"The Strange"

Doctor Damson Rhee leaned over to ensure that all of the shuttle’s field stabilization, emergency power system graphs and plasma flow readings were correct before she turned back to the helm. She tilted her head to the ceiling of the shuttlecraft.

"All systems are functioning within established parameters, Victory. Let’s get a move one." She announced to the blank ceiling.

The ceiling seemed unimpressed, yet responded smoothly.

"Shuttle systems ready aye, Commander," Reported the voice of the USS Victory’s flight control officer.

The Chief Science Officer of the USS Victory sat beside the Doctor, amused as the Chief Medical Officer basked in the glow of her first fully realised project from start to completion. The static warp bubble propelled by soliton waves had sprung into life from several conversations over the past decade of Doctor Rhee’s career, medical officers, science officers, engineering officers all providing the impetus Rhee needed to envision this new method of flight. The Counsellor of the Federation’s flagship had apparently provided the anecdote from her own earlier adventures in space, which, Rhee had explained, caused the whole thing to come shimmering to life in her mind’s eye.

"Beginning wave generation sequences," continued the voice overhead. On screen, the USS Victory’s deflector dish began to glow beet red, brightening exponentially.

Doctor Rhee leaned over and tapped a few controls, and the starfield promptly popped out of existence. The Victory’s Science Officer gasped, startled at the naked sight of the vessel’s deflector dish glowing in the middle of nothing -- no stars, no spatial formations, no startup . . .

"Static warp bubble in place, Victory," she said, just reigning in her excitement. "Go ahead and give us a push."

A beat passed.
A beat passed.

The two officers stared at each other, then Rhee leaned over the panels before her and began furiously tapping, frantically searching . . .

"I don’t understand," she murmured. "Why can’t they hear us?"

"They --" the Science Officer stopped as the Medical Officer cut her off.

"I’ve got it -- text only -- says," her brow furrowed. "Dammed," Rhee exclaimed; they’re sticking to the flight pal--" Rhee found herself unable to speak as the air was forced out of her lungs and she found herself flung into the panel before her, then, almost immediately struck her head against the aft wall. Her mind barely registered the sight of the USS Victory and normal space reappearing around her as she faded into the ether.

The blanket was warm and comfortable, and the Damson savored the coziness for a moment more before grudgingly hauling herself to full wakefulness. That was when she remembered. Her eyes flew open with a start.

"What the --" she tried to say. Nothing escaped from her mouth and certainly nothing of the scene escaped her eyes. In every direction Damson looked, thick, gray mist lurked heavily, filling the space in every direction she could see. Alarmed, she tried to turn her head to the side to see -- well, what she could see. Her eyes widened from alarm to downright fear as she found herself immobilized, dull ache plaguing her stomach. She struggled, but found that she was not restrained; it was as if she were paralyzed.

With nothing left to do to remedy the situation, she relaxed into it, closed her eyes, and imagined herself lying in her bed, asleep. She hoped against hope that she was, in fact, lying in bed, asleep, and had never --

At the same instant the fetid smell of burning flesh reached her nostrils, she recalled the shuttle experiment, and the fact that -- something -- had happened to herself and the Chief Science Officer of the USS Victory.

Her eyes flew open. She immediately wished they had not.

She stood somewhere above the panorama before her, but could not tell exactly what it was she was standing on, or in. The carnage stared back at her from below. Winding, gray twists of metal stretched through the dark expanse of space and stars to where the ruin began. Plasma trailed and fire burned amidst the tritanium and transparent aluminum of two dead, scuttled starships, flame leaping harshly, bright and incensed against the vague washout of the hazily clouded distance.

Studying the constellations, she picked familiar stars, all oddly colored or appearing smeared against them. Her brow furrowed as she squinted trying to make sense of what it was she was seeing. She forced her gaze back to the green hulk drifting lazily across her field of vision, alit with the pyres of hell and apparently oblivious to the same. It was the utter desolation and destruction that seemed to be guiding its haphazard course now.

