ORIGINS: "Reunion"- "Someday" is Here
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1.1: "Someday" is Here
(REUNION) UTOPIA PLANITIA: "'Someday' is Here" A STAR FLEET: ORIGINS Free Thread Posted by Scott Lusby ----- SD: 2276.298 (October 25, 2276) Setting: Main Concourse, Deck 18-Alpha, Utopia Planitia Shipyards, Mars Orbit Time: 1746 hours ----- **Bloody hell!** Captain Gar Th'elenth could do nothing other than huff, put his head down, and plow through the foot traffic. It still amazed him, what had become of this place. Utopia Planitia had begun with only a couple of berths 20 years ago, a bare nothing; now, it had spread to almost monstrous proportions, its web-like design of interconnected cubes and latticework taking up much of Mars's orbit, until now, it had become so vast that it now served as Star Fleet's de facto "experimental design hub." It suited that purpose well, as experimental designs required, primarily, two things (assuming materiel is a given): first, they required extremely high levels of security, as new technological breakthroughs often represented jumps in starship capabilities, about which Star Fleet liked to keep other powers from knowing. As such, those that worked here were heavily vetted, and only those with the highest clearances were stationed here; access to every part of the station was restricted- the number of people who could simply "drop by" Utopia Planitia could be counted on one humanoid hand. And no one gained access to the computer network here unless The Powers That Be allowed it; Star Fleet Security's Counterintelligence wing made sure of that. Second- often overlooked by those on the outside- experimental designs needed more robust safety protocols, lest some new thingamabob exploded and took half of, say, something the size of the brand-new Spacedock One- and the people therein- with it. Replacing those kinds of material and biological resources when things went kablooey was far too high a cost for Star Fleet. Simply put: no one got into Utopia Planitia who wasn't supposed to, and no one accessed Utopia Planitia's computers who wasn't supposed to. Yet the volume of the traffic Gar encountered daily going to and from his office space seemed to bely those facts: it was always...crowded. A fact which only served to further agitate a perpetually grumpy Andorian engineer. Gar grumbled a few epithets under his breath as he reached the turbolift bank. There were six of them...and each of them had a line. **Rush hour,** he mused. One would think that work schedules would be staggered some to reduce this daily mass exodus... The queue moved quickly enough, all things being equal; in less than 10 minutes, he was on the lift. Except now he felt like he was stuffed into a package of shaysha on the overcrowded lift. "Deck Seven," he shouted, adding his stop to the turbolift's growing list. As the lift began to move, Th'elenth's mind drifted- as it often did these days- to the passage of time...or, more precisely, how he ended up here. Not that there was anything wrong, per se, with "here"; it just is not where he thought (**hoped?** his conscience chided) he would be. As a younger man, Gar was not like most Andorians in that he didn't feel the same connection, the same draw, to Andoria that most had...well, that wasn't precisely it. It was more like that he felt honor-bound to join Star Fleet after Vulcan's destruction, to help fill that void left by the loss of so many Vulcans. Which put him at odds with most Andorians, for he had placed the Federation above Andoria. **With one Andorian in particular...** Gar pushed that thought out of his mind; he did not wish to relive that unpleasantness yet again. **Besides,,** he thought, **my career has brought me- and Andoria- nothing but honor.** Which was true enough; one doesn't become a Captain of Engineering in Star Fleet by just doing one's job. He was exceptional at his job: he was a warp propulsion specialist- a prodigy, really- which is how he had found his way here, to Utopia Planitia, working on perhaps Star Fleet's most ambitious- and most secretive- project since the NX program: transwarp drive. "The Great Experiment." It was only in its nascent stages; they hadn't even begun building a test platform for the new engine designs yet. **We haven't built the engines yet,** he corrected; all they had were computer models...but the models showed promise, potential that would rewrite the warp scale if successful. The impact on starship design- on exploration, on defense- could scarcely be quantified. Frankly, everyone in Star Fleet (everyone who knew about it, that is...which, truth be told, wasn't many) was positively atwitter with excitement. Except Gar. The turbolift had stopped again. [[[Deck Seven,]]] the breathy computer voice crooned softly. Gar slid out from between