Visions of Failure and Blame 18+

Posted on Thu May 7th, 2020 @ 10:55am by Ensign Briaar Gavarus & Ensign Fiona O'Dell
Edited on on Tue May 19th, 2020 @ 12:36pm

Mission: Return to the Core
Location: U.S.S. Hera. Deck 14, Family Quarters
Timeline: 2397

”We’ll be back in regular space in no time.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Ensign O’Dell knows what she’s doing.”

“It will be okay, Ensign Gavarus.”

But Ensign Briaar Gavarus wasn’t feeling okay at all, in spite of the reassurances from her superior officers. The Hera was still stuck in some kind of spatial rift with no stars, surrounded by a bizarre, roiling blackness that she couldn’t bear to look at anymore, which had made Ten-Forward unbearable to even think about for the alcoholic Tellarite engineer.

Not that she could stomach the idea of going there without her unlikely life-partner, Fiona O’Dell. But Fiona was gone. Or rather, SHE and the ship was the ones that were gone. Fiona had been in the Silver Banshee when the Hera had been sucked into a spatial anomaly, and they lost all communication with the rest of reality.

Sitting in their expansive, family quarters, the portly porcine was still wearing her blue R&D uniform, with the front flap open and a noticeably large beer stain across her prodigious belly as she paced back and forth, bouncing her and Fiona’s adopted daughter, Minerva O’Dell, on her significant hip.

“Yeah… I know.” the anxious engineer muttered to the fussy Minotaur toddler, “I know you want your Mum. I want her too, Minnie Moo. But for tonight, it’s… it’s… j… just you an’ me. Uh… i… i… it’s like a little mini-adventure. It’s an away-mission. Right?”

Taking a swig of her mostly empty beer, her third of the night since she left the R&D department earlier, the two-meter tall Tellarite was grinding her jaws as she tried to calm down her distressed child, who could tell something was seriously wrong with both the ship and her mother.

Tossing the empty bottle in the reclamator, Gavarus ran one of her thick, three fingered hands through her wiry, platinum blonde hair and let out a long sigh. “O… Okay. Maybe we should just try to get some sleep, right kiddo?”

Little Minnie squirmed slightly in Gavarus’ arms as they stepped over the minefield of toys that had been strewn across the deck over the last couple of hours as the overwhelmed woman tried to distract their daughter. Blocks, balls, soft Lego-like building sets and stuffed animals littered the ground beneath them like fallen soldiers as they stepped into the bedroom with the large bed that seemed entirely too empty. As she put little Minnie down into the center of the bed and began to take her uniform off, her mind raced.

I’m… I can’t handle this. I can’t handle not knowing if Fee’s out there. I don’t even know if she’s still… what if those f***ing Romulans caught her when we got sucked into this effed up nightmare. She thought to herself as she kicked her clothes into the messy pile in the corner and grabbed a plain, white nightshirt. On the bed, little Minnie was looking around, half expecting a mop of red curls to come around the corner and hop onto the bed with her but the two were very much alone. Fiona was gone. Jaeih Dox, who often babysat for them, was off the ship as well. Even Ethel Jablonski, who was the unlikely parent’s friend, had gone with Jaeih and the goddess Hera to oversee Mona Gonadie and Lieutenant Commander Dox as they left to have their own babies. In one moment, Gavarus’ entire support structure had all but vanished.

“Computer, lights to ten percent.” She said, as the computer chirruped and the lights dimmed. Taking a breath, Gavarus crawled next to Minnie in the bed and did her best to smile. “C’mon, wriggler. Let’s get some sleep, okay? Just you an’ me. Okay?”

Looking over, Minnie’s big brown eyes were damp and her lower lip was quivering as she leaned in and hugged Gavarus tight. “No sad, Momma. No sad.” the tiny tot muttered as she sniffled with Briaar’s thick arm holding her tight.

“I… I’m okay, Minnie Moo. See! No tears, okay. You just get some sleep. I gotcha.” Briaar nodded as she looked deep into those big, wide eyes and put on the best smile she could. “I gotcha.”

Holding her adopted daughter extra tight, the portly porcine did her best not to cry as slowly, exhaustion kicked in and she drifted off to sleep.

