Star Trek: Starbase 777

There may or may not have been a recent terrorist still in here. It was quiet. She was fine, actually, there was nothing going on. Everything was normal, as far as she was concerned.

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An unconscious Starfleet security officer is beamed into the brig. How embarrassing.

8

"And then you of in the cold.." he blinked when he was still holding hands with Dion, but.. in the brig!? "Nooooo, no, this cannot be, my love," he said, sighing dramatically, "how shall we survive this soft-shell crab dream? For we have seen the yellow sign, but the masses remain unaware.."

2

Drthrek started to squirm onto the ground but was relatively knocked out in the brig

Mirrim also got beamed into the brig and started pacing. "Do you ever think about what you will do when all the people you have known die?"

Having soon been affected by the infection, an infestation within her skin, Jayselle had been picked up and and transported to the brig, mid spiel. "-And of it left his son imperial lord. Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown’d King of France and England, did this king succeed; Whose state so many had the managing, that they lost France and made his England bl- Wait, this isn't the place I was in before I stopped being in it..."

Allan squinted at Mirrim. "No, don't. Sad," he said simply as he leaned against Dion, "what the f.. Jayselle, are you... England? No, no, Carcosa, we're lost, we're lost here, the halls, they.." he yawned, "they go on forever, don't you see?"

"I'm not England, you are." Jayselle responded with a huff as she crossed her arms. "My deeds upon my head! I crave the law, the penalty and forfeit of my bond. In other words... why are the halls long?"

The large man stirs slightly in his unconscious delirium, “…the labyrinth…long halls…”

"Then the tatters of the king will flap and they will all die unsung in lost Carcosa. Like I would have if I didn't become me." Mirrim was now staring at something slightly above Allan's head.

"They're incredibly long," Allan said, sighing as he sat down, pulling Dion down with him so that his boyfriend could sit down with him, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him closer so he could start braiding his hair, which he did, starting to make a sort of crown pattern. "They will... indeed, they will. But if we sing, what then? The strange moons still circle through the skies, you know," he said simply, keeping his eyes focused on something across from him as well as he braided Dion's hair by sheer muscle memory, it seemed.

"Strange are nights when the black stars rise. Our tears of terror will dry unshed." Mirrim removed her eye-patch and wrapped it around her wrist.

He sighed and leaned into Allan's touch, eyes closed. He was beginning to feel a bit more than verbally incoherent. Hot. Dazed. Hed ache :c. Apparently there were more symptoms than just being a little silly.

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2

Head sure ached, that was for sure. "But," he blinked rapidly, trying to figure out what was happening here, "have you found the yellow sign? We must take advantage of the morning light. Awaken from this soft crab-shell dream," he started to finish up Dion's braid, leaving a small kiss to the crown of his head as he did.

"I can't stop thinking of the Pallid mask." Mirrim hugged herself digging her fingers into her knitted pullover, almost pulling it apart. "I'm scared, the shadows of my thoughts are growing."

“Hrrrgh…” He hefted himself upward, very woozy. On top of the headache from the infection, he now likely had a concussion, “The nightingale…”

"The words are terrible, aren't they?" Allan asked, frowning as he watched Mirrim dig her fingers into her pullover. "The sin of writing such words - words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musical as bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like poisoned diamonds, words understood by the ignorant and wise alike, words which are more precious than jewels, more soothing than music, more awful than death... death? No, we shan't think of such a thing... instead, hm.." he brushed his hands through Dion's hair now that it was braided as he thought. "The nightingale, perhaps? At times, one must simply place the mustard in the microwave, making it undeniably clear that you're not to be trifled with."

"For once, you seem far more inclined to random poeticisms than I," Dion murmured.

5

"Precisely," Allan chuckled, a little proud of himself. "After all, dinosaurs do not deign to bark when you send a text to the house phone, and when the day draws to a close, even still, you must attend to the dignified duty of walking your goldfish."

"I want to visit the twin suns..." Jayselle muttered, nodding idly in agreement with what Allan was saying.

