement "That, did not sound pleasant." she said, as flatly as she could.

A console on the bridge beeped very persistently, and another officer who was closer than her went to answer it. "Oh, that is just fantabulous...." =/\= Engineering, this is the bridge, all of the port-side clamps holding the saucer section on, just buckled below 30 percent. =/\=

"Coming to full-stop." Marionette said, putting the ship into a geo-sync orbit and then letting the Raven naturally orbit, which would minimise inertial stresses on the hull.

[Carl Torek]

Carl was stood with the other's as the Marine Medic examined Lieutenant Yang and the Chief Science Officer:

"What I can't understand, is how they are back." Aeryn said, a puzzled look crossing her face, "Could we take it as a 'given' that if someone dies, however horribly, they get to come back and continue playing the game ?"

"You're guess is as good as mine." T'Brel said, looking closely at the bulkheads as if he was going to suddenly have an epiphany.

Carl listened to the chatter, it was one of the things that made the Raven crew so competent ... He too had been wondering about the sudden return of the two Officer's that had perished during the chess game on the surface. No-one had seen Eris for some time, he didn't know if that was something her should be worried about, or not. He decided that if she was out of the way, she was likely enjoying the game and was going to leave them alone for the time being. Lieutenant Yang was sat up on the bio-bed now, ready to return to duty, while Ensign Handren was still slipping in and out of consciousness. The Medic didn't have an explanation for her condition, but was almost sure she was in no immediate danger, and said she should be allowed to wake in her own time. Torek agreed with Lieutenant Scott's assessment.

They were about to return to the Bridge when they felt something through the carpeted deck-plates ...

"What was that ?" Tavik asked.

"It sounded a lot like ...." the Tactical Officer began.

"The clamps releasing !" Calli finished for him ... Carl hit his Comm badge:

=^= Torek to Bridge .. What's our status Commander ? =^=

=^= Sir .. It seems that the port-side docking latches have released .. We are at full stop and are endeavoring to reestablish locks .. But I would recommend your expeditious return to the Bridge Admiral =^=

=^= Understood Lieutenant .. Torek out =^=

Carl turned to the other's knowing full well that hey all knew the seriousness of the situation. Should loose the Star-drive Section, it could fall to the planet below, ending any thoughts of their returning to their own sector within most of their lifetimes. If three of the six docking latches had disengaged the strain on the ship in orbit could be disastrous, so Marionette had acted quickly, but that didn't mean they were out of danger. He instructed Lieutenant Scott to remain with the Science Officer until she regained consciousness, the rest double-timed to the Bridge .....

*****

"Status Commander ?" Carl asked as they poured from the main turbo-lift.

< tag : Marionette / Andae >

He sat listening to his Officer's wondering vaguely if Eris would eventually tire of playing with the Star Fleet Officers. She had throw numerous scenario's at them, and they had come through each 'game' admirably in his opinion, but that being said, he knew Eris wouldn't just sit back and let them win every time, as was evident by the chess game ... He watched the planet below, a fixed image on the massive view-screen now Marionette had placed the ship in geo-stationary orbit. There was a second shudder suddenly:

"That was docking latch number four releasing." the Helm Officer explained. They all knew that the were only two more latches holding the two enormous sections together ..........

[Marionette]

"That was docking latch number four releasing." Marionette said. "Perhaps we should retreat to the stardrive section, and make use of the battle bridge." she offered. Even though everyone knew this wasn't the real Raven, it did not make sense to Marionette, to abandon the arguably more valuable part of the ship; the one with warp capability.

A structural integrity alarm sounded on the bridge, as the saucer section began to wiggle and list to starboard. All of the docking clamps were meant to be extended or withdrawn in a specific sequence for a reason. the LCARS voice spoke, in its lackadaisical, matronly voice. Warning; Structural failure of docking clamps is iminent. Structural integrity now at 12 percent.

A groaning buzz meandered its way through the ship, as the frame of the saucer section began to flex, reminiscent of the complaining groan of a wooden-hulled sailing galleon taking a tack-to-wind too fast and too tight. Any minute now, clamp number 5 would retract, and the saucer section would really twist around, having only one point of contact with the stardrive section. It would probably cause significant damage to both sections of the ship, if they were unlucky.

[Alex Watson]

Alex edged closer to the noise of crying. He became aware suddenly that he was holding his breath, but he didn’t dare release it at this point. He had to know…he HAD to know…

“Eris…I’m not going to hurt you. I promise,” Alex whispered.

“LIAR!” came the screamed response, along with a wave of telekinesis that blasted Alex across the room and rippled through the ship – Alex heard what he thought were three of the magnetic clamps holding the ship together unlock. If the other three went…

Picking himself up, wiping a cut lip on his sleeve and nursing what felt like a bruised rib, Alex moved slowly back.

“I’ll play with you, Eris. I’m your friend, remember?” The sound of crying stopped, replaced by a snivelling sound.

“You promise? You promise you won’t try to hurt me like those other mean men?”

“I promise, Eris. I’m your friend. I’ll play with you.”

From behind one of the consoles peeked a head. A small head. A girl’s head. He was right.

“Why did those other mean men try to hurt me?” the little girl demanded. Alex guessed from her size that she couldn’t be more than about eight. Or, at least, that’s how she appeared.