----------------------

“Fee!? Minnie?!” Briaar said as she shot up in bed, no idea what time it was. All she knew as she padded her hand across the bed was that she was alone in it. Fiona was still gone, but now, so was Minerva.

Sitting up stiffly, the rotund engineer squinted as she tried to focus in the dimly lit room, but she couldn’t see her daughter anywhere. “Minnie Moo? Where did you go, kiddo? Come back to bed?”

But there was no answer.

As the fog of sleep began to fade, it was quickly replaced by a mounting feeling of dread as she crawled out of the bed and stood up. “Computer, lights.”

Looking around, nothing happened. The lights remained a dim, hazy thing and the whole room had a dull quality to it. Nothing seemed to want to focus for her as she began looking around. Once the bedroom and the refresher were checked, she lumbered into the living quarters, which were just as dim. The room was smaller than she remembered it to be. The toys she was sure she had left all over the floor were nowhere to be seen and instead of the large couch, there was the smaller affair she had in her old, single-occupancy quarters. There were beer bottles all around and greasy engine parts on a tarp in the corner.

“Minnie! Stop playing around! You… you come right out this minute young lady!” She yelled a bit louder and more stern sounding, but there was nothing. No reply. No anything.

“Gods DAMN IT, Computer. Frickin’ LIGHTS!” Briaar shouted, but still nothing happened. The room was still dim and hazy as she got on her knees and began scrambling around the room, looking under everything she could, but still, Minnie was gone.

Clamoring back into the bedroom, she lifted up the corner of the bed to make sure Minnie hadn’t inexplicably crawled under it, to no avail. Then she began to tear through the closet in a panic, now. As she tossed her clothes that had piled up on the floor, she felt something furry at the bottom of the pile. Something furry that was cold and wasn’t moving.

“Oh Gods, No! No! No! NO!!!” She called out in a panic as she dug through the clothes only to find, at the bottom of her closet, her white-furred Tribble, Cueball, dead.

“C… Cueball? But… Why aren’t you in your… This isn’t right? We found you and you were okay?” She said, her eyes darting back and forth as she nudged the cold little ball of fur in her hand until she heard a squishing sound. Pulling her fingers back, her stubby, hooved nails were longer and unkempt. And they had blood on them.

“Gyaaagh!!!” Briaar shouted as she leapt back up, slamming her back hard against the bulkhead. Her platinum hair was out of it’s ponytail as she looked down. The piles of clothes and Cueball were gone, as was the blood on her fingers. But as she looked at her hands in the dim light, something else was wrong.

Her nails were untrimmed and jagged. Her arms had thick, wiry stubble all over them. Feeling up to her own face, she felt more curly hairs coming out of her chin as she felt herself go cold. Feeling her mouth, the two thick bottom tusks that she had to regularly have ground down were jutting out of her mouth, jagged ugly horrible things. “Nononononono! This… this isn’t… MINNIE!!?! WHERE ARE YOU!?!?”

Going over to the mirror over the sink, she saw her reflection. Looking at herself, she was what she had worked so hard not to be. Her body was covered in wiry hair. Her tusks protruded prominently out from her jaw. She wasn’t a woman. She was just a hog, like everyone always said she was. A filthy farm animal who lived on and in garbage, a thing. “Fee…” She whispered, tears in her eyes and fear rippling through her voice. “Where are you, Fee? I can’t do this by myself.”

"Wahhhl, isn't this joost a fookin delight? I been gone fuir less than a day, ye lost our daaaater, ye killed poor Cueball and noow ye forgot how ta shave already. Ain't you a fookin sight?" came O'Dell's voice, seemingly from out of nowhere.

The words didn't quite register near as much as the familiarity of the voice. That familiar, Irish brogue she knew well, but that somehow sounded wrong as Briaar jerked around from the mirror. "Fee!? FEE!!! Are you back!? W... What's happening, Fee!?! Where are you!?!"

"I'm a ghost, ye dim circuit," came the voice from nowhere and everywhere. "Ye canna figure oot if I nivvir was in yuir life or nivvir shoulda been, but yuir damn sure I'm done for this time. All because ye left me ta die oot there all alone in space. Because ye said ye'd protect me an ye didn't, and noow I'm a deader, boo hoo. Lot of the O'Dell's, apparently. S'what we're good at- dyin' tragically, aye? Cheers."

