Goosebumps

Posted on Sun May 22nd, 2016 @ 12:44pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Mizatan Fij & Petty Officer 2nd Class Charles Rhodes

Episode: Lost Property
Location: USS Highlander - Transporter Room
Timeline: MD03 1655hrs

As the transporter beam released them, Fij and Wood both breathed a sigh of comfort, as they were once again back in familiar surroundings. Fij knew that the EV suit he wore made sure that the air temperature against his skin was the same here as it was over on the De Salle, but it still felt as though the Highlander was warmer, washing away the chill he had been feeling until now.

"So, what's the ghost ship like?" Rhodes asked, leaning casually against the doorframe, his arms crossed as he watched a pair of technicians help the two engineers remove their EV suits. He didn't bother stepping in to help; not that Fij had expected him to.

"I thought you were supposed to be on duty in the brig?" Mizatan asked, ignoring his friend's weirdly apt description of what it had felt like over there.

"Yeah, but there's nobody there to guard, is there? Unless you managed to find some sort of grotesque, human-liquefying alien over there for us to go and try to arrest. Halliwell's on shift in a few minutes; she's had a thing for me since she came on board, so she'll cover for me." Fij shook his head slightly. Rhodes simultaneously seemed to hate and love his job at the same time; hate it enough to constantly complain about the boredom and skip out on dull shifts, and love it for the fact that it mostly kept him out of harm's way. "So come on, what's it like over there?"

Fij had to pause for a minute to think about that one. "Quiet," he eventually said. "And a bit strange." As he took off his boots, he thanked the technician that had helped him get out of the suit as he went to put it away, and Fij and Wood allowed Rhodes to join them on their way out of the transporter room.

"I'll go to engineering; as one of the structural guys to do a check of the hull patches for us," Wood said, getting a quick nod and a thanks from Fij in return, before he headed off in his own direction.

"To be honest, like a ghost ship is probably the best description I can come up with for it over there," the half-Ktarian said, after his colleague had left them. "Your imagination can get the better of you, in a ship as old and silent as that one, knowing that its crew perished."

"What do you mean?" Rhodes pressed, now eager for more details. He was walking backwards along the corridor, keeping his attention on Fij, making what few passers-by there were in the corridor avoid him as he ignored where he was going.

"We thought we heard... sounds. Whispers and breathing. And I felt a chill go through me, like I had stepped through a wall of ice-cold water, but the tricorder showed no changes, and the equipment we had set up in there wasn't showing any faults."

"Oooh, maybe it is a ghost ship," Rhodes said, a big grin on his face. "Maybe the crew didn't really die, maybe their souls stayed where they were whilst their bodies were thrown against the bulkheads!" He had to stop for a minute as he bumped into a bulkhead brace, and turned himself around so he could watch where he was going more. "Maybe they're still there, haunting the ship! Like all those ghost stories of the mystery shipwrecks off the trading routes."

"Or maybe we all just have over-active imaginations," the computer specialist responded. "You especially."

"Yeah, but - the thought of it gives you goosebumps, doesn't it?" Rhodes responded with glee.