Uhura was decidedly new at Sensorium control, but at this particular moment, standing in the blank white of the room, it didn't matter.  As always, she had a crisp, clear vision of what she wanted.  It was the gymnasium at Starfleet Academy and she wanted a proper workout.  Something that would help ease some of the frustration of being bottled up without much to do.  At some point, she resolved to talk to the Captain Kirk currently aboard the ship, but she wasn't sure she was...ready.  There was something decidedly odd about knowing your captain (from an alternate future that was the real one) was aboard.

She was avoiding the confrontation.

And it annoyed her.

It annoyed her about as much as the thought that their universe had been destroyed again, even after they had dispatched Nero, even after all they had gone though to do that.  Uhura frowned at the punching bag in front of her before beginning her stretching routine.  She taped her hands carefully, the noise reassuring, as she wound it around her fingers, around her hands.  It was an old technique and she didn't care.

Her fist met the bag hard and she scowled.  This wasn't going to be challenging.  It was just a bag.  She took a few more measured swings, scored several hits, and wanted something to hit back.  This had to be some sort of cosmic joke.

( Not Quite A Dream. )
Uhura lie curled up on Spock's bed, her fingers buried against the blanket she held clenched in a fist, her knees drawn to her chest.  Sleep had been long in coming, longer than she might have liked, and she knew she'd dream.  It was not exactly a dream.  It had happened.  Somehow, she'd survive it.  She had to survive it.  Still asleep, Uhura curled in on herself tightly, and her brow furrowed.  Her fingers twitched as a shudder ran down her spine.  Uhura had nightmares every once and awhile about the Farragut, about being assigned there, about dying there.  About floating in space with the dead Nero had left behind, but this was not that.  This had happened and she knew, even asleep, that she was trying to process it.

And doing a piss-poor job of it.

Time passed in the strangest way on this ship, as if it had slipped her mind that she ought to be moving.  It seemed that she had slept a very long time, but she had risen, had what food there was to be had (and truthfully, it tasted as good as it looked), and then she had found her way back to the possessions storage room.  Retrieving the Vulcan lute was the best sort of goal she had in mind and it was to the Observation Deck she went.

It was, for all intents and purposes, fairly clear of people.

If she was prone to meditation at all, it was music that soothed her the best.  Nothing could have prepared her for this place--nor the strangeness of the people within it.  She couldn't fault them as they were just as displaced as she was.  It took her a moment to tune the instrument and she played around with a few runs before settling into a quiet Yiddish Turkish song, though it was done in the Ladino style with a mix of Yiddish and Spanish--heavier on the Spanish.  She'd heard it sung a few times growing up from the woman who lived a few doors down from her.  It was simple and haunting all at once, especially when she wove harmony into it with her lute.  Her voice was steady and she she found her back easing as she leaned into a meatlike couch.  Sitting on the floor was comfortable and the sounds around her blurred and faded just enough.

Music had always made her feel better and it did once again.

Pleased as pie, Kaylee found herself wandering Stacy's hallways with a skip in her step and tune on her lips. Injuries were healed up, work had commenced again as normal, and no one was being chased around by bad dreams or whatever else the 'verse was plotting to throw their way. Nope, this was a quiet day, and quiet days were best served by a good stretch of the legs, a lot of smiling, and some friendly conversation with whatever soul one happened to meet.

The familiar, soothing clang of tools in her bag accompanied the mechanic. It would be hard to miss her coming, really. Between Kaylee's humming and the tools' clinking, even the deaf would probably have heard her, and for those with a stronger sense of smell, the mix of engine grease and strawberries was probably unmistakable. If those didn't give her away, certainly the ray of sunshine that was her smile would (she could probably light the entire ship with it, given the chance).

Oh yes, doom and gloom, watch your backs. The mechanic was in all manner of a bubbly mood, and nothing could change that.

