FIC: A Moment In Time, Chapter 3
Title: A Moment In Time, Chapter
Characters: Jon Osterman, Kazuya Mishima, USS Legacy crew
Warnings: Obvious spoilers for just about everything. Also, it's a multi-crossover. WTF! This is basically a sideline of a story I'm writing...which is the story of the USS Legacy, and her crew - captained by a resurrected Kazuya Mishima (shoosh). Most of the beginning of this story is explanation of what/how/why, so if you've never read anything else of mine...bear with me.
Disclaimer: Everything except the OC crew of the USS Legacy belongs to someone else.
Rating: M (mature) at the moment - you never know when language or nautiness will happen.
Summary: The Presence makes itself known. A quickie, potential goodie...
Kirzyk's eyes were transfixed upon the stars that shot past at high warp, watching silently from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the USS Legacy's mess hall. The events of the previous two days were fresh on his mind, still keeping him awake at night, still keeping his eyes over his shoulder at every second turn.
It's not every day, after all, that part of a glowing blue human skeleton appears on the bridge of a Starfleet vessel, then explodes.
The away team had returned fully-laden from the surface of the planet minutes after the event, and the Legacy had turned tail away from the sector at high Warp. It had been the first time in years that any, let alone most, of the crew had questioned Captain Mishima's judgement. He'd assured the crew they were safe...they had doubted it. They had begged him to turn the ship around and leave...he had replied that it would make no difference. Still, they were but mere mortals; afraid, easily frightened, superstitious even. It would be cruel to subject them to experiences that would scare them to the core.
Thus, Mishima had relented. The Legacy was headed toward the nearest outpost, shields up, at operating minimum. He knew it wouldn't change a thing. He knew the ship was now haunted by some inexplicable being, something not too dissimilar to himself.
"Lieutenant. You've been quiet these last two days." The Captain had silently pulled up a chair next to the smaller man, somehow avoiding startling him.
"I guess." Kirzyk's eyes remained fixated on the stars outside. "Sir...that, that thing...it's not going away any time soon, is it?"
Kazuya let out a deep sigh. "No. Why do you ask?"
"Well..." He paused a moment to bite his lower lip. "There's...a nervous system walking around behind us."
It was at that moment that the trays and plates began to crash to the ground. Gasps echoed throughout the hall as Kazuya and Kirzyk slowly, calmly turned around to face the source of the panic.
Indeed, there was a nervous system standing in the middle of the mess hall. Glowing blue, so very blue, nerves and a dinstinctly human brain moved of their own accord, without a body, seemingly alarmed at the sudden attention. Limbs flailed as the figure suddenly flew backward, exploding in a flash of light against the back wall.
The room was deadly silent.
At that moment a young Ensign finally lost her cool and fainted, crashing to the carpet with a choked gasp. Kirzyk simply returned to staring out the window, watching the cacophony as before in the reflection of the window. He gazed on as two blue-collared crewmen rushed to her side, picking her up despite their own frazzled nerves, carefully avoiding the Captain and Commander T'Mor as they tended to more crewmembers that had followed suit, hitting the decks from sheer shock. As the stars rushed past, as the mess hall churned behind him, he couldn't help but wonder why he was not afraid. Why he was nothing more than curious, insatiably curious, as to what the creature was that had haunted his ship...
***
It was an unusual kind of meeting, this. Normally Captain Mishima, like all Starfleet Captains, would hold such meetings in the briefing room. However, here in Cargo Bay 3, the room was packed end-to-end with at least 150 of the ship's ranking officers; some standing, some sitting, some perched upon barrels and shelves.
Kazuya himself was sitting cross-legged in front of everyone on top of a particularly large crate. T'Mor was stumbling forth from the rear of the cargo bay, trying defiantly not to step on anyone's hands or feet; without losing his balance to any great degree, he made his way to the crate Kazuya was seated on, and stood beside it with a quick sigh.
