Gila Sadar/Artemis Service
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| USS Artemis-A • Luna class • Addison MacKenzie |
Lieutenant JG Sadar, Gila
Captain MacKenzie wouldn’t have gotten a more immediate physical reaction from Gila if she had physically beaten her. Her eyes dimmed, her finger - previously twisting her anxiety ring desperately - grew calm and still and she turned to face her console.
Sadar: I… Yes sir..png)
Unbeknownst to Gila, her superior officer, Cmdr. Genkos Adea had already been replaced by his counterpart, but when Lt. Jovenan realized this, after Gila reported a series of confusing changes to the Commander's personality and workplace behavior, the two of them used Gila's emergency override codes to gain access to Cmdr. Adea's quarters and rescue him. They then teamed up with Cpt. MacKenzie and Lt. Silveira to retake the Bridge, which had been commandeered by Silveira's counterpart, Victor Olivera. While there, Gila took to the Operations Console to check in with the other departments and provide a real-time update to the Captain on how the liberation of the Artemis was going. While on the Bridge, they were alerted to an explosion in Sickbay that had critically injured Counselor Jones, were able to stop an impromptu escape attempt by the Desdemonans remaining on board their own vessel, but could only watch as Lieutenant Colonel Genkos Adea - Cdr. Adea's imposter - evaded capture in a Starfleet shuttle and promptly warped out of the system.
As the Artemis' scientists conducted research aimed to send their counterparts back to their own universe, Gila took the time to head to the Brig and speak to her counterpart face-to-face. Gila Thevn had been the one responsible for setting the explosive device in Sickbay, and as Gila struggled to understand and accept the fact that a fellow Doctor could commit such an act, her counterpart could only sneer in return. They were dooming an entire galaxy to extinction. What was one life in comparison to that?
Gila felt her eyes burn, her throat run dry.
Sadar: Why did you set that bomb?
Gila Thevn - her twisted mirror - smiled grimly.
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While searching for information about this alternate reality that they had been sent to, Gila and her senior officers realize that this reality was brought about by way of the Romulans not joining the Dominion War in time to turn the tables on the Alliance's enemies. Without their added firepower, the Dominion War is still ongoing, with the Dominion having gained a great amount of ground in the Beta Quadrant. After a confrontation with CloQ in his father's study, Cmdr. Adea initiated a house-wide search for a 'window', a method of travelling that occasionally cropped up during encounters with CloQ. They managed to locate such a schism, which connected to Ki Baratan - the capital of the long-dead world of Romulus - a year prior. Leaving Tevet to guard the window in her own time, the officers jumped through.
In Ki Baratan, the group joins up with the newly-arrived Ensign Gnai, who'd been displaced to this moment in time, seemingly on its own. While there, the group realizes that Senator Vreenak is returning to Ki Baratan in order to settle the political debate on what position the Romulans will take in the war, and the Senator will favor the Dominion. To Cmdr. Adea, there is but one remaining course of action. They must prevent the Senator from convening with the Senate by force. As the group starts working on disguises to better traverse Ki Baratan, the Commander realizes that the building they were transported to is connected to the planetary defense turret, which is quickly chosen to be the blunt instrument of their clumsy timeline surgery. The attempt is hamfisted at best - complicated further by the difficulties involving disguising Gila and Ensign Gnai, the actual technological know-how required to take control of the turret and the conniving finesse necessary to frame the Dominion for the Senator's untimely death - and when 'Cmdr. Adea finally shoots down the approaching shuttle, it goes careening straight towards the turret, crashing the four Starfleet officers under it's massive weight.
Or so it should have.
Not interested in losing any of their game pieces, CloQ shuffles the boards, and Gila is summoned to their domain alongside Lt.Cdr. Dakora and LTs Jovenan and Silveira. CloQ engages the Starfleeters in a bit of taunting back-and-forth, before revealing that the assassination attempt was unsuccessful and ultimately unnecessary, resulting in an even worse timeline than the one they'd been originally moved to. Gila and LT Jovenan despair at this, but CloQ offers them a final way out: If they can discover what was actually supposed to happen to the Senator, CloQ will reset the timeline back to its original state. This quest prompts CloQ to take the four Officers on a guided tour of the Deep Space Nine of 2374, frozen in time. Through sleuthing and hacking and trespassing the four Officers reveal the scandalous truth behind the successful war against the Dominion: Captain Benjamin Sisko, venerated war hero and Emissary of the Prophets, enabled, if not ordered, the unlawful assassination of a Romulan Senator, after unsuccessfully attempting to forge evidence that would pit Romulus against its Dominion allies.
Keeping their word, CloQ reunites the crew of the USS Artemis on their vessel, just outside of present day DS9, and leaves them to ruminate on their experiences and trails at the hands of the mercurial Q...
Gila swallowed, even as she felt the truth stab into her heart.
Adea: Okay… Wish me luck.
Gnai: ::to the second floor:: Good luck! ::to Sadar, after a beat:: This feels wrong...
Sadar: … I know...
Wasn’t there something she could do? Some wire or lever that she could pull to stop this? Some way she could alter the trajectory they were rushing down? She heard the security guards work on the door in-between the alarm klaxons and felt a headache manifest as her eyes tried to make sense of what she saw around her through the purple environment. She looked into the turret.
A failsafe. An emergency shut-down lever or button. An on/off switch! Anything!
oO Against the currents of time, only cooperation and unison can see us safe. Discord would see all drown, but together, we will float. Oo