The Yawning Abyss Of My Soul

Posted on Fri May 15th, 2020 @ 3:17pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Emergency Medical Hologram (Adam Power) Mk X & Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Commander Sonak
Edited on on Tue May 19th, 2020 @ 12:38pm

Mission: Return to the Core
Location: USS Hera, various locales across the ship
Timeline: Outside of linear time and space

Not even an hour into the space beyond space, where time did or apparently did not flow and the crew of the USS Hera was pretty darned screwed, that's when Enalia Telvan's eyes rolled back up into her head at the bar in 10-Forward. Which is when command of the USS Hera fell to Commander Rita Paris.

Which was not a problem.

The Hera had an excellent sickbay and scores of brilliant doctors, and they would figure out what about the psychically oppressive space ye not space in which they had found themselves. Odin's repository, where he dumped something he didn't want anyone coming for, to keep it safe. Which no longer included Starbase 336, but did include 3 D'deredix class battlecruisers, and the USS Hera. Which was not a problem, because the Romulan commander had seen the wisdom of cooperation, and they were all acting in concert in their preparations to generate the effect to bridge space between here and where they had previously been. Existed.

This was.... not existing, somehow, and it seemed to be putting everyone a bit on edge. The psychic sensitives were all going a bit bonkers, except Sonak, of course. He was shielding himself, and reinforcing bulwarks in her own mind against the onslaught, as her connection him left her somewhat vulnerable. But they were tandem, and he could maintain booth with no appreciable strain. But 3 fights had broken out in 10-Forward within three hours in the anomalous space.

That's what she'd call it in her reports. Anomalous space. Catchy.

The manufacture of and coordination of stringing together four starships, to anchor one another against the drift and to generate the energy required to generate a wormhole. The smarter people in the room kept referring to it as a singularity, but it looked like a flat wormhole- just an intersection of two points of the multiverse. The math had to be crazy on the navigational coordinates. Which she'd figure out as they got there.

Arguments with the Romulan crews. Sending out the support craft to assist in the cable installations and finding out O'Dell and her one-woman squadron didn't make it back. Maybe she was too far from the event to be sucked in, and she's coordinating with the USS Persephone, Rita thought, following the logic that was not unfeasible. Of course, it was also possible that one of those disintegrating clouds had done her and her cohort in. But Paris didn't believe it. The loudmouthed little leprechaun was a survivor, and she had a lot to live for on the Hera. She'd find her way home... even if home had to get back to her.

At hour sixteen, she was already three hours past the start of her sleep cycle. But there was more and more to do, and less and less time. With Enalia down, Rita was not only handling the negotiations with the Romulans, but also coordinating with the science teams to effect the hardware they would need to have ready to pull this off. There were reports coming in from Sickbay that the crew were having nightmares. To the point that three of them had self-harmed in the process.

Which was a BIG problem.

Striding off the bridge, Rita Paris began making choices. Leaving the conn to Sonak, she rode the turbolift the one deck to her office. Which still seemed ridiculous to her, but hatches meant if she used the one on the bridge, it involved unlocking it, which was a pain. Thus her ride of one deck took her forward to her office where she tapped her comm badge. "Paris to Doctor Power, please report to my office."

"I'll be there momentarily," came the reply from the ship's EMH, followed by the sound of the shimmer of a hologram to right outside Rita's office so he could meet her on her way in. "Commander Paris! What seems to be the trouble?"

"Doctor, we've got about thirty-six hours, give or take, until we can make the attempt to get clear of... wherever we are, and get back to normal space," Paris gestured out the viewport in her office, that showed the starless void in which they currently dwelled, with roiling shapes that might have been clouds of particles or alien unknowable beings in the distance. "With the Captain incapacitated, I don't have time for sleep. Besides, the crew seem to be experiencing nightmares because of this region and... well, frankly given the life I have led, I'm very much not interested in discovering what this place might dredge up from my own subconscious list of horrors. So I would like a stimulant, please- I need you to help me press on past my human limitations and keep going, so I can stay the course, and guide the crew to get us out of here."

The holographic doctor pursed his lips and thought over the situation for a moment, before nodding and heading to her replicator and punching in a series of medical overrides. "Even though I'm giving you this, I cannot condone the use of it for more than twenty four hours as it can lead to yadda yadda yadda... You need rest, even if it's not good rest, blah blah blah... Something about command personnel not listening to medical advice..." As he spoke, the English modeled EMH seemed rather distracted as the replicator slowly produced one small vial filled with a purple fluid.

