Who are you?
Posted on 29 Jul 2025 @ 3:04pm by Major Emily Janeway & Lieutenant JG Faith Benson
Edited on on 29 Jul 2025 @ 3:19pm
2,364 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
General Sim Postings
Location: Varied
Timeline: Backlog
Faith gave a stretch after testing out the parts that she had gotten fixed for her, for her suit. The bay doors closing behind her. Getting a notification that she was needed for a new Officer on board but the circumstances were strange. She felt something off also; perhaps that's what it was. Heading for Transporter Room 2.
The transporter beam hummed aboard the USS Tomcat, coalescing into Major Emily Janeway on the pad. Her Marine greens were pristine, but her eyes flickered with temporal static—fractured glimpses of timelines not her own. oO I’m here… but when? Oo A temporal displacement from the whereabouts had left her unmoored, a living in different timelines stepping onto the Tomcat’s ship.
"Hey, Chief. Don't know why I felt compelled to come down here but I di..." Faith was talking to the Transporter Chief, but her attention shifted to the Marine that just materialized. Narrowing her eyes a little bit. That feeling was coming from the woman that just showed up.
Emily stepped off the pad, her boots thudding against a deck that felt momentarily fluid, as if it might dissolve into another time. Her hand found her Colt 1911, its cold steel a lifeline to her Marine core. “Major Emily Janeway, MCO/2XO, reporting. My sidearm, per protocol. I have just been transferred over from the Starbase 51’s orientation.”
And Faith's hand instantly went to the phaser that was under the Transporter room's main console. Drawing it down on Emily. "I don't have any information on that and please remove your hand from the gun or carefully lay it on the deck." She knew something was off, regardless of this was a legit transfer. She didn't like not being informed. In particular someone having a 20th century ballistic firearm on them. Faith's head motioned to the Chief to pull up any information about the woman or transfer orders.
Major Emily Janeway steadied herself against a brief temporal flicker—another deck, another moment—her Marine training kicking in with quiet focus. She lowered her hand from the Colt 1911, palm open and fingers relaxed, her gaze meeting Faith’s with the calm confidence of a Marine commanding officer.
“Disarming, Lieutenant,” Emily said, her voice steady and professional, carrying a subtle assurance that needed no theatrics. She drew the 1911, its 20th-century steel glinting faintly, and angled the muzzle toward the empty transporter pad, ensuring it was clear of Faith and the Chief as Marine protocol required. Her thumb pressed the magazine release, and the click of the magazine dropping free broke the silence. She set it aside, then racked the slide with a firm clack, ejecting any remaining round and confirming an empty chamber. Her thumb flicked the safety on, the snap of the lever locking the hammer into place clear and precise.
Crouching with measured care, she placed the pistol and magazine on the deck and slid them toward Faith with a soft scrape. Standing, she raised her hands, shoulders squared and expression composed, despite a faint shimmer of temporal static in her eyes.
“I’m Major Emily Janeway, your new Marine commanding officer, transferred from Starbase 51,” she said, her tone calm and authoritative, with a hint of Marine pride. “My orders are in the system, but a temporal displacement may have delayed your update. The 1911 is a Marine legacy piece, logged in my transfer file. Please verify with Starbase 51.”
Faith raised an eyebrow as she watched. Her violet eyes focused on every single movement. The round ejected, the slide pulled back, the safety set. Giving a motion for the Major to step aside so she could retrieve the pistol and it's accompaniments. "You may have these back after we've made sure you've been cleared officially."
She actually 'pocketed' the Colt after slapping the magazine back into it's housing. Pulling the slide back and letting it chamber a round. Hitting the release, catching the magazine and pushing the other free round into the top. Slapping it back in. "While he does that," meaning the Transporter Chief, "You're not in the right time are you."
Emily stood with hands raised, her Marine greens sharp, but her senses unraveled like a glitching holo-program. A bridge—smoke curling, red alerts screaming my name across time. The transporter room’s hum twisted into a shrill pulse, as if reality was detuned. A vision crashed in—bulkheads splintered, stars gleaming through a torn hull—then vanished, the Tomcat’s sterile glow searing her eyes. Her heartbeat staggered, caught in a temporal rift, and her stomach churned, as if she’d stepped into a void. Hold it together, Marine. She clenched her fists, nails biting to stay anchored.