3

"I have no care of my own, yet rest escapes me like I did my old me." Mirrim frowned and rocked back and forth.

There was a shimmering and suddenly Teno appeared in the Brig with many more of the infected crew and starbase occupants. "The Prophets have spoken!" He said, in awe, arms outstretched toward whoever was in front of him.

"Teno!! They have indeed! Have you found the yellow sign?" Allan asked, tilting his head alllll the way to the side. Like, 90 degrees.

D'rthrek started to wake up as he looked up "Mercury in the Middle"He groaned as he rubbed his head, he had a huge headache as he looked around

Teno looked at Allan and his face lit up in recognition. He gestured at Allan, kind of flailing his arms in his direction. "There is no linear time in which to experience a yellow sign."

"So true," Allan nodded, putting his head back upright but only to give Dion's head another kiss. "No linear time at all, even, do you... do we all see the gate? The gate opening and dragging itself into the black-plumed rabbit? It kills the tunes," he looked down at the floor, "I know no bolts, no locks, can keep that creature out who is coming for the Yellow Sign. Even the self-sealing bolts..."

"I want to travel to the Celestial Temple." His eyebrows furrowed and he gazed up at the ceiling, as if the Celestial Temple was above the Starbase, rather than lightyears and lightyears away.

After a few more moments of being knocked out from the very not cool vulcan nerve pinch, Maya opened her eyes and shot up and yelled out, in the top of her lungs, with full violence in her eyes. "I AM A LLAMA, EATING A IGUANA!" Maya then got up and ran towards a wall, screaming a full force war cry before slamming against the brig's force field barrier, which promptly knocked her out again

5

"I am younger than I was forty years ago. It makes sense that time is a looping spiralling... thing. I saw it once when I was old." Mirrim started humming lullabies under her breath.

Fashionably late, Essen's unconscious body beamed into the brig, alongside the others. She still had a bit of a silly smile on her face. By the looks of it, she wasn't going to be waking up any time soon.

"Yes, you'll visit soon, I think ... I hear him," Allan said, sounding a little scared as he looked straight at the walls, "I hear him. Moving very softly along the halls, he's coming, he's - the bolts rot at his touch, in a cold, soft grasp and it... the onyx, of..." he was losing it just a little more, clinging his arms tighter around Dion. "You guys hear him, right? You're a ... llama?"

3

Essen was followed by Melody, whose unconscious body also beamed into the brig with the other infected. Thankfully, to the benefit of literally everyone else, she was just that - unconscious. No baker bitchiness until she woke up, which likely wasn't going to be anytime soon.

Maya may be down, but she is not out! She got up again. "DEATH BEFORE CAPTURE!" Maya ran up and made a second attempt at breaking through the force field. To save time, Maya would just keep on doing this over and over again.

2

"Does that mean I'm dying?" Teno asked Allan, fear in his voice. "But no, not the firecaves... The Pah Wraiths are in flames. It burns, my head!" Teno winced and brought his palms up to his head, which was aching so badly now.

The officer watched Maya repeatedly collide with the force field, his expression still flat, “…the labyrinth is inescapable…”

Snake was next to be beamed in, also unconscious, although it did look less like unconscious and more like he was in the middle of the worst hangover of his life.

"Nonononooo, you won't, we won't, well, maybe Maya," he frowned as she kept trying to break through the force field. "Inescapable, but we... trapped here, yeah, not dead, just... lingering? Um... finding a window, opening it, there's another room, there's another window, there's a bottle of Suave green apple shampoo.."

2

“The green apple is not the fruit we seek. The pomegranate, the Underworld, a ripe strawberry which put us into shock…hrrgh. Anguish echoing within my brain…” Well, it was his attempt at trying to explain that he had a headache.

1

"Oof!" Vedette dropped down into the brig, brushing her dress off. "That was unpleasant."