“The other men aren’t mean, they didn’t WANT to hurt you – “

“DON’T LIE!” the girl shouted. Alex heard a fourth clamp unlock.

“I’m not lying, I promise,” said Alex slowly, moving himself to sit down on the floor facing the girl. “They were scared is all. You scared them and they tried to protect themselves.”

“I didn’t mean to,” sniffed the girl. “I only wanted some more friends to play with. None of my old friends want to play with me any more. They don’t talk to me, or even look at me.”

“Your old friends?” asked Alex. “You mean the crew of the other ships that came here before?” The girl nodded her head.

“They tried to hurt me as well. Now they don’t do anything at all. They just…stand there…” Alex knew what she was talking about, the vacant, blank looks on the faces of the Starfleet personnel from the old ships. Was it possible that prolonged exposure to this constantly changing non-reality would lead to psychosis and eventually a shut-down of the prefrontal cortex in order to preserve the body’s vital functions? He had never read about such a study being conducted – of course he hadn’t. Such a study would never be conducted: it was unethical, monstrous.

“You shouldn’t force people to play with you if they don’t want to, you know,” said Alex, smiling softly as one would when explaining to a human child. “It’s not nice – people don’t always want to play. They may want to work instead. You need to respect that.”

“But…I can do so much…why wouldn’t they want to play with me? I can create anything that they want – I just want to make them like me…” Alex smiled softly, taking the little girl’s hand.

“You don’t MAKE people like you. If you have to force somebody to be your friend then they aren’t really your friend. You need to give as well as take in any friendship.”

“But I do give!” the little girl started up. “I give them anything they want!”

“Except their freedom?” asked Alex quietly. The little girl’s eyes filled with tears.

“Nobody likes me. I’m all alone out here…”

<Tag All>

[Calli Valente]

"Perhaps we should retreat to the star drive section, and make use of the battle bridge." Marionette suggested.

"There's not going to be time." Calli offered, "Besides, if the fifth latch releases then both sections could end up spiraling into the atmosphere ... We also need to keep in mind that this is not 'our' Raven, but some facsimile of the ship devised by our unhinged host, so whatever we do she is going to prevent our deaths, at some point." she finished, a little too hesitantly for everyone's liking.

"Warning .. Structural failure of docking clamps is imminent .. Structural integrity now at twelve percent." the computer informed them casually.

"We could use the maneuvering thrusters." Blakus said suddenly, "No guarantee it won't rip the latches, but it's worth a try." he said, making rapid adjustments to his panel and nodding to the Navigation Officer. Marionette gently began to apply thrust to both the saucer section, and the star drive section, attempting to nudge the two section's toward each other. Theoretically, the two half's would seat in the recessed catchment area below the saucer section, if she could achieve this, then a constant minimal thrust 'should' in theory, hold the two section's together, providing of course, that no external influence acted upon either segment !

As the Commander worked, Calli monitored her progress from the Science station. The saucer section of the Raven began a slow change in her orientation. Almost like a ballerina pirouetting around her dance partner, but in slow slow motion. Blakus informed them that the docking clamps were not going to work, he turned to the Navigation Officer:

"You are going to have to hold the sections manually Commander."

"Indeed." Marionette replied, raising her eyebrows.

"Structural integrity now at sixty one percent and rising." the computer informed them.

The two section's were aligned precisely now, being held in-situ by the two remaining clamps, and the expert skills of Marionette. Structural integrity was almost back to nominal level's and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. They had dodged the proverbial bullet in preventing the ship from wrenching itself apart. Marionette was expressionless as she made minute adjustments every few second's to ensure both sections remained in place, as even in their high orbit, gravitational forces from the planet affected them.

They were congratulating themselves when there was a massive bang, followed by a shock-wave throughout the Bridge. Marionette was working feverishly, she made adjustments to the thrusters on both sections, so rapidly but to no avail as the saucer section once more began to twist to port. In second's the ship would rip itself in two !

"Geez, Eris certainly doesn't like us winning .... Does she !" Calli said over the noise ..........

[Andae Blakus]

When Blakus heard Lieutenant Yang was conscious in sickbay he immediately dropped his current tasks and left engineering unoccupied. He did it reluctantly though; Calli had left minutes before for the brig to attend to the intruders; only the thrumming warp core offered any substantial noise from the edifice of the Raven's power core.

He dashed through the corridors of this pseudo-Raven, an impinging suggestion in his mind that realties were overlapping. He'd gained the impression that those sights he'd witnessed in the impossible breaches in engineering, during atmospheric ascent, were events he'd somehow been involved in: the forests, the hill climbing to the ancient Roman fort and its internal sepulchre glow.

The bodies of the away team consumed by fire. The lights going out of their eyes as their heads cracked open revealing white-hot flames streaming from those fault-lines.

One of those charred corpses lying on the bracken-covered floor had been Lieutenant Yang, he was sure of it now. But he knew for fact she'd perished here on this false Raven - flames licking at her from some nearby ruptured EPS junction. The away team had covered her body, frozen it in the morgue in hope that her neural processes might be reactivated in the distant future, but she was alive now, recovering in sickbay?!


Her sleep-coated eyes lifted drowsily, head turning side-to-side to eventually see Commander Blakus standing by her bedside. He looked down at her expectantly, but wasn't sure what he expected himself or her to say.

