Escape Plan
Episode Name: Escape Plan Written By: Starfleet Cast: Medes and Starfleet. Produced By: Starfleet Directed By: Starfleet Aired On: Sat May 10 23:35:38 2003 Stardate: 53205.1
Time: Sat May 10 21:42:02 2003
Stardate: 53204.9
The starboard nacelle of the USS Amazon lies exposed. Recently, the Amazon has spent her time in the USS Aegis fighter bay, but a problem in the warp field alignment brought her here to be fixed. Medes is up to her arms, trying to find a coil deep inside the nacelle. It slipped out of Chief Byjos' hand as he was removing it and tumbled down into the machinery. His arms, being a little too plump to squeeze into the tight spot, called over the one in charge. And now the one in charge is paying the price. Groping blindly in the machine, Medes can't quite find the errant coil. Chief Byjos, a Bolian, stands nearby. A little too nearby. In fact, he's all up in Medes' personal space. "I'm really very sorry, sir, I was careless and it won't happen again."
"Mister Byjos, you can obsequiate later. For now, /back up,/" Medes replies through gritted teeth, squirming her stubby little fingers around slowly inside the machinery. Mrph. Stretch... and... twist... and... where the ... She sits back for a moment, rubs the cuff of her yellow turtleneck over her shaved head, sopping up stress-sweat, and reaches back into the machine once more. Grrrrf.
Byjos takes a single step back. "Oh, I'm sorry about that, too, sir. The counselors warned me about that, but apparently it's still ingrained. I just like to be close to people, sir, I'm just that way..." He continues to go on, but Byjos is fairly easy to tune out, with or without Medes' adjustable gain settings on the ears. He's a Bolian, and gets chatty. Especially when he's nervous.
<CONTEST> Medes contests her Coordination (Dexterity) skill vs a difficulty of Moderate and Succeeds!
Silence is easy to achieve, when you're a Medes. She can just literally tune him right out. Ahh, blessed quiet. Her arm twists, her fingers strain, and her hand closes around the part. "Ah!"
There is a brief flash of white light and as it fades, Medes is no longer squatting over the USS Amazon. The smell of salt is heavy in the air, and the unmistakable cry of gulls is in the air. The floor pitches under her feet, forcing her to keep her balance. She's standing on the deck of a good-sized boat, on open, grey sea. As a cool spray of mist blows across Medes, it flattens her bangs into her eyes. It's partly overcast, but the sun is peeking through, and while the air is warm, the spray causes chills. Medes is wearing a wool pull-over and shorts, and no shoes.
<CONTEST> Medes contests her Athletics skill vs a difficulty of Routine and Fails!
Medes tumbles to the deck, disoriented and confused. Bangs? She's never really had /bangs,/ and she doesn't have /hair!/ Funny how people fixate on the little things. As her little body sprawls on the deck, she assesses. It starts with 'What the... ?' and ends with, 'Are my limbs all here?' Given that they are, apparently, all here, the next stage is looking around confusedly, patting her scalp, patting down this wool pull-over and her shorts. What happened to her uniform? What happened to the /station?/ What... ?
And now the cold water starts to seep into the rear of those shorts.
There is a shout from below deck. "I /said/ there is a call for you, moron! What, are you deaf?"
"Sometimes," Medes mutters to herself, getting to her feet and idly shaking the shorts. They'll dry. Shorts do. She tugs the hem of her pull-over over her backside absently, still more confused than anything, and looks for a way to go below. Moving fairly slowly given the new balance factors, provided she can find a way below, she goes below, following the voice.
Below deck, it's roomy but not huge. The walls and ceiling are panelled, and the floor is a cold linoleum. A galley is off to the right, the dining and living area to the left, and a hallway goes further fore into the ship. Lying on the couch is a guy in shorts with a pillow over his head. "Are you going to answer that!" is another yell, as if she is still on deck. From deeper within is a rhythmic beep beep of an incoming Starfleet signal.
