Unfinished Business

Posted on Aug 23, 2015 @ 11:47am by Commander Jacob Crichton & Cindy Rochemonté
Edited on on Aug 23, 2015 @ 11:47am

Mission: The Lights of Hyperion

= Unfinished Business =

(cont'd from "Roasted")


LOCATION: USS PHOENIX

SCENE: Main Engineering

STARDATE: [2.15] 0823.0024



The silence in Main Engineering shattered. Sylvia Warren's scream, a sick combination of horror and anguish, hit Cindy Rochemonte's ears like an electric current. All of her muscles seemed to tense at once, rigid and unmoving. She couldn't take her eyes off the twisted thing that had once been Thomas Varn, now a black, sooty smear on the deck plating, and Sylvia Warren kept making that horrible noise, so loud and so awful that Cindy could do nothing but listen to it shred the space between them to ribbons.



But the flicker of light drew Cindy's eye, and she saw that the Amaterasu that had killed Varn had not faded back into subspace. It was still there, and now that the energy that had drawn it had dissipated, it was moving again, moving towards Sylvia. Cindy saw the empty look in Sylvia's eyes, saw the pregnant woman's hands reaching out senselessly for the wispy tendrils of radiation of the Amaterasu. It was enough to spur her into motion. Cindy dashed out from behind her workstation towards Sylvia, not altogether sure what she was going to do when she reached her.



She collided with Sylvia moments before the alien light made contact with her hand. Cindy tried her best to make the landing soft; Sylvia had still be screaming when Cindy tackled her, and Cindy didn't like the way the scream had sharply cut-off at the moment of impact. Sylvia landed in a heap, her hands clutching at her stomach. In an instant, Cindy remembered that Sylvia was pregnant, and a thousand new worries flashed through her mind. But there was no time for any of them. The Amaterasu was still there.



Cindy got up, hooked her arms underneath Sylvia's armpits, and started to drag her away from the shifting, shimmering form of the Amaterasu. The alien didn't seem to notice, and made no move to pursue; it floated away from them, towards one of the workstations, which started to spark and fizz beneath the creature's attention. Rochemonte towed Sylvia around a bend, and took the pregnant woman by the chin.



"Sylvia," she said. "Are you okay?"



Sylvia's eyes were opened, but unfocused. They flitted here and there, never lighting on any one thing for long. She was breathing hard, almost gasping for breath, and it looked like she was trying to form words but had forgotten how.



Having reached the extent of her medical expertise, Cindy turned her attention back to the Amaterasu. The creature still seemed to show no interest in them, but it was hovering between them and the exit. Cindy wasn't sure what effect the radiation could have on Sylvia's pregnancy, but she had a feeling prolonged exposure could be a serious threat. That meant she needed to get Sylvia out, or get rid of the Amaterasu.



"Merde!" Cindy hissed, then turned her attention back to Sylvia. "Sylvia, listen to me."



"Thomas..." Sylvia sputtered. She tried to rise, pushing at Cindy, trying to claw her way back to Thomas' body, but Cindy pushed her back down into a sitting position.



"He's gone!" Cindy said. "I'm sorry, Sylvie, but there's nothing we can do for him, and we're both still in danger!"



"No!" Sylvia shouted, trying to push her way up. Cindy forced her back down again.



"What was his plan?" CIndy asked, trying to force Sylvia to look her in the eye.



"I need to get to Thomas!"



"No!" Cindy shouted, almost directly in Sylvia's face. Sylvia's eyes seemed to focus for an instant, so Cindy pushed harder. "Thomas would want you safe, and we're not safe with that *thing* in here! You were helping him set it up... what was Thomas doing?"



"No no no," Sylvia repeated, shaking her head. She sounded hysterical.



Cindy's eyes flicked up from Sylvia to check on the Amaterasu. Her glasses were badly smudged by now, making the world look hazy and indistinct, but she could pick out the glowing light of the alien well enough. It was getting closer to them now, it's shimmering tendrils wafting gently over the hardware of Main Engineering, leaving noticeable black marks and scoring in their wake. Cindy frowned, then looked back at Sylvia.



"Thomas came in here looking for Crichton," she said. "Why?"



"H-he wanted to give them s-something sexy," Sylvia said, clearly trying hard to force the words out, one at a time.



"What does that *mean*?"



"Drawn to energy," Sylvia said, her voice uneven. "They're mating, and he said, Thomas said, d-drawn to energy, but then he... oh no, oh God...."



Sylvia's voice began to rise again. Cindy grabbed Sylvia's hands in hers, hard. So hard it hurt, and even drew a sharp, pained exhale from Sylvia. The pregnant woman's eyes focused again, and Cindy gave her a hard look.



"What was his plan?" Cindy repeated.



"Draw Amaterasu away from the sh-ship," Sylvia said. "Energy draws them, h-he wanted to create an energy f-field outside the ship..."



Cindy understood. She nodded once, gently released Sylvia's hands, and looked up again at the Amaterasu. It was getting closer still. Cindy slapped her comm-badge.