Emily simply nodded, her head dipping once, sharp and controlled, her lips pressed tight to avoid betraying the chaos within. Her eyes, clouded with a shimmer of temporal distortion, flicked from Faith’s violet stare to the transporter officer at his console. Is this my time? Or am I slipping?
she stepped aside, boots grazing a deck that wavered like a fading signal. Her hands trembled, fingers twitching with a phantom grip—a trigger she hadn’t pulled, an alarm echoing from another life.
“If you need to hold me until further notice of my story is verified, Lieutenant, I’ll stand for it,” she said, her voice firm but strained, the words clipped as another flash—a shadowed corridor, her name whispered—clawed at her mind.
Emily stood tall, shoulders squared, but her gaze flickered, haunted by glimpses of a fracturing reality.
The expressions and the demeanor that the Major gave off was an interesting one. Faith still wasn't sure when she mentioned Emily being out of time, until the Major just confirmed it. Faith's feelings were always here or there; also they came whenever they wanted some times. She might be off, but it didn't feel like it.
"I'm sure I'll get a briefing or access to it later once you've seen the Captain, it's fine." Faith held the Colt back out, after she cleared the chamber and ejected the magazine, again. "Just make sure that you sign that in with the armory and until cleared, keep it unloaded."
Major Janeway nodded sharply, accepting the Colt back with a steady hand, her eyes meeting Faith’s with a mix of gratitude and Marine resolve. “Understood, Lieutenant. I’ll log the 1911 with the armory and keep it unloaded until cleared. Appreciate the diligence.” Her tone softens slightly, acknowledging Faith’s instincts without breaking protocol. “If my transfer details are delayed, I’ll ensure the Captain gets a full report. Whatever’s off with my arrival, I’ll square it away. Anything else you need from me or we could just keep continuing with our conversation the fact, I’m in the wrong timeline?” Janeway said as she reminded standing in the middle of the room.
Faith tilted her head a little bit for a moment and then smiled, "We can continue with it if you like."
Janeway nodded “ sounds good to me Let’s go ahead and continue with our conversations with you said I’m not from a from this timeline?” Emily leaned against the bulkhead of the transport room.
There was a motion of her hand to follow her, stepping out of the Transporter Room. Once they both were in the corridor, her destination was the nearest Turbolift. When they were in it, she didn't call for a particular deck instead she halted it. Faith smiled, "Private space. Yes, I can feel you don't belong here."
Emily braced one hand against the turbolift’s bulkhead, her Marine greens rumpled from a journey across time itself. Her eyes flickered—static snapping through them, a flash of a shattered deck, klaxons howling in a reality that wasn’t this one. She let out a raspy laugh, rough as a plasma burn, the sound carrying the weight of too many battles and not enough answers.
“Belong, Lieutenant?” Emily’s voice was gravel and steel, honed by years of shouting orders over phaser fire. “I’ve been bounced through timelines like a shuttle in a grav shear. One minute I’m on Starbase 51, the next I’m dodging ghosts of a ship that’s not even broken—yet.” She tilted her head, catching Faith’s gaze, her lips twitching with a wry edge.
“Your instincts are dead-on, though. Something’s wrong with me—or with time itself.” She stepped closer, boots scraping the deck, her tone dipping low, like she was sharing a secret over a campfire on a frontier world. “It started with a buzz in the transporter, like the universe coughed and spit me out here. I’m seeing things—hulls cracking, stars spilling through—things that don’t fit this now. So, what’s it gonna be? marching me to the Captain, or betting on a time-lost Marine to sort this mess out?”
"Do you mean flash backs?" Faith closed her eyes a moment and tried to feel out, though these things usually came naturally. She didn't have to try and feel them out. "And why would I march you to the Captain or let you sort this shit out yourself." Opening her eyes, and lifting a hand with her index finger up, "Assumptions can get anyone in trouble."