Medes stares at the guy for a second, as much out of shock as a desire to remember the details. "YES!" she yells back, moving now with purpose toward the rhythmic beep. Whatever's going on, she's just got to get through it. She's had visions before. Orb encounters, near-death experiences. This must be what this is. She'll just... you know. Do. What. She's supposed to do. This is, apparently: answer the call.
. o O Medes thinks "He called me a /moron./"
The man takes the pillow off of his bronzed head. And it's not a man at all, but a teenager. And Medes has seen this guy before. Somewhere. His hair is bleached from too much sun, and his skin is a rich tan. His blonde hair is about shoulder-length. "Did you just talk back to me, bitch?" he says.
Beep beep. Beep beep. Insistent machine.
"Whatever," replies Medes, spitting the word out through her teeth as she starts away from the punk ass kid and toward the signal. Bajoran epithets curl their way out of her throat as she starts away from him. Her teeth grind together, and she tries to focus. Machine.
The guys starts to get up, but Medes is already in motion. She's down the hall before he's at his feet. The beeping is coming from a room on the right. It's a bedroom. The bed is small but roomy enough, but the room is pretty cramped. A portable subspace computer is sitting on a desk that is barely large enough to squeeze into, and even then, one has to sit on the bed to access it. The walls are bare. There are no decorations, and it is a sterile room, even though it is lived in. A bathing suit is hanging from clips in front of and above the closet, being allowed to dry. The closet itself is cracked open, and Medes witnesses several feminine looking articles of clothing. A dressing area is nearby, and the familiar effects of a female occupant are situated in baskets around a small sink. A door separates the head from the bedroom. Beep beep says the subspace signal.
Close the door. Does the door lock? Lock the door, if it does. Medes drops herself onto the bed, then, wet butt and all, and hits the key to open the subspace signal. All the other details are sort of slowly absorbed, even as one hand still idly pats the top of her head. Hair?
The door has a locking mechanism, but it flaps uselessly. It's been damaged. Sloppy engineering. The standard 'incoming signal' display disappears as Medes depresses the activate key, and blips away to reveal a grey-haired woman in a Starfleet Admiral's uniform. "I have excellent news," the old woman says. "Starfleet has accepted my dispensation. Your entrance into the Academy will be accelerated." This obviously pleases this woman, because she's beaming from ear to ear. There's something familiar about her, too.
Blink. Blinkblink. "G... good," Medes replies, her brow wrinkling up slightly. "I mean, thank you. Very much." That's appropriate, right? "I... Thank you." Confused? Uhm. Yes, but trying to hide it. Thea never was good at that, though.
The woman nods appreciatively. "I suggest you do not tell your brother," the woman says. It sounds like grave advice. "You know his feelings on Starfleet. Once you are safely at the Academy, /I'll/ tell him." She gives Medes a warm, protective smile. "I'll be arranging a transporter for you, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'll contact you then." She pauses for a moment, then says, almost confidentially, "I look forward to seeing you again."
A slow nod of her head, then, and Medes replies, carefully, "Okay," in a fairly quiet, nonplussed sort of voice. It's very annoying when things are familiar in a way that can't be placed. It's like a fingernail scratching at the edge of her brain, or a voice at the edge of hearing, saying something over and over again that she can never quite catch. "I. Yes. You too." Blink.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Wendy," is the old woman's reply. She smiles again, and says, "Sinclaire out." The woman leans forward again and is replaced with the 'end transmission' logo. The boat rocks under Medes, creaking against the ocean's pitch and yaw. There is no other sound except the sound of the boat. The computer swaps modes, going back to computer mode and scrolling through some sort of data.
That name -- the pair of them in quick succession -- runs like ice water down Thea's back, as it all crashes into place as solidly as a tidal wave impacting a beach, rushing past it, bowling over the stilt-borne houses propped there on their egret legs. She draws in a deep breath like she's coming up from underwater, and her entire body shakes. Why are the Prophets... showing her... Wendy Tyler's... ? Don't close your eyes. You might miss something. The little Engineer looks at the computer again, and with shaking hands adjusts the screen a little, trying to read the scrolling data.
