Shattered
Posted on 14 Dec 2015 @ 12:42am by Commander Luke Wyatt & Corporal Abbey St James & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Commander Norvi Stace & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Benice Gyce Ph.D.
3,843 words; about a 19 minute read
Mission:
Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3 -Brig
Timeline: MD 10 - 1800
ON:
Abbey paced her cell, she had returned the jacket Wintrow had given her back to him after they were split and put into two separate cells and every now and then she would look up, stare at him before looking away. Why did he do so much for her? Ok, he did owe her his life, shot her and was ordered to but he could have just shot her and then blamed some one else. This new universe was so backwards. The door to the brig's main room opened and a flurry of officers entered.
Wintrow sat huddled on the cot in his own cell, still wondering why he'd been arrested. He had followed orders, he was very certain he hadn't forgotten or disobeyed any since they never left the geolab... He looked up when he heard footsteps, but remained sat as he was, hugging his legs with his arms. He was still hurting all over, his bandaged hand throbbing, his chest area aching from the close range stun. His ears were still ringing from the flash-bang grenade and he was still seeing stars from being blinded by it, and subsequently stunned a second time in a very short period. All in all, he wasn't feeling very well and would've liked to just curl up and sleep. But that wasn't very much conduct becoming an officer-to-be, so he remained as he was.
Gyce entered, though was very skeptic of this prisoner. There was still a couple of details she was brushing up on, but then reports were generally subjective to the person who wrote them.
For the Bajoran security chief, she was here to observe and give impute. Ultimately, the command staff would decide, but her opinions could tip the scales one way or another.
Allyndra had come but it was mostly just to do a preliminary check of Wintrow. She was not so sure she cared about the mirror universe captive not after the ordeal in the sickbay.
Luke followed behind the other officers. Ever since they returned to their normal Universe he had been grieving the loss of his daughter, his real daughter and now had to play along with these charades. He had already suggested that the MU Version of Abbey be thrown out of the airlock but was met with stiff resistance and now she requested Asylum, he guess he had Cadet Paragon to thank for that idea.
Seeing the officers approach, Wintrow sat up on the cot, letting his legs drop down, his hands gripping the edge of the cot. He looked down at his dangling feet, wondering why cots were hung up so high and not a little lower so someone could sit comfortably. He peered towards the cell across from his, stealing a glance at Abbey and wondered how she was doing. He hadn't dared speak to her since being locked up and he had little memory of what happened between being stunned a second time, and being arrested. He swayed a little as he sat, a clear indication he wasn't well at all and was putting on a façade.
Allyndra moved toward Wintrow and pulled her medical tricorder. "Here," she did not say little brother but it was in the same tone she would have used. "Let me see if you need medical attention. All is well now, you are safe."
"I do," Wintrow replied softly, "close range phaser burn across chest and left hand. We tried to treat it as best as we could, and I got stunned by a grenade...also close range." He sat back down and shrugged out of his jacket again. It was scorched and his shirt underneath showed some damage too. He caught the tone and smiled just a little to let her know he had noticed. "I wasn't in any danger with Miss Wyatt," he added, "she saved my life."
Allyndra nodded and spared a glance that way. She was pretty well impressed that the young man remembered in good detail his injuries.
"Well let me take a look and we can get maybe a little treatment started. At least something for the pain. That burn looks like it hurts." She said and did a scan. The burn on the chest and hand were nasty and he really should go to sickbay but at least nothing that would result in a disability. The tendons and all were still intact. "Bad news, your going to be black and blue and hurting for awhile. The good news, there is not internal damage from the grenade and while the burn on the hand looks nasty the underlying tendons and nerves are fine. You will be flying again in no time."
Being black and blue was nothing new to the young pilot and he smiled thinly at the CMO. "Presuming Lieutenant Cyi will allow me to fly," he added, because technically he was still grounded after miscalculating a flight path when flying Galileo, and bumping her into another vessel. "The burn hurts, but my hand feels worse. We bandaged it as best as we could..." He paused, looking past Allyndra. "Is Abbey alright?"
"I don't know yet." Allyndra replied and gave a bit of pain reliever. She would have to attend to the wounds in general later.
Abbey couldn't help but smile, and he saved her's and also shot them both. "I assume you're all here to either kill me, torture me or by some miracle actually allow my request of political asylum." She said standing, her nose a hair line away from the brigs forcefield.