"Well then everyone. It seems we have ourselves a bit of a situation." Every head turned to face the Captain as he began. "I'm sure you all heard about the incident in the mess hall a few hours ago; it's not like incidents like that stay under the radar." Radar...does that word even mean anything in this day and age?
"I can assure you that at this point in time, there is little that Starfleet can do to rectify the situation. That is why Commander T'Mor and I have decided to proceed at leisure to Starbase 352 as scheduled." The side-glances and less-than-impressed expressions passed around amongst the crew spoke louder than words.
T'Mor interrupted. "So far we've determined that there is no danger to the ship or the crew. That is, as long as no one gets the living daylights frightened out of them."
"Exactly. What we are dealing with here is not a threat, but a presence." Mishima remained expressionless. "It is something not unlike myself, from what I can tell. It's struggling to interact with us, as I'm sure those of you that witnessed anomalies in Engineering, the mess hall and on the Bridge. There are a few of us trying to get to the bottom of this; rest assured, we will find answers."
A red-collared woman sitting toward the front of the crowd raised a tentative hand, dark eyes locked intently on the Captain's. "P-permission to speak freely, sir?"
"Go ahead, crewman."
She swallowed, hands fidgeting in her lap. "The ship is haunted, isn't it?"
Laughter, muffled by amusement, cynicism, and disbelief, hung thick in the cargo bay air.
"Haunted?" Mishima couldn't help but give her a lop-sided grin. "Aren't ghosts an old Earth superstition?"
***
Things would certainly be easier if the rules were broken. Things would simply fall into place as they ought to, and life would go on without a hitch.
However, the rules were simple: play the game, and play it properly.
It was akin to a warrior going into battle with his hands tied behind his back, limited to so few weapons that winning seemed like an impossibility.
Yes, tied hands - Kazuya conceded that the rules, indeed, were bonds around his wrists. He had near-omniscient power, yet he had agreed with Starfleet that he would not use that power for the Federation's benefit unless absolutely necessary. There would be few small miracles, and he would not twist fate to his favour. He would not be like the Q.
It would be so easy to simply intervene; go back in time and change the Legacy's course, avoiding the planet where the particles had amassed. He could have decided against aiding them himself. He could have changed Starfleet's orders - for that was well within the bounds of his power - to send the Legacy in another direction, leaving the particles of a presence to their own deeds.
But he knew the rules.
No playing with matter and energy.
No toying with time.
His hands were tied.
No, he would have to be content sitting in his quarters, staring out the window at the stars slowly streaking by, contemplating the possibilities rather than executing them. Come lights out it would be time to once again explore - one of his few concessions to expanding his powers - but until then he would have to make do with being a mere human.
Humans were such fickle things.
So easily frightened, so easy intrigued, obsessed. Swayed by things they didn't understand, empowered by those they were. Nothing much had changed in the true nature of humans, Kazuya decided, since the time he'd first known them back in the 20th Century. They could be ugly; hateful, vengeful, prone to pack tendencies and reacted with the heart rather than the mind. They could be beautiful; self-sacrificing, generous to a fault, seeing the good in everything bad if only to try and see some right in the universe.
Understanding everything made it all so different.
He'd once been a man that understood so little about his own kind, yet even now his detachment from them saw little difference. Though, back then, he had been a violent, power-driven individual that lived for revenge, a faulty sense of justice; he had been the proverbial bad guy, accidentally fighting for the right cause.
Things had changed so many times it made his head spin. Being reunited with his son twenty years on had been a pretty rude glance into the mirror; being torn limb from limb by his own father and stitched back together had left him mellowed, but bitter. Waking up from stasis hundreds of years later with no idea why, no one that knew him, and nowhere to stand had been...enlightening.
Bitter, vengeful, violent and hateful, in his youth he'd never seen a reason to change. The first chance had come and gone in the form of love; that he missed completely, leaving a child he knew nothing of in the wake of two broken hearts. The second had been meeting that son; a disturbed young man with many of his own tendencies, that chance had more or less pushed itself away, leaving an even bigger void within alongside the lack of enemies to smite and revenge to be had.