It had been an interesting couple of days. Whatever she had been expecting upon finding herself on an alien spaceship, the chance to meet a good friend she had mourned - alive and relatively well, if also kidnapped by aliens - hadn't been it. Seeing Grace alive, that had been a pleasant shock.

It almost made up for the fact that her Samson would have to be given up for lost until the next time they landed on a planet... if they landed on a planet. The crew had made it sound like that kind of thing didn't happen very often.

Still, it wasn't every day you got to sit down and talk with someone whose funeral you had attended. So Trudy had taken it upon herself to find Grace - and she knew exactly where to look for her. Anything with 'lab' in the title was probably where she would find the scientist. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same after all.

True to her initial thoughts, medical hadn't been very hard to find. And with the help of the directions she'd gotten on the omnicomm, she was able to find the lab relatively easily. Trudy walked in with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her plantsuit, her service rifle still slung over her shoulder. "Hello? Anyone home?"

Characters: Samuel Henderson, OPEN
Location: Corridor outside the Obs Deck, a bit out of the way
Time: Immediately following the explanation of the current state of affairs re: the Ohm, worlds, and whatnot.
Summary: Sam loses it. And nearly himself in the process.
Warnings: Definite blood warning, and anyone that tags may be attacked. Poke me on AIM (girlnamedlance) or via OOC comment if you want to work out something specific. Generally, I'm open to anything, I just don't want any kind of long lasting damage. And I'd like a little chaos to ensue before Spike, Leon, or anyone subdues him. And if he ends up in the brig awhile, I totally understand. Lastly, multiple threads are a-okay. 8D

( It would be easier to let go. )

There was a time to get sick. There was a time to bemoan the things that seemed like empty spots in her head. and there was time to sleep and dream of times that were better (or have nightmares of worse times too). But when these times passed, and eventually that was the case, there was nothing left to do but go back to what you were best at, and refine it to make it your own. Going to the podpop had been a start, and Katara capitalized on it the next day. A visit to the Sensorium and the scenery changed: she was at the desert lands they'd been left to brave after the library sunk and Appa had been captured. There was no gang here though, just miles and miles of sand and heat bearing down on her. To Toph and Aang, she was sure these circumstances were unpleasant, but to her and Sokka specifically, it had been alien and frustrating (it had helped Sokka that he was strung out on Cactus juice and she was fixated on keeping the group together at the time). She had also made sure there would be no water nearby, and so her pouch was also gone.

The morning was spent in quiet meditation on the sands. Her mind was full of questions and brimming with thoughts, but she momentarily displaced them from her mind. She was uncomfortable, sweaty and hot, but stayed in deep meditation, moving from time to time so she wouldn't cramp up. Once she'd seen the sun position itself to indicate noontime, Katara rose, and her attire was that of her firebending disguise: she would need it.

The exercising in the Weirding way, however, required targets, so the desert was now strewn with several dummies. Here Katara incorporated her Bene Gesserit martial art with that of the training she'd practiced in Will's gym: she catapulted herself upward, struck with deadly precision and then rolled into a new defensive stance, ready for the next attack. It had been awhile since Katara incorporated her waterbending flexibility with the Weirding way, and truthfully it was seldom Katara practiced the art, fully aware (thanks to deadly robots) how damaging it could be. She bent her legs a bit and brought her arms up again, using her force against the dummy and knocking it backward with what looked like minimal effort. She knew it would be awhile before she was an expert in the Weirding Way, but that was more than reason to practice, with all they had encountered.

When she had worked up a definite sweat, she went back to the flexibility part: she flipped, jumped, turned several times in the air and, on her back, curled her legs upward and leapt back to position. She was stinky and definitely perspiring, but that was easily taken care of if she decided to turn the Sensorium into a spa, not that she was in a big hurry to do so.

The best place Spock could think of which would allow Lieutenant Uhura some measure of privacy and the ability to rest, was his own room.

Even on the Enterprise, his quarters had been spartan. Here, there was even less. But it was quiet, and private. It would serve.

