Emergency Procedures

Posted on Sat Aug 14th, 2021 @ 11:23pm by Lieutenant JG Irynya & Ensign Sheldon Parsons

Mission: The Place of Skulls
Location: Deck 4, Junior Crew Quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 4 at 1230

[Junior Crew Quarters - Deck 4]
[MD 4 - 1230 Hours]
[Concurrent with Eyes in the Dark and Unexpected Visitors]

Lieutenant Junior Grade Irynya was sleeping. Well, had been sleeping. Wanted to still be sleeping truthfully. But, as it stood, was no longer sleeping.

The warning whine of the yellow alert seemed to ring through the quiet of her quarters, startling her awake even as Chaali's disembodied voice echoed across the shipwide comm.

"All decks this is the Bridge, Yellow Alert. Go to Yellow Alert."

The Risian swung bare legs over the side of her bed. Her boxer style sleep shorts had ridden up in the few short hours since she had fallen asleep and she tugged absently at her waist band as if doing so while sitting would have some unexpected effect. Long fingers met her eyes, rubbing as she took in the small bedroom she shared with Sheldon Parsons.

Warm yellow warning lights along the ceiling blinked periodically, casting shadows on the few visible belongings in the space. Levering herself of the bed, Irynya took the two short steps to her small closet and opened the doors, pulling the nearest duty uniform off its hanger and then kicking off her shorts before pulling on her uniform pants. She had slept in a fitted SOJO t-shirt, so didn't bother with changing as she pulled her jacket on fingers a flurry of movement on zippers and clasps. A ring of elastic was next as finger combed her hair back into submission, settling on a low ponytail.

"Yellow alert? For what?" Parsons asked nasally, a hard yawn filling the small room. "They're down there scouting ruins. What could possibly take us to a yellow alert at this hour?" Sitting up stiffly in bed, the young engineer shook his head and swung his legs over its side. A pair of slippers awaited him there: they looked like two plushy unicorns and, as his feet sank into them, their horns and rosy cheeks lit up with sparkling lights that shifted hues throughout the rainbow. Twin whinnies accompanied the light show as Parsons stood, moving over to his own closet.

Also in a t-shirt and shorts, Parsons asked, "Any idea what's going on?" As he waited for a response, he began pulling on his own uniform but his leg got stuck in the trousers and he half-fell to the right, catching himself on the wall. "Blasted pants. I have never been a fan of them. But they're better than shorts, I guess. Ew." He hated wearing those, too. They showed too much of his pasty legs -- never a good thing. Finally he managed, though, to get into his pants and zip his uniform top closed.

Irynya glanced down at the psychedelic puffballs attached to Parsons' feet, a mixture of bemusement and a touch of jealousy running across her face. They did look fabulously comfortable.

"Not sure," she answered in response to his question about yellow alert, turning as Sheldon made a second attempt to put on pants. "That might be easier if you weren't wearing fluffy slippers," she commented wryly, a smirk settling on her lips. "I'm going to go replicate a cup of coffee in the common room. Want one?"

Parsons took a second to look down at his feet, which were still clad in unicorny goodness. "That...is a fair point," he said, putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head at himself. "Guess I'm a little out of it given the sudden wakeup. Coffee sounds great," he nodded to Irynya's kind offer of caffeine. "If we're gonna be ready to head to our stations at a moment's notice," the engineer sat back on the edge of his bed and removed a slipper, "I should probably change into work boots anyway."

It didn't take him long to switch his slippers out. Afterward, he slipped out into the common room in Irynya's wake. "How are you so easily awake, Iry? It's like you got out of bed ready for anything. Me," he yawned mightily again, "I'm a wholly different story. I barely remember my name right now."

She made her way from the replicator to the couch bearing two cups or coffee which she left on the side table before returning with small bowls of cream and sugar.

As if her body wanted to prove Sheldon wrong, her nose wrinkled, a deep yawn seeming to take her.

'I'm good at pretending," she quipped back as the yawn resolved. "Take your pick," she pointed to the two identical mugs before darting back into their room to retrieve socks and her duty boots.

Returning once more she set the boots by the end of the couch and settled down onto the end, collecting the remaining mug and doctoring it before pulling her legs up under her.

"Where in the wide universe did you find those slippers?" she asked, curious.

Parsons spied the yawn and, for a brief moment, felt some kinship with the woman. But then she was asking about his slippers and, rather embarrassed, the young man stammered, "Th-they were a gift, ac-actually." The engineer took a deep breath and tried to calm some of the anxiety rising to the surface. His slippers were not reason enough for his own internal yellow alert so why was his breathing quickening? Why were his hands suddenly feeling clammy? They were you just slippers...and cute ones at that. After a few measured breaths, he nodded.

"There w-was a boy who was sweet on me once," Parsons found his voice again. "At the Academy," he explained, which had been his home prior to the Adelphi. "We used to study together, you see, and one night in my room -- just before graduation finals -- he spied my copy of a very old animated movie called 'The Last Unicorn.'" Thinking, perhaps, that Irynya might not be familiar with movies, he explained, "Movies are like holodeck stories, only you watch them play out on a screen instead of living them yourself. Anyway," Parsons sipped his coffee, "he wanted to watch it with me, so I put it on."

The young man's eyes seemed to look back into his past. "At first, we watched from opposite sides of the couch but, as the movie played out, we got closer and closer together until we were cuddling." An exceedingly rare smile -- filled with genuine warmth -- spread across Parsons' face as he recounted the tale. "Um, context might help here. You see, the unicorn was the last of her kind," he stated, "and she was hunted by a giant, flaming spectral bull who wanted to push her into the sea...to hold her prisoner there for an evil king," he explained.