Third chance. Waking up with no friends, no enemies and no history. His body had been repaired right down at the genetic level, destroying the virus that had landed him in stasis in the first place.
Third time lucky?
He certainly thought so. The four pips on his collar ought to be evidence enough of that.
Lights out.
As he watched himself sleep, Kazuya faded through the hull of the Legacy and out into space. She was a beautiful vessel; sleek, aggressive, almost bristling with weaponry and raw power. There was little to show for her differences to the original Sovereign-class vessels, the USS Sovereign and the USS Enterprise-E, but they were there. Slightly larger dimensions saw a minor rearrangement of the windows that only a trained eye would spot, and likewise, one would be pressed to spy the extra torpedo launchers and phaser arrays. Built almost exclusively for combat, she seemed out of place on reconnaissance...
The presence, more than just mere particles now, was like a shining beacon to Mishima's keen senses; he could feel it exploring every bulkhead, every system aboard the ship, almost as if groping around in the dark. But for what?
Stumbling about in darkness was far more likely to yield a head-over-heels incident than a light switch, this much he knew. The presence had not a clue what it was searching for, aside from perhaps something familiar, something more like itself.
Indeed. Something more like itseslf.
Within the blink of an eye the presence was no longer within the ship. The blue aura, invisible to mortal eyes and mechanical sensors, had lifted from the Legacy and was now following alongside, slowly twisting, seething towards Kazuya as he too tracked the vessel.
Blue mist, purple cloud. An interesting encounter.
Kazuya could liken the sensation of the two entities meeting to something more mortal. The nature of his transformation, and the nature of his continued bond with humans, had left him remarkably in touch with what he once was. It felt like someone's hand, cold and clumsy, brushing his arm; a stranger, lost and alone. Searching for directions, searching for something, anything. Yes, that's what it felt exactly like, armless or no.
Deep, perpetually calm, almost devoid of emotion, a male voice rang through his consciousness clear as a bell.
"Hello."
Deeper, sharper, Kazuya's own voice returned the sentiment.
"Hello, indeed."
Characters: Jon Osterman, Kazuya Mishima, USS Legacy crew
Warnings: Obvious spoilers for just about everything. Also, it's a multi-crossover. WTF! This is basically a sideline of a story I'm writing...which is the story of the USS Legacy, and her crew - captained by a resurrected Kazuya Mishima (shoosh). Most of the beginning of this story is explanation of what/how/why, so if you've never read anything else of mine...bear with me.
Disclaimer: Everything except the OC crew of the USS Legacy belongs to someone else.
Rating: M (mature) at the moment - you never know when language or nautiness will happen.
Summary: The Presence makes itself known. A quickie, potential goodie...
Kirzyk's eyes were transfixed upon the stars that shot past at high warp, watching silently from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the USS Legacy's mess hall. The events of the previous two days were fresh on his mind, still keeping him awake at night, still keeping his eyes over his shoulder at every second turn.
It's not every day, after all, that part of a glowing blue human skeleton appears on the bridge of a Starfleet vessel, then explodes.
The away team had returned fully-laden from the surface of the planet minutes after the event, and the Legacy had turned tail away from the sector at high Warp. It had been the first time in years that any, let alone most, of the crew had questioned Captain Mishima's judgement. He'd assured the crew they were safe...they had doubted it. They had begged him to turn the ship around and leave...he had replied that it would make no difference. Still, they were but mere mortals; afraid, easily frightened, superstitious even. It would be cruel to subject them to experiences that would scare them to the core.
Thus, Mishima had relented. The Legacy was headed toward the nearest outpost, shields up, at operating minimum. He knew it wouldn't change a thing. He knew the ship was now haunted by some inexplicable being, something not too dissimilar to himself.
"Lieutenant. You've been quiet these last two days." The Captain had silently pulled up a chair next to the smaller man, somehow avoiding startling him.
"I guess." Kirzyk's eyes remained fixated on the stars outside. "Sir...that, that thing...it's not going away any time soon, is it?"