Emily leaned against the turbolift’s bulkhead, the hum of the stalled lift buzzing like a distant echo of the transporter glitch that had yanked her across time. Her Marine greens creased slightly as she crossed her arms, her gaze locking onto Faith’s violet eyes with a mix of wariness and respect. Faith’s words—calling out assumptions—hung in the air, sharp as a phaser’s whine, and Emily let a half-smile tug at her lips, acknowledging the jab.
“Fair point, Lieutenant. Assumptions are a one-way ticket to a court-martial—or worse, in my case, a temporal coffin.” Her voice carried the rough edge of someone who’d shouted orders through too many firefights, but there was a spark of dry humor, matching Faith’s directness. “These aren’t just flashbacks. It’s like the universe keeps hitting rewind and fast-forward on me. One second, I’m on Starbase 51, briefing for a standard transfer. The next, I’m choking on ash, trapped in a durasteel box, hearing screams from a ship I don’t recognize—yet or even recall.” Her eyes flickered, a faint shimmer of temporal static betraying the visions clawing at her mind.
She stepped closer, boots scraping the deck, her tone dropping to a conspiratorial grit, like she was sharing intel in a warzone. “You’re right to call me out—I don’t belong here. I even feel it too, But you’re not marching me to the Captain yet, so I’m betting you’ve got a hunch about this mess. Care to share what your instincts are picking up? Or do we keep dancing around it in this lift?” Her eyebrow arched, challenging but open, inviting Faith to meet her halfway.
"I can't try to imagine going through all of that, then again I've been through worse in my own way." Faith met her gaze. "I've not felt anything changing the current timeline so far, else I'd say you're not even suppose to be here or possibly even alive."
Emily’s grip tightened on the turbolift’s railing, her Marine greens scarred with the phantom dust of timelines that didn’t fit. Faith’s words—her own “worse” struggles and the timeline holding steady—sank into Emily like shrapnel, stirring visions of a durasteel crypt, its walls rotting like flesh, stars hemorrhaging through jagged gashes, the air thick with the acrid burn of molten circuits. Her pulse thrummed like a war drum, caught in the echo of screams from a ship she couldn’t name, her boots rooted to a deck that felt like it might dissolve into the void.
“Worse, huh? Guess we’ve both got scars the universe carved too deep,” Emily said, her voice rough as a plasma-scorched bulkhead, a defiant grin flashing through the temporal haze in her eyes. “It tried to bury me in a rotten coffin—some fractured husk where time chokes and stars bleed out. But you’re not feeling this timeline crack, so I’m still kicking, not a ghost yet.” She stepped forward, boots scraping the deck, her tone sharp with Marine resolve. “I’ll report to the Captain and log that 1911, and tear into whatever’s got me snagged in time’s underbelly. If your gut catches a glitch—or I start unraveling this reality—I’m counting on you to call it, Lieutenant. Deal?” She jerked her chin toward the lift’s controls, a spark of grim humor in her gaze. “Let’s get this crate moving before it feels like that tomb again.”
Faith nodded, "Of course deal." She reached forwards to start the turbolift again.
As the turbolift hummed back to life, Emily felt its rhythm clash with the faint discord in her mind—flashes of a red-lit bridge, a voice calling a name that felt half hers, a life slipping like a mistimed transporter lock. Her Marine greens held her steady, a crisp facade against the quiet question of who she was in this timeline. Faith’s firm nod drew a mirrored one from Emily, her expression controlled, betraying none of the inner static.
“Lieutenant, I’ll report to the Captain and drop my 1911 at the quartermaster’s armory,” she said, her voice smooth with Marine discipline, veiling the disorientation beneath. A quick smirk surfaced. “Nice to meet you and have a pleasant rest of your day.
The doors parted with a soft hiss, and Emily stepped into the corridor, her boots’ steady cadence masking the weight of a self caught between timelines. She headed for the armory and her meeting with the Captain, duty her anchor against the pull of fractured realities.
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