09-29-2025, 01:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-29-2025, 01:38 AM by Riley Wright.)
== I'll join in spirit, for the moment. ==
== Crewman Mark Halvorsen – Security NRC ==
== Enlisted Quarters ==
Halvorsen jerked awake like the mattress had kicked him. Air in the rack was dry and faintly antiseptic, riding a ship-hum that rumbled up through the bunk into his ribs. Overhead, squarer ceiling ribs threw old-style shadows across a hairline crack he didn’t remember logging. His body felt exactly right: tight lower back, scuffed palms from last week’s rotation, that familiar dryness along the bridge of his nose where the recycler never quite kept up.
He swung his legs over, boots finding bare deck instead of the runner he swore he’d left there, and stood into the thin glow spilling from the locker light. He faced the mirror bolted inside the door.
An Andorian stared back—high-latitude blue skin, white hair cut close, twin antennae lifted like alert punctuation. The reflection matched him perfectly as he raised a hand to his ear. Flesh-side, he felt the rounded human curve; in the glass, blue fingers traced the same shape—just blue—while the antennae gave a quick, impatient flick he didn’t feel at all.
Later, he told the stranger, and shut the locker with a flat palm.
The uniform on the shelf wasn’t quite last week’s issue—shoulder seams a touch different, trouser line older—but he dressed anyway, fast and neat, and palmed the hatch.
The corridor hit him in red and shadow. Red Alert strobes pulsed a steady heartbeat along the overhead, bathing bronze rail and carpet runner in a crimson wash. The klaxon rolled through the deckplates in measured bursts. LCARS panels wore archived palettes; status bands streamed terse lines past his peripheral vision. The air had an ion bite—ozone and a hint of burned polymer under the cleaner.
He took one step—and stopped.
A Jem’Hadar lay sprawled mid-corridor like a dropped statue. The cranial ridge caught the red light; a dark, almost violet-black slick had matted at the neck and spread in an oval the runner couldn’t drink. A polaron carbine rested inches from a rigid hand, muzzle canted toward the deck. Opposite, the bulkhead wore twin scorch kisses where energy had chewed the paint to charcoal and left the air tasting metallic.
Training stood up. He let his eyes work—left, right, overhead vent, junction node, door seams—then widened his path to avoid weapon and blood. A hatch three frames down sat a finger’s width ajar, status telltale steady; another farther along showed a heat-discoloration ring around its seal. Somewhere behind the walls, metal ticked as it cooled between klaxon beats. The ship’s heartbeat sat a note lower than he expected, thrumming through bone.
He let himself study the scene for half a breath longer. The scorch on the bulkhead tracked a clean line across the corridor; the carbine’s position suggested it had been yanked wide by impact rather than dropped on purpose. No triage tag, no binders, no sloppiness. Whoever dropped him knew what they were doing—and they were probably friendly. That didn’t mean the mess was over. The Dominion didn’t send Jem’Hadar out alone unless there were more already on the way.
His gaze flicked to the carbine and back. Would be really nice to have a phaser right now. The Jem’Hadar weren’t famous for hospitality, and friendly or not, whoever fired last might not be the next person to come around the corner.
He eased to the junction placard. The old-style strip glowed steady: DECK 5. Below it, a neat stamp read: SECTION J–12 • FRAME 6–138. In the brushed metal under the handrail, the mirror-sheen threw him a slim ghost of that blue Andorian again, antennae tipped toward the intersection like weather vanes; Halvorsen held the line, breathing even.
He tapped his combadge.
“Security, Crewman Halvorsen,” he said, keeping it even over the siren. “Jem’Hadar down in corridor near enlisted quarters. Deck strip reads Deck Five, Section J–One-Two, Frame Six-One-Three-Eight. No other contacts sighted or heard. Standing by for orders.”
He set a shoulder lightly to the bulkhead, sightline clean past the body to the elbow of the hall, hands visible and well away from the carbine, weight settled on the balls of his feet in case someone told him to move—either direction. He listened to the ship breathe: the low engine note, the faint tick of cooling metal, a distant thrum that might be a forcefield or a turbolift cycling. Friendly or not, somebody had fired here. That meant somebody else might, too.