In short, the Doctor watched as a Romulan Warbird trundled, end over horizontal end away from a tiny Starfleet runabout. Her lips parted, and she gasped for air, the dull ache in her stomach lulling it's self softly to sleep.

"Doctor Damson," Came a husky voice from behind her.

Rhee spun in place, forgetting, for the moment, that she was entirely unable to move, to confront the source of the voice. A figure stood in the distance down a long corridor.

"Vincent," she called, her heart lightening in hope.

A light began to flicker above her, and silently, in awe, she peered to the light. It was obviously failing, and it obviously was the overhead light of a starship. Unable to help herself, she wondered aloud, "There aren’t any light that big in the shuttlecraft."

She turned back around, and found herself looking down the end of starship corridor. A Starfleet ship’s corridor, to be precise. She looked at the walls, pulsing, as she suddenly realized, with the harsh glow of red alert.

"Computer," she called.

"Doctor Damson," Came the reply. It was by far not the computer’s voice. Instead, it was the raspy, whispered voice of a man she had come to know over most of her life by only one name. The man had made reappearance’s into and out of her life for the better part of the past two decades. Not that he was unwelcome by far -- she had gone so far as to carry on an affair with the man for quite a few years. Discreet as it was, it had occupied a great deal of her life, and almost all of her heart.

"Vincent?" She whirled once more and rushed into the mists clinging to the corridor. "Where are you?" Her voice husked deeply as she ran, and finding herself at a fork in the corridor, she took a break, hands upon her knees, her stomach pain reawakening and letting her know it. "Vincent where are you," she pleaded. "What is this place?"

"I’m here," Came a voice from overhead. Her face whipped toward the ceiling. "I’m here," Came a voice from behind her.

"I’m here." This came from before her.
"I’m here." Her commbadge.
"I’m here." Down one hallway.
"I’m -- "

"Stop it!" Doctor Rhee cried out in frustration. "Where are we? Is this real?" She thought for a moment envisioning in her mind the last time she had seen Vincent. He was standing before her in a blanked holodeck, and suddenly it occurred to her. "Computer freeze program."

Everything around her vanished, to be replaced by a lean, comforting face, one lightly dusted with fur and framed by long, sandy brown mane-ish hair. Her hands moved toward her stomach of their own accord, and the man before her held her gaze deep in his captivating brown eyes. "Where have you been," the man asked her, a yellow glint reflecting off of the shiny, pearlescent white of his teeth.

Despite herself, and the captivation she felt, she looked to one side, to find herself in a large gray room, crisscrossed with half-inch metal piping all connected at node points in a giant grid work. The overhead lights flickered continuously. She stepped away from Vincent, keeping her left hand in his furred grasp. "Vincent we’re back here," she said, taking in the entirety of the grid. "What happened."

"You were in a shuttle accident," the man explained sadly.

Rhee headed toward the door, Vincent in tow. The regret coloring next words came clearly across in his voice. "You died," he relented.

The Doctor’s face broke into a smile. "No I didn’t," she told him, certain of herself.

"Damson," he told her sadly, "I’m sorry."

She took her hand back from him. "Vincent," she told him, "I’m not dead." Her eyes widened and her head cocked to one side the moment the words fell from her lips, as if she had suddenly realized the lack of truth in her words. The pain in her stomach evaporated.

Vincent spread his arms wide and leaned forward to pull the woman into an embrace. "Stop it," she said, stepping back from the man.

Vincent’s face went wide, his eyes stretching to their limits, "Damson I--"

"I’m not dead, Vincent," she explained. "I’m inside a static warp bubble," she began to piece together. Pacing across the floor she remembered, "There was a case like this bef-" She stopped in place, and turned to Vincent.

"What is it, Damson," the man asked.

Damson’s lower lip trembled, as in fear, and she slumped slowly to her knees. Vincent rushed to her, to help stabilize her descent. She stared at the floor, and Vincent allowed her to.

Three full minutes passed before the Doctor lifted her countenance to him once more. He was taken aback by the startling pallor of her face. Her arms, he noticed, cradled her body as if she were in horrible pain around the midsection.

"Rhee," she explained, "is gone."

To Be Continued…..