Lt. Ivanovna found herself in a darkened chamber, phaser in hand. She was holding her breath, not intentionally, but more by the instinct of anticipation. Suddenly, a globe of light flew past, and she fired. Katrina hit the thing dead on, and the computer squeaked, registering her hit. It wasn't as if she particularly needed the target practice, but she found the phaser range to be a good distraction from her regular routine; not to mention the fact that no one pestered her in there, and it gave her time to think.
The tall, strong, chief of security on board the U.S.S. Bristol had been having nightmares more often than not since their ordeal with the Romulans; it had been like reliving that time aboard the transport ship when those Klingon soldiers had boarded it and killed her mother. She had already decided against visiting the ship's counselors, despite a standing order by the captain for all crew members to consider doing so, if they had unresolved feelings in the aftermath of those earlier events.
Another blob of light appeared, followed almost immediately by a third; Ivanovna fired and hit them both squarely.
She decided she liked being on duty, and enjoyed things like the phaser range, and the holodeck training programs; they kept her mind focused on the moment, and away from thinking about other things. During quiet moments, those two days weeks ago kept playing over and over in her mind, bits and pieces at a time. The fight for the Bridge; how she'd fought on by sheer will alone, her enemies needing three phaser hits against her to take her down. It still wasn't enough; it might've been if she hadn't hated losing so much. The captain had replayed the security tapes of the fight on the Bridge and had given her glowing praise in front of the other security officers, but she still felt ashamed, that she had failed her captain and the ship. Her standards for herself were always set high; some might say too high, and certainly all would say higher than those she set for other people.
Two blobs of light zipped by going in nearly opposite directions; she fired twice, hitting one, and missing the other by about an inch and a half. The computer made a nasty sound to indicate her miss, and she swore at it.
The intercom sounded, and the captain's voice interrupted Ivanovna's introspection. "Lt. Ivanovna, this is the captain. Please report to my Ready Room."
Ivanovna sighed and tapped her comm-badge, "Right away Captain." She placed the training phaser back into its compartment. "Computer, end program," she commanded the Holodeck computer, which complied, replacing firing range and phaser compartment with the black and yellow grided walls of a holodeck not in use.
Ivanovna soon found herself on the Bridge, buzzing the door to the captain's Ready Room. "Come in," the captain said from within, and she entered. "Sit down, Katrina," the captain said, as he himself stood and went over to his food synthesizer in the wall. "Can I get you something?"
"No sir," Ivanovna replied brusquely. "Thank you though," she added, almost as an after-thought.
The captain nodded and said to the wall console, "Computer, apple juice, three degrees Celsius." The computer made angry beeps and pleading noises of distress at him, before finally producing the beverage he asked for. The captain shook his head at the machine. "Jevor says it may need a new receiver coil, and that he'll get to it soon," the captain explained to Ivanovna, who merely nodded. The captain sat back down at his desk, took a drink from the glass of apple juice, and ran both his hands through his hair. "So, what's wrong Katrina?" he said at length.
"Sir?" she replied innocently.
"You forget we have a very perceptive friend on board this ship, Lieutenant," Freeman replied, referring to Yilaan and her empathic abilities. "This friend told me you were distressed, but that same friend didn't want to read your mind to find out what it was all about. However, the mental well-being of my Bridge officers concerns me, as I am the captain of this ship. I also would like to consider myself your friend." Ivanovna smiled slightly at the comment. "So, what's wrong?"
"I failed you, I failed the ship!" Ivanovna blurted out suddenly. "My duty was to detect the threat before it was there, and to prevent danger to this ship. Instead, we were boarded and beaten up."
The captain sighed. "Everyone thinks you were a hero, Katrina. You took more punishment and did more to try and stop the Romulans and that brain-washed crew than most everyone else on this ship. I've had Ensigns wanting to switch out of the Engineering and Navigational Divisions to work with you. 'The best I've ever seen,' one man said. 'A tribute to the uniform,' fifteen other people told me." He paused, while Ivanovna looked sheepishly down at her feet. "You're only Human, Katrina. You're not perfect, but you did your best. Of course you wish you could've done more; God knows that we all wish we could've done more to keep from happening what did happen to us back then. But it's over, and done with, and you should be proud of how you handled yourself. Did you think that when I went over the security log videos of the take-over of our ship, and extolled your virtues in front of your peers, that I was kidding around? Quit kicking yourself for what you didn't do, and take pride in what you did do; you've earned it, after all."