== GM-Input: Please describe any additional details beyond the immediate scene outside enlisted quarters—what Halvorsen notices downrange at the junction (doors sealed or ajar, forcefields, turbolift indicators, smoke or coolant haze, debris or casualties, computer response at a wall panel). ==
== Crewman Mark Halvorsen – Security NRC ==
== Enlisted Quarters ==
Halvorsen jerked awake like the mattress had kicked him. Air in the rack was dry and faintly antiseptic, riding a ship-hum that rumbled up through the bunk into his ribs. Overhead, squarer ceiling ribs threw old-style shadows across a hairline crack he didn’t remember logging. His body felt exactly right: tight lower back, scuffed palms from last week’s rotation, that familiar dryness along the bridge of his nose where the recycler never quite kept up.
He swung his legs over, boots finding bare deck instead of the runner he swore he’d left there, and stood into the thin glow spilling from the locker light. He faced the mirror bolted inside the door.
An Andorian stared back—high-latitude blue skin, white hair cut close, twin antennae lifted like alert punctuation. The reflection matched him perfectly as he raised a hand to his ear. Flesh-side, he felt the rounded human curve; in the glass, blue fingers traced the same shape—just blue—while the antennae gave a quick, impatient flick he didn’t feel at all.
Later, he told the stranger, and shut the locker with a flat palm.
The uniform on the shelf wasn’t quite last week’s issue—shoulder seams a touch different, trouser line older—but he dressed anyway, fast and neat, and palmed the hatch.
The corridor hit him in red and shadow. Red Alert strobes pulsed a steady heartbeat along the overhead, bathing bronze rail and carpet runner in a crimson wash. The klaxon rolled through the deckplates in measured bursts. LCARS panels wore archived palettes; status bands streamed terse lines past his peripheral vision. The air had an ion bite—ozone and a hint of burned polymer under the cleaner.
He took one step—and stopped.
A Jem’Hadar lay sprawled mid-corridor like a dropped statue. The cranial ridge caught the red light; a dark, almost violet-black slick had matted at the neck and spread in an oval the runner couldn’t drink. A polaron carbine rested inches from a rigid hand, muzzle canted toward the deck. Opposite, the bulkhead wore twin scorch kisses where energy had chewed the paint to charcoal and left the air tasting metallic.
Training stood up. He let his eyes work—left, right, overhead vent, junction node, door seams—then widened his path to avoid weapon and blood. A hatch three frames down sat a finger’s width ajar, status telltale steady; another farther along showed a heat-discoloration ring around its seal. Somewhere behind the walls, metal ticked as it cooled between klaxon beats. The ship’s heartbeat sat a note lower than he expected, thrumming through bone.
He let himself study the scene for half a breath longer. The scorch on the bulkhead tracked a clean line across the corridor; the carbine’s position suggested it had been yanked wide by impact rather than dropped on purpose. No triage tag, no binders, no sloppiness. Whoever dropped him knew what they were doing—and they were probably friendly. That didn’t mean the mess was over. The Dominion didn’t send Jem’Hadar out alone unless there were more already on the way.
His gaze flicked to the carbine and back. Would be really nice to have a phaser right now. The Jem’Hadar weren’t famous for hospitality, and friendly or not, whoever fired last might not be the next person to come around the corner.
He eased to the junction placard. The old-style strip glowed steady: DECK 5. Below it, a neat stamp read: SECTION J–12 • FRAME 6–138. In the brushed metal under the handrail, the mirror-sheen threw him a slim ghost of that blue Andorian again, antennae tipped toward the intersection like weather vanes; Halvorsen held the line, breathing even.
He tapped his combadge.
“Security, Crewman Halvorsen,” he said, keeping it even over the siren. “Jem’Hadar down in corridor near enlisted quarters. Deck strip reads Deck Five, Section J–One-Two, Frame Six-One-Three-Eight. No other contacts sighted or heard. Standing by for orders.”
He set a shoulder lightly to the bulkhead, sightline clean past the body to the elbow of the hall, hands visible and well away from the carbine, weight settled on the balls of his feet in case someone told him to move—either direction. He listened to the ship breathe: the low engine note, the faint tick of cooling metal, a distant thrum that might be a forcefield or a turbolift cycling. Friendly or not, somebody had fired here. That meant somebody else might, too.
== GM-Input: Please describe any additional details beyond the immediate scene outside enlisted quarters—what Halvorsen notices downrange at the junction (doors sealed or ajar, forcefields, turbolift indicators, smoke or coolant haze, debris or casualties, computer response at a wall panel). ==