"Asylum is not generally granted in one or two meetings," Gyce explained as she leaned on her desk while looking at the young woman. "But yes, our command staff is here to determine your status."
Gyce gave Luke a very stern look as she motioned to the exit door. In her eyes, he was not the most objective person to be interrogating someone so very much like his deceased daughter. At least in appearance. "You're free to go, Lieutenant Wyatt."
Luke caught Gyce gaze an looked to the door biting his lip. Looking back to the girl that was in the brig he could feel the pull to deactivate the forcefield and either kill her or embrace the first option being the strongest. Turning back to Gyce he nodded and left, she knew what she was doing.
Abbey watched the exchange and hoped Luke, her father? Was it really her father though? All the multiverse stuff confused the hell out of her would stay she could see the murderous look in his eyes, she'd seen it every morning in the mirror but there was something else... What was it? Waiting for him to leave she cocked her head left and then right frowning at everyone in the room "Well go on then, out with it. I have a very busy schedule of staring at the roof, walls and floor." She paused "My status" She mimicked the woman's voice "Is this, I am Abbey Wyatt a faster, smarter, stronger and well breathing version of Abbey Wyatt. I doubt you'll send me back to the Terran Empire or you would have done so already which leads me to assume we're back in your universe which means I'm stuck which means you have a problem. Me."
"Are you a problem?" Gyce asked gently, to allow Abbey to answer in any direction she wanted to.
Abbey studied the woman who seemed to be leading the questioning "Of course I am, I'm not stupid. Me being here causes a whole variety of problems. Security is probably the main one, then there is educating me to this universe's political state, training, assimilation into this society oh and I hope accommodating me is also on that list I'm not sure if you've ever spent time in these cells but they're just barbaric."
"Abbey..." Wintrow walked up to the forcefield of his own cell, which had been reactivated after Allyndra had left the cell. "You're not a problem, not if you don't make yourself. And your sarcasm isn't helping much either..." He spoke softly, not really looking at anyone because he knew he was speaking out of turn.
Gyce turned her attention to the cadet. An odd thing, to stick up for a stranger. Either Abbey was truly honest, or she worked him like a field ox. It was too early to decide which, so Gyce decided to keep Wintrow into the conversation.
"You care for Miss Wyatt a lot?" Gyce asked the male prisoner.
"If not for her, I wouldn't be here ma'am," the young cadet answered quietly, "so yes I care. I owe her my life, so it's only honourable that I try and repay my debt to her."
Abbey scoffed and rolled her eyes, "You don't owe me anything Wintrow!" She now eyed Gyce with a determined look "Don't listen to him, he doesn't know what he's talking about and I think he was concussed when we were stunned... twice." She said the least he had to do with her the better it would be for him. "He hasn't done anything wrong and the fact you keep your own crew members in these... these cells is beyond me! So please enough with this bullshit. I am no direct threat to your ship or crew it wouldn't do me any good to be one. Have me under guard the whole time I don't care just get me out of this cell!"
Gyce looked to the Command Staff with an impassive face. This could be clostraphobia, but then again, Abbey had no true signs of said illness, other than panic demands. And those could come from any other variety of sources.
"Why wait until you were in your cell to demand asylum, Miss Wyatt?" Gyce finally asked the girl, once she thought about the weird events around the two prisoners.
She looked at the officer confused "Oh well I forgot to mention between the two instances of being stunned, knocked unconscious and then moved to her under armed escort... Like I said I keep to a busy schedule besides I'm certain you would have put me here regardless!"
Wintrow just sighed and shook his head. "Sarcasm, not helping Abbey," he murmured, "there wasn't any time ma'am. I took her to the geolab and there we were left behind by Lieutenant Wyatt, ordered to stay there. After that, we got stunned twice in rapid succession...there wasn't time..."
This would be far easier if Gyce had, say, a partner. To compare notes. To encourage paths forgotten in an investigation. Her instinct told her something was not adding up with Abbey, but she had no proof. She did, however, have a fully trained former intelligence operative in the room.
"Admiral Saalm?" Gyce spoke with a respectful bow to her superior and very top secret lover. "Since Miss Wyatt is a Mirror Universe citizen, I believe it is your right as admiralty to ask any question you desire, in this situation."
Holliday arrived a few moments later, his left arm held in a sling after he had sought treatment for a phaser wound. sustained during his escape from incarceration in his quarters. Whilst 24th century medicine had quickly healed the injury itself, the surrounding tissue was still in discomfort and as such reduced movement was recommended for the next day or so.
