Posted by Ensign Karina Niles (Doctor) in Meanwhile… on the Station (for those awaiting the ship)
How long had it been? Karina wasn’t sure she knew exactly. Does she count from when she got orders to depart the Athena to help a local Station in need? Or did she count from returning here a couple days ago to find her ship not just gone, but missing?

She had returned in time to board the Athena before it was due to head out of the station. But she arrived back to find the Station Commander completely at a loss to give her any answers. She had taken a shuttle out today, just like yesterday. She had flown in a different direction this time. After half a day of searching, she was back in the station, exiting the shuttle, cursing not having found anything. In this day and age, with this technology, ships didn’t just disappear without their being a black hole, worm hole or some kind of other anomoly present. And those weren’t here either.

In a waiting area, seated on a very ‘waiting area’ grade couch, Ky’Laria leaned over her hand terminal, swiping through holographic projections of nine days’ worth of sensor data from the station; for her, it was a question of when such anomalies had been present.

She was storming, once more, towards the Commander’s office to see if there had been any word since the last time she checked 18 hours ago.

Ky’Laria blinked, lifting her attention away from the gently rotating image floating above her hand terminal. Someone was coming, alone, and in some sort of heightened state; it was enough to stand out from a flow of people milling back and forth in front of her, themselves with plenty to worry about. Sitting up, she decided it was worth the short pause. What were the short-lived beings hurrying about these days?

She was in her Fleet uniform, having found it made people clear the path before her when she silently stomped down the halls towards the door. Her black boots a staccatto hardly anyone heard, but seemed to thud in her ears and beat in time with her racing heart. It didn’t make sense… not even a little.

Ensign Karina Niles
Doctor

Looking toward the place where the footfalls would become a person passing into view, Ky’Laria gently thumbed a control on her terminal and the projection winked out. Her gaze tracked the human woman. Starfleet, Ensign, she said internally. Fixated on the Commander’s office, where she seems to think she will raise a fuss. Classic Ensign behaviour.

The Kuras continued to quietly examine her as she passed down the spacious hallway. Uniform fits… perfectly, she thought, an arch of spots above her eye emoting slightly along with a tiny head gesture, meant for no one. Well put together. Took the time to make that happen. A doctor, she surmised, glancing at a stripe of blue. And young. So, has either everything… or nothing, to prove.

The woman was about ten paces from the Commander’s office door when Ky’Laria decided, Let’s find out, and rose gracefully from her marginally comfortable seat. “Ensign,” she called out, gently but loud enough to hear, depending on how narrow the woman’s tunnel vision had become.

(OOC: Forgive me; I’m guessing “pretty frickin’ narrow.”)

Six paces, five, four, three “En-sign.” A more ‘superior officer’ sort of tone which she hadn’t wanted to employ in this situation. But… sometimes people just don’t hear you.

If Ky’Laria had sounded like a superior officer to Ensign Niles, she certainly at the moment hadn’t looked the part - at least, not in the Starfleet sense. Clad in a second skin of dark grey fabric at joints and mobile areas, with a coarse cross-weave pattern and a certain synthetic sheen, the outfit was inlaid with thicker, black pads or plates covering vital and flatter areas; clearly, an outfit designed to protect in some manner of a hostile environment. Utilitarian boots covered almost to the knees, and a harness for gear attachments was worn over the chest, all in black. Modest shoulder pads appeared ornamental but compact enough to stay out of one’s way; these too were black, but trimmed in silvery metal around their edges, and bore two broad golden strips across their length.

She slid her hand terminal into a pouch on the right of her stomach, and her light azure-skinned hands came to rest near a vacant weapon holster at each hip. “Your ship is still gone,” was all that she said.

-Squadron Subadmiral Ky’Laria (CO, IUF 19th Battlecruiser Squadron) (… outgoing)