"You," she mouthed, barely a whisper, before coughing and recovering her voice, "Commander, I've been cleared for duty." She stood abruptly, making to push past Andae, "I'm one of Major Tavik's senior officers. She'll have need of me."

Blakus stopped her, resisting the temptation to reach out to forcibly keep her in place, "What do you remember?" he hissed. Yang's expression darkened, cheeks turning pale. Blakus only assumed she was trying hard to recall her last experiences. "It's important, Lieutenant..." Blakus said, softness beginning to permeate his words.

"Flames... Unbearable." Yang threw her arms wide suddenly as if it didn't matter. She was back on the Raven now although not, as she'd find out, as she knew it. "A forest, wires... You!" she said, stepping back, remembering Blakus leering over in the forest shack, false Torek watching amused from behind, sipping lazily from his whiskey. "We were burned, melted, destroyed... But on the Raven." She finished near dejectedly.

Blakus waved a hand, "It seems Eris is contorting time and space. While our experiences play out in the same fashion, the input to those experiences comes from different sources in spacetime. Your 'death' here and your 'death' in the forest, it seems... I imagined them. She's casting multiple illusions on our minds, each of them meaning the same thing and having the same result. But your resurrection here.... She seems able to control death in this place. Which means we can't truly die."

Without a further word Andae strode from sickbay, just noticing the junior blue division officer lying unconscious on her biobed. She'd been the member of the away team accompanying Will Jamison, and had suffered as others had on the phantasamagorical chessboard. He made a note to catch up with her later, if they could disentangle themselves from this mess.

A 'clunk' that sounded awfully familiar resounded around the vessel at this point. Andae had just left sickbay. Bemusement and worry turned to despair as he heard two, three further clunks in quick succession, and he started to jog to the turbolift to the bridge.


"Report Commander."

Marionette, being more up-to-date with bridge activity, gave the report, while Blakus started up the engineering station. He could see the sense in her suggestion. The Stardrive was warp-equipped, but that would do them no good if they were trapped in this illusion, the manifestation of their minds as enforced by Eris. In fact it was fortunate they'd all cleared out to the Saucer before the clamps had started unlocking.

They began executing his suggested manoeuvre to bring the two halves of the starship back into alignment using thrusters. All seemed to be going well, Marionette expertly bringing into alignment and keeping the two nearly-severed components in the same frame of reference, until an impossible force, unseen by any conventional sensors forced the Saucer sharp to port.

Blakus scrutinised his console, shock developing as he realised the desperate situation. Even if this wouldn't really spell death...

He swung from the engineering station. "Marionette! Overload the Saucer's port impulse engine now!"

The CNO did as ordered and the Saucer swung violently back to starboard, but tilting anti-clockwise almost to an angle of 45 degrees. An unbearable metallic shearing diffused through the Saucer, a sign the last connector to the Stardrive had been severed. It had been their last ditch effort: if the Saucer had swung completely around, hingeing on its one remaining connection, it could've crashed into the port nacelle, and...

Blakus fell to the deck, tumbling down to the port side with the other staff on the bridge, as the Raven tried desperately to stabilise its attitude. Inertial dampeners kicked in and allowed the crew to climb back to their seats.

"It's gone, Admiral..." Blakus croaked, toxic gas rising from his station, "The Stardrive section was severed." He paused, surveying sensor results as fed through by Peers who'd returned to the tactical station, "It's some 2000 km behind us. Seems undamaged, in a slight spin."

<Tag Torek, Marionette>

Hollow laughter, almost seductive, burst almost pruriently over the bridge comm, "Very entertaining..." It was Eris's voice, sounding he thought, somewhat meek.

But it was joined by another: a male's voice, dry and ironic, who sounded nevertheless subservient to the woman, as if he were trapped in the same web as the rest of them, "You amuse me, Raven. I was abandoned by you, yet fate now draws you near. By Orcus, I promise you'll meet me, Andae." Blakus perked up at the mention of his name. The voice was unfamiliar, but he wondered if he'd come across him in one of his 'forgotten' experiences. "In here, you have already. But in another time, another place. Even in a false memory... by your primitive understanding."

"Zielinski." Blakus mouthed.

<Tag All>

[Carl Torek]

Carl sat in the Command seat, watching the screen as the saucer section once more began to rotate on the one remaining clamp. He could see the Navigation Officer working at break-neck speed trying to overcome the natural laws of dynamic's. Andae was working hard, he spun to face the screen:

"Marionette ... Overload the Saucer's port impulse engine now !"

The saucer section began to move back to starboard, but the weight of the star drive was dragging on the remaining clamp and the massive disk began to rotate clockwise. Power failures began springing up throughout the Bridge and the inertial dampers failed. everyone was thrown to the port side as the clamp finally ruptured. The sound was unbelievable !

As the artificial gravity returned the Officer's took their station's, Marionette work to keep the saucer section from falling into the upper atmosphere, and finally stabilized her. But Andae had bad news.

"It's gone, Admiral... The Stardrive section was severed." He paused, surveying sensor results as fed through by Peers who'd returned to the tactical station, "It's some two thousand kilometers behind us. Seems undamaged, and is in a slight spin but loosing altitude."

"Can we reconnect ?" Torek asked, watching the other half rotating slowly behind them, "We could use the emergency clamps. we wouldn't have warp, but we could use the section's power."

