SIM:Nicholotti The Light of an Apoplectic Moon

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((Bridge, USS Resolution))

The bridge was almost silent without the senior staff. With Yalu and Sherlock gone, and their replacements junior officers who were likely already terrified and with far less experience on the bridge with the Captain, much less with the Captain during a crisis, things seemed just unsettled. Still, the fact that Kali chose to pace instead of sitting was probably the icing on an already melted and dilapidated cake. It didn't matter that she was just saving herself the pain that came with avoiding the burns on one side of her. No one really realized that.

But they did realize that she was pacing, and that was unsettling. It took her a moment to realize it and plant her boots in the center of the bridge. As it would figure, it took a whole ten seconds after that to call out after she had.

Anders: Captain, would you mind coming to Ops and looking at this?

Kali almost jumped at the opportunity, but approached with measured pace - as measured as having only a few minutes to live allowed.

Nicholotti: What is it?

Anders: ::Pointing to the screen:: There are lots of different safety measures built into a starship, they work independently of most systems, meaning they don’t need to be told to activate, they do so automatically, correct?

That was common knowledge, of course. The computers on a starship ran much of the starship, freeing up the people to do things that the computer could not. It was the only way that space travel would be at all possible.

Nicholotti: Correct.

Obviously, something was not working right. She waited for the explanation.

Anders: Well, I have located seven different systems that are not doing that, they are failing to respond and prevent a cause and effect to happen.

Seven systems...what? Kali frowned slightly. With all of the redundancies that were built into space traveling systems since the very early days of space travel, it was nearly unheard of to hear what she was hearing.

Nicholotti: So we have a multi-system failure on top of everything else?

Maybe they were lucky the core was the only thing going critical. It sounded like they had a lot of other problems, they just hadn't ever gotten past the core to get to the other problems.

Anders: No Captain, the systems are not just failing to respond, ::Pointing to the red grid:: They are no longer part of the ship systems, it’s like they never existed at all.

That got her to snap her eyes up at him. This was a new officer and she didn't know him well yet, but he was certainly leaving an impression already. What did he mean by that; like they never existed? The Resolution had just been repaired in full, and signed off by Lieutenant Commander Amari, among others. They had to have been in place.

Nicholotti: Ensign, those systems just went through a major repair cycle and inspection. They were just noted as working fine.

Anders:  ::Pulling up the logs of the system installations.:: They were all installed on the ship, and a few of them have gone through a great many updates and upgrades, the logs are still, just the components are missing.

Kali raised an eyebrow as a chill washed over her.

Nicholotti: Any chance these might have some connection to our warp core?

Anders: Response?

That seemed plausible. After all, what first seemed like an attack from the Klingons having been the catalyst to seeing off the breach later became them not having a clue why it was happening. This at least gave them an idea why it kept triggering.

Nicholotti: Get this information to Commander MacKenzie in engineering and see if we can't do something with it.

Anders: Response?

Nodding, Kali was satisfied for the moment. She was about to walk away when she turned to ask one more question.

Nicholotti: What about the other systems. If we get the core issue fixed, what is the next thing we will face?

And she might have gotten some kind of an answer, had the doors to the lift not interrupted the conversation. Kali looked up and right into the eyes of a ghost.

He walked casually down towards the command deck and sat into her chair, running his hand over the leather. She blinked, her heart caught in her chest. Not again!

Nicholotti: You're dead.

With a deadpan expression, she leveled her crystalline blues at the man who she had identified once before. Her eyes had been slate grey back then, and his body a charred mess from the terrorist attacks, but it had been the two of them all the same.

Hunt: Kali, you remember me, I am touched!

The universe was indeed a cruel mistress. Pain hit on many levels and while she had been doing her best to shield her body from the physical pain of the burns, she nearly welcomed the distraction it brought her now from the mental turmoil of seeing the man sitting in the center chair just then. Her voice was soft. It cracked ever so slightly and her eyes burned a cold fire.

Nicholotti: You cannot be here.

Anders: Who is that Captain?

The raven-haired captain did not answer, she could not answer. As the minutes and seconds ticked down, leading them all into the same oblivious from wince this demon had come, Kali could do little other than focus on the nightmare and force it away from the living that she held dear.

Hunt: ::Still setting in the command chair:: I have not been in this chair, well since our mission too that embassy. ::Still feeling the leather:: What a mission that was too.

His lackadaisical impressions of the pinnacle of her career, and the convergence of so many hopes, dreams, and struggles had her seething. Her jaw tightened. Disbelief turned sadness simmered into a thick soup of ice-cold vehemence. A low growl emanated from deep within. Whatever this was, it was not Guy Hunt, nor was it conveying any sort of image that honored him.

Nicholotti: Get. Out.

Hunt: ::Standing up and moving to the first officer's chair:: I have never been in a warp core explosion before, I thought this would be fun. To feel this would be something that I could really enjoy.

Her nostril's flared. How dare he. How DARE HE! The internal acrimony was nearing a point of no return, like a pot in which the contents boiled over. Kali was not an empath, or a telepath, but she was a Captain and she could feel the crew's weariness. There was a fatigue like no other while the fight went on, over and over, with the idea of finally going off to rest for good seeming perhaps more appealing the more often it presented itself. No...there was no part of this that would be enjoyable.

She couldn't even get words out at that point her anger was so incensed. In many ways, she was thankful her senior staff were not there to see the usually cool, calm, and measured captain finally be lit up with such fury.

Hunt: ::pointing the command chair:: Do sit down Fleet Captain! Kali, its been so long, we have so much to catch up on ::looking at the data on the warp core on the command station between the chairs:: and so little time to do it.

Anders: Should I call security Captain?

Hunt: That will not be needed Mr. Anders, Kali and I are very old friends, right Fleet Captain? ::Grinning a grin that only Guy Hunt could do.::

Finally, Kalianna Arashi Nicholotti found her voice. It had coalesced in the shadow of every shred of regret of a decade of thoughts and hurts and the pain of loss that had compounded itself across light years and so much that had always been left unsaid. Her eyes narrowed, and as the seconds on the bridge began ticking down the last minute before the core breached again, her voice rang out clear.

Nicholotti: You are dead. You died in the terrorist attack on Starbase 118. You are not Commander Hunt nor any honorable representation of anything he stood for. And that chair belongs to someone else. Right now, she is fighting to save this ship and all of the souls aboard, including mine. You don't deserve to be near it. Get out of it! And get off my ship!

TAG/TBC

-- Fleet Captain Kalianna Nicholotti
Commanding Officer
USS Resolution

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