Doc Power then went over to the medkit on the wall, pulled out one of the hypos in the dispensor and loaded that evil looking vial into it, setting it to the minimum dose. "This is based on a cocktail that Schwein gave me when she first came aboard for emergency life saving procedures. There's enough in here to keep a narcoleptic awake for a week if rationed properly. I understand the severity of the situation so I'm going to assume you know the risks of crashing from such a medically induced high. Just promise me that once this is over, you'll sleep until your body tells you it's done sleeping."

"I give you my word as an officer, Doctor. As soon as the Captain's on her feet and the ship is out of danger, I'll report in that I'm going down for the count, and taking 24 hours of sick call to sleep it off. I appreciate this, Doctor," Paris' tone softened, and the weariness in her voice was evident. "They need me more than ever right now, because with the Captain down, the crew have to be able to look to somebody to hold it together. Someone they can see and hear. Minimum dosage, refresh as needed. Sleep as soon as it's over."

With all that said, her choice made and course set, Paris held out her hand for the hypo.

"Alright. If you notice any adverse side effects, let me know immediately. No more than one dose every four hours. Every two hours in an emergency." With a serious nod, Doc Power handed over the hypo.

"Whew, that's a short term dosage... right. Thanks Doctor, and I appreciate the housecall... and your discretion," Paris didn't say it as a threat, so much as a request. But that was Rita Paris- even when calling up the medical hologram, she still said please and thank you, and asked for discretion when she could just order it all. But that was her way- a request was an order, although she was willing to hear your side of things. Because you might just change her mind.

"It was originally meant as a lifesaving measure in extreme circumstances... but with the Baroness's aid, I made it more viable for shipboard use. You'll metabolize it fast, but not nearly as fast as the original." With a polite nod, Doc Power stepped through the office doorway. "If you'll excuse me, Commander." Before the door had even finished closing, the holographic man had vanished, presumably to return to sickbay.

Taking a shot from they hypo, Rita felt the fatigue vanish and sharp focus return to her mind. Picking up a PaDD, she went back to the work of saving the starship, while one window monitored the beleaguered captain, comatose in Sickbay.

"C'mon Enalia, this thing can't beat you. I'll have us ready to get out of here before you wake up. just you wait..."

Hours had passed as Paris worked, taking a shift on the Bridge to insure she was seen and visible, working from the command chair. At one point they had to move the entire flotilla, using thrusters to avoid a gravitational eddy that tried to veer them far off course. Which meant coordinating all four ships, which was challenging, to say the least. But Rita persevered- there was an easy way out, but she wasn't going to take it. Better to get the crews of all four vessels in concert now, rather than later when things would be critical.

Another shot. Another. Another. Another. She remembered to stop and eat, take a shower and get on a fresh uniform. Without chronometers she was relying on her internal clock, which, having been taught to her by Sonak, was usually reasonably accurate, occasionally needing to adjust to local time every few days. But it was all getting harder, She'd gone back to her office, sat down to read a report and nearly dozed off. Another shot. Keep moving. The systems were nearly charged, the plan was nearly coming together. They just needed to work out how to navigate, but there were Starfleet's best and brightest working on that, so Rita had faith they would come up with a solution.

Captain's log, First Officer Rita Paris reporting. Captain Telvan is still in a coma in Sickbay. She's stable, but it seems she and her symbiote are allergic to this region. I'm going to take another shift on the bridge, being visible, trying to keep morale high. But the crew are all so tired too, now. Everyone looks terrible- dark circles under their eyes, ill-rested, irritable. Security is breaking up fights with surprising regularity, and even domestic disputes. Sickbay confirmed no one is sleeping well, from any race, regardless of telepathic propensity. I've been pushing myself to get us out of here, and I think we're almost ready. Mr. Sonak says his simulations look promising, although she is still dubious of our chances unless we have some sort of navigational assistance. I'm hoping we come up with something soon, because I am out of ideas. Paris out.

Having recorded the log entry, Paris laid her forearms and hands on the desk, the reproduction of the old conference table she favored to use as one at least, and rested her head on the back of her hand. "C'mon space hero... think of something brilliant to save the ship. Enalia's out for the count and Dox is off making babies. It's just you out here, blondie. So think of something brilliant."

A minute later, the stims she had forgotten to take wore off sufficiently for her to be sound asleep at her desk.



In her nightmares, there was no horror to be found, at least not in the conventional sense. There was no giant parody of her father taking a wrecking ball to her self-esteem as she struggled for his approval in a Sisyphean quest. There was no sensation of beaming, or painful, wrenching beaming, or the sensation of nonexistence as a ghost. There was no pain of loss over friends and loved ones, or the pain of loss she had known when separated by space and time from Sonak. There was no sense of filure, which drove her so often.

There was simply the void- dark, bleak, unending, and filled not with the wonder of stars, but the emptiness that went on forever. A void of no places, no people, no things. No life. For where there were none of these things, there was no hope.