"Wouldn't work Admiral." Blakus said, "Even if we could somehow halt the rotation, we'd need to go down to the section, and that would put us too close to the atmosphere. In our condition, I'd say leave it to fall."

"Very entertaining." It was Eris, but this time she was accompanied by a second voice:

"You amuse me, Raven. I was abandoned by you, yet fate now draws you near. By Orcus, I promise you'll meet me, Andae." Carl spun to face his Chief Engineer, who seemed to have gone pale as the man continued speaking. He looked at Calli, who shrugged, not having the first clue as to why this person should know the Engineer, or who he was. They listened in silence as the man taunted Blakus.

"Zielinski." Blakus mouthed.

"What the ....." Calli began, but was lifted off her feet as the saucer section began to turn towards the planet below. Everyone regained their footing and got to work. The saucer section was at twenty degrees declination, and the angle was increasing, quickly ! ... Marionette and Blakus did everything they could, but the downward angle of the massive saucer section was too much to overcome. They realized, with a sense of forlorn acceptance, that they were going to hit the planet rapidly coming up to meet them ..........

[Amanda Handren]

Amanda stirred the sounds around her rising in volume as she fought towards consciousness.

~~The flames licked at her skin, sending searing pain running through her in waves~~

Her screams echoed through sickbay.

~~"Stop fighting"~~ said the voice in her head ~~"I'll win and you'll lose."~~
It continued to taunt her.

"NO!" She cried out as she moved closer and closer to the surface of consciousness. She was so close, she could feel herself becoming more solid as the world around her became clear.

She looked around her, unsure of where she was. The events of the past stopping at the rising flames and starting now ... She slowly comprehended where she was. She was in sickbay, ... aboard the Raven. But how ....

"Where am I?" her voice weak as she looked for a face she recognized.

[Andae Blakus]

It's all over, Blakus realised. Not only had the Saucer sheared itself clear of the Stardrive courtesy of some desperate manoeuvres, without which the destruction of the ship would've been assured, but now by the whims of the entities on the planet's surface - one of them, impossibly having identified himself as Ben Zielinski - the Saucer had tilted sharply on the z+ relative to the planet and was plummeting into its weak atmosphere.

The question that revolved around Andae's mind was whether this was real space or not. They'd arrived at the conclusion that this wasn't the real USS Raven - thus their imminent shattering into the surface of the planet shouldn't cause their actual deaths - but had Eris placed this falsitude of a vessel in actual reality? Was space about them real? If this were the case, Blakus deduced, the planet itself must also be real, as it must consist of the same basic fundamental particles as occasionally inhabited space.

Blakus debated whether they were on a collision course with a real physical object or yet another phantasm. If they destroyed themselves against the real facility on the surface, they may well destroy the structure in which their real selves were presumably encased and thus cause their real deaths. But if all this was a part of their imagination... what then...?

Would eternity annihilate itself? There was only one way to know, and that was to pierce those atmospheric depths and strike the surface. There could be no escape; Eris had set them in an incorrectable spin towards the surface, the Saucer now plummeting and rotating on several axes. Blakus was gripping his console, feeling entrenched in the chair as if it was part of his very being. Eris may continue her games, weaving her web of despair about us, but whatever she has planned I'm ready. As he clamped himself to the console he noticed his knuckles whiten as the blood drained from them .

The Raven lit up like fireworks as it impacted the surface. The facility, lost in cloudy white that expanded before the main shockwave, was obliterated in sparking glory as the Saucer's port side drove into its array of chrome roofs. Beyond the gaseous cloud of milky white was a glowing core of brazen fury, whose central point was the Raven Saucer's primary power unit in process of detonation, rapidly expanding, in minutes settling, leaving nothing but charred remains of duranium upon the dusty monuments of the facility and the quashed dreams of countless souls ensconced within Eris's theatre of the damned.


Blakus awoke retching, screaming, in his quarters. He commanded the lights on, finding the place in a ruin of half-loose bulkheads, detritus of his personal life he'd never worried to clear that coated the floor, explosions of red flickering across his personal terminal - unanswered incoming comms. What had happened? He'd been climbing the hill, passing the banner labelled with the Roman sigil... No! He'd found legionaries, his comrades long lost in time, tied to him by blood. They'd led him to...

He threw the sheets back, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and cradling his head. He rubbed at his ill-kempt hair. That man, Ben Zielinski, had been lost two years ago, in a subspace disturbance. He'd simply disappeared. And seemingly of his own volition, for he'd been a diplomat often engaged in top secret missions and he often used unknown and befuddling means of escape to pursue his secret objectives for Starfleet Intel. What'd let him here, to Eris's lair, and worshipping mythical entities of Roman origin at her apparent whim.

Blakus knew his mythology. Eris, goddess of disorder and chaos...

Another name...

He writhed on the floor. Orcus. It came from somewhere. Yes... Zielinski's invocation, the entity by which Ben had sworn, although that memory of Blakus's seemed to come from another lifetime. Orcus, a Roman god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths.

Unsteadily Blakus rose to his feet, heading to his quarters' door. It beeped a negative signal once then admitted him. The corridor lay dark and empty; emergency lights only. Cries of terror emanated from one end of the passage, down to his left. He took off at a jog in the opposite direction. He desperately tried to orientate himself; not in space, but in spacetime.