There was no glass to clink against, no freckle-faced drunken grin. Just the voice in her head that sounded like memory, but... disappointed.

Tears began to streak Briaar's cheeks as she slammed her hands against her ears and screamed. "No!!! It's not TRUE!!!"

Shaking her head, she broke out in a run towards the door to the main corridor as she continued to protest. At the door, instead of opening automatically, the door remained closed and the towering Tellarite slammed into it hard. "AGGH! N... No! You're NOT DEAD! You're NOT! I don't believe you!!"

"Loook at ye? "Ye disgust me." The voice of Fiona said as it echoed in the dark room. "A fat, their beast. Ye belong in a baaaarnyard, not a bedroom. Or did ye really think it was me brother that made me cringe at the thought'a ye touchin' me? Yer a thing, nae a woman. An' a thing that got me killed wit yer incompetence."

Clutching her shoulder, she flumped hard to her knees, and instead of the worn carpeting of their quarters, she felt the cold bite of metal deckplates. "I'm... I'm sorry. I... I... should have been... I should have built it better. Made it stronger for you. Made it better!"

"It's... It's my fault. I'm sorry, Fiona." Briaar sniffed as she slowly looked up to find herself on the flight deck of the R&D Department. But it too was dark, with only the sim, red emergency lights flickering in the distance.

"Fee? Fiona? Please don't be dead. I... I need you." She sniffed from her knees, wiping snot from her snout. "I can't do this without you. I can't..."

"What about us?" came the familiar voice of Mona Gonadies from a distance, as Lieutenant Commander Dox joined in. "You screwed up the maintenance check on the Khallianen and we never made it back from Miradon. Me, Mona, my mother and our three chicks.... all nothing but frozen space dust because of you, fatso."

"Congratulations." the voice of the stern, Romulan flight chief echoed around her, a gravely hiss. "You lost your family... and killed mine. Excellent work, Ensign. This is why Thex kicked you out of the Engineering department, obviously."

"Briaar." Came the voice of Mona, the brilliantly inventive, nurturing department chief that had taken Briaar under her literal wing, "We trusted you. I thought you were better than this. I thought you were good enough. How could you, Briaar? My chicks?"

Turning with a jerk, Briaar looked into the darkness where Mona Gonadie's office should be, and in the shadows, she could swear she saw shapes moving. The outline of figures just out of view, if only the light would turn on fully. "What? No. No, I didn't. I m... mean... I did. I DID do the maintenance check right! I d... did it twice! I c... couldn't have! You... you can't be dead too!? No! You're lying!"

Then, she heard the sound of footsteps. Or more accurately, hoof steps, coming from the edge of the platform overlooking the rest of the flight deck one level below. Hoofsteps, and more tiny steps along with it. Slowly, Briaar turned away from the shapes that condemned her from the corner, as she heard a small, familiar voice. "Hullo, Mommy."

"Oh no. No, no, no, no..." Briaar muttered as she looked, and there on the edge of the platform was little Minnie. But her fur was matted and graying and her big, brown eyes looked foggy and glassy. Sitting on the deck in front of her was a horrific sight that turned the young engineer's stomach. Three young children, thin and emaciated, wrigging on the deck. Splotchy, mottled feathers on their mottled, greening blue skin. When they opened their mouths, a sickly and weak squawking sound. 

"Thank you, Mommy. Now I'll have friends to play with." Came the eerily clear, shuddering voice that seemed to almost float out of her mouth. Clutching her mouth and shaking her head, Briaar was frozen in place for an instant. But only for an instant as, from behind the girls came a wrenching sound of metal on metal as the massive space doors flung themselves open, pulling the now limp bodies out into the nothingness. 

"NOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Briaar screamed, a hoarse and broken sound like a squealing as she bolted up in bed, covered in tears. Her heart was beating a mile a minute as she clutched the sheets next to her as she looked around in a panic. There, at her side in bed, she could see through the dim, hazy light, Minnie still sleeping as she had been, seemingly oblivious to the screaming.

