10: Into The Black

Posted on Tue Aug 11th, 2020 @ 10:56am by Commander Rita Paris
Edited on on Tue Aug 11th, 2020 @ 11:40am

Mission: The Bulikaya Particle
Location: Deep Space, Beta Quadrant
Timeline: 2397
Tags: Rita Bulikaya

The first moment was panic.

Because there was no air, because she was outside the boat, and she was naked to the elements in the void. Z

The universe did not count a miniskirt as ‘dressed’ when it came to the hard vacuum of deep space.

Summoning her EVA armor from the extradimensional armory in her bracers, slowly exhaling to keep her lungs from bursting as she froze, Rita toggled the power on. As light and heat began circulating, so too did pressurization, and blessed air. Gasping in like a drowning victim, against her training, Rita hyperventilated. Crying out, she unsuccessfully choked back tears. Being exposed to hard vacuum was a danger inherent in any spacegoing exploration. But in the ongoing experiences of this particular expedition, being dumped into hard vacuum was a bit much when she was already worn a bit thin.

“Thanks, Hera. You saved me again,” Rita patted the bracers of Hera she’d taken from the Amazon captain on Meroset 347. She had suspected then she’d end up wearing a pair, and they had once more saved her life, as they had countless times before.

Given the sensor readings, she would have been frozen solid through the rest of her leaps, unlikely to thaw. This was deep space, and as she started scanning the star charts, she quickly triangulated her position. Eyeing it curiously, she made the realization why she had appeared here.

“This... is where the Hera hit me. I was discorporating... I was going to just fade into the background radiation of the universe, but they hit me. The warp field collected me, and that saved me. But here... they weren’t here for you. When Sonak beamed you here, Enalia didn’t run into you. So I’m here because... this is where you are. What’s left of you.” Tears dribbled out of Rita’s eyes, activating little suction vents in her helmet as the tears flowed free of her face in the zero G.

“Oh no, Rita, I’m... I’m so sorry. Wow, I... talk about a fate worse than death. I... I just, I can’t, oh, stars above...” In that moment, the enormity of having nearly been killed a moment ago, combined with the realization that she was once again meeting a dead version of herself, drove Rita Paris to tears. For a good 20 minutes she cried, out there alone in deep space, hugging herself and in general feeling rather miserable. This hopping through dimensions was not for the timid, to be certain. But even the brave and the bold were having a bit of trouble keeping up at the moment.

Eventually the emotional executive dried her tears and noseplugs cleared her sinuses, and the hazards of wearing a spacesuit in the future were still decidedly swell, Ms. Paris believed. Composing herself, she checked her EVA armor’s chronometer.

“I think I’m going to be here for a few more hours at this rate. So, if you’re still here... somehow... and you can sense me... somehow... I’ll tell you about my life.” Rita spread her arms. Broadcasting on local frequencies, so that she would be ‘speaking’ to the electromagnetic spectrum at least.

“I’ll tell you the story of what happened to me after I got hit by the starship Hera, right about in this spot. About how I met a space pirate turned Starfleet captain, and a Romulan girl who was a starship captain, but didn’t know it yet. About the bravest young immortal I’ve ever met, and the goddess who reformed, because I asked her to very politely. About the little Andorain and Samuel Clemens and the bird who was born to fly, and the midget and the pig and their cow. Of the satyr and Death, of the Baroness and the god of thunder. Such a story I have to tell you, me of another reality. So settle in, and I’ll tell you all about it...”

Three hours and forty-two minutes, eleven seconds later, Rita was still telling the story as she felt the first tell-tale tingle of the particles, that tug of the multiverse she had learned was the sign that she was leaving.

“Well, I set my wrist comm unit adrift here, and if anyone runs across it and tries, if you’re still here, they might find you. I gave them some idea of how to reincorporate you, so hopefully...” Rita paused, then spoke quickly, knowing her time was limited. “I hope you get found, Rita. I hope you didn’t die out here, and that someday the stories I told you today are part of your story... the strange visitor who left you a beacon. I hope in the ballad of your life, this is just a skipped beat, before it starts again.”

Then she was gone, and there was once again silence in the vastness of space.

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


It would be the year 2734 when the research vessel T’Pring would find the comm unit, batteries low but still pulsing a message on a slow repeating cycle. Retrieving the archaic device, they studied the data and listened to the ancient human astronaut’s account. Extrapolating from those concepts, the experiment proceeded with much interest.

Of even greater interest was when, on the transporter pad, a vintage 2268 Starfleet officer materialized. Looking around, her bright blue eyes eagerly searched the crowd, as she asked for Sonak.

There was no Sonak aboard, of course.

Presently, she would explain her experience, a fascinating tale. Eventually she would propose a transdimensional experiment, to transport her communicator back to her native time and dimension, in order to bring closure to her existence for the survivors. After all, Sonak was t’hy’la to her, and the Vulcans respected such a bond as sacred. As part of the experiment, she included their spatial and chronal coordinates, as well as the quantum resonance of the reality. It seemed she had undue faith in the kolinahr to whom she was wed, and was determined to give him every opportunity to find her.

After a quaint Earth tradition, she called it a ‘message in a bottle’.