001 | [voice]

[hypospraying]

[After finding her clothes and things, Christine is tiptoeing through the ship, expecting an enemy around every corner. But when she comes to the hatch that leads out, she feels a rush of relief. Slipping outside, she takes in her surroundings, and then tries the communicator in her hand -- one that looks so much like one from the Enterprise that she assumes she can reach her ship.]

Chapel to Enterprise. I'm at an unknown location. I was captured and placed in some sort of stasis pod. Requesting you beam me up immediately.

[She waits, and nothing happens. Nor is there any response from the transporter team. Uh oh.]

Enterprise, come in?

[More silence. Sighing, she begins to move away from the crashed ship, wondering if there's something about it that's blocking her signal. She looks curiously at the domed city in the distance, and the landscape surrounding her. Then she speaks to herself.]

Where am I?

Comments

[Video]

[damn_it_jim]

[It takes a moment for Bones to process that voice, and then he's grabbing for his own communicator and slapping it in place above his workspace. Thus, it doesn't take long at all for the image of one Dr. Leonard McCoy to form up, against a backdrop of rather primitive lab equipment and with one eyebrow arched to an angle that would make Spock proud.]

I really wish they'd stop yanking people back every time someone new from the ship wakes up, but I'll take it over nobody at all.

You're on a planet called Verdana, Nurse Chapel. No sign of the Enterprise, and we're not sure we're even in the same galaxy as Earth at this point. There's some shenanigans involving time and cross-dimensional travel that the engineering types are obsessing over, but I've been stuck dealing with bioengineered plagues and now trying to restart the immune system of someone who hasn't got one.

Good to see you. Now get down to the hospital here and help me out.

[Video]

[hypospraying]

[Well hello to you too. Christine stares at the screen, finally realizing that this can't be a Starfleet communicator, and trying to digest all he's saying.]

So time shenanigans mean you've been here for awhile, I'm guessing? And where is this hospital, sir? Is it under that dome?

[Video]

[damn_it_jim]

No, the dome is full of trigger-happy paranoid maniacs and the oppressed citizens of their regime. I'd recommend giving it a pass.

[Bones' expression grows abstract, and enlarged, as he pulls his communicator (disguised as a PADD) from its place and accesses its onboard stores. It's the work of a moment to send along a rough copy of a local map, with the hospital and a few other locations annotated.]

There. And I'd give it a couple months now. Being a doctor, not a theoretical physicist, I'm stranded until someone else figures out how to put us all back where we belong. Fortunately, there's one of those running around... and we used to have Jim, but the pods on board the ship are tricky. Sometimes people get pulled back into stasis, and he was one of them.

[Video]

[hypospraying]

[The communicator makes a ding sound and alerts her to the incoming file. A moment later she has it open and -- on a whim -- she pinches the screen with her fingers to see if she can zoom in and out. It works, and she sees the path towards the hospital. Then she closes it so she can see her boss's face again.]

And he'd be out by now if there was any way for us to open them from the outside? That or it'll kill him if we try to open it, I'm guessing.

[She makes her way down towards the old city like the map showed her.]

Is there a local population in this city, or is everyone there from the pods too?

[Video]

[damn_it_jim]

A fellow named Tony Stark managed to find a way to get the pods working as life support during the plague, but waking someone we'd intentionally put in versus waking someone that's gone back into stasis... let's just say that I don't want to risk depriving the multiverse of our captain's brilliance before he gets the chance to blow himself up.

[Just because Kirk is in stasis doesn't mean that Bones, best friend as much as he is the subordinate-with-veto-rights that is CMO, can't razz him in absentia. His eyes are a little bleak, for all that.]

Outside the dome, the city's population is in the low thousands, and there are around forty of us from the ship that are awake and about. There used to be more, but the plague took it down by nearly two thousand people in a matter of weeks before we could get antivirals and a vaccine rolled out.