"Oh... Oh, Minnie. You're okay. You're safe." Briaar whispered in the dark as she covered her mouth. Feeling, her tusks were ground down as they usually were and she only had the normal amount of stubble she was used to at the end of a long day. "Oh, thank gods."

Then, as she sat there, trying to catch her breath, she whispered to the room. "Computer, lights to 35 percent." 

But nothing happened.

Nothing but the slight sound of someone walking in the other room. Slowly, that knot in her stomach started to return as she looked down to make sure Minnie was still there and still sleeping as she called out. "F... Fee? Is that you? Are you back?"

"BRI-A-A-A-RRRRR," came the distorted reply as the Thunderchicken tried to wedge itself through the bedroom door, the groan of straining metal intensifying as it pressed on, shredding the bulkheads in the process. The voice was hollow and empty, an electronic echo of Fiona's voice, like it sounded when the Thunderchicken thought it was Fiona and crushed Briaar's ribs in the process.

"C'MERE AND GIVE US A HUG," the monstrous version of the experimental craft lumbered toward her, metal hands outstretched and snapping together in a rather threatening version of Minnie's 'grabby hands'. As it lumbered into the room, destroying every item of furniture it encountered, it moved to scoop Minnie's sleeping form off the bed.

In that instant, the gut-wrenching panic Briaar was feeling was immediately replaced with purpose as she lunged as quickly as she could onto the bed, scooping the tiny, sleeping Minotaur toddler in her arms as she rolled off the bed and slammed hard into the far wall as the metal hands slammed into the bed, crushing it into pieces. 

But the lungs had forced Briaar into the corner of the room with Minnie in her arms as the THunder Chicken swiped the remains of the bed across the room.

"DOOOOAN RUN, LEMME HUG YOOOOO..." the mechanoid rumbled as it closed in on Briaar Gavarus and her child.

Scrambling into the corner, Briaar clutched the still sleeping Minnie tight as the massive Thunder Chicken filled almost the entire room. The top of the canopy scraped the ceiling as its shoulders rammed against the bulkheads as it lumbered forward. It's clanging metal hands inched closer as the portly porcine let tears streak down her face as she shook her head.

Looking down, she couldn't believe how peaceful Minnie looked as she somehow was still asleep in her arms. Shaking her head, she kissed her daughter on the head and whispered, "It will be over soon. I'm so sorry. I failed you. I... I failed you and Fiona. I failed the Chief and the L-C. I f... failed everyone. I'm so sorry, Minnie Moo."

As the massive, metal arms began to wrap around her, Briar curled up into a ball and as the cold tritanium touched her bare arms, she let out a squeal of a scream/ "EEEEEEE!!!!!!"

As she did, the tiny tot In her arms snapped her eyes open wide and looked up. "NO!! No, Momma!! No sad! Wake up!"

"What?" Briaar said, looking down as darkness wrapped around her and she felt a pressure closing in on her chest making it hard to breathe. Looking up, Minnie's big brown eyes were bright and scared looking as she put her tiny, three-fingered hands on Briaar's cheeks. 

"WAKE UP, MOMMA!!!"

Blinking, Briaar was laying on her back, still in her clearly intact bed as Minerva had climbed up on her chest, her weight pressing down a bit hard as the toddler had her hands on Briaar's cheeks and was shaking her mother's head. "Momma?"

"M... Minnie? Oh, Minnie... you're safe. You're okay, oh thank gods, I was so scared." She said, sitting up with a grunt and squeezing Minnie so tight that the tiny tot gasped for a moment. Then. after looking deep into those big, brown eyes for a second, she looked up and spoke to the room. "Computer, lights."

With a chirrup, the lights gently returned to full illumination as Briaar squinted. "Oh, I'm sorry I scared you, honey. Mommy... Mommy was just having a bad dream. But... But you got me. You woke me up. You brought me back."

Looking up, the miniature Minotaur put her tiny hooves hand on Briaar's forehead. "I find. I find Mommy."

"Y... you did, didn't you? You found me. You found me and I got you. And we'll find your Mum, too. I promise, sweetheart." Briaar said as she held her child tight, sitting there in their quarters together. 

With the lights on.