Zielinski... He was surprised by the sudden vividness of the words in his own head, like those that arose when close to sleep in a state of exhaustion, Things change.

They certainly do, was the unidentified reply. 'That' he realised was his last memory before waking.

Something lay between however.

The memories rushed back in an instant: Imminent death, impact on the planet! Raising his hands before his eyes to shut out the blinding light of existence itself, from the rattling back of the bridge of the doomed Galaxy Saucer...

He cast about now, seeing the damage extent all around him. It couldn't be... Had the ship actually survived this impact? What had become of the facility now, whether real or not? A figure appeared out of the gloom ahead, a blue uniformed officer... "Ensign Handren, I think..." he murmured it more to himself than as a greeting.

The voices of horror from behind loped nearer, siphoning from the floor, slithering along the walls, hysterical laughter and lost confused moans of unaskedfor torment, gaining on the CEO. He started to run but the walls were opening up about him. The playground of the false Starfleet HQ was revealed before peeling curtains on either side, the partygoers regarding him blankly, if at all, but he kept himself focussed on the turbolift door ahead, exacting all his thought on to it, his only feasible goal, else a descent into madness and imprisonment forever amongst a writhing mass of lifeless spirits.

<Tag All>

[Amanda Handren]

[In Sickbay, being thrown about as the saucer section is detached rather abruptly]

Amanda was thrown off the biobed as the saucer section came lose from its moorings.

"Something tells me this isn't good." she muttered as she fought to right herself and gain her bearings. She was still confused as to what has happened but knew that it would all be explained eventually. Right now she needed to get to her post.

She pulled herself to her feet and glanced around at the havoc the sloping deck was causing. Maybe I can get out of here and to get to the bridge before they notice I'm gone. She thought to herself as she worked her way towards the door of sickbay.

[Calli Valente]

Calli managed to get to her feet as the saucer section turned towards the ground so far below them. She looked at Carl, who was sitting with a look of resignation on his face. Eris had done so much to the Raven crew, he couldn't image her leaving them to their own devices from here on in. She moved to sit in the Executive Officer's seat and reached over to take her step brother's hand. The cloud layer was rushing up to meet them, and Calli knew they would have mere seconds once they broke through.

The view-screen cleared, showing the green blue of the surface below. She closed her eyes a second before the impact. Everyone was thrown forward as the saucer section gouged a furrow into the earth for over a kilometer, until it came to rest. She staggered to her feet, broken consoles, injured people, dirt, branches from torn trees, but most of all, darkness ... She could hear groaning, people injured, cries of pain. She moved forward cautiously, trying her best not to step on any of the injured. As she reached each one she knelt to check their condition. T'Brel was here, unconscious, his left leg at an impossible angle, obviously broken, Carl was to one side of the torn out Navigation console, head bleeding from a large gash. Calli ripped off one sleeve and held it to the wound. Marionette was stood in the middle of the Bridge, she was making a slow rotation, moving to each Officer in turn.

"Commander ... Here !" Calli shouted. Marionette turned at the sound and made her way to the pair, she knelt and took over from Valenti tending to the Admiral, "Is there any word from anyone else ?"

