trans_9 | That wasn't me. Was it you? (open)

Sakura stood at the threshold of the crew's quarters, hesitating before walking out into the hall. Something had caught her attention, and she was trying to figure out exactly what had. No one had called out for her, that much she was sure of. Then what?

"Hello?" she called out, brow furrowed in confusion. She had no idea Barbara was out in the hall, or that her calling out could be confusing.

What was it she'd seen? Or heard?

Sakura turned to look back into crew quarter's. Maybe Marco was playing some kind of prank on her. "Roger? Barbara? Maxine? ... Marco? Tobias? Mark?"

Loud pops suddenly rang out through the air. Noises that were clearly gunshots. A panel set into the flesh of a wall nearby exploded and yet at the same time...it didn't.

Far off, there were yells and screams, orders being shouted, the sound of things exploding.

Over it all, there was a voice that rang through the hallway, firm and commanding, and yet frayed around the edges, desperate. It was a woman's voice. Occasionally it dipped too low for certain words or names to be heard.

"Give mwurmur covering fire! Fall back! Fall back! We're almost to the escape vessel!"

Several shadows shapes moved through the hall, shapes that looked vaguely humanoid, but then, just like the noises and the yelling voices, they disappeared without a trace.

Barbara cried out at the sound of gunfire and looked this way and that, trying to find some kind of cover. She threw herself on the ground and covered her head, making herself as small as possible.

She peeked to see shadows of people or something similar marching toward her rather fast but, shadows can't hurt you, can they? Not that it mattered, they disappeared just before they hit her, fading away into nothing. The sounds faded, too, leaving Barbara alone in a silent corridor.

Well, almost alone.

"Sakura?"

This corridor was not her intended destination, either. Shizuru might not have been intimately familiar with the ship just yet, but she was observant enough to know that something was different. It was in the people here, or rather the lack thereof.

The noise coming from further up ahead caught her attention, and she froze in place to listen. It sounded like yelling and fighting, though it was gone as swiftly as it had come. Was someone watching a recording of some kind? Is there something being broadcast over a P.A. system?

Confident that no one nearby saw her temporary display of fright, Shizuru straightened herself up and walked toward the source of the disturbance, hands clasped before her. She could see movement, now, and kept her guard up as she approached with loud footsteps. Best not to startle anyone, after all.

She stepped out and turned to the one voice that hadn't faded. At least one person she'd called out after had responded. There was something reassuring in that.

"Yeah, it's me. I'm not the only one who heard that, was I?" She looked around, disturbed and unnerved by whatever it was. "And saw that."

Then she really looked at Barbara. "Ah, I'm sorry, are you okay? I don't think any of the shooting was happening... now." Was this another overlay, similar to what had held her imprisoned in the persona of Daisy Duke several missions ago?

She sincerely hoped not.

Sounds of someone approaching -- sounds Sakura wasn't sure weren't as semi-real as the ones they'd just encountered -- had her calling out again. "Who's there?"

No one answered. No one was there.

At least no one was there at first, but then the world suddenly shifted again, like they were passing through panes of colored glass. Shapes shifted around them, half in tune with reality, half out. Words were blurred, especially names, as if something had tried to erase those names from existence itself so they'd be lost to time.

"Where's Zuko? Where is he?"

The same woman that had called out orders earlier said, "He's in the vents. He'll catch up. He might've even beaten us there."

At first they could only catch fleeting glimpses of sharp green eyes, and of a face with harsh features when they looked at her. Though they couldn't see it in the woman's features, they likely got the sense that she was lying, as if the story being woven around them had more truths to it than just the ones that could be seen and heard.

There was a voice that could be felt rather than heard that chimed in next: Reckon this my time to shine then. You lot go on ahead. I'll buy you some time.

Then there was a sound like a record scratching and suddenly the scene jumped ahead, and they saw the women firing at something down the hallway, others of various species around her firing weapons and shooting weapons at a blurry, unknown enemy.