Kazuya let out a deep sigh. "No. Why do you ask?"
"Well..." He paused a moment to bite his lower lip. "There's...a nervous system walking around behind us."
It was at that moment that the trays and plates began to crash to the ground. Gasps echoed throughout the hall as Kazuya and Kirzyk slowly, calmly turned around to face the source of the panic.
Indeed, there was a nervous system standing in the middle of the mess hall. Glowing blue, so very blue, nerves and a dinstinctly human brain moved of their own accord, without a body, seemingly alarmed at the sudden attention. Limbs flailed as the figure suddenly flew backward, exploding in a flash of light against the back wall.
The room was deadly silent.
At that moment a young Ensign finally lost her cool and fainted, crashing to the carpet with a choked gasp. Kirzyk simply returned to staring out the window, watching the cacophony as before in the reflection of the window. He gazed on as two blue-collared crewmen rushed to her side, picking her up despite their own frazzled nerves, carefully avoiding the Captain and Commander T'Mor as they tended to more crewmembers that had followed suit, hitting the decks from sheer shock. As the stars rushed past, as the mess hall churned behind him, he couldn't help but wonder why he was not afraid. Why he was nothing more than curious, insatiably curious, as to what the creature was that had haunted his ship...
***
It was an unusual kind of meeting, this. Normally Captain Mishima, like all Starfleet Captains, would hold such meetings in the briefing room. However, here in Cargo Bay 3, the room was packed end-to-end with at least 150 of the ship's ranking officers; some standing, some sitting, some perched upon barrels and shelves.
Kazuya himself was sitting cross-legged in front of everyone on top of a particularly large crate. T'Mor was stumbling forth from the rear of the cargo bay, trying defiantly not to step on anyone's hands or feet; without losing his balance to any great degree, he made his way to the crate Kazuya was seated on, and stood beside it with a quick sigh.
"Well then everyone. It seems we have ourselves a bit of a situation." Every head turned to face the Captain as he began. "I'm sure you all heard about the incident in the mess hall a few hours ago; it's not like incidents like that stay under the radar." Radar...does that word even mean anything in this day and age?
"I can assure you that at this point in time, there is little that Starfleet can do to rectify the situation. That is why Commander T'Mor and I have decided to proceed at leisure to Starbase 352 as scheduled." The side-glances and less-than-impressed expressions passed around amongst the crew spoke louder than words.
T'Mor interrupted. "So far we've determined that there is no danger to the ship or the crew. That is, as long as no one gets the living daylights frightened out of them."
"Exactly. What we are dealing with here is not a threat, but a presence." Mishima remained expressionless. "It is something not unlike myself, from what I can tell. It's struggling to interact with us, as I'm sure those of you that witnessed anomalies in Engineering, the mess hall and on the Bridge. There are a few of us trying to get to the bottom of this; rest assured, we will find answers."
A red-collared woman sitting toward the front of the crowd raised a tentative hand, dark eyes locked intently on the Captain's. "P-permission to speak freely, sir?"
"Go ahead, crewman."
She swallowed, hands fidgeting in her lap. "The ship is haunted, isn't it?"
Laughter, muffled by amusement, cynicism, and disbelief, hung thick in the cargo bay air.
"Haunted?" Mishima couldn't help but give her a lop-sided grin. "Aren't ghosts an old Earth superstition?"
***
Things would certainly be easier if the rules were broken. Things would simply fall into place as they ought to, and life would go on without a hitch.
However, the rules were simple: play the game, and play it properly.
It was akin to a warrior going into battle with his hands tied behind his back, limited to so few weapons that winning seemed like an impossibility.
Yes, tied hands - Kazuya conceded that the rules, indeed, were bonds around his wrists. He had near-omniscient power, yet he had agreed with Starfleet that he would not use that power for the Federation's benefit unless absolutely necessary. There would be few small miracles, and he would not twist fate to his favour. He would not be like the Q.