"We are all here Commander." the Android replied, as Aeryn joined them, "Apart from our Chief Science Officer and Lieutenant Young, who were in Sick-bay." Calli made her way to the turbo-lift, which hardly unexpectedly, remained solidly closed. She looked round and found the Jeffries tube access. She informed Marionette that she was going to try to reach the others, told the Marine to follow her, then ducked into the 'tube .....

~~~~~

Stepping into the corridor, she was devastated at the scene before her eyes ... The port side of the saucer section was missing, completely ripped off during the impact, and along with it, any hope of finding Ensign Handren and Lieutenant Young ! ... Tavik moved to the edge of the rupture and looked down, almost one hundred meters separated them from the ground, so unless they could find another way out of the remains of the ship, they would be stuck here until Eris chose to move them once again.

Calli heard a weak cry from along the corridor and began to move in that direction. Seconds later they came across the Marine Medic and their Science Officer. Both were injured but Calli couldn't tell if they had suffered internal injuries or not, they needed the Medic down here fast. Aeryn offered to climb back to the Bridge and send help down. She made both Officer's as comfortable as possible then moved further down the corridor. They needed a way off the ship before whatever was left of the propulsion system's exploded.

She had gone maybe fifty meters into the dark foreboding corridor when, for a second, she was sure she had heard a child's laughter, but dismissed it as some form of post traumatic recall. She was going downwards quickly, so hopefully she would find a rupture in the hull close to the ground where they could evacuate and move away ..........

[Amanda Handren]

[In the corridor, or what is left of it after the crash]

One minute she was making Amanda way to the bridge, the next she was being tossed around like a rag doll. When she came to she was laying beneath rubble, in darkness. She heard cries all around her as the sense of feeling came at her full force. She hurt, and hurt all over. Was there anywhere that didn't, she wondered. "Help..." Her cries weak as she pushed what rubble she could off of her in hopes that it would help the pain in her chest. Amanda felt around with her hands, having only the sense of touch to tell her what was what. Apparently she was trapped beneath part of the corridor bulkhead, which had collapsed on top of her legs and lower abdomen.

She managed to push aside most of it and lay mostly unobstructed. However, as she checked herself for injuries she found a stickiness beneath her fingers as she touched her side. Oh great, bleed to death in the dark. What a way to go. She thought to herself as she tenderly touched the area trying to assess the damage. She ripped part of her tunic and pressed it against the wound just as the others found her.

"Welcome to hell." she said as she struggled to sit up, as much as she could anyway. "Help me get my legs free." She groaned as pain flowed over her as she struggled to sit up. "I've got a gash in my side. I can't tell how bad though." She grew silent for several minutes letting the pain subside. "How bad is it?" she asked, referring to the crash. Her own injuries were second to the ship and the crew. "Help me up..." Her only concern was helping find others trapped in the crash.

[Marionette]

"Commander ... Here !" Calli shouted. Marionette turned at the sound and made her way to the pair. She knelt and took over from Valenti tending to the Admiral, "Is there any word from anyone else ?"

"We are all here Commander." the Android replied, as Aeryn joined them, "Apart from our Chief Science Officer and Lieutenant Young, who were in Sick-bay." Calli informed Marionette that she was going to try to reach the others, told the Marine to follow her, then ducked into the 'tube ....

With that, Marionette accessed her information on first aid with regard to head injuries. "Admiral, i would recommend that we get some water from the bridge head and clean your head injury.... If the water is still working." she said, almost sarcastically. Her long hair, normally up in 'mobius coils', was currently a mess of half-dreadlocks from being thrown about like a puppet during the crash. The dreadlocks that had come loose, had fallen over half of her face, covering the parts-exposing gash in her face from fighting the razor-cats awhile ago, and making her beautiful/ more human looking again. (at least until the mission was over and she could get herself repaired again.)

Entering the restroom, she levered the drain closed and tapped on the tap, which weakly splattered forth 1.47 pints of water, before sputtering out and venting only air, making a deep blowing noise, like that of a tuba. She took a nice white towel, with black edging and the starfleet delta swoosh emblazoned on it, and dipped it in the water before exiting back to the bridge, and handing it to Torek.

Placing it on his forehead, he groaned and winced some, and then grumbled. "Im gonna be feeling that in the morning." "Sleep would not be advisable, Sir, as it has not yet been determined if you have a concussion."

The older man retorted, a thin smile forming on his face. "Aw, so you do care." Marionette had no idea what he was referring to "Care about what ?" she said, confusedly. Torek only smiled more, saying nothing and leaving it be.

[Andae Blakus]

More memories, mere fragments, kept filtering through to him. He picked his way through the wall segments and other detritus littering the corridor; to his left white light, piercing, almost angelic gleamed through gashes torn in the hull, and up ahead, a section entirely open to the forests lying a kilometre below them.

A sizeable part of the corridor had been torn out by the blast, leaving only a three inch remnant of passageway that separated him from the turbolift that could take him to the bridge. There was no guarantee said turbolift would function however...

The question had arisen within him as to how he'd found himself screaming in his quarters, when in the last instant before surface impact - he was sure of it - he'd been gripping the engineering console on the bridge. But slices of his memory had peeled away, appearing out of nothingness, fluttering as physical objects in the corridor. He frowned, walked forward close to where the corridor met with the precipice to the ground below. Bending he saw these slices as old-style photographic images of real paper: timelapsed scenes of him arriving at his quarters, the ship a wreck about him, hurrying to collect something from his bookshelf (for what reason he couldn't fathom) and being knocked out cold by a length of conduit that'd burst abruptly through the ceiling. He'd crawled into his bed, his delirium making him think he'd had a nightmare, and had wasted away to sleep. And then, the fiery rebirth, screaming and saturated by pain.