A machine man that looked like his design specs had been based on a Cheetah lunged at one of the blurry shapes, fill with fury over a fallen friend nearby, another robot with its chest ripped open and its insides still sparking.

Electricity arced, there was a scream, and a girl that looked like she was made of silver dissolved into a liquid, metallic puddle on the floor.

A man threw a razor-sharp boomerang that sliced the heads off of the invading, blurry creatures, whatever they were, and yelled into a comm device, "Harper! Come in! What's our status on the escape pods, we're getting murdered out here!"

"Uuuuuh, not so good, boss!" came a high and panicked nasally voice over the comms, in a Bostonian accent. It could barely be heard over the crackle of gunfire and pulse blasts in the background "We're taking heavy fire down here and they have the Hub barricaded. Wash is hurt real bad, and something's blocking Will's ability to talk to machines. I know I'm a techie god-made-flesh and all but even I need water to make into wine--I need more time!"

"We don't have time, Harper, we're losing people up here!"

"I'm workin' I'm workin', but I have to lay it to ya' straight, Mercer," the man said, his voice unsteady and shaking, "I don't think we're gonna make it. That's not just the fatalist in me talking either. Our only chance is if you can get a team down through the access vents, we need someone to cover our a--EDEN! NOOOO! Get away from her!"

The explosions on the comm grew louder and were accompanied by screams. Then the comm went silent and only relayed static.

"Harper! Harper, can you read? Harper! Evac team, can anyone on the evac team read?" The man cursed and tossed another boomerang that exploded once it hit one of the machines that was walking through the hallway among the opposing troops. "Cybs, we've lost contact with the Evac team! The evac team's down! I repeat: the evac team's down!"

Barbara picked herself up as the young woman approached. "I'm fine - though I don't know who was shooting or where. I couldn't see anything, except these shadows." She rubbed her eyes and looked up in time to see the corridor shimmer as a strange feeling came over Barbara, like someone had walked over her grave.

Her eyes darted around the space but she couldn't see anything - well, nothing much. The dark shapes had returned and swarmed through the narrow corridor. Barbara could have sworn she saw more facial details but there was too much going on and she couldn't focus.

"What's happening?" she asked Sakura, lunging for her new friend's hands as the cat-like robot flew past and into the woman's fire.

Sakura allowed the other woman to take her hands, giving her a reassuring (gentle) squeeze while her own shoulders were tense, ready for -- something. She didn't know what, considering she wasn't sure what to react to. Half seen images, these sounds, things that weren't happening in the here and now, but clearly were happened -- had happened -- at some point.

"I don't know." Her voice was kept soft, her ears strained more than her eyes. "I'm not sure that anything is happening. Not right now."

It sent a shiver up her spine. Sakura didn't like dealing with things that couldn't be dealt with in ways she knew how to. Maybe ignoring would work, but was that wisest?

"Let's try to keep quiet and out of the way. Hopefully this will be over soon."

Meanwhile, she kept herself on high alert for any physical threat to their well being, if it was difficult to differentiate between the implied threats and an actual presence.

The record skipped again. There was a barricade up, a forcefield, but cracks were appearing all along it, glowing. It wouldn't last long.

There was an explosion behind it and a young man shot through the barricade with such speed that he slammed into a wall, now forced to stay solid. His hair was white, and he was wearing a strange black jumpsuit. He was hurt badly, glowing green blood oozing from multiple wounds.

"Daniel!" An older man with white hair was quickly at his side. He was injured too, his arm in a makeshift sling.

"Is he still breathing?!" asked the woman named Cybil, the same green-eyed woman from the earlier visions that had been leading this beleaguered group. She looked like she could barely walk now, and limped over to the older man and the fallen teenage boy.

Behind her lay the fallen. Most of them were still alive. Some were dead, but most were still alive. Barely. It was hard to tell yet if that was a good thing. A few were weeping, from the pain of their wounds, or because they were quietly grieving over their lost friends and loved ones. Some were weeping over losing something greater than any one of them.

