Oh Dear...

[Sendai Riko 0]

Oh Dear...

 

In the blink of an eye, Riko looked upon the stunned body of TroNoQ as it sprawled over the deceased Dr. Meyvn Xiou and knew with an absolute certainty that he must not be in the MRF when the Qel awoke if the Bajoran wished to live to commit insubordination another day. As a timely communication came in from the meH for Messner, Riko didn't waste the plum moment; as quickly and quietly as a mouse escaping with a prime chunk of cheddar, he slipped out of the MRF and then hightailed it toward his quarters.

 

With no hesitation upon entering his cramped room, he threw open his storage locker and grabbed what appeared upon cursory inspection to be an amulet; indeed it was, though its innards were a bit more technological than magical. He activated it and threw it over his neck and slipped it under his uniform top. The miniature transport inhibitor had been made for a project in the Academy, and he had wisely kept it with him for emergencies; he certainly felt this situation qualified. If the Qel had the initiative to beam him to the MRF to enlist his aid, he'd have the initiative to beam him there to beat him to a bloody pulp as well.

 

Now certain that anyone who wished to cause him harm would have to come to him, he locked his door and set an alarm. He wasn't planning on hiding out or escaping for long, just until tempers settled down. He had barely managed to escape the wrath of K'Walus; as soon as TroNoQ awoke he'd be wrathful as well, and Messner now wanted to at the very least knock him over the head. Riko also believed that the Borg hand held nefarious intentions after being forced to assist; the way it twitched and fluttered before disappearing indicated to the Bajoran a desire for mischief.

 

With a sigh, he wondered if it were possible to return to the pink universe long enough to retrieve his sanity, which Riko fervently believed must have been left behind, as he hadn't seen it since coming back home. In the course of a few days he'd taken an inappropriate initiative by firing on the cave to rescue TroNoQ and Meyvn; been party to the further enragement of K'Walus by being beamed out from under her nose directly after challenging her authortiy once aagain; manhandled the Commanding Officer; and stunned the Qel. He knew the time in the alternate universe had unnerved him considerably, and he hadn't had the time to regain his bearings before being thrown into this mess with the virus; until now, though, he didn't realize that he'd completely lost his ability to step back and function like a Starfleet officer.

 

That wasn't necessarily a surprise for him, as Bajorans under stress either tended to crumple into nothing or explode violently. While the distinctions were hardly black and white, there were few shades of gray in between. Calling upon the Prophets for strength, Riko settled into a chair and, for the first time having the opportunity since returning from the alternate universe, put down in the record everything that'd happened since that dizzy moment in a pink corridor. If he ended up dead because of this, he at least wanted a record on hand for his parents to know why he'd flipped, assuming the Qob ever returned home. Also, if Messner decided to incarcerate him instead, there'd at least be that on record if they decided to probe his suddenly odd behavior. That's all the Bajoran could hope for, knowing that he'd pretty solidly managed to throw his career out an airlock; so long as his body didn't follow... he'd live with it.

Edited April 11, 2007 by Sendai Riko