But these half-remembered things from after the Raven had crashed were nothing when set against his last, concrete memory: his friend Zielinski, dressed absurdly but endearingly as a Roman Senator, a dazed look in his eyes as if he was oppressed by the same power that had the crew trapped here. Yet also in those eyes had been the urge for vengeance. Orcus: the punisher of broken oaths. Does Zielinski think he's Orcus...? Blakus thought shaking his head. He seems enslaved to Eris like the rest of us. Andae had never meant to leave his friend behind in that nebula those years ago, because he hadn't realised at the time that Zielinski's disappearance wasn't of his own design.

"He has some power here, though. Rules some fortress, they say, with soldiers, and slaves too. Something in his thought Eris likes, perhaps she thinks she can use it for her own ends."

Blakus spun around, ascertaining the source of the voice. The man in the bowler hat... But as soon as he centred his vision the man winked out of existence.

He squeezed past the ruined section of corridor, and looking back peered up at the mutilated edges of the Raven's dorsal hull. What'd brought him back to the Raven then? And where was everyone else? "Admiral Torek, this is Blakus. I'm on deck 7, forward section 43-alpha. Respond."

Nothing. Blakus sighed; internal comms could be down. "Blakus to any other crewmembers aboard, respond," he spoke impatiently. Slapping his commbadge he started climbing via means of the spars of duranium and dormant EPS conduit remnants the mangled corridor edge up to the external hull.

From the gleaming white surface of the Raven's Saucer he gazed at the lands about him. Forests; a distant hill; far off near the horizon, mountainous regions reminding him of the lay of the land as they'd seen it from the shuttle upon arrival here. He worked his way towards the Saucer's centre, the raised section and the bridge. It wasn't an arduous task, despite the heat, less than 200 metres and a smooth surface to traverse.

He stopped short before he reached the raised section, gasping at what he saw beyond the Saucer's aft. A building, looking like Starfleet HQ - out of place and time amongst the wild forests. A giant wedge had been torn out of its right flank, that side of the building having collapsed slightly, and Blakus guessed the truth that this was where the Raven had impacted.

Shaking his head clear of this insane vision, he continued his climb and reached the bridge, peering down through the hole smashed in its dome ceiling. "Oh, hello."

<Tag All>

[Carl Torek]

He fought the nausea rising in his throat as he got back to his feet. The Bridge was in chaos, the Operations and Helm consoles were smashed off their mountings, laying against the side wall. Sparks lanced out from severed power conduits. he leaned against what was left of the wooden upper deck arc behind the Command Seats. Calli had gone looking for Ensign Handren and Lieutenant Yang, who had been in Sick-bay when the ship separated and finally crashed.

Commander Blakus entered the Bridge, disheveled and bruised. He stood on the remains of the Tactical console and reached up. He took hold of the rim and raised himself up until he could see through the smashed Bridge dome:

"Oh ... Hello." was all Andae could manage. Carl moved towards him and raised himself up, the sight before him almost made him loose consciousness.

"Isn't that ....." he said, Andae nodding in agreement even before he had finished the sentence, "OK, let's get everyone up here. We need to get over there, God-knows how many fatalities there are in there."

It took almost thirty minutes to get the sole members of the USS Raven-B together. Blakus and Peers fabricated a makeshift ramp, allowing everyone to climb out of the top of the saucer section. They worked their way 'down' the hull to solid ground, almost three hundred meters away. The mock Star Fleet Headquarters was close to two kilometers behind the hull section. A massive gouge in the landscape highlighted the path the ship had taken on entering the atmosphere and impacting with the ground. It looked as if the saucer section hit once, rebounding over a kilometer into the air, before gravity took hold and dragged the massive construction back towards the surface and her final resting place. Unfortunately, or by 'design' the gleaming Star Fleet Command building stood in it's way. Raven had sliced through the building like a hot knife through butter, the incision so precise it could have been built into the final look of the structure, he thought bizarrely.

They began the trek back to their original location. All the time wondering in Eris had one last twist in the story for them to endure. Three hours found them stepping onto the still somewhat pristine cement of the plantation walkway, One of Boothby's favorite spots. He had often been seen sat here, talking, or better, allowing Officer's to talk. He was better known for being the Academy's Gardener. But for some reason always seemed to 'be found' at the right time ...

Carl brought his mind back to the present, and their situation.

The Command building was not looking at it's best. The port edge of the saucer section had demolished eight floors with surgical precision, the floors above collapsing concertina-like in on each other. Carl stood off to one side and closed his eyes, a silent prayer running through his mind for those lost ... Part of him 'knew' this was all the make-believe of some entity, but he also knew that umpteen other ships, including two Federation Vessels, had been brought here, and as yet, no-one had survived ... After a moment of contemplation, he looked at the others:

"Let's go." he said ..........

[Calli Valente]

She couldn't think how long the climb had taken ... After searching for a way to the surface she had given up and gone back to join the others. Somehow, Commander Blakus had stumbled on the fact that the saucer section had come to rest on the lower half of the hills just outside the city. So the main area of the ship was in fact buried, allowing the team to climb out through what was effectively 'the roof' of the Bridge. After reaching solid ground they had progressed forward ...

"Is that ? ....." she uttered.

"Yes." Andae confirmed, a sense of resignation in the reply.

"We've come full circle." Calli said, stating what no-one else seemed to want to admit, "You 'DO' see it, don't you ... We arrived her and were transplanted into the facsimile of Federation Headquarters. We fought every little game and scheme that 'INSANE' entity could throw at us, and what do we get for our efforts, yes, a return visit to HQ." everyone knew she was just vocalizing whet they were all thinking. Admiral Torek had listened, like the others, before he made his decision:

"Let's go." he said, then without waiting for comments from his crew, he strode off toward the complex before them. It was a given that Eris would leave the deceased in place, hell, the Raven had thwarted her every scheme, played the games, and were still on TOP ! ... So, what better way to undermine the group by allowing them to see the consequences of their plunge to Earth.

*****

As they entered the main quadrangle, opposite the main building, Calli realized there was something wrong. they had passed a large pile of detritus from the building them impacted, but for some reason the amount of rubble didn't seen to correspond with the loss to the structure. There were other things too. The granite tiles used to decorate the quadrangle were, darker, no, lighter, no, they were changing each time she focused on a particular section. Why ! ... She could see that the Academy Concourse was clear of rubble, despite it being below the west side of the building the Raven sloughed. It occurred to her, that their erstwhile captor, was having trouble maintaining her illusions. 'Why would that be, now of all times ?' she asked herself, glancing left and right. She suddenly had the feeling they were in 'actual' mortal danger, and grabbed Torek by the arm.