"I have been here approximately one month," he explained simply. "I am still growing accustomed to the ship and her environs."

*Ragel-tor = a chance meeting; to be present at someone's arrival.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a green-skinned alien and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

Spock, as was his wont, had learned a great deal already about this ship and its technology, though his knowledge was far from complete.

Now, however, it was time for reflection.

( The Sensoriums had become cavernous... )

*S'ti th'laktra = "I grieve with thee", standard Vulcan statement of condolence.

One of the cold facts of life is that it was temporary. Medical science was an amazing thing. Where once the smallest scratch or sprain would fester and become fatally infected, now even failing organs could be replaced. Everything was artificial, fake, and what kept people alive was no longer a flow of goodwill and the trickle-down hand of god, but the flow of money.

Of course, Motoko had known that her entire life, as far as she could remember. It had been explained to her in detail, when she'd been still a child, still learning to walk again in her new body. We've put a great deal of money and time into you, miss. You had better not fall and ruin everyone's hard work. When that had failed under her growing frustration, they had bribed her.

It was easy to contemplate the happy unhappiness of the past when you were reduced to picking the droplets out of your joints by hand.

Motoko was standing, leaning on a fleshy wall because none of the furniture she might have dragged over from engineering would have held her weight. Every seam and panel in her right arm was popped open— the joint had come up warm. It needed lubrication and Stacy's humid interior was playing havoc with her success rate. Back home, she'd have shrugged and paid a small fortune for a replacement, but here she had no such luxury. Her buffer of safety was gone. So, she awkwardly held her own arm to the light, fragmented from wrist to elbow in pieces like the ruffled feathers of a bird and examined the coverage. Good enough.

It had taken him a day or two to finally get the spare time, but Kirk had finally managed to get a decent recreation of the Enterprise's recreation room in the Sensoriums. Not that that was hard, considering Stacy could pluck the images from his memory. It was just as he remembered leaving it. Various games set up on different tables. Mats in one corner for sparring. Food replicators. Kirk himself sat at a table holding a 3-Dimensional chess board.. He had it prepared for a new game, white and black pieces facing each other across the board. He could remember the times he'd played spock - and lost. He'd won, too, of course. They were both excellent at the game in their own ways.

He'd invited his first officer to meet and talk  - they needed to, after all. This wasn't the Enterprise and the status quo currently didn't recognize Spock as anything but another crewmember. As loathe as he was to play favorites, Kirk wanted Spock as his XO or science officer. He was dependable. They knew each other. He was good at what he did.

With those thoughts brewing in his head, Kirk waited for his best friend to arrive.

Several buildings in the City had been completely destroyed during Aang's rampage, but a few had survived relatively unscathed. It had only taken Kang two days to repair the Drunken Dragon; he'd done so by himself, not even waiting for his leg to heal up a bit first.

Usually, he didn't bother lighting any candles or using the fireplace in the tavern unless it was a period when the artificial sun had set. He could see perfectly fine in the dim light. For the celebration, though, he'd thrown the windows open wide, scrounged up every candle he could find, and started up a fire, knowing that human vision wasn't as good as his own. The tables surrounding the stage had been cleaned, as well as the tankards, and the door was propped open. The bozak had even wrestled two of the 60-gallon barrels from the back room into a corner of the main room for easier access, one of cactus juice and one of ale. If more was needed, he was sure he could get someone to help bring out another.

Tess had commandeered the kitchen to make her food, bringing in her own equipment. Kang had been slightly afraid at first that she was going to burn the place down, but nothing had happened yet. She seemed to know what she was doing, even if she'd given him a few scares.

The sunlight glistened on the old sword blade teeth and dinnerplate eyes of the comical-looking wooden dragon grinning above the entrance. Come in, relax, have a drink and a bite to eat!

[OOC note: Both drinks are alcoholic, and the cactus juice has twice the kick of the ale. :D;]

The Nightmare King has been defeated. Those crew members who were touched by his madness have been taken down.