It would be so easy to simply intervene; go back in time and change the Legacy's course, avoiding the planet where the particles had amassed. He could have decided against aiding them himself. He could have changed Starfleet's orders - for that was well within the bounds of his power - to send the Legacy in another direction, leaving the particles of a presence to their own deeds.
But he knew the rules.
No playing with matter and energy.
No toying with time.
His hands were tied.
No, he would have to be content sitting in his quarters, staring out the window at the stars slowly streaking by, contemplating the possibilities rather than executing them. Come lights out it would be time to once again explore - one of his few concessions to expanding his powers - but until then he would have to make do with being a mere human.
Humans were such fickle things.
So easily frightened, so easy intrigued, obsessed. Swayed by things they didn't understand, empowered by those they were. Nothing much had changed in the true nature of humans, Kazuya decided, since the time he'd first known them back in the 20th Century. They could be ugly; hateful, vengeful, prone to pack tendencies and reacted with the heart rather than the mind. They could be beautiful; self-sacrificing, generous to a fault, seeing the good in everything bad if only to try and see some right in the universe.
Understanding everything made it all so different.
He'd once been a man that understood so little about his own kind, yet even now his detachment from them saw little difference. Though, back then, he had been a violent, power-driven individual that lived for revenge, a faulty sense of justice; he had been the proverbial bad guy, accidentally fighting for the right cause.
Things had changed so many times it made his head spin. Being reunited with his son twenty years on had been a pretty rude glance into the mirror; being torn limb from limb by his own father and stitched back together had left him mellowed, but bitter. Waking up from stasis hundreds of years later with no idea why, no one that knew him, and nowhere to stand had been...enlightening.
Bitter, vengeful, violent and hateful, in his youth he'd never seen a reason to change. The first chance had come and gone in the form of love; that he missed completely, leaving a child he knew nothing of in the wake of two broken hearts. The second had been meeting that son; a disturbed young man with many of his own tendencies, that chance had more or less pushed itself away, leaving an even bigger void within alongside the lack of enemies to smite and revenge to be had.
Third chance. Waking up with no friends, no enemies and no history. His body had been repaired right down at the genetic level, destroying the virus that had landed him in stasis in the first place.
Third time lucky?
He certainly thought so. The four pips on his collar ought to be evidence enough of that.
Lights out.
As he watched himself sleep, Kazuya faded through the hull of the Legacy and out into space. She was a beautiful vessel; sleek, aggressive, almost bristling with weaponry and raw power. There was little to show for her differences to the original Sovereign-class vessels, the USS Sovereign and the USS Enterprise-E, but they were there. Slightly larger dimensions saw a minor rearrangement of the windows that only a trained eye would spot, and likewise, one would be pressed to spy the extra torpedo launchers and phaser arrays. Built almost exclusively for combat, she seemed out of place on reconnaissance...
The presence, more than just mere particles now, was like a shining beacon to Mishima's keen senses; he could feel it exploring every bulkhead, every system aboard the ship, almost as if groping around in the dark. But for what?
Stumbling about in darkness was far more likely to yield a head-over-heels incident than a light switch, this much he knew. The presence had not a clue what it was searching for, aside from perhaps something familiar, something more like itself.
Indeed. Something more like itseslf.
Within the blink of an eye the presence was no longer within the ship. The blue aura, invisible to mortal eyes and mechanical sensors, had lifted from the Legacy and was now following alongside, slowly twisting, seething towards Kazuya as he too tracked the vessel.
Blue mist, purple cloud. An interesting encounter.
Kazuya could liken the sensation of the two entities meeting to something more mortal. The nature of his transformation, and the nature of his continued bond with humans, had left him remarkably in touch with what he once was. It felt like someone's hand, cold and clumsy, brushing his arm; a stranger, lost and alone. Searching for directions, searching for something, anything. Yes, that's what it felt exactly like, armless or no.
Deep, perpetually calm, almost devoid of emotion, a male voice rang through his consciousness clear as a bell.
"Hello."
Deeper, sharper, Kazuya's own voice returned the sentiment.
"Hello, indeed."