a couple of humans, and shuffled into the mostly-empty corridor. He turned right, and headed in the direction of his quarters. It wasn't that he wasn't excited by the potential of transwarp drive; he saw it the same as everyone else who saw the models. Its potential was, frankly, awesome. **You miss space,** his conscience prodded. **I'm IN space,** he countered, knowing damn well that he was simply playing semantics with himself. He knew what his inner voice meant: he hadn't truly felt he was contributing something like he did when he was on a starship, on the "front lines," so to speak... He didn't matter as much. Gar was not one to be artificially humble; he knew exactly who and what he was. But he was also not one to kid himself; he also knew that there were a hundred other engineers who could do what he was doing right now. He missed being on a starship...exploring...defending...engaging. He turned left, down the corridor that held his quarters. As he did, he sensed something: his antennae were picking up on something...familiar...yet somehow elusive. He could not put his finger on it- he couldn't tell if it was an odor, some nearly-imperceptible shift in the elemental make-up of the area...but something was definitely off, enough to make his antennae tingle slightly... ..and it was something he knew that he knew. Gar reached his quarters, and stopped before triggering the door's lock. There seemed to be nothing amiss at his door- no sign of forced entry, nothing out of the ordinary at all...save for the fact that whatever he was sensing was definitely stronger here, in front of his door. Gar took a deep breath, and pushed the button next to the door, unlocking it. The doors opened wide before him. He stepped through the open maw, cautiously, and into the room. He was immediately assaulted by two things, the first of which was the sudden, immediate realization of what- or rather whom- it was he was sensing... ..the second of which was the sudden, immediate sensation of being grasped by the shoulders and tossed- hard- to the floor like some simple pet's toy. Gar shook his head, trying to right himself, and began to stand up. However, he was immediately tackled back to the ground, and found himself pinned beneath another Andorian. A beautiful- and deadly- Andorian he hadn't seen in over 15 years. "Hello, Gar," the woman whispered, her long white hair spilling curls around her face...a face so close to his he could feel her breath... Gar 's antennae sat straight up, shocked, titillated by the memories of 15 years ago that suddenly flooded back into his consciousness. "Avae," he said softly, with a reverence reserved only for those with a shared, intimate, past. It was impossible she was here... Avae Zh'sharav's exquisite face was now impossibly close to his; the years had not stripped her of her beauty. "Someday' is here," she purred, and, gently, softly, pushed her lips to his. <<NRPG>> OK...so recently I found some old USS HOOD posts on the BOI page. I did not remember that we were using it as a backup archive. It's all I have left of anything I had written in the past with Yahoo! Groups going away. So I read...and found Gar..and I found Avae (pronounced "AH-vay," like "Ave Maria"). Avae is an Am-Tal operative- Andorian Intelligence- and at one time in her pre-Am Tal day, Gar's lover. Gar chose Star Fleet over Andoria...and her. She was, 15 years ago, sent to kill Dr. Fveirrolh Sahen, a Romulan geneticist who was doing bad things. Gar was part of a Star Fleet team sent to take Sahen into custody after granting him asylum. This was the basis of a HOOD mission from November 2009-February 2010. Ultimately Gar stopped her, and she was arrested and held on HOOD until she could be transferred into Star Fleet Security's custody. Naturally, she escaped the HOOD's brig, and found herself on the transporter pad as Gar walked in with security. "Someday" was her final word to Gar as she dematerialized. This free thread takes place in the ORIGINS timeline (the KELVIN timeline- alternate to PRIME), but set about 15 years beyond where the movies left off, in 2276, which would be about when the USS ENTERPRISE returned from its 5-year mission and began its refit in the PRIME timeline. This thread will revolve around Gar and Avae, and also around Dr. Sahen; Avae didn't find Gar on a heavily restricted-and-classified station after 15 years just to jump his bones. I just thought it would be fun to do another little cloak-and-dagger type thing with a couple of my favorite characters again. I don't know if this will last, as time is a shifting commodity for me. Let's see where this goes... Respectfully Submitted, - Scott Lusby /\ CAPT Gar Th'elenth Captain of Engineering Transwarp Project Utopia Planitia, Mars AND Avae Zh'sharav Am-Tal Operative scottjlusby[at]gmail[dot]com
