Familiar Faces

Posted on Wednesday, 29 December 2021 - 3:07pm by Captain Barret Stillwater & Lieutenant K'Var & Lieutenant JG Adrianna Eberhardt

Mission: Operation: Mirror of Madness
Location: Vulcan

He had tried to capture Soral or whoever or whatever was in the monastery. It looked like Soral, had the cadence of Soral, but Barret Stillwater had refused to believe that he had truly been so blind or ignorant to that amount of deception festering beneath a facade. Commander Soral had spat such vile. It did not even remotely seem like the same man Barret had called his Number One.

Captain Stillwater had blacked out shortly after Soral escapee the monastery. When he came to, it was only briefly and his surroundings were different. The next time he came to was now, discovering himself lying on some sort of makeshift cot. He had been treated by someone with a good bit of medical knowledge.

Gently the man eased himself upward into a sitting position. He saw a man approaching him and as Stillwater's eyes focused, he was in disbelief. Surely he was hallucinating. "Doctor?" Stillwater said though it was not Doctor Rose to whom he was seeing, but an old face of a former crewmember.

"Easy there, Captain," Jarin picked up the pace of his walk, trying to quickly make his way over to his former Commanding Officer.

Stillwater did as instructed and was more gingerly with his movements. "Doctor Jarin Alexander," Captain Stillwater said. Several months ago, the USS Standing Bear had left the young physician off in the Vulcan system after the Andorian attack on P'Jem, the second large scale attack on the Vulcan planet in its history. The Doctor had been the USS Standing Bear's Assistant Chief Medical Officer at the time. Barret studied the man for a moment wondering if he was hallucinating.

If he was hallucinating, then this was a damn good one. Stillwater reached out grabbing the man's arm. "You're the last person I was expecting to stumble across," he said to the physician. Captain Stillwater had not recognized where they were. It looked like dwellings of some sort maybe an old shop long since neglected. "I was chasing after him...next thing I remember I'm here?"

Jarin gave a light pat the his superiors arm "it's not exactly a Federation medical facility, but I should be able to get you patched up pretty well" he smiled and added "sir" to the end of that sentence. Then gave a curious look "who were you chasing?" he asked wondering if there was any danger headed their way.

"Commander Soral," Stillwater replied. "I'm sure you have been paying attention to the political problems here on Vulcan and the vote that barely had Vulcan leaving the Federation. That was partially Soral's doing. He delivered a hell of a speech imploring the Vulcans to abandon the Federation."

"I" Jain paused "I was unaware that Soral had any involvement" the Medical Officer admitted, he wasn't much for politics.

"It caught us all off guard. Damn well came out of left field, and Doctor Rose cannot find a damned thing wrong with him. Not psychologically nor physically. I went after him to get some answers or beat some sense into him."

"Well that didn't seem to go too well" Jarin checked the wound "without proper medical equipment this could take some time to heal" he sighed, most of his equipment had been stolen or damaged.

Stillwater shook his head. "No, no it did not. Commander Soral did not surrender himself peacefully, and I hesitated at shooting my First Officer" explained the Standing Bear’s former Commanding Officer. "I wish I could say the feeling was mutual, but here I am."

Jarin took the compound he had made and a tool, applying it very heavily on the Captain's wounds "I'll try to get a dermal regenerator, but if we can't obtain one" he paused and held up the mix of herbs and a local made antibiotic cream "this will do over time."

"There are plenty of dermal regenerators and more aboard the Standing Bear," Stillwater replied. "You can bandage me up all you want, Doctor, but I have to continue after Soral. He's up to something terrible, this has to be more than just driving a wedge between Vulcan and the Federation. I think he's heading back to the Standing Bear. It was supposed to be getting a new Commanding Officer soon. I suspect this was a rouse to get the Bear and its new Captain dispatched here."

"Yes sir" Jarin was used to replying to order from Captain Stillwater and if he wanted to get back to the Bear then Jarin would do everything he could to help him.

"I didn't exactly come here as a Starfleet Captain, no uniform, no pips, no communicator" explained Stillwater. "If we are going to get to the Standing Bear, we are going to need to try and contact them."

"That's one thing I still have that may work" Jarin went to a small lock box on a shelf and pulled out a hand phaser and a communicator. He gave it to Stillwater along with a shrug and a hopeful look.

Stillwater grabbed the communicatons badge. "You've been off the ship for a few months," stated Stillwater. "We should be able to get a comm signal through, but they are certainly going to have questions seeing this activated." The Captain knew it would be a bit of a Longshot, but he knew Adrianna was thorough, monitoring various frequencies current or otherwise.

Barret tapped the communications badge, lying it on an table. "Captain Stillwater to Standing Bear, come on...come on...Standing Bear? Anyone?"

Adrianna heard something on the comms and flipping through and paused. The woman may have only had a baby a mere few hours ago but this was a crisis. Also, what was the harm in having a baby on deck? Let's face it, they be a future captain or something. Leopold was just a minute away having got changed, so he could grab their daughter in a moment. It was crackly at first but she just about made out the voice, "Eberhardt reading you, Captain - - just about. Good to hear your voice again."

"Yours as well," he replied though he heard something in Adrianna's voice that was out of place. Something was wrong. Had Soral beat him to it? Had Soral made it back to the Standing Bear?

Stillwater cut through the pleasantries. "What's wrong, what happened?" He asked. A million questions buzzed through his head.

"The bullet point version," Adrianna sighed and looked around a moment, formulating the right words, "Captain Whitley is on Vulcan, we're awaiting their return. Our ship, on the other hand, sabotaged and Kingsley is MIA, Soral being the cause. So, I'm somehow in charge - - gawd have mercy on us all."

"Understood," Stillwater replied. This was getting worse by the minute. "You're in command, Petty Officer?" Stillwater added with intrigue, using the rank he last remembered the woman having. He had been on Vulcan and not privy to the changes that the new Captain had put into place.

"Only positive, sir," Adrianna replied a bit brighter, "it's Lieutenant now."

Stillwater smiled a little grin. "Lieutenant? Belated congratulations. That's a hell of a promotion. If you are receiving this, you must be close to Vulcan...if transporters are online, I'd like to get off this planet before the V'Shar catch up to me. It will be two to beam up."

"Thank you, sir," she smiled, "give me five minutes to track you and I'll get you up here. Eberhardt out." The woman sent the orders on to the transporter room.

"Grab whatever you need to, Doc. We are getting back to the Bear," Stillwater said. He was not sure what the next move was, but he and this Captain Whitley would have to act fast.