5

"The Moba tree...with glistening fruit and.." Teno's eyes glazed over as people kept talking, his attention lapsing. His head was pounding and he was so tired and his arm was itchy and uncomfortable and he was so cold.

"The pomegranate... like pomegranate wine... it's good... for marinating, you know? It's good for that, this guy told me, uh... a ... the man in the dark light," Rojin. he meant Rojin. "Glistening fruit, it... the drinks sure glisten, you know, there's... this one, of a warp core breach... with an infernal scream, rushed and confessional.."

"RESIST OCCUPATION!!!" Maya declared once more before continuing to clam herself against the force field

2

“Lieutenant please, wanna sleep.” The older Gorn said with a small snore.

"The Occupation?" Teno, experiencing chills from the fever, started to shake visibly.

Drthrek heard that as he started to attack the forcefield too."Mangos on Lazarus, must find mako hole"

"THERE IS NO SLEEP! THEY MAY TAKE OUR SHIT, BUT THEY CANNOT TAKE AWAY." Maya stood up again "OUR FREEDOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!"

"Mais je croy que je... suis descendu on puiz, tenebreux onquel disoit, Heraclytus catre Verité cachée." What the fuck, was he speaking French? "Wait, what?"

5

"MERDE!" Maya yelled out from the pain of being one with force field

4

"We need...I want kejal. We must resist the Occupation. Have we become... amoran? Is the Celestial Temple sealed?" Teno leaned against the wall and slid down until he was kneeling with his elbows on his knees.

"Alaya?" Maya muttered when hearing the word Kejal. She made one more try of breaking out of the brig through the force field, but after that, she just took another nap

Finally, after what seemed like forever, stirs came from the Vulcan... her eyes opened to look out into nothingness... and she barely even saw anything before her... from her fever making her head sweat, and causing chills, Essen's only reaction to any of the symptoms... was laughing. First, a slight chuckle, barely audible... then, a bit more maniacal, but still very quiet... and it stayed that way as she just stared into what she could only see as a floating range of colors and shapes in front of her. This was... funny to Essen. All of it was funny. She didn't know why, but she loved it. It was as if something beckoned her to want to smile, to want to immerse herself in this feeling more, despite how uncomfortable the fever was. She couldn't escape it. At least, not for now. So there she sat, in the same position in which she was beamed, quiet laughter trickling from her mouth, infested with the mysterious parasites...

Mels was still out cold. Thank fuck.

Very tired from slamming herself against a stoopid door for freedom, rolling over to Teno. "Hallo. you sad. why sad?"

He looked at Teno, still confused, and then laughed a little along with Essen. "Yes... but if the vine and love abjuring band are in the Prophets' Paradise to stand, alack, I doubt the Prophets' Paradise, were empty as the hollow one's hand." He said it as if it made total sense in his mind. "No sad. Not here. No."

3

Essen stayed where she was, barely having enough energy to stay awake, as she was still waking up from the phaser stun. "But soft... are thy selves well?" Essen asked.

"Our world is here," he nodded, "between these walls and the sheet of glass above, here among gilded flagons and dull jewelled arms, tarnished frames and canvasses, black chests and high backed chairs, quaintly carved and stained in blue and gold, for whom do you wait?" He had not a fucking clue what he just said. If you asked him two minutes from now, he would not know.

“Then the king should stand high, yes..?” A delirious Maxson replied. This is going to be the most embarrassing day of his life when he wakes up from this nightmare.

Now, for whatever reason, Essen was sad. She looked out in front of her. "My lass," Essen responded. "She's for whom I wait. 'tis a pact made within the stars. For whom I wish to wed one fine eve." (edited)

"Yes!" Allan said enthusiastically in response to Maxson. "He shall, and - we shall all exist in the context. Within the stars, yes."

The concussed officer stood up when Allan replied to him, “Then to coronation…but what king will stand among the jewels and blood, who will depose Minos and save Icarus?”