"He's alive. He's still in his ghost form--he should heal faster that way," said the old man, who was patiently, if awkwardly, tending to the boy.

"You need to leave, Vlad."

The man named Vlad looked up, his gaze hard. "And what do you mean by that?"

"We're done," said Cybil. "We're finished. And don't even pretend for a second that we're not. You're a pragmatist."

"Comes with the territory of being a villain, I suppose," mused Vlad. "So does losing."

"Don't pretend for a second you're a villain, either. None of us are what we used to be before, not after everything we've been through."

"I am, as you said, a pragmatist, which means that I plan to cut and run anyway, to save my own skin," said Vlad. "So why tell me to?"

"We have no idea what they're going to do to us. They might kill us. They might brainwash us. Someone has to stay on the outside."

"If you think I'm going to manage to single-handedly rescue you all, or that I'll even try, you're more deluded than I thought."

"Not a chance," said Cybil. "I'm not an idiot. You're still you."

"Then what do you have in mind?"

"You can phase. You can hide. Because of that stunt you pulled where you tried to take over the ship, before you started playing by the rules, I know that you know where all Stacy's sensor blindspots are. You know how to mess with the AIs. You understand how the tech works." Cybil went on, "Do you remember what they told us about the Tapestry? Down on that planet? That we were the wrong group, the wrong ones. That someone was coming after. Someone from the same ship."

"That others would wake up after us."

"Exactly. And if they do wake up, maybe they'll have more luck than us. You can hide and help them as best as you can, to give them that chance."

"I won't do anything directly. I'm not risking my neck for anyone."

"You won't have to. Free the AIs--Cortana and Rommie can do what they can. Find ways to sneak them some answers."

"I could feed them clues through one of the AIs. Maybe question mark-question mark. Having an AI that's just responsible for intellectual exercises is near useless--I could make him into something else."

"Exactly. Maybe if they are the right ones that Tapestry thing can help them out, I don't know. All I know is they deserve at least a fighting chance. It's less than we had. Someone's got to see this through to the end."

"I don't think I'll get that far, Cybil."

"You can make sure anyone that comes after us at least gets a leg up."

"I can possibly help any new wakers at the start, Cybil, but I won't be able to keep doing it for long, especially once they get back in contact with them."

"Then the rest will be up to them. We just have to hope..."

"What about Stacy? It's all pointless if Stacy turns on them, too."

"That wasn't her fault. They made her do it just like they've been yanking us around since they came in contact with us. She didn't want to. She almost fought it off for us. Maybe if they're more subtle than we were about freeing her from their control, she'll be able to help them. She wanted to help us."

"I'll need a diversion to get away, when the shield's down. I'll barely be able to transform as is."

"We can give you that. We can give them that. The ones that come after us."

Vlad gently patted the teenage boy--Daniel's--hand and stood up. "Don't let them kill the boy, Cybil. Do you understand me? Whatever happens..."

"I can't make any promises. You know that."

"I promised his mother, before she..."

"I know, Vlad."

Vlad rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "Butter biscuits! I think I preferred the villainy to all this caring-about-my-enemy-like-he's-my-son selfless heroic teamwork nonsense. At least back then, when I inevitably lost, it was well-deserved and nothing but my own pride was hanging in the balance."

Two rings of light flashed over Vlad's body, changing him to a rather nasty-looking creature with green skin, red eyes, black hair, and a strange white suit.

Cybil stood up to face all the others.

"Everyone, listen up!" she called out in the same commanding voice she'd been using earlier. "We only have one chance at all to make sure that we didn't fight for nothing today. We have to make sure at least one of us gets away to give anyone else that wakes up after us an edge against them. Vlad's volunteered to do that. We have to make sure they never get a chance to stop him from slipping away."

There was only silence and hopelessness in response.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't get us through this like I promised. This is my fault. We pushed too hard and too fast, and that was on my orders. Open rebellion wasn't the way. I screwed up and I let you all down." She went on, "But I need to ask you to pick yourselves up one last time. I need you to follow one last order, and it's a very, very simple one."

