Mirror, Mirror Part #3

Posted on 25 Nov 2022 @ 6:19pm by Lieutenant Colonel Alexandria Somers & Major S'arila Donovan

2,116 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: S3 Episode 5: Diplomatic Incident/Hydaransz Again (Incidentals)
Location: Various
Timeline: MD: 02.0a

[ON]

Looking around, "to the Diplomacy topic Lieutenant Haze, it does not exist, so expect hostile fire *pauses* excellent, now get your rears to the shuttle bay, and board the venture class scout we have, also, do not forget your EVA suits," Somers said.

oO EVA suit? Not these froggy doodle things again….Oo Ted thought “ Yes of course.” Silver said aloud.

Jarel glanced around at the group assembled and instead of heading for the shuttle bay he instead set his engineering kit down. "Respectfully requesting permission to decline. I still fail to understand why we have to kill these people. I refuse to aid in this mission which judging by the armaments will be violet and bloody. I refuse to participate in the destruction of a station that will result in the likely hood of many many deaths. I am an engineer and an explorer. Not ..". He had no words for what this was Haze said.

The Colonel looked at Haze sternly "Lieutenant Haze, those we are going to stop will shoot first and ask questions later, if they capture you, they will torture you until they have all your secrets, these are Terrans from the mirror universe and they are a warring culture, all display the darker side of human nature, they will not hesitate to shoot at you, so you will either have to shoot back or get shot at, so request denied Lieutenant and you are a Starfleet Officer and I am giving you permission to kill the enemy" Somers said then with some disappointment in her tone which she directed towards Haze.

"As you have issues with killing you may put your weapons on heavy stun, but you will have a weapon and you are on this mission, your Engineering skills will be needed and you need some operational experience, any other concerns you have before we depart Lieutenant Haze?" Somers asked.

"No ma'am.". His voice held just as much disappointment as Somers. There was an edge of something else as well but he kept that to himself. He was hoping for another voice of reason. With none for the coming, he picked up his engineering kit. He was still in Starfleet, he had never refused a task before in his career. Still, he'd never been asked to blow people up before either. He was an engineer, not a Marine.

C'Tirr stepped closer to Haze. "Just stay close to me, watch my tail and I'll make sure you won't have to kill anyone." He said with a grin that showed his sharp teeth. "Besides, I promised my sister I'd watch out for you." He shot him a wink before continuing. "Let's get our suits and get to the shuttle bay."

"Okay for this operation you will all be issued Marine-designed EVA suits, they are like the standard EVA suite the USS Voyager had, but they are dark green all over and are built for combat, so if you have not gotten one yet, I would suggest you get one and put it on," Somers said.

Haze didn't say anything just nodded. He had said all he needed to say. So he followed the black panther man's lead to the rack for an EVA suit.

“ I know I should not say this. But these things make me nervous.” Silver said.

Haze nodded in agreement as he worked to get the suite on. He was used to them. He spent many hours in EVA suites for his work back on the space station. "It gets easier the more you use them."

“ Well, this will be the second time….second time….second time I have used one,” Ted said.

A wave of nausea came across him as he remembered the last time Silver had worn an EVA suit. It had been during the Blue hill zombie mission. He had been in therapy for weeks after.

"Have you tried chewing mint gum? I worked with a fella who had a similar reaction and he said that the mint helped settle his stomach and chewing the gum helped relieve the anxiety." Haze offered in way of trying to help the poor guy out.

Thyra put on her suit and just listened in on the conversation. "Not all missions are convenient. This one is already inconvenient on its own, wearing the suit may not help. But isn't this why we became Starfleet officers, not because it is convenient? She tilted her head. I usually just have happy thoughts. Also, I hate the dessert mission, but we can't pick and choose missions." She smiled and hoped it was a little comforting.

“ I fully understand. Don’t worry I can do this.” Ted said

S'arila came back out with her customer EVA suit tailored to her, it was even sleeker than the ones on the Tomcat, as she had eyesight that was unique her helmet had a HUD in the visor. After all the armoured suit did come with her when she arrived in this reality some years ago, she had kept it operational, but it still had the tendency to randomly play 20th Century music, as it did now as she returned to the group the tune "I will survive" by Gloria Gaynor was currently playing "suit stop playing music!" she commanded it, but the suit ignored her, so she whacked it repeatedly which caused it to switch to "We are family" this was where she swore in her native tongue, a language still not decoded by Starfleet, yet as S'arila could speak fluent Federation standard and English perfectly so she rarely used her native language, but the tone indicated cursing. She paused mid-whack at the silent room "What!" She exclaimed.

