Paranoia Is My Friend

Posted on 30 Jan 2016 @ 7:36pm by Lieutenant Parisa Rykov DCS
Edited on on 02 Feb 2016 @ 10:29am

1,303 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Rude Awakening
Location: USS Black Hawk - Crew Quarters

Lieutenant Parisa Rykov sat up in her bed, hearing commotion in the corridor outside her quarters. She breathed a sigh of relief Just someone passing by she told herself as she let out a stressed exhale. The hair on the back of her neck which had been standing up soon settled down and lie flat against her silky skin once more. She looked at the night stand beside her and closed her eyes momentarily. When she opened them again all the objects that she saw before were still there. Why can't this just be another one of my nightmares? she thought to herself as she looked towards the bottom of her bed and saw that Krampus, too, was awake and on a personal state of yellow alert.

“Yeah, me too, sweetie” commented Parisa as she patted the empty space in the bed beside her. “Come on, kitty. Come keep me warm...I don't think either one of us is going to get much sleep tonight” added the engineer who then turned and grabbed the glass of cold water that sat on the nightstand beside her bed. A hardcover physical copy of The Order of the Phoenix sat on her nightstand as well, keeping her glass of cold water and her disruptor company. It was not Starfleet issued, that much was certain by its unorthodox design and modified power source. Replicated? No. She was way too smart to order a weapon from the ship's replicator and she was not about to steal a weapon from the armory.

She remembered the ancient Earth saying dearly, and held it close to her heart like it were a sacred religious text. “Desperate times call for desperate measures” she whispered to herself as she gently stroked her cat. She had constructed the weapon herself, more or less by hand. The assembly was simple and the materials were easy enough to find lying around the ship and what she couldn't find, she could replicate, but no materials that by themselves were suspicious. It was a crude yet practical, and more importantly, functional Romulan inspired disruptor. If the disruptor somehow failed her...which she sincerely doubted given it was she alone who made it, and she had nothing but complete faith in her abilities to build such a simple weapon, then, her back up was the long bladed Elaysian throwing knife which she had safely tucked away beneath her pillow.

Her first line of defense, however, was Krampus. That cat hated anyone that wasn't her. It would hiss and claw like a Klingon female in heat if anyone so much as entered the lieutenant's quarters. Still sitting up in her bed, Parisa looked out at the entrance to her quarters. The doors were closed, and she had made sure they were double secure with the mandatory security lock and a heightened proximity detector that would let her know if anyone stepped into the small archway. She could not trust anyone but herself and Krampus, which was perfectly fine with her. She was used to this sort of arrangement. She needed someone to talk to though, even if it was just the ship's computer or thin air, but she knew how determined people could be and how logs had been tampered with aboard the other ship. There was nothing to say personal logs wouldn't be listened to by people she did not trust.

Instead, she felt around the bed beside her and found the small device she was looking for under Krampus' butt. The device was warm in her hands thanks to cat's bum heat. “Oh gee thanks, Krampus, I always wanted my tools heated by a cat's ass” she said in a slightly agitated snarl directed at the cat who paid her no attention whatsoever. The small device in her hand was an old friend of a writer or journalist, a digital voice recorder. Her ingenuity with such archaic engineering had paid off once again. She could make personal logs, expressing her true feelings...raw and uncensored without the worry of anyone hearing them. Perhaps one day, she'd add her recordings to the ship's computer and properly file her logs, but for now, she was otherwise 'radio silent' when it came to the more official means of recording a log.

She took a deep breath and began: “Personal log 007, Doctor Parisa Rykov recording. The situation aboard the USS Black Hawk has gone from bad to absolutely ridiculous. I do not know who, if anyone on this crew I can actually trust. What started out as a situation aboard a few vessels in this quadrant has clearly spread and made its way onto the Black Hawk” said Parisa, nearly biting her lip.

“I feel more like a damn Romulan with each passing hour than I do a Starfleet officer” she confessed. “I trust no one, but I want to believe that the truth is out there” she added. “I sound like some of whack job nut case conspiracy theorist working for some sort of military or government outfit, but honestly, the truth is stranger than fiction.” The lieutenant took another breath and continued slowly “I thought this all would blow over, that Commander Kos' name would be cleared and that we would go on continuing our voyages” she commented and then let out a scoffing laugh. “Yeah, well, that was tossed out the nearest airlock. I thought that I was beginning to trust someone when I talked with Captain Geisler. He was clearly in a state of disbelief himself, putting on that whole professional command act, but I knew in his heart, he wanted to fight and help Mac as much as I did. I do not know the details of what happened, but something big went down.”

She stopped for a moment as yet again someone walked by her doorway. Keeping her voice low, she pressed on. “God help us all. Captain Geisler has not been seen much. The Security Chief says that the Captain doesn't want to be disturbed, and now we have to answer to Lieutenant Commander del Rosario, who might I add is not a prince charming. You can throw tall dark and handsome right out the airlock at a moment's notice as soon as you lay your eyes on this five foot nine inches of wrinkling sentinel” she said with a small chuckle. “I don't trust the man. He just so happens to be fortunate enough to have Commander Kos arrested, and then the Captain suddenly doesn't want to be disturbed? I believe in a few things in life, but I don't believe unicorns, fairy tales, or in coincidences that lead to the Security Chief practically assuming command” bellowed the woman firmly.

The woman looked around her quarters, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “It is days like these that I give small thanks to Romulan paranoia” she admitted with a sigh. “I am going to do my best to just lie in the shadows, keep my hands to myself, but keep eyes open as I look for answers. This whole mess has left me unsettled. I know that whatever is at work, the devils are making due and running amok. I am not about to get myself thrown in a holding because little good that will do anyone. However, I am not about to sit on my thumbs or bury my head in the sand. I will follow Lieutenant Commander Rosario's orders to the best of my abilities, but I cannot help but feel like the frog with a scorpion on my back” she said firmly. “Fortunately, I have suspicion and paranoia on my side, and a fair knowledge of anatomy to know a dozen ways to severe a man's spine if need be....end of personal log” she finished with a smirk.

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