RAdm. Cin Sha'mer | "Outbound Flight"

Posted on 241710.28 @ 10:16pm by Rear Admiral Cintia Sha'mer

Mission: Reconciliation & Reconstruction [Fleet Plot]
Timeline: SD 241710.28

For the second time that day, Sha'mer entered the vessel which had once brought her to this corner of the galaxy, a long time ago. The ship which formed her sole link to a past she had left behind and had little desire to return to. There were other, fonder memories associated with this ship: a vacation taken with Indi, the time she'd taken young Ra'lin with her and taught her how to fly.

The house she shared with Indi here on Earth had only been a house, never a home. It had been Indi who made that place, or any place they shared, a home. But entering this ship did feel like coming home.

She made her way to the forward section, lowered herself gingerly into one of the flight chairs and stowed the crutches away behind her. The chair molded itself around her, even grew an extension to support her braced leg. She leaned back, closed her eyes, extended her hands. The control panel moved forward and touched her palms, and when she opened her eyes the interface was complete. She felt the ship around herself and felt herself within the ship, the one being an extension of the other. With a thought, she opened a channel. Audio only, she wanted to keep this brief.

"Spacedock Flight Control, this is private vessel Imperial Star, currently located in Landing Bay 137, requesting permission to depart."

A moment's silence. Then a young voice answering back: "This is Flight Control, uhh, Imperial Star…" Another moment of silence and Sha'mer knew that someone up there was rapidly querying the computer to find the name in their registry.

The voice came back. "Ship is logged under ownership of one Sha'mer?" A hurried whisper in the background, too soft for even Sha'mers ears to make out what was being said, but she could guess. Sure enough, the man sounded a little more nervous when he spoke up next. "Admiral Sha'mer?"

"Private vessel Imperial Star," Sha'mer corrected him gently, though not without a slight smirk.

She could almost imagine him straightening his uniform. "Very well, Imperial Star, permission to depart granted. We have verified your landing bay is empty and will be opening its doors in thirty seconds. You have a clear vector for departure, please do not deviate from it-" Sha'mer smiled at the man's fully automatic words. The vector appeared in her flight recorder, as promised. "Have a pleasant flight."

Sha'mers own reply was just as automatic, words heard and spoken many times before. "Thank you, Flight Control. Departure vector received and entered. Imperial Star out." She activated the whisper engines and the ship began to hover, then drift forward. Outside, in the bay, the red 'Prepare for vacuum' lights began to blink. On the other side of the landing bay the doors slowly began to open. With the bay empty, there was no need for an additional force field. Sha'mer deftly manouvred the ship through the opening doors and out.

A few weeks ago she had arrived here with a ship which was held together by duct tape and hope, with herself in not much better condition. The contrast between then and now could not be greater. Soon, she would return again, hopefully knowing that Indi, and Ra'lin, and Michael were safe.


A ship with a warp drive would take a week, or more, to travel to Cold Station Theta from Earth. Sha'mers ship did not have a warp drive, but something else entirely, and the quickest route she could plot at the moment would take slightly more than a day. She could probably do it faster if the region around the station was better known, but this first time she didn't want to take chances. You didn't mess with a dimension drive, not close to a nebula which was already marked on the starmaps as 'weird'.

Which also meant that though the temptation to actually take a closer look at the nebula itself was something she curbed. It was tempting, stars knew it was, especially since she knew the Endeavour would be arriving in the area around that same time. But no. The nebula was too unknown, too unpredictable, and the last thing Sha'mer wanted to do was to become another statistic.

Nope. Cold Station Theta it was. Close enough to keep an eye or ear on things, and to get more information there. Far away not too meddle. And, apparently, a lovely place to spend some R&R these days.

She plotted in the course to Cold Station Theta, activated the dimension drive and closed her eyes. Floating out here, amongst the stars – which now swirled like small helixes and corkscrewed out of existence as the drive activated and punched them away – she fell asleep, the first actual restful sleep she had since she'd learned of Ra'lins disappearance. If she did dream, she didn't remember it. Maybe the ship interface filtered the dreams out, Sha'mer had no idea. Maybe it did even more than that, or maybe it was just because she finally had a focus and a goal. But be it as it may, the fact was that during the whole flight, Sha'mer was not once troubled by the holes in her mind.

One day later she arrived.

Rear Admiral Cintia Sha'mer
Director
Starfleet Operations