"Admiral ... Carl !" she said, with more urgency than she had ever done before to ensure his full and un-distracted attention, "We need to think about our next move. I have the feeling this is not going to end well, for any of us !"

Torek wasn't one to ignore the comments or suggestions from his Senior Staff, and he was less prone to ignoring the insight of his adopted half-sister. So when she made a point of speaking directly about an issue, he tended to listen ... He told everyone to rest for a moment while he looked at the situation. He wanted to tell the other's that his hesitation was purely, of sorts, paternal in nature, but they needed more and at this moment he couldn't give it to them, and Calli could see that too ... She looked round, trying to focus on the infinitesimal before trying to convince her colleagues. Then it came to her:

T'brel, a moment ago, you were leaning on the old oak tree Boothby transplanted. Remember ?" she asked, receiving an affirmative from the Tactical Officer, "Then where's the tree ?" she asked ..........





< tag : All >

[Andae Blakus]

They approached the devastated main structure, rounding the academy parks along the paths that led to the primary entrance to the Academy, and the HQ situated some way behind it. They rested near a non-descript tree; T'Brel leant against it, even the security officer running out of breath such as had been the length of their journey from the downed Saucer. Tension seemed to ripple from the walls, Blakus observed; transfiguring, losing form momentarily before restoring themselves to usual aspect. He shook his head, taking it for an hallucination brought on by exhaustion.

The tired figures entered the main concourse, the walls and steps leading to the surrounding upper level silent. Andae looked across at Calli, witnessing her obvious surprise at the lack of rubble. Had the Raven really cloven such a clean path that it'd simply bisected the building? Cutting cleanly, leaving behind no sign of the impact besides the wedge where it'd barrelled through.

The wedge in the structure opened itself to the clear sky like a set of jagged clawing fingers, as if trying to bring the atmosphere, space, higher planes down around them. Andae stepped quickly from the site of the disaster, a sense of terror flowing rapidly towards him.

He left the mystery of the disappeared wreckage behind, focussing on the surroundings. The place had emptied; no revellers, oddballs, men in bowler hats... Perhaps, he thought, this wasn't even the same HQ as before. Otherwise he agreed, it was as if they'd come full circle.

"Lieutenant," he signalled to one of the marines, "What do you make of that?" He pointed up at a swinging light fixing, its bulb sparking on a chain, lowered some way into the room. It was quite out of place, in this HQ and in the rest of the Federation, where illumination of interior spaces came from plain panels in the ceilings.

"The Admiralty have gone retro?" the Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders.

Andae looked at the marine darkly and cast about at the others. "It's not just the quadrangle, the floors, or the lack of rubble, sirs." They glanced over at him. "May things are simply vanishing, replaced by stranger, out-of-time objects. Perhaps Eris is desperate; she's clawing whatever she can from our history to maintain this facsimile."

"But what's to account for her loss of power?" one asked scowling. "This isn't another one of her games...? Make us question what's happened here while she closes a new noose around us?"

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Andae wasn't certain, wasn't sure of anything now. All he remembered were the words of the bowler hat man... He has some power here, they say, power she thinks she may be able to use for her own ends...

His eyes shot open. Perhaps Zielinski was more than a plaything - someone who lives with power illusory; slaves about him, but at Eris's whim - perhaps she actually needs him to help maintain her power. "If she didn't have whatever power Zielinski has come by, he would be able to break her spell and that would go a way to drain her of the power she'd taken from him to sustain herself (or itself)." He hadn't realised he'd spoken that aloud. Where did such power come from; a pure desire for vengeance on Andae for leaving him in the nebula? If Eris's powers were drawn through base emotions, then might they be best served by leaving her with nothing to draw upon?

But, he'd forgot, for it was easy to slip from the mind given their surroundings, they were still trapped in her web... Whatever other games she might play, they'd have to tread a thin line, or fall into eternity.

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[Marionette]

"But what's to account for her loss of power?" one asked scowling. "This isn't another one of her games...? Make us question what's happened here while she closes a new noose around us?"

"Perhaps it is the fact that we have retained our identities and actively fought playing her game, where others before us were unable to resist, or were more forcefully made to lose." Marionette said, stripping out a loose wire from the ceiling and bundling up her now completely ruined 'Mobius coils' hairstyle into a ponytail of thick and mane-like monowire-dreadlocks. One of the marines simply stared at her as, via a change of hairstyle, she went from formerly prim and 'by the book' looking, to now having a keen, wild edge to her, counterpointed with a touch of disturbia due to her facial damage and exposed blinkies, still present from pit-fighting the razor-cat.

~PING~

Something small and metallic sounded off into the not-so-distant distance. Everybody leaped from their seats and scrambled to some position or another, making ready for the next scheduled catastrophe, which by now was quite overdue.

~PANG~

It was definitely coming from inside the building. Marionette (followed by several others) rushed down a hall, and passed an archway to find a very long table, with an elegant lace tablecloth, and fine chinaware set for a dinner party of atleast 30.

Marionette carefully walked around the absurdly long table. Only four chairs at the far end, were out of place, having been scooted out from the table "Intriguing.... Eris has apparently decided to attempt to simulate fragments of Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland. According to the Novels, The Mad Hatter would sit here. " Marionette said, pointing to the chair. "The March Hare, however, would bounce back and forth between these two chairs, to the Hatters right and left. Alice Liddell, once on the scene, would be here." she spoke, continuing her observation. "Extreme Caution is advised, as Alice in Wonderland, is Not a nice novel." Marionette said, a very thin hint of doom to her words.

(this is just an idea. if need be, i can edit it to something more generic.)