Haze had watched the scene with no small interest. As he watched the woman's assault on the poor machine he had to remind himself that unless he was invited to help he needed to not go touching the lady's helmet. His fingers tingled to get ahold of it though and make it give up its secrets to him. He knew he might be able to fix it if he got just..... Then he realized he was staring at S'arila and had been for a creepy amount of time now. Drat.

oO Come Ted keep it together. Oh, dear…These things don’t have toilet facilities.OO He thought

“ These things feel different from the last ones we wore,” Ted said. Keeping the tension out of his voice.

"They appear to be upgraded from the ones I am familiar with also." Haze offered to Silver to help reassure him. "They have an instating layer see. And a self-repair gel for minor punctures or small tears. Much better than the average EVA." He smiled over at the nervous young man Silver. "I'm surprised as a science officer you don't have more experience with these."

“ It’s not that. The last time I wore an EVA suit. Was the blue gill zombie mission? Brings back bad bad memories. I’ll be ok.” Ted said

C'Tirr let out a purring chuckle at the antics of his crewmates as he slid the special gloves on his own custom suit. He was equipped with retractable claws in the gloves so that he can still use his natural weapons in close combat. His ears had swivelled towards S'arila as his fine hearing had caught the music from her suit and his eyes watched Haze's reaction to S'arila smacking her helm. "You need a hand Haze?" He asked as he finished getting the suit on.

"No, but she might." Haze said motioning to S'arila. He then asked her, "would you like me to take a look ma'am?" He took in her size and redheaded to boot. Yeah, he was going to wait for an invitation.

Thyra walked up to S'arila. "What is that music? I am very interested, that music sounds really good. Can we have that in our helmets too?" She tilted her head and almost looked a little hopeful to the Colonel.

S'arilla looked down "sadly the tech in this suit slightly differs from the Starfleet tech you know and if the Corps of Engineers could not work it out, it came with me from my original reality, and it always did this with the music, it gets annoying, funny thing when I first arrived in this reality I was in this suit and ended up on earth somewhere and as I was surrounded by Starfleet Security my damn suit began to play music, I could swear the Security officers were more baffled than I was that day," Donovan said, finally getting the suit to shut up.

The Colonel listened with some amusement and looked curiously at the Major whose violence against her suit greatly contrasted with the 'What!' exclamation which sounded so innocent, tinted with embarrassment, she looked at Thyra and answered for the partially distracted Major "the first song was called I will survive, by a singer called Gloria Gaynor, the second one was called 'we are family and that was sung by Sister Sledge if memory serves me" Somers said "and no to the music in your EVA suits" she added.

"Yes, while my reality is about 6 months ahead of this one, most of our history was essentially the same up until the Period that you know as the Third World war, you see in my reality that never happened, the Earth governments were on the verge of becoming a one-world Government, so when Cochrane did his first flight in 2063 and attracted the Vulcan's he did it with the help of ESPA and NASA which funded his efforts, after that my realities history mirrored this one but we never had to deal with the Xindi incident as it never happened and the expanse where the Xindi resided had no thermobaric clouds surrounding it by all accounts the Sphere builders left my reality alone, the Borg were just as big a threat, it was not till later that R&D realised the reason the Sphere Builders left us alone was that our Second Dominion war destroyed the Federation with more deaths than they could have given out" she sighed "We had a Wolf 359 and Battle of Sector 001, but the Borg left the other two quadrants alone when the Dominion concqured the Alpha and Beta Quadrant, the losses this reality suffered paled in comparisons of the countless of lives that were wiped out in my reality" another pause.

"The second Dominion War brought on the need for special combat utility suits like mine and some comedian decided to put in the music unit, if you want sometimes I can tell you a little about what I left, but do not expect too much detail as it still haunts me," Donovan said.

C'Tirr chuckled a bit as he took up a position next to the door, his acute hearing picking up all conversation in the room.

"I think I will have to look up that music when I get back," Thyra said. "I really want to learn more about Earth's music, it sounds very interesting."

*Clears throat* "Okay now that is all done kindly head down to the shuttle bay and get aboard our Venture class scout ship, go, go, go" Somers instructed.

“ Yes ma’am,” Ted said

"Aye, Aye Ma'am," C'Tirr said as he laid his hand on Haze's shoulder. "Come on, don't want to miss our flight now do we?" He smiled at Haze before he stepped out the door.

Haze shrugged, "Maybe I do." Jarel breathed softly as he followed the large panther man out of the door.

Thyra seemed a bit disappointed at the no music in the suits but proceeded out of the door anyways with the others.

Alex did not miss what Haze said, she knew he was having second thoughts and was not enthusiastic about this, she shared a look with Donovan who simply shrugged, she sighed heavily and both Senior Officers followed the team out of security.


[OFF]

 

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