For such as Rita Paris, who strove the light the darkness with the beacon of hope, there was no greater nightmare.

As her hope slowly drained from her, so too did bodily function begin to slow. Her system, already overtaxed by the overuse of stims, was exhausted already. As the forces that governed this place drained the hope from the explorer, so too were they sapping her will to live, quite literally.

* * *

Curious...

Sonak was in a senseless, lightless, featureless void his mind could not at first grasp. This was like being in a sensory deprivation tank; an experience he had once attempted and which had resulted in a very sharp spike of his mental faculties. It had threatened the whole Gol plateau at the time, as his mind screamed for sensory input and thus shot out with his extrasensory perceptions to reach nearby minds.

But he was aware of the time elapsed since then; of his mental powers having been significantly reduced when crossing universes to reestablish his mating bond with the Human woman he shared it with.

That's when it hit him.

This is not my mind; this is Rita's.

Somehow, through their shared link, he was for the first time experiencing what humans defined as a nightmare; a disjointed mental imagery brought from the subconscious emotional state during sleep; emotions, mostly repressed or sublimated by the conscious mind, but that could not be fully denied by the brain, thus released when consciousness lapsed.

This is how she felt when she was dematerialized, left as a disembodied consciousness by a transporter malfunction.

This had never happened before. And his kolinarh training had purged his own being of any and all emotions, he was literally a blank slate to her own, now suddenly amplified by the yet unexplained nature of the other reality they were currently trapped in.

All this he understood even in his own unconscious state. And something else; he was totally unequipped, defenseless, against what he was about to experience. Mental shields were meaningless when within your own mind.

And worse still, even cognizant of the situation, he found himself like in a healing trance; unconsciously placing himself in a state to protect himself... but unable to wake himself up.

The nightmare became his own.

Which was when she became aware of him.

There was nothing in the void- no light no sound no hope... but there was Sonak. Which meant, as he had promised her a universe away and decades before, that he would always be there for her. With no physical senses, she could not see, hear, nor feel him.... but in her heart, she knew him. Knew his proximity, knew the sensation of his soul when it was close to hers. Knew him, so she reached for him, breaking the hold of entropy. She could not call his name, for she had no voice. But in her heart, where he dwelt, she felt him- so with that language that needed no words, her soul sought his, as ever it would.

And Sonak was aware of her.

It was not like their usual telepathic link. Their conscious minds were dormant, leaving only their subconscious active. There was little deliberate thought, mostly random impressions and remnants of reflexion trying to order themselves without the guidance of the self or inputs from the external world.

Chaos.

Dreams were chaos. And the best tool against chaos was logic.

Of course, logic was a construct of the conscious mind; but not exclusively. It was also the actual correspondence of thought and action to stimuli; it burns, you remove your hand; you're thirsty, you drink; what is is, what is not is not. The basic of logic was simply that. For a human like his wife, logic was in conflict with emotions and needed her consciousness to impose itself. So it was also for a Vulcan. But not for him.

He was Kolinarh. He was not controlling or even suppressing emotions; he had no emotions at all. The kolinarh ritual had purged him when he was still a child. The dramscape had nothing in him to build upon. Hence, the void.

But that left him too devoid of any tool to face it.

But there was Rita. The bonding link between them had matched his void with that of her own nightmare, her emotional state. Thus, she could draw him out of it with her. But she needed a tool to oppose the chaos of her own disjointed thoughts and wayward emotions. And that she could take from his mind. The only thing that existed in his mind, even in a subconscious state.

Logic.

It was a void, but that made no sense. Because she could sense him, and he could sense her, and both were aware, not only of one another, but of one another's thoughts. because Rita was starting to get a hunch that this wasn't real. Which was when a haze of lavender slowly penetrated the void, as her innate curiosity began to pick at the fabric of reality she percieved. It could not be a void of no form and dimension if the two of them were there, ergo, this was likely not reality.

While the current situation might seem oddly hopeless, she was working on a plan, she recalled. They all were, each of them doing their part to extricate themselves from their current predicament. Sonak's calculations, cool blue and irrefutable, made themselves known to her, and her determination was emboldened.

This was a dream. Despite her best efforts, she had fallen asleep, and she was dreaming. This was a nightmare, just as the reports she had received from all over the ship had indicated the rest of the crew was suffering, she realized. But Sonak had been pulled in too... this was no shadow of him in her mind or a subconscious reproduction or even the portion of his katra that dwelled within her. In her distress, she had called to him, as she always had, and always would. In response he had offered her the tools to save herself- logic.

