[Backlog] RAdm. Cin Sha'mer & Will Cardiff | "My Kingdom For A Bed"

Posted on 241708.13 @ 9:29pm by Rear Admiral Cintia Sha'mer & Rear Admiral Indi Hawk

Mission: Reconciliation & Reconstruction [Fleet Plot]
Timeline: SD 241708.13

'Walking away' was a gross exaggeration for Sha'mer in the best of circumstances. The current circumstances were not even remotely close to 'best'. Somewhere, over the course of time, she had lost the leg brace. Someone – exactly who or what that 'someone' was, was lost in the holes in Sha'mers mind, and she had absolutely no desire to go digging – had figured it was the easiest way to keep her captured. He/she/they had been mostly right.

Since getting on this ship Sha'mer rarely had to walk more than a few steps to get anywhere. Since even that was tiring, and since there wasn't a proper bunk here anyway, after awhile she just elected to sit in the pilot's chair and sleep, or rather take catnaps there.
She grabbed the makeshift cane – a metal strut with one end taped over to prevent it from cutting her hand – and heaved herself to her feet. Foot, with the other leg uselessly dragging behind. No need to use the door, part of the aft section had been torn off and she could just roll out and into the landing bay.

Once there, she even managed to get up again and half limped, half dragged herself to the door. Soon, she supposed, people would arrive here, techies or security or both, to scream at her for wrecking the ship and the bay and to demand fees or whatever. She was half surprised they weren't here yet. No more than half, for she was tired, so freaking tired.

The doors opened and she entered the wide corridor, obviously meant to transport not only people from one place to the other, but goods and equipment as well. Sha'mer barely noticed the details. She hardly noticed that she sagged against the bulkhead, only sighed softly as she sagged to the ground and curled up into a ball (except for the bad leg, which stuck out at an awkward angle, practically inviting people to trip over it). Darkness spread its gentle arms out towards her. Sha'mer went willingly.

Engineering and Security were indeed on their way. Somebody had just wrecked up one of their bays. It would be out of commission for weeks, and the ship wasn't known in any database. What a coincidence. Will was heading the Security team that was tasked with apprehending the ship's occupants, but they had been delayed by Engineering showing up late. What else was new. Engineering always did things at their own pace. No regard for anything or anyone else.

Coming in from the service entrance, it was obvious that the ship had done a pretty good job in tearing up the bay. The ship itself looked even worse for wear. It was a small wonder that the pilot had gotten it even as far as he had. Signalling his crew to fan out, he himself headed right for the interior of the ship. Only to find it empty.

"Will! Over here!"

With a frown, he turned back the way he had come from, but instead took the main entrance out of the bay. The woman laying on the floor was now surrended by four of his people. A bit overkill, if you asked him, but one could never be too careful. "And what do we have here?"

The sleeper didn't initially respond, not even after a good prod with a toe. A firmer kick yielded not a satisfying yelp, but only a muttered "Lemme sleep…" Still, something must've seeped through into her consciousness, for the head rose, dark eyes blinked against the light. "Huh, Security." The head sunk down again, with an added mutter of: "Just throw me in the brig and there lemme sleep?"

Will had heard worse suggestions. He nodded to his team to prepare for transport. They could process this woman later. As he was about to beam out, he received confirmation from the security footage that she had been most likely the sole occupant of the ship, which was corroborated by what they had found on the ship.

Shimmering back into existence inside the security office, he nodded around. "Process her, run her prints, see if you can get a retinal scan and then run that as well," he spoke to nobody in particular.

One of the others jerked the woman roughly up. "On your feet!"

"No can do, dear," the woman said without opening her eyes, gesturing vaguely to her bad leg. The security officer immediately let go, "I'm not going to carry you around, gonna need to desinfection after touching you anyway." Gracelessly, without making any effort to catch herself, Sha'mer dropped down again. At least this office was carpeted, much more comfy than the corridor floor had been…

"Just transport her over, deal with her there," Will spoke to his colleague, then sighed. "You know what, I'll do it myself," with another nodd to the guy at the controls, Sha'mer and him once against shimmered out to immediately appear in the brig. "Y'know, you could've been a little more helpful in exchange for a bed. You gonna assist me in getting prints and retinal scan, or I'm going to have to do everything by myself?"

Still without opening her eyes, Sha'mer said: "Next time someone drags me up I'll try to regrow a leg, yes?" She yawned and sighed. "Oh. Prints and scan, go ahead, sure." With an effort, she looked up. "Nice brig," she said distantly. "Better than-" And there was one of those holes in her memory, looming suddenly close. Okay, back of sloooowly. "…some other places. I guess."

Will was glad for this minor improvement at least. Something was telling him that there was more to this woman than the dirty, cripple bunch of rags in front of him. Oh well, if she cooperated, it would become clear very soon. He fished a padd and a scanner out of his pocket. "Thumb here, eye there," he pointed tonelessly like he had done it hundreds of times before. Come to think of it, he *had*.

She pressed her thumb against the padd, an act which suddenly felt so familiar that some barrier inside broke and released – well, not an actual wealth of memories, but a renewed awareness of their existance, the realisation that she had done this so many times before, a haunting familiarity that almost made her cry. It wasn't just the thumb print, it was the smells of the office, the almost but not quite subliminal sounds around her, all of those things which jarred hard with the person she was now. She squeezed her eyes shut to prevent a single tear from falling (lessons learned the hard way over time, hide your weaknesses), then forced them open again. The man still needed to take the retinal scan, after all.

"Now, that wasn't so hard now, was it?" Will mocked as she finally allowed her retina to be scanned. "This will only take a few minutes. In the mean time, is there anything you would like to tell me? Always best to tell us before we figure it out ourselves," he said, sitting down on the only chair present besides the bed.

Sha'mer gratefully closed her eyes again and leaned back. "I have no idea what you want me to tell you," she said. One thing various different experiences in the past had taught her: never try to hold back, never lie. No matter how strong you were, people who were experts in various vorms of questioning eventually broke even the strongest minds. "You ask, I tell." Could one talk coherent in their sleep? She'd find out soon enough, probably.

Will shook his head. "Who are you?" he asked after a few more moments of silence. It seemed like the pertinent question to start with.

"Sha'mer." Where exactly were they again? She had been called by one name where she originally came from in the Delta Quadrant, by another in the Federation. Federation, yes, that was the area she was in now. "Cintia Sha'mer." How many more questions before she would finally be tossed into the brig so she could sleep?

At that moment, Will's console beeped confirmation of the identity he'd been running. Checking the results, his mouth barely kept from falling open. "You... you... you," he stuttered, gesturing over his shoulder and hissing, "Get me somebody at Starfleet Command! Now!" he spoke and turned back to the woman in front of him. "You're Admiral Cintia Sha'mer?! Why didn't you just say so?!"

Sha'mer looked up fuzzily and winced at his shout. "Wha-?" He'd promised her a brig and a bed. Where was the bed? The floor of this office still looked awfully inviting. "You didn't ask…" she pointed out what was in her current state a perfectly logical fact.

It took only a few more seconds before three gold uniformed Security officers beamed into the office and looked around, disdain obvious on their faces. "We're here to escort Rear Admiral Sha'mer back to Headquarters. Where can we find her?"

Will blinked as if that wasn't obvious. "She's right here," he pointed at the filthy, small and confused woman.

And Sha'mer looked up at them in bewilderment, then looked back at Will. "I guess," she said with a weary sigh, "that means no bed."

--

Will Cardiff
Security officer apb Indi

&

RAdm. Cintia Sha'mer
Unassigned Zombie