"Apologies for my tardiness Admiral. I thought it best to get myself patched up before reporting for duty."
"Sir," Gyce nodded respectfully to Holiday, and turned to Lirha for a response.
Stace then walked through, her eyes darting about the room for an explanation as to what had happened but the relaxed when she saw both her senior officers in the room. Even the XO liked steadied herself in the knowledge that she didn't have to control every situation. She cocked her head to the side. "Any developments?"
Abbey rolled her eyes as another officer entered the room and she let out a long obviously exaggerated sigh "I think its come and have a gawk at the convicted war criminal day not that I've done anything wrong... With in this universe" Her eyes darted across all the faces "Which one of you has the authority to do something or are you just going to debate all day! GODS! I dont know how you get anything done on this ship" She kicked the forcefield and she let out a small whimper but her face remained stone cold. "How about you" She said pointing at the fiery red headed Trill who had just entered the room.
"Abbey!" Wintrow could feel the electric charge of the forcefield as he stood close to it. "Just.....shut up. Please....let them do their job, you being all sarcastic isn't helping."
Stace shot a measured look to the admiral but then, her eyes focusing on the impostor, returned her gaze back to the woman. "I'm not entirely sure who you think you're speaking to, but it had better not be me." She walked up to the brig and placed one had on her hip. "You'll rot in there with an attitude like that. What's your problem?"
Abbey shook her head, she couldn't believe that this... this thing, a Trill was threatening her and if she wasn't separated by a forcefield she'd rip that fiery hair form her head. Breathing heavily she stayed standing facing the woman mere centimetres away "My problem is I am being held here for no apparent reason. I have't done anything wrong except choose sides in a Universe where there was no real choice. There's no federation, no peace! Just war and its all I've ever known. War and death" Her eyes glazed over looking through the woman as if she wasn't there. "From my point of view I am being held captive by a crew capable of escaping the Empire, who I do not know. Only what I have been told by superior's" She looked towards the green skinned admiral "Some of who I have served with for years and others I have been fighting for longer, losing friends and loved ones. You visit our universe from time to time and hate everything you see. Imagine living there."
"Your official reasoning for being held here," Gyce spoke calmly to both Abbey and the command staff. "...is that Lieutenant Wyatt charged you with attacking and harming one of our security personnel. You have given us hostility since then and have shown little respect to any us. So I ask that you take a few calm breaths and plea your case."
Gyce reached for her digi pen in her back pocket. Though it was, in fact, also a toy from her old SCIS unit. A miniaturized lie-detector that she turned on before she began writing notes on her PADD.
She sighed retreating back a couple of steps "I am Marine Specialist Corporal Abbey Wyatt, My ship is the ISS Galileo, my role included espionage, demolitions and I'm my units operations specialist I'm quit good with computer systems." She paused "My father was Sgt Luke Wyatt who was killed by Empire inteligence operatives under the pretence callousing with the enemy, no evidence, no trial just killed. This is why when you turned up I made my escape, I knew that if I could make it onto this ship I could leave the empire all together and never be found. So I got posted as guard here under Sgt Gaynor and shortly after arriving I killed him to safe Wintrow where I relinquished my weapon and allowed him to take me to you." She paused thinking back to the past few hours and days "When your crew managed to rally we were ordered to stay and put under guard who I knocked out in an attempt to help with the retaking of your ship, your survival meant my survival and who better to help fight the empire than an empire soldier however we were both stunned twice first with a phaser and second a stun grenade until I woke up being dragged here" She splayed here arms as if she was showing off the cell. "And now I'm talking to you, begging for my life and hoping you don't torture me for information and then throw me out of the airlock. You may think you've taken a risk keeping me here but I can assure its nothing compared to what I have done"
"And I think that's enough from everyone." Holliday interjected, feeling the temperature in the room jump up a few degrees as tempers began to flare.
"The fact of the matter is that you're now in our universe Miss Wyatt. Therefore you are subject to our rules, and our way of life. That said, I can appreciate you are most likely more than a little afraid of your current predicament and as such I can forgive a certain degree of hostility.
Nevertheless - the Empire is a military-based organisation, and as a Corporal of that military force I assume you have the appropriate respect for rank to speak to me as a Starfleet Captain if I show the same respect for your situation?"