All eyes were on her.

"Fight to the last."

There was no rallying cry. There were no cheers. There were only hopeless faces staring back at her.

But along with those despondent gazes, there were people wiping the tears from their faces, dragging themselves off the ground to shaky stances, helping the injured off to the side out of the way. There were hands balling into fists and tightening around the hilts of weapons.

The barricade started to fall apart, and then all hell broke loose. They fought, as ordered, and they were beaten, as expected. Amidst pulse fire and bullets and energy blasts, Vlad Masters phased and disappeared through the floor, completely unnoticed, as planned.

After the fighting died down, after the last body had fallen to the floor, stunned, a humanoid being stepped through the bodies, its segmented body probably somewhat familiar to anyone that had met the Daligig or seen footage of them. Its face was in shadow.

A young man's quiet laughter filled the emptiness of the room, and the Daligig stepped through the bodies to where Daniel Fenton lay on the floor, propped against the wall, where Vlad and Cybil had left him.

"You've all lost," hissed the Daligig. "All this death, all these lives wasted, for nothing. So little was expected of you, and you threw away the relative safety that was provided to you for nothing, for the sheer delusion of freedom. Why are you laughing?"

"You're the one that ordered the rebellion be put down, right? You're the one that did this to us? Do you even care?"

"Your actions could have destroyed the entire war effort. I have no regrets for choosing to stop you."

"That's what I thought. And that's why you're going to lose this war." The teenager took in a shaky breath to steady his nerves. "Anyway, I just wanted your attention. I needed to get you closer."

His glowing green eyes were bright with rage, and tears were streaming down his face, as he said, "This is for Sam."

Then he screamed a horrible ghostly scream that tore the faceless one's carapace apart like wet tissue paper and shredded the bodies of the soldiers around him.

One of the other soldiers in the room managed to shoot him with a stunner and then he was out like the others, rings of light passing up and down his body, leaving him back in his normal human form.

The fight was over.

And so was the vision. The grisly scene faded, the bodies on the floor disappearing one by one, and Barbara and Sakura were left in an empty hallway.

Barbara didn't move. She couldn't. Even if she wanted to.

Silent tears slowly slid down her cheeks and dripped off the bottom of her chin for the gruesome scene she'd just witnessed. That poor man slammed into the wall right before them, and the mangled bodies, the injured, the emotionally broken.

For a fleeting moment, and not for the first time, she wondered if her father had seen something similar before he died in the war. But that was back on Earth when she was young, not on a spaceship in some time line way after her own was supposed to finish.

She realised that she had a tight grip on Sakura's hands and finally moved. She let go with a murmured apology for the marks she nails left, and wiped away the damp patches on her face.

"Are you alright?" Barbara asked. The event had rattled her but she barely knew Sakura. While it had brought up long buried memories for her, who knew what it did for her companion.

Sakura didn't seem to notice how tightly Barbara clung to her, not thinking before positioning herself protectively in front of the other woman (as much as she really could, given their stance) for the duration of whatever was happening.

It hit hard, seeing all of this, and recognizing what was going on in the minds of the people there. More-over, she knew that name. Not just one, but several.

Sakura had a running mental list of everyone currently on crew, as well as who she could figure out from previously. The lists were technically there, but not always so easy to work with, or so meaningful. Her nightmares had been full of them off and on, filling in the blanks with other names just because they were real details, the sort of thing to make a nightmare that much more unbearable.

Her face settled into a stone mask, processing, absorbing. The pain she might have shown however long ago when she arrived here was tampered down underneath trying to make sense of what they had seen. What they were seeing.

Trying to remember it all, all the details, to regurgitate later.

Her response to Barbara was delayed, emotion returning to her face in a breaking, cracking manner, a twitch of an eyebrow, a furrowing of her forehead, then the sad pull of her lips downward before they found a way to smile. She needed to be reassuring. "I'm fine," she said, "Shaken up. That was... a lot to take in. Are you okay? This really isn't the sort of welcome the ship usually gives to people so soon out of the pods."