"Rochemonte to Crichton," she said.



[[Crichton here,]] came the reply. [[Any word from Varn, Specs? It's getting awful hot in here.]]



Cindy sucked in a breath. Her eyes moved to where Thomas Varn lay, then to Sylvia, who was already starting to slip back into hysterics. Jake and Varn had been friends. Jake would want to know what had happened. But there was nothing Jake could do about it now, and Cindy knew that her commanding officer had a way of letting his emotions get the best of him. Jake was already under too much pressure... this was something he didn't need on his plate right now.



"He's... not available," Cindy said, hating the words even as they tumbled past her lips. She was glad Sylvia was already too far gone to have understood what she'd said.



[[The hell's that mean?]] Jake's voice, tinny and cantankerous, blared over the comms. [[Get the featherhead on the horn!]]



"I know what his plan is," Cindy said quickly, hoping to move the conversation past Varn's absence. "Jake, you have control over the main deflector?"



[[We've got direct-access, why?]]



"You need to turn it on," Cindy said. She looked over her shoulder, and saw the Amaterasu was still there, getting closer. She cursed again under her breath and crawled towards Sylvia, trying to pull her away. Sylvia barely seemed to notice, but Cindy managed to seize her legs and pull, moving her just in time to avoid the gentle, fatal caress of one of the Amaterasu's extremities.



Meanwhile, Jake's voice continued over the comm, oblivious to what Cindy was going through.



[[Did you forget we turned the deflector into a doomsday device, Specs? We turn this thing on, it's gonna fry every Amaterasu within 5000 kilometers.]]



**Good,** Cindy thought savagely. She wasn't proud of the impulse, but after seeing what these things had done to Varn, she was having trouble finding compelling reasons to spare them. But Sylvia started to scream again, and Cindy remembered that Varn had died doing what he could to save the Amaterasu. To kill them now would be to dishonor his final act.



[[Specs?]] Jake sounded impatient. [[Am I boring you?]]



"There's... a lot... going on...," Cindy said, breathless, as she pulled Sylvia further back. They gained enough distance on the Amaterasu that Cindy was able to stop, but the glittery light of the alien's tendrils kept clawing the air in their direction.



[[We can't turn this thing on without hearing from Varn,]] Jake continued. [[I don't want to kill these things.]]



"It won't kill them," Cindy said. "Varn wanted to draw the Amaterasu away from the ship with a focused energy field, something more attractive to them than the PHOENIX's warp field."



[[It took us more than two hours to rig up this graviton pulse,]] Jake said. [[Changing the output now will take more time than we-]]



"You don't need to deactivate the pulse," Cindy interrupted. She could almost see the PHOENIX's diagnostic diagram in her mind, and the deflector subsystems spilled out along her mind's eye in an instant. "You can adjust the waveform of the gravitons, and render the subspace effects inert. The energy field should still draw the Amaterasu without killing them."



[[So how do we get them away from the ship? The pulse will only draw them *to* the dish, which means they'll swarm us even more than they already are.]]



"Jake, you know I'd love to help, but I really can't stress enough how busy things are down here," Cindy said. The Amaterasu was drifting closer, and they were running out of room to retreat.



[[Bump me to the top of your list, Specs, I'm sitting in a damn radioactive tube here!]]



**Poor baby,** Cindy thought, as she hauled Sylvia further back from the Amaterasu's questing tendrils.



"Merde," Cindy cursed, almost out of breath. Her mind juggled the distance between them and the Amaterasu, as well as her mind's eye view of the PHOENIX's deflector control systems. Jake Crichton had told her once that his nickname for her- "Specs", which she found both irritating and, secretly, a little flattering - had nothing to do with her penchant for eyewear. It was because Cindy Rochemonte had impressed him with a near encyclopedic knowledge of their ship's technical specifications. At the time, they'd called the DISCOVERY home, but since upgrading to the PHOENIX, Cindy had taken care to keep up the habit. She automatically began running through a mental list of each aspect of the deflector system.



Suddenly, it hit her. Her eyes went wide behind her smudged lenses.



"The collimator!" she said. "You can adjust the energy stream, divert it out and away from the ship!"



[[I knew there was a reason I left you in charge down there,]] Jake replied, sounding proud. [[Alright. We'll get the pulse modified. Great work, lieutenant. Pass my thanks to Varn, too.]]



"Right," Cindy said. The Amaterasu was getting close, and there was nowhere else for them to go. Cindy had time to wonder if perhaps the creatures were drawn to bioelectricity as surely as any other types of energy. "And Jake... hurry!"



=[/\]=



NRPG: I know this is sudden, and probably seems really rushed. Justin's post left Cindy and Sylvia alone in Main Engineering with the Amaterasu, which I saw as an opportunity to flesh Cindy out a bit, so I jumped on it. Sad to see you go, Justin!



Shawn Putnam

a.k.a.

Jake Crichton, Commander

Chief Engineering Officer

USS PHOENIX