At that moment, a signal came in from the Bridge. "Yilaan here Captain; we're reading some sort of odd energy cloud in our path ahead. We've slowed to impulse to scan it. It seems to be radiating temporal energy."
Captain Freeman nodded at Ivanovna, who got up and followed him onto the Bridge. Upon arrival she relieved a young female Asian Ensign, whose name she could never remember, while Freeman went to talk to Yilaan at the front of the Bridge. On the viewscreen was a large semi-opaque cloud. Commander Cecilia Yilaan, the brown-haired, dark-eyed Betazoid first officer turned to look at the new arrivals, while Lt. Reiv and Ensign Gates sat at their posts at the helm and navigation consoles. "Katrina, prepare a class one probe to be launched into the cloud in front of us," Yilaan ordered Ivanovna. "Preliminary scans seem to indicate some sort of temporal flux within the cloud."
"Aye Commander, it will take but a moment to prepare," Lt. Ivanovna responded as she glanced over the read-outs on her tactical station to quickly bring herself up to speed on the situation at hand.
Commander Yilaan nodded, turning back to the viewscreen. "We're close enough to the border with the Klingons that I think whatever we find out about this cloud, they ought to know," she suggested to Captain Freeman.
Freeman glanced at her briefly and nodded, "I agree Commander. See to it once we're finished here. I believe the closest border outpost is B'Krath, if I'm not mistaken."
"Probe launched," Ivanovna inserted. The viewscreen showed the probe drift away from the fore of the U.S.S. Bristol. After a few moments, the probe's thruster fired, and the thing sped off in the direction of the cloud. "I'm receiving telemetry from the probe, Commander. Five thousand kilometers and closing. I estimate ETA at one minute." The crew waited, and, not surprisingly, a minute later Ivanovna reported, "Probe entering cloud, sir."
An instant after her comment, a high pitched whine and a bright light filled the Bridge. All of the officers, save Ivanovna and Reiv, went for their ears with their hands, their faces contorted in pain. Though Ivanovna was in pain, she was making an effort not to show it. Lt. Reiv, being Bajoran, was not in as much pain as the others, for his ears were constructed somewhat differently than those of his Human crewmates.
"Report!" the captain shouted above the sound.
"The phenomena ahead of us is reacting as though our probe ruptured it somehow. I can't understand it; scanners didn't show any sort of surface to the thing that would indicate such a structure existed," Ivanovna fought out a reply. She looked up and could barely see three feet in front of her. There seemingly was some sort of haze building up on the bridge of the ship; she'd never seen anything like it. Attending to her duty, however, she continued the report. "The ship is being bombarded with temporal energy." As if on command, the ship started vibrating, finally lurching violently to one side, throwing the crewmen up against the wall. At that moment, the whine stopped, much to everyone's relief. The mist, however, remained.
"Damage report!" Freeman called out in a pained voice.
"Engines off-line Captain," Ivanovna responded. She blinked at the console a couple of times; her vision was getting blurry. Eventually she had to lower her head to mere inches above the console. "Communications are down. Sensors not working. Life support is functional, but I'm at a loss to explain this mist." She looked up and saw dark shapes in front of her, which she presumed might be the captain and first officer. "I'm having trouble seeing also sir. My vision is so blurry that I can't make you out."
The captain turned around, "Katrina? Katrina! Are you alright? My God you look like you're a hundred years old!" The captain then felt a tug on his uniform. He turned, saw nothing, and then looked down. A boy of about six was looking up at him with big, frightened eyes. His nose ridges indicated he was Bajoran, and his uniform was that of a helm officer of the Lieutenant rank. "Reiv?!" the captain said incredulously. To no one in particular he blurted out, "What the hell is going on here?"
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