Fedepedia, the Federation encyclopedia, defines dreams as follows:

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, although they have been a topic of scientific, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history. Dream interpretation is the attempt at drawing meaning from dreams, and searching for an underlying message. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.

This was a dream. A nightmare of her subconscious' own devising, which, now that she was aware of the dream structure, enabled her to transition the dream from a helpless captive of a narrative, to the mistress of her own internal domain. Reaching out, she envisioned the right hand she knew so well, and pictured it grasping the warm, dry hand of the man who was not a man, but an alien from a world light years from her own. The pinnacle of intellectual, physical and spiritual philosophies older than any surviving civilization on her own planet, who had come to know her, celebrate her and bond with her.

There were so many words she could use to describe him, and should she find herself lacking, his own mind, shared so generously with her, could propose literally hundreds more in various galactic languages and concept all stored in the vast repository of his dizzying and organized intellect. But to her, there was only one word that encapsulated him, that described him and sparked in her heart the strength to pull free of this emotional mire of the subconscious, with the gift of logic. As her hands formed in her dream, she grasped the hand of her balance, the yang to her yin, the anima to her animus, the logic to her emotion- her t'hy'la.

"Sonak," she said in her dream, even as she mumbled it aloud, still asleep at her desk.

Rita, answered a thought that was not her own. Apart and never parted. This is the realm of emotion where I am powerless, blind, paralyzed by my lack of it... I cannot face it. I cannot deal with it. My emotionless mind is without tools, without defenses. But not you. You can master this realm... with both your emotions and my logic. Only this can I offer you... through our bond... like a Lirpa. But you alone can wield it... for the both of us. My mind is to your mind. My thoughts are to your thoughts. My life... is in your hands.

Spurred and inspired, the lost navigator, so often reliant on instinct and intuition, moved to action within her own mind. If this was a dream, then it was HER dream. In her own dreams, she could revisit friends of the past, as the bridge of the Exeter came into view in their mind's eye, as they stepped out onto the bridge to see the handsome face of Captain Michael Stuart there to greet them. There too was Clifford Paris and Albert Paris, both looking on disapprovingly. Yet beside them stood T'Pring, serene and solemn, and beside her young Jim Kirk stood, eating an apple.

All people from their past, memories, pieces of her subconscious. And if she could see them here, then she knew she was dreaming, and that it was time to wake. There was no void, save that which we envision within ourselves. There was hope- there was ALWAYS hope. This was Rita's firmly held belief, perhaps her strongest one, and that realization gave her even more strength as she struggled to reach consciousness, to force her mind to override her exhausted body and awaken.

That was when Enalia decided to stop pressing the door chime on Rita's office door and walked right in to find her sleeping almost peacefully at her desk. Or at least peacefully compared to what everyone else seemed to be reporting. Without hesitation, the Trill woman gently shook her first officer in an attempt to rouse her, initially without success. That was when she saw the hypo laying nearby filled with a rather suspicious... and oddly familiar... stimulant cocktail.

With a sigh, the spotted captain shook up the hypo and gave Rita an injection, knowing that it would take effect within seconds if it really was what she thought it was.

Sitting bolt upright, eyes wide awake, Rita looked around quickly to take in the sight of the Captain and her surroundings. The absence of Sonak's physical presence was expected, as he was no longer held hostage by her nightmare turned exploration of the subconscious. Once again, she'd gotten off lucky. Thank you, T'hy'la. Always there with me when I'm in trouble.

As you are for me; touching and touched; apart and never parted.

In their quarter, he was also sitting up, looking at her across the vessel. Yet, it was the thought that came out, even if they were beds apart.

And as it was said, it was the thought that mattered.


"So... you're up and okay again, that's, that's good. What time is... ah, we're a little behind schedule," Rita frowned as she picked up a PaDD off the clutter of them on her desk, apparently the one she needed. Pausing, she looked up a bit hesitantly to the Captain, the dark circles under her eyes telling the tale. "Couldn't sleep, there was too much to do, and... I guess I missed a dose. Sorry Captain... I was asleep on duty, guilty as charged. I appreciate you waking me up... we were having a little trouble with that part. But I... I was asleep."

"Perfectly fine," Enalia replied with a soft, slightly sheepish smile. "I ah... I don't think I can exactly berate you for that, given how long I was out for. All we can do now is get things back on track, right? After all, we've got four crews counting on us. Ready to rip this place a new hole?"

The smile that spread across the face of Rita Paris was one of relief, of devil-may-care boldness and determination. Rising from her chair, smoothing out her miniskirt as she did so, the first officer of the USS Hera nodded firmly.

"Like a bat outta hell, Captain."



''Colloquially put, and not entirely accurate... but basically correct, '' Sonak commented with his usual deep monotone.