It's safe now. Mordin Solus, the doctor that worked with me on that, is off on a rickety boat with a group of people to make sure the vaccine spreads.

[Video]

[professorwolf]

[The "enterprise" bit sounds vaguely familiar, though Lyall couldn't guess from where. Still, he's awake, working on paperwork he had missed out on while recovering from the full moon. Some of it, to his mild amusement, even has his own name on it.

So since he's awake and catches the attempted communication and all, he replies.]

Your pardon, miss. But I'm afraid you quite likely very far from home. This planet is called Verdana, and no one yet who's arrived has heard of it. Are you all right?

[Video]

[hypospraying]

Oh, yes, I'm fine. Just-- I woke up in a pod, and that... concerned me a little.

[Video]

[professorwolf]

A bit troubling, I know. When I came out of mine, I didn't have the faintest idea what it was, or what anything around me was. That structure you came from is a crashed space vessel of some sort, and there are people waking up on it fairly often. You ought to head down the mountain into that ruined city you see down there. Most of us are near the center, where the electricity and plumbing still function.

[He pauses, tilts his head at her with a little smile, and adds,]

The name is Randolph Lyall, by the way. How do you do.

[Video]

[hypospraying]

[She nods, starting towards the city.]

I'm Christine Chapel, and I've been better.

[But still, this is better than being the only person here, besides those still in those pods.]

Thank you, though. Do you happen to know how long I might have been in that pod?

[voice]

[knightoflight]

Chapel, I'm afraid your Enterprise can't hear you.

But you're safe here, among friends. [Well....'safe' might be an overstatement.]

[voice]

[hypospraying]

I'm starting to realize that.

[Coming to terms with it though? That might take a little longer.]

Right. Sure. Uh, can you tell me why I woke up in a pod in a crashed space vessel?

[voice]

[knightoflight]

I'm sorry. It's a bit disorienting, or it was for me.

We were brought here, we've been told, to be weapons in a war. But the war ended before they could use us and we were forgotten.

[voice]

[hypospraying]

Well that's-- ["A load of crap" comes to mind, but she rewords it in her head.] -- inconvenient. Couldn't we just inform the people who brought us here so we can be sent back to where we belong?

[kettchmeifyoucan]

Pretty far from your Enterprise, I'm afraid.

[He's still getting used to this planet, but confused newcomers are, well, nothing new.]

[hypospraying]

Yeah. I caught on.

[By now she's walking down towards the city, but she spares a look back at the alien ship lying there. What she wouldn't give to hear Mr. Scott get in touch with her right about now, or see a shuttle from her ship coming down to pick her up.]

Are you a pod-person too?

[kettchmeifyoucan]

I suppose that's one word for it. Now that I think of it, I haven't heard any of the locals communicate over these.

[hypospraying]

That was gonna be my next question, if you said you came from the pods too. So what are the locals here like? Friendly, hostile, somewhere in between?

[Voice]

[evervarying]

Sounds like you got the "long way from home" intro already. Are you okay to make it down to the colony, or do you need an escort?

[Voice]

[hypospraying]

Well, I'm about halfway there now, so is it worth it to?

[AKA, she doesn't want you to waste your time if it's an easy journey.]

[Voice]

[evervarying]

[Ashley snorts quietly, half-amused.]

This time of day? You should be all right if you're that close. Most of the immediate danger's from the wildlife, at the moment.

[Voice]

[hypospraying]

And does this wildlife hang out in this area between the ship and the city?

[video]

[did_i_say_percy]

Do you have an escort into the city yet, mademoiselle?

[video]

[hypospraying]

Oh, no. Someone offered, but I think I'll be okay.

[video]

[did_i_say_percy]

Are you sure? I've been told there are wild beasts in the woods along the path, but the path itself should be safe. Don't get too cold though.

[video]

[hypospraying]

Oh?

[She's trying to stay calm, but there's a feeling of unease rising.]

What keeps them off the path?