Her eyes looked between the crowd of officers some she recognised before settling back on the Officer, Holliday at least this universe's version of Holliday who had just silenced everyone else and nodded. "I am unfamiliar with your ranks sir, but I guess you're something like a Fleet General?" She asked "At least you was in my universe. The best" She added embarrassingly.
Holliday looked to the floor for a moment. He could not help but feel a little proud of his alternate version having risen to such a position of authority, even if it had most likely been by some more unsavoury means.
"Starfleet operates a naval rank system. In comparison to your own marine system I would be a Colonel." Holliday replied curtly. She had asked a civil question, and as such he had given a civil response.
"You followed your orders from your Commanding Officer. I can respect that. However, you do have the potential to represent a danger to myself and to my crew. You are an unknown quantity in this equation Corporal, and I need to get that equation to balance somehow."
Holding back an encroaching flood of tears, the severity of her situation "I left everything, I gave up everything to get onto this ship and I have no knowledge of how you travelled to our universe. I am hot headed but I am not stupid. I can never go back and I know nothing other than the Empire, than Starfleet" She said the word starfleet tasting metallic as she forced it out "I left because I knew why my father died, he had an ideal that the empire was corrupt, wrong in every way and that it would be the destruction of itself, I left because in a universe of humans I felt like the only one with any humanity left. I am soldier, I am the sword to perish all evils and the shield that protects the weak on Earth or in Space I will follow this creed until be dying breath just like those before me" She paused "I am no threat to you or your crew, I don't have any secret agenda to sabotage this ship I am a Soldier without an army. And this crew? Anyone who could outsmart, outfight the empire is something I would like to be a part of.
If only you'd give me that chance, have me under guard assign me to someone. Wintrow knows how to keep me in place just give me a chance" She said exhausted, hungry and thirsty. If this didn't work she would only ask for a quick painless death.
Holllday raised en eyebrow at the mention of the cadet. He was still a little uncertain as to how all these elements fitted together. So far he had been given a pile of reports, but little time in which to read and reflect upon.
"Cadet? Care to explain?" John responded with a glare towards the Cadet. Abbey might have been a prisoner, but Wintrow was a starfleet trainee under his command, and as such he had no doubt that he would be given a straight answer.
Just as Wintrow started to explain, the CMO interrupted and he fell silent, waiting for her to speak
"He has been through a lot Captain," Allyndra said quietly. "Please realize that a full medical assessment has not been completed." While she had found nothing majorly wrong she hoped that Holiday's rather sharp tone would moderate with that. The young man needed more of fatherly figure then a commanding authority right now.
"I'm not sure about the keep in place part sir," Wintrow answered carefully, "but Lieutenant Wyatt made me responsible for her when I got her to the geolab. She saved my life sir, I couldn't just leave her behind somewhere. She could've let her companion kill me when they found me but she didn't. Instead she took him out and protected me. If she needs someone to shadow her while she gets used to being here, I'll gladly volunteer sir, and I promise my own duties won't suffer for it."
He slumped a little, looking away. "But first sir, I request to be sent to sickbay...for treatment, I was stunned twice and once at extremely short range and I'm aching all over sir. And my hand is burned..." He offered up his still haphazardly bandaged left hand. "Please..."
Holliday rubbed his temple with his hand as he thought on the complete mess that was taking shape in his Brig. So far he has a complicated enough report to write for Command and bringing back enemy troops was just about the last thing he needed.
"Doctor please remove the Cadet to Sickbay. I want him in my Ready Room the moment he is fit enough to walk out. No exceptions."
"Aye sir," Allyndra replied. She looked hard at the security who promptly turned off the cell security shielding.
"Wintrow you can lean on me or I can ask for a intra-ship transport, your choice."
The young pilot debated the options for a few seconds. "Transport may be wiser, ma'am," he replied slowly, "I can walk, but it would be a slow walk..."
"Very well," Allyndra nodded to the Captain. "Computer two to beam to directly to sickbay."
There was a moments hestiation and then the familiar feeling of here and there took over, but to the others they simply vanished in a sparkle of light.
OFF:
Cadet SO Wintrow Paragon
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[pnpc Tyrion]
LCmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo
CAPT Jonathan Holliday
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo
Corporal Abbey Wyatt
Marine Specialist
USS Galeilo
[Pnpc Jake]
Lieutenant JG Benice Gyce
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo
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