GAME: Medes spends a courage point.
<CONTEST> Medes (claiming advantage) contests her Computer (Modeling) skill vs a difficulty of Routine and Succeeds!
<CONTEST> Medes contests her Physical Sciences skill vs a difficulty of Moderate and Fails!
She's assembling some sort of computer model, dealing with physics. But it's way over Thea's head in terms of what the ultimate model will be, or will be able to do. The physics calculations that the computer must be going through are astounding - it's churning up the processor, and is only 23 percent complete. Heavy model for such a wee machine.
"----ing /hell," she mutters, rubbing a hand over her forehead, pulling out a bit of hair and staring up at blonde hair. When frustrated, deflect. Thea internally curses herself for not paying more attention to her mother's admonitions -- some of the few Leah Medes ever cared enough to give -- that she should take more pure science courses, as opposed to the applied science that is Engineering. This is important, /damnit./ She looks back, stares at the computer for a few moments longer, reaching out a finger to quietly poke at the screen, turning her head a little to take in the rest of the room's details before looking back at the screen. Again.
Medes does notice a mirror over the sink that she didn't see before, as it is recessed. The screen continues to crunch. It hasn't moved off of 23 percent but is chugging along.
Still clinging -- despite all evidence otherwise -- to the idea that this is, somehow, some /way,/ a vision, Medes follows the little cues that she's given. She rises from the bed -- and while she's at it, are there another pair of /shorts/ around here, some clean underpants, maybe? That'd be great. This wet butt thing is starting to get annoying -- and rummages her way around before moving toward the mirror.
A cracked drawer beneath the sink can be spied undergarments. Shorts are nearby to be sure. There is silence from beyond the door. But... The mirror. Staring back at Medes is Wendy Tyler. And Wendy Tyler is sporting one hell of a shiner under her eye, probably two or three days old. Strange, there is no pain. And there's another bruise on her thigh. And one near her collar of the neckline.
There's a sort of weird determination that runs through Medes, and after a glance -- and a second, shocked look -- she forces herself to finish changing before she goes back to looking in the mirror, staring mutely at what she sees. She straightens up, taller than she's ever been, built differently, sporting a body and bruises which don't belong to her. Fingers which aren't her own, differently shaped from her own calloused, broken-nailed and stubby-fingered Engineer's hands slide over her cheek, over the edges of the bruise under her eye, the one on her collarbone.
As her fingers touch her eye, and then down to the collarbone, the wash of white light floods over Medes again. Smacking her cheek lightly is Chief Byjos, who has returned to his close-orbit. "Uh, sir? Sir?" he asks. "Sir?"
"I'm sorry, I... " Medes replies, slowly sitting up and immediately raising a hand to her forehead. Her scalp. Reassure self: lack of hair? "I must have... Did I touch a circuit or... no, I." The little Engineer shaks her head, batting away Byjos's hands. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm just... working too hard."
Yes, she's bald. As bald as Byjos, but not quite as blue. She's back in the shuttle bay, one arm deep within the runabout. The arm extricates the elusive part. "Perhaps you should go to the infirmary?" the Chief says, his brow furrowing in concern for his teammate. "I think I can handle things down here, skipper," he says.
"No. I just. I just need a nap," Medes replies quietly, pulling out the part and handing it off to the Chief. "Just working too hard." Getting to her feet, the tiny Lieutenant adds, "If you need anything, Mister Byjos, Mister Chamberlain should be up to speed," before beating a hasty retreat from the shuttle bay, her face almost entirely drained of color.
"You're the boss," Byjos says. He watches her, his expression concerned, as she makes her rapid exit. He shrugs up his shoulders, then turns to the crew. "Alright boys, let's get these coils aligned, shall we? Let's put them back together real nice for the Lieutenant."