"That bull always scared the hell out of me. He's terrifying, Iry," Parsons chuckled at himself, re-living the moment. "And when he attacked the unicorn, Brendan could tell I was reacting. So he put his arms around me and just held me until, eventually, the unicorn turned the tables and pushed the bull into the sea instead." He grew quiet for a moment, the past feathering with his present as he looked for words again. "That ending always makes me cry. I was very embarrassed but he kissed my tears away and told me I was a 'beautiful soul.'"

Another sip down, Parsons looked across his cup with mist in his eyes. "I was too scared to take it further with him. Besides," he shook his head, "we only had another week before graduation and shipping out to our assignments. But the day we all left, he tracked me down to give me those slippers. Brendan told me that, whenever the the flaming bull of life came for me, all I had to do was slip my feet inside them. 'The unicorns would do the rest,'" he quoted wistfully, a tear threatening to slide down from his right eye. "And I guess they kind of have, you know? I wear them every night."

Irynya listened quietly as Sheldon spoke, imagining the scene. She could hear the wistfulness of his tone as he spoke, and the regret. As he finished his story, she brought her coffee cup to her lips and took a deep sip, thoughtful.

"There was someone like that on Risa," she commented, mug still held up to her lips. Slowly she took another sip before continuing. "Well, not exactly like that. Different circumstances, but the same sort of... what if."

She paused, considering as the yellow warning lights continued to bathe the common room in intermittent golden light. "I had a crush on him for ages. Like.... ages. We worked together at the resort and he always found ways to make boring shifts interesting. My friends conspired to get us together and he was..." she cast about for a word that would make sense to someone outside of Risian culture.. "... let's just say that he was a present in his own right on my 18th birthday."

She looked into her mug, checking the coffee level and confirming that a few swallows remained. Tipping the last of the warm liquid back she swallowed, letting the flow of memory run free as she did. "We were together for a long time after that. Years. If I was still on Risa we might even be married by now."

She shrugged lightly to no one in particular.

"That sounds like some present!" Parsons spoke up after listening to Irynya's own story. "Did you get a chance to look him up while we were on Risa?" He didn't want to pry but the awkward engineer was thankful to have the spotlight shift to someone else. He hated being the focus of conversations. As he waited for an answer, Parsons' thoughts drifted back to the idyllic world they'd left behind a few days prior. It'd been paradise and paradise had a way of opening people up and laying them bare. Had Irynya given into nostalgia and tried to rekindle her past?

She smiled sadly, "Rami and I keep in touch. Not often, but he knew I was there." She let the thought hang a moment, a bit of nostalgia prickling at the back of her mind. "I thought about looking him up," she admitted, "it's been years since I was home." A sign of resignation escaped her. " I didn't though. He's married now. Has two children actually. I'm happy for them."

She let the nostalgia linger a moment longer and then looked across to Sheldon. "What about you? Have you ever considered reconnecting with Brendan? Maybe seeing if there might still be something there?"

"I bet that'd be awkward, though," Parsons said, making a hmmming sound. "Meeting up with someone who used to be a lover and seeing them married with kids? Kind of a 'what could have been' situation..." he said, lost in his own thoughts. But then a lightbulb went off and he shrugged. "Or maybe not for Risians? I dunno. Humans get so funny and caught up about these things. I swear, sometimes I think we're the most emotional creatures in the galaxy. How do Betazoids put up with us?" he laughed awkwardly.

To Iry's question, though, Parsons shook his head. "I left for the Delta Quadrant. The other side of the galaxy is pretty far, even for a long distance relationship. And while yes," he nodded, "we're currently in on this side of the wormhole, I imagine we'll be headed back that way once our little side-mission is over. So why try, you know? Last I heard, he was still on the Sirius heading for deep space. I imagine he's found someone onboard already." The argument made sense on the surface but it sounded more like Parsons talking himself out of the possibility than anything else.

Irynya nodded her understanding. "Well, who knows, there's a lot of future ahead of us," she noted. "Finished with that?" She gestured to his cup, offering to take it back to the replicator for reclamation.

As she stood, waiting to take the cup the warning whine of red alert sounded across their quarters, yellow warning lights shifting to a deep red and casting their quarters in crimson. The klaxon of red alert sounded and a small tremor went through the deckplates, a telltale sign of a nearby detonation.

"What is going on up there?" she asked, forgetting her cup as she sat back down to quickly slip on secure her boots.

"Nothing good," Sheldon sighed, his cup in hand as he stood. "I'd better get to Engineering. See what in the hell," his voice went instantly nasal, "is going on. Thanks for the coffee, Iry. And...for being a friend," he said with gratitude coloring his tone. With his boots already on, he was ahead in the get-the-heck-to-your-station game and snagged Irynya's cup, placing it with his own in the replicator for recycling. "Hopefully it's something minor and we'll be back here in no time?" Fat chance of that, he thought to himself. "See you later, Iry," Parsons said, slipping into the hallway beyond, the doors swooshing shut behind him.

Iry had nodded her reply, a warm smile crossing her features at Sheldon's thanks. He was right, though, the needed to get to their stations. She stood as the door whooshed shut behind him ready to follow behind when the deck bucked beneath her, sending her to her hands and knees. Two more concussions rumbled through the ship as her heart picked up.

The last tremor ended and she she began to rise, urgency infused in her to report to her station.

And then the lights went out and all that remained were the crimson tones of red alert.

=/\= A mission post by =/\=

Lieutenant JG Irynya
Acting Chief Flight Controller

Ensign Sheldon Parsons
Engineer