Session 2

In the vast, deep space a tiny ship floats slowly, as if nothing has happened, as if there is nothing but its movement. It's a weird thing, zero-gravity travel. Even with all the adjustments made to increase the comfort of the passengers, one can still feel a weirdness in the process. The passengers of this particular ship has no quarries such as these as they have been through an undefinable experience just now. They are still shaken by the sudden transitions and the things they've been through. When the group checks the time, they realize that it displays exactly the same thing as they last remember, meaning most likely no time has passed during that.

Your target, Trimer Delta IV, is only half a day away from where you are right now with your current speed. There is nothing in your proximity, nothing you can see or can be detected by the sensors, except that a small, unregistered planet a few million kilometers away to the west of Trimer Delta IV.

Hariette wakes up, still feeling defiant and angry as the dream ends, even though there's nothing left to be angry about. She decides to float over to the mess for some (cold, for safety) coffee, efficiently tying her hair back en route. Pulling up the star chart, she notes the uncharted planet and resists scanning for life forms - the crew likely wouldn't go along for a sampling expedition that'd put them out of their way anyways, and in any case the ship's containment facilities were inadequate. Not that that alone would stop Hariette, but she's conscious that other people's tolerance for weird alien fungi on the walls was much lower than hers. She sips her coffee, and waits for the others to arrive, trying to shake the lingering feelings.

Cassiopeia Canon, intrepid alien whisperer to the stars, puts down her tablet. She had been reviewing her notes on the Kituri.Then, she had an epileptic fit, or an embolism, or some other kind of hallucination. She triggers her comm.

>> Hariette, do you have a minute? I think I had a stroke

She checks her aportment in her mirror and then heads out of her quarters to find the doctor.

TBD gives a start as he finds himself suddenly right back where he was supposed to be. He looks around the bridge quickly, taking it all in, wondering whether this is just another illusion. Still unsure of whether to trust his senses or not, he hits the shipwide comms.

>> This is Dayton. Everybody, check in.

Leda walks into the mess in a preoccupied state. She is still trying to process the recent events. The only explanation her brain will accept is that the crew had been wrapped in holograms of their personal memories. This was all coupled with some kind of time travel in both directions at various speeds.

"Oh hi Harriette. I almost didn't see you. How's the coffee? Same terrible?" she says as she trudges toward some.

"Oh. TBD just messaged everyone."

>> I'm grabbing some coffee in the mess with harriette. I'm fine.

CC taps a reply to TBD's check on request, responding:

>> Might have just had a stroke. Headed to find Harriete

TBD crooks an eyebrow at Cass's comment.

>> Roger that. Is it just me, or did everybody just have a WTF moment? Food, tubes, disembodied voices, all that?

After moment, he adds:

>> Hiro, check in. Anybody got eyes on our man?

>> I'm in the mess, Cass, I'll come up

"I'd better go check on her, " Hariette says with an apologetic smile to Leda, as she reflected once again that they should try to hire a real doctor in the next port.

Heading up to Cass' study, she presses the indicator and pushes her way in as she opens the door, pressing a flashlight into Cass' face.

"You look fine hun, you sure it was a stroke?"

She's typing a response to TBD when Hariette appears. "Well, I thought it was more likely that I had a stroke but TBD had the same experience." She shows her the group text.

GROUP >> TBD: Yes. That

"Oh. Oh yeah, I had that too. Thought I just nodded off for a bit. You're saying you saw the exact same thing?"

>> Seems like we might have had some kind of mass shared hallucination... I'll check the O2 levels and check the scrubbers for infestation, though it'd take a monster of a phyllocyber to get us like that...

"Anyways you seem ok, I'll let you know if I find anything"

Hariette goes to grab her lab kit, then checks the O2 levels, comparing with the computers data. And she swabs the O2 scrubbers for errant spores.

TBD mutters a quiet profanity to himself when he gets no response from Hiro - everybody else accounted for except the big guy. He quickly checks over everything on the bridge to make sure the ship, or what appears to be the ship, is on course and operating properly. Seeing no flashing red lights or anything else equally obviously alarming, he heads out in search of Hiro.

There was nothing to engage Leda other than her own brain analyzing and reanalyzing whatever had gone on before if anything actually had. She became her usual withdrawn self again as she nursed her coffee, one hand wrapped around the cup as if to gain solace from its warmth. Even though her stomach grumbled, she realized she had no desire to eat.

CC, entirely molified by the prognosis, goes to find the others. She grabs a coffee from the container, black with non-dairy creamer.

"Leda, did you have an episode too? If you had the same dream I did, that was sharp thinking in your part to determine if we were in a hologram."

>> l’m here

…comes Hiro’s reply on the chat.

>> Just need a minute. Everything okay?

At that moment you experience something you haven’t for a long time, not until you’ve embarked on this mission: your comm chanels are being hailed. Sensors pick a small ship in the vicinity, a ship even smaller than yours. From your ships point of view you can only see a small dot far away but it’s getting closer.

"I had something,". Leda says to Cass. "I'm not sure what you'd call it, but something happened. Tangible yet not. Very confusing. I'm still processing it all. I don't know if we had the same dreams as you call them though. Mine was very personal and about things only I would know. I am convinced that there is some kind of holographic time phase oscillation going on. Or was. Who knows, maybe it still is going on."

Leda starts to drift off into her deep thoughts again when her comm goes off. Figuring it's TBD again she casually glances at it. Her eyes go wide at what she reads.

"A ship is approaching!"

>> Good to see you're still with us, Hiro. On my way to bridge. Wonder if our mystery callers have something to do with the WTF we all had.

Dayton breathes a small sigh of relief knowing that the crew is intact - as best he can tell - and heads back to the bridge. He immediately goes to the sensor station and gets a readout on the small vessel while putting the hail on shipwide speakers.

Hiro makes his way to the bridge, where he slides expertly into the pilot's seat. He looks a little worse for wear, but seems determined to man his post.

CC flounces in a catwalk fashion to the bridge. It's how she walks, don't judge. When she gets there, she immediately checks her reflection in monitor while also reading out anything they can on the ship. "It's smaller than us, which could mean an escort fighter, I suppose, or a light passenger vessel." She sits to learn what she can, knowing that Hiro is more capable than she would be of chatting with fellow captains.