"Yes, I'm alright." Barbara tried to smile but it was more of a flinch. She wasn't in the mood for smiling. "It's fine, really. I've seen worse." Partially true.

The corridor, now empty apart from the two of them, was silent and dark as though nothing had ever happened, no one had ever lived here, and no one had ever died here. The question was, what should they do now? Barbara wanted some time alone to digest what had happened, but she wanted to make sure that Sakura would be alright, too.

There was still one problem, however.

"I don't suppose you were coming to tell me that the tubes were working again?" Barbara asked, still unsure as to how they were going to get out of this dreadful place.

Sakura smiled, still distracted by -- all of what they'd experienced. "Unfortunately, no. I was going to give a status update on the omnicomms, according to Marco."

She turned her hands up, palms displayed, open and empty. "They're technically functional, but not broadcasting. That's about the sum of it. The tubes are still tied."

"I wonder why. We haven't done anything wrong to be punished, have we?" Barbara sighed a little and looked around their corridor again, half expecting something else to come jumping out at them, or die before them. "We should find the others and make sure they're alright, too."

"No," Sakura said, firm. "If we had, we'd know. The ship isn't subtle in its punishments."

Sentients on ship were different, but the ship itself? Sakura didn't bring up the possibility of this being linked to the Daligig, or extending out of the chaos of SHODAN.

"You're right," she said, nodding as she started to move. "We do. Another headcount wouldn't be out of place, and we can ask if anyone else has run into something... like that."

"Perhaps they've made progress since we've been gone, too." There was a hint of excitement in her tone. "And we'll be able to go back up to the main parts of the ship, or at least contact someone to look at the tubes so that we can get back." And then Barbara will have a cup of tea and read a book or try and find Ian, or spend some time in the Sensoriums.

"Let's find out," Sakura said, hoping that might actually be the case. "Start by looking over by the transport tubes?"

Barbara nodded, "lead the way."

At least they had light down here. The area would be a lot harder to navigate if they didn't have lights.

"What was it that we saw, do you think?" She stared at her shoes as they walked, hands folded behind her back. The way shadows slowly became solid, and all the people shouting at one another hadn't taken any notice of them. It was all rather peculiar. "It's almost as if they were ghosts."

"I don't know. I can say what I think it might be, but I can't say what it is for sure." She kept walking, frowning as she looked away from Barbara.

"The past. A previous recording, some kind of holograph. Maybe real, maybe fictional. Maybe even ghosts, as you say." It made her skin crawl, imagining it could be something supernatural. She didn't like being faced with things she couldn't deal with directly, with the tools she had at her disposal.

She turned a gradual corner, winding them back toward the transport tubes.

She frowned and looked up at Sakura, "so that could have actually happened?"

Sakura offered her a reassuring smile. "Yes," she said. "It could have. If it did or not... that remains to be seen. We still need to let people know, one way or another. Maybe talk to the Council... definitely to the Captain."

She ran a hand through her hair, sighing inwardly.

Those poor people. Hopefully it was some kind of mad dream, and none of it was real for the past, present or future.

"How do we talk to the Captain? Do we have to request an audience?" Still new, Barbara was unsure of how these things worked or began working.

"Call him out on the omnicomm," she said. "Tracking him down is possible, but not always effective. If he's not monitoring the omnicomms, someone will be. They'll let him know."

Or she'd track him down herself.

"Why are the omnicoms monitored? That shouldn't be necessary, should it?" Barbara began to wonder if the authorities were suspicious of everyone's activity. She'd hate to live on a ship and have her every move monitored. It was bad enough when the Doctor felt like checking up on her because she'd been in the library for a while.

"Why wouldn't they be? You'd want to know if some important communication came up while you were otherwise in a meeting." Sakura saw no problem in constant vigilance to the point of invading some form of privacy. She was genuinely confused.

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