Study Hall

Posted on 11 Jul 2020 @ 12:42pm by

1,074 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Ab Intra

Marci walked onto the Flight Deck with a padd tucked into her pocket. Well, the padd by itself wasn't the big deal, but the contents was what had led her here. Her uniform immediately stood out against all those others present. She resisted the urge to scream and run away, instead looking for the woman she'd come here to see. Asking around, she was quickly sent in the right direction and approached a woman who was looking at the insides of a fighter. "Euh, excuse me, Petty Officer Romanov?"

Hearing her name, Lorelei ducked her head to see who was looking for her. The uniform noted a fellow petty officer so Lorelei didn't feel like she had to hop to it--officers could be so picky--but she stepped out from under the fighter and nodded in greeting. "That's me," she said. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for some help," Marci grinned sheepishly, digging out the padd from her pocket and waving it like it explained everything. A puzzled moment later, she shrugged and replaced the padd where it had come from. "Oh. Right. Sorry. I'm Marci Buckley, primarily assigned as a Security Guard. Drafted as secondary position into Helm, but I don't understand a word about the theory. And word goes around you're getting quite the hang of it."

"Oh, yeah, that," Lorelei replied with a chuckle. She wiped her hands on her coveralls. "Well, it helps that I have a leg up, so to speak. I've flown a couple of shuttles here or there, and my brother is a pilot."

As fiddling with the padd seemed to be a Thing, Marci dug it out once again. Activating it, she quickly scrolled to the right content and started reciting a passage. "Do you have any idea what they're talking about? I don't know how they expect me to implement it, if I don't even know what they're trying to explain!"

"Sure," Lorelei said easily. "There's a rec room for the pilots over there but they let us underlings hang out there too. Let's go have a seat." She nodded to a door not far off then turned a led the way to a small room with two couches and a single table with two chairs. There was a small replicator, but that was about the whole of the room. "Can I see?" She gestured at the PADD.

Those pilots certainly had a nice rec room at their disposal. Perhaps not the biggest of them all, but still nice. Handing over to the padd, she gestured to the replicator. "Meanwhile, can I get you anything?" Marci asked, glad to not have to think about gravity wells, atmospheric compensations and warp limits for a while.

The fighter tech shook her head as she sat on the couch. "Nah, I'm good. Thanks." She read over the top lines of the article open on the PADD. "Alright, so, this section..." She began but trailed off as there was a sudden jolt of pain in her head. She paused, blinking at what she read. The words were there, but they blurred. They looked like the got...further away. The pain faded, but she had this sudden sense of not being alone. Beyond the other petty officer. There was...something...someone...

Marci was returning to the couch with a drink she'd just replicated, when the other woman fell silent. She was apparently looking at her. No. At something behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, but didn't see anyone. "Petty Officer? Are you alright?"

Lorelei heard the other woman talk and turned her head, but barely. It was like she was moving through sludge, wrestling for control of herself. "I'm..." she began, but then something stopped her. Something? Someone... Something... The world seemed to grow dark for a moment and she blinked rapidly. Or was that her blinking? "I... I'm sorry," her voice said, but SHE didn't say it. What was going on? "I'm sorry. I seem to have lost track of my thoughts for a moment."

Her lips curved in a smile, but she wasn't sure who told her to do that. She couldn't seem to stop it.

She'd never met the woman before today, but this didn't exactly look like typical Lorelei behavior. Marci wondered what to do next. She glanced around, this time also desperately hoping to find someone close by so she could ask for advice. But they were alone in the room, and she didn't think she should leave the other woman. "Hey? Lorelei? Can you hear me?"

"Yes," Lorelei-body finally said, her dark eyes opening a little wider as her smile widened a touch. "Yes, thank you. My apologies. I got a little...lost in my thoughts." (Lorelei-mind began to rage at her lack of control.) "Where were we again?" Body began to look at the device in her hand, recognizing that there were words there but she wasn't sure she followed the language. Not-Lorelei-mind had to ransack Lorelei-mind for knowledge of it.

Marci frowned slightly. "You were helping me with the section in front of you?" she gently prodded. "Are you sure we shouldn't call Sickbay? You look a little pale."

"Do I?" Lorelei-body asked. "Hmm. Perhaps I am just tired. I have been...working hard today," she continued, not-Lorelei-mind working to come up with a reason for why she might seem that way...a reason other than the truth, of course. "Perhaps I should go lie down."

"You probably should," Marci nodded. This conversation had taken a weird turn. The woman seemed nice enough, but she was also plain weird right now. "Are you sure you don't want me to accompany you to Sickbay?"

Something annoyed, bordering on malevolent in its intensity, flashed through Lorelei-body's mind and eyes, but she forced another smile. "No, I assure you, I can make it on my own." Pause. "But...thank you for asking." There was something odd, something halting and stilted, to the way she spoke. But perhaps not quite enough to be marked as unusual to someone who didn't know the technician.

Marci indeed didn't know the woman well enough. She just thought she was an odd creature. With one glance back over her shoulder towards said woman, she left the flight deck.

Lorelei-body watched her go and the smile dropped from her face while the real Lorelei screamed inside.

=/\= End Log =/\=

PO3 Lorelei Romanov (apb Bella) & PO2 Marci Buckley (apb Indi)

 

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