The City is a mess. So is the rest of the ship. As is most of the crew.

But it's all over. Finally.

Elsewhere on this ship, a war was being waged. A war for the hearts and minds, the souls and very sanity of this crew.

A war that Stacy wasn't certain that all would survive, hence why she released you. Replacements would be needed.

But that war is miles away from where you are. Or at least, so it seems. There are no screams of agony to greet you, no monsters trying to claw at you.

But that doesn't mean the Nightmare King can't reach you.

Prior to your arrival here on the Obs deck, reality had been shifted. Constructs of the current crew grew out of nothing. All of them look, sound, feel, behave, and scan as the crew member they're copying. They're as real as you are. And with smiling faces, they await your arrival.

They can't wait to welcome you. To your doom.

Won't you say hi?

[ooc: Nightmare plot is still on, people, and this is the newbie portion. For all current players, as stated above, the Nightmare King made copies of your guys, who are still stuck fighting nightmares elsewhere in the plot. You can tag in as the copy of your character, have them be friendly, get the newbies to let their guard down, and then the real nightmare can begin. Newbies, you can tag in, have fun, and suspect nothing until its too late.]

[Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have the copies of your guys greet the newbies.]

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. Tag each other in groups of 2's, 3's, and 4's, to get some interaction to start with. If a thread doesn't already have 2 or 3 people tagged in, tag it with your character's podpop popping near the other people, rather than making a new subthread. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--

( There was nothing... )

Judge James T. Kirk is presiding. The Jury: Jamie Hemeros, Arha Masaari, Chris Ramirez, Malcolm Reynolds, Diana Titov, Sir Sparhawk, Fitz Kreiner, and Cameron Mitchell. Each had been informed not to discuss the trial, even amongst themselves.

The charges that have been presented to the court:

11 counts of Kidnapping
2 counts of Attempted Kidnapping
13 counts of Conspiracy to Kidnap
11 counts of Enslavement
2 counts of Attempted Enslavement
13 counts of Conspiracy to Enslave
7 counts of Attempted Murder
28 counts of Assault with Intent to Kill
35 counts of Conspiracy to Commit Murder

The Prosecution has mounted its case. Now the Defense is calling its witnesses, to try to prove the Yeerk's innocence.

Let the proceedings continue....

Word of the trial had spread through the crew like wildfire. Some of the crew had already made their decision about the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Others were less certain. But all awaited the first day of trial anxiously. That day had come....

( Hear ye, hear ye... )

Let the proceedings begin....

Kirk had done some poking around on his own initiative, after Cybil informed him about the precinct. He'd found it easily enough - it just took some looking around the city. He'd been a bit staggered by all of it. It simply confirmed how huge Stacy was and how little of it they'd really explored. All the more reason to get moving quickly. Cybil had also been quite correct in regards to being able to use it for a meeting place - the actual meeting rooms were something of a relief and quite distinct from the usual huddle on the observation deck.

He'd alerted the command staff of the time and place via a quick, direct use of the comm-rings and left it at that. Now, all he had to do was wait.

Well, the joy of meeting new engineers certainly didn't last long.

A grouchy-looking Billy emerges from a strenuous training session in the Sensoriums, face coated in sweat and grime. Stacy's suggestions to go out and get some rest had begun to sound perilously similar to threats, and so he had reluctantly obeyed.

Now he intends to proceed directly to Special Weapons and begin work on the sampling equipment they had so sorely needed on the last mission. His mind is churning out idea after idea, straining to find a reasonable way to convert their very limited scrap material into vials and air-tight containers. It probably wouldn't hurt to fashion waterproof gloves either, if they could.

After a quick race through the tubes he's holed up in the laboratory in comfortable solitude, securing his glasses as he makes his first attempt to synthesize a containment material. In his mind, to defend his worth as a member of this crew, he absolutely must succeed. Superficial things like exhaustion and aching muscles won't stand in his way.