Allan laughed again, throwing his head back against the wall and hitting it. "Ow," he mumbled, pulling his head back and just resting his chin on Dion's shoulder before going right back to laughing. "The Yellow King," he said calmly, "again, I ask, have you seen the coconut tree?"

2

Instead of feeling sad now, Essen found herself curious. "This Prophet's Paradise of which you speak," Essen asked. "This Yellow King. I hath not been acquainted with such. What dost thou say?"

"Cringe. Cringe name. much cringe." Maya muttered as she was stirred awake from the words 'the yellow king'.

2

“What is the yellow king? Why do you keep saying this?” He muttered as he curled into a ball.

“Yellow…gold. Midas. The touch of riches. Greed and avarice…this would make no good king…” He angrily huffed.

"No, no, you don't understand, he - the yellow sign, the yellow alert, it all.. connects," he took his hands briefly off of Dion's waist to make a little circle with his fingers, "connects. It connects."

“Your being stupid, dumb, idiotic.” He said with a growl. “Want husband.”

Essen tried to parse the words from Allan in her mind, but nearly nothing made sense. The only things that she could make were the yellow sign and yellow alert. "King...? There's... no king. Only yellow?"

"Cringe. Copious, Copium Cringe. cringe name. So Cringe. Sad." Maya added on. "Yellow..................fleeeeeeetttt"

"Copia?" Essen asked. "Copia no cringe."

"The Yellow King, in his enigmatic splendor, transcends the very notion of what one might deem 'cringe'. His presence is a testament to the profound, leaving no room for trivial judgments," Allan said in reply to Maya.

Essen, despite being in her feverish and intoxicated state, still didn't quite grasp it. "Yellow King... what hath this king accomplished?"

Teno glanced over at Allan and sighed, letting himself fall backward, butt thumping on the floor and legs splayed out in front of him. "The yellow king..." He sighed and then leaned back and laid flat on the floor. He was so tired and feverish. He was trying not to be sad, Allan said not to be sad. "In the arms of the Prophets I will meet The King in Yellow. Right?"

Essen's foggy mind was made even foggier by Teno. "Prophets...? What? King in Yellow? I do not understand..."

"Yes, Teno, you have it right," he nodded, clasping his hands back around Dion now that he was done making all the little hand gestures in explanation. "Or is it the other way around..?"

Teno raised one of his arms 90 degrees, from its place on the floor, so directly up, and pointed at the ceiling. "So, the King could meet the Prophets?"

"The yellow king is not The Sisko. Therefore the Yellow King is doodoo cringe." Maya declared before going back to nap time (edited)

8

Well that answered Essen's question. Kinda. So she just went back to sleep.

"Mmm, indeed," Allan couldn't help but nod in agreement, "when measured against the grandeur of the emissary, of The Sisko - even the Yellow King pales in comparison. In the face of a being of such cosmic significance, he cannot help but be relegated to a realm of lesser stature... perhaps, even, dare I say - the territory of 'cringe'."

4

"Can you all shut the fuck up?" Maggie groaned from their place on the floor, their head pounding. Ouch. What happened to their rebellion? What of their empire?... What now?

3

And so he did. He passed right the fuck out on Dion's shoulder, fast asleep. For now.

Maggie stared in semi-horror. "Holy shit," they said. "I killed him."

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“He was a blabbering devotee of Midas…” The officer said dismissively.

5

"You spoke the power word, and he fell to it. It is a gift, and a curse, to have such verbal and magical aptitude. I trust you will use it wisely." He said this very seriously, as if it was a very real, very grave responsibility.

5

Then he woke up again, staring just to the side of Maggie, not blinking. "Sorry, sorry, I heard I was dead?" He asked, and then shook his head slo-o-owly. "They're right, I fear. It sure is a feeling. But I've also never felt more alive... is that being dead? We've become rather well acquainted, I think, Death and I - wandering the shadowed edge... shall I return...? It was comfortable, I think..." he whispered then, "just... once more, maybe..?"

Here Lama was, entering the brig, slithering about. No words, just him kinda inching along.

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