After the Hathaway‘s encounter with the Ferengi ship Squidge had thought it prudent to bone up on Ferengi psychology. It was all fairly generalised of course. The Counsellor couldn’t help but wish for some more specialised information on this particular Damon, his service record and psych profile would have been useful, but she settled for trying to understand their opponent as best she could with what limited and non-specific information they had. One never knew when it might be of use to the Captain. Squidge adjusted her glasses irritably, scratching at a slightly raw patch behind her ear and the text on the PADD in front of her danced as she did. She still hadn’t got the fit of this latest pair exactly right.

The glasses were removed and place on her belly, and she took to squinting across the room and surveying her quarters. Movement caught her eye and she watched out of the window from her position on the bed as the stars, just moments before predictable in their apparent linear trajectory, shifted suddenly. The ship was changing course, and quickly. Squidge looked back at her socked feet and the boots placed neatly by the side of the bed she was lying on to read. Like a fifteen-year-old, she told herself. Sure, reading in bed at bed time was one thing, but… Squidge gave herself a break. After all, she did spend large portions of the day sitting. Sitting at her desk. Sitting in a comfy chair in her office speaking to her latest patient. Sitting on the bridge. A large part of getting older it occurred to her was finding variety in different ways of sitting. On the bed was certainly variety when most of the others involved some sort of chair.

Without any warning at all Squidge was suddenly introduced to a new and never-before-experienced variety of sitting, that being sitting in mid-air as the ship lurched beneath her. The PADD she had been reading from was ripped from her hand, more from the surprise breaking her grip than it having any great weight or momentum. Squidge watched her glasses fly forward and out of her reach. Her brain had no time to process what was happening, but as all well-balanced individuals did, when presented with a lack of ground beneath her Squidge extended her legs ready for a landing. The relative forward velocity she had been endowed with by the ship carried her off the end of the bed and she landed perfectly on her feet, taking a couple of steps in various directions for balance as the floor beneath her settled.

“Ah!” She said involuntarily, smiling at her own good fortune.

Squidge one, disaster nil.

But he who giveth also taketh away. With barely a moment for self-congratulation Squidge was plunged into almost total darkness.

“Ah.”

The stars outside of the window once again returned to a slow drift, this time in a somewhat less controlled fashion than was normal. Squidge held her hands out for balance, checking and re-checking her contact with the floor was good and there was nothing immediately under foot.
“Computer, lights?” She tried, already predicting the absolute silence that was the only response to her hopeful command.

One all.

Squidge’s next impulse was to reach for her badge, but her experience told her that she was not one of the particularly important people in a crisis and she should leave com lines open to the bridge for them. Still, it couldn’t hurt to test the badge’s functionality, just to ascertain just how far up shit-creek they were. The counsellor pressed hers firmly. It responded with a completely indifferent silence.

“Fine, be that way,” Squidge told it.

Two-one.

If she couldn’t contact the bridge via comms, it occurred to the Counsellor she should at the least start by I’m getting out into the corridors and rendering some aid. If the window was to her left, she reasoned, then the door to the bedroom should be right ahead. She turned to what she thought was the correct trajectory and took a step forward.

Crunch.

The blackness of the room hid the eye roll that accompanied her pained sigh. Scratch one PADD. Squidge shrugged. PADDs were ten-a-penny.

Three-one.

She took another step.

Crunch.

“Shit!”

Scratch one pair of glasses. At least she didn’t have to work on the fit anymore.

Disaster four, Squidge one.

With great care she lifted her foot, and very, very gently dusted any shards of lens plastic from her feet, feeling the razor-edges with the soft tips of her fingers and hoping none would puncture the skin. The foot found the floor again, mercilessly free of anything sharp. Squidge got the feeling if she were going to get out of this room unscathed then footwear would be a requirement. She knelt gingerly and groped around for her boots. Her hands passed through mid air like a magician’s affectations of conjuring before their best trick, but the more she reached for her boots, the more they weren’t there.

Plan B.

She was still near the bed. Squidge reached behind her and found her slippers were largely where they had been left, shielded from being launched across the room by the underside of the bed they lived beneath. She slipped them on, her hands brushing the furry ears. Even grey bunny slippers were better than nothing. Onwards to the door.

Squidge craned her neck around to get her orientation from the window again and adjusted her aim. Her hand reached out in the black and found the corner of the bed roughly where she thought it should be. She started wobbling her way in the black through the arch and out into her living space.

Being one of only three officers of Commander rank or above on the Hathaway, Squidge’s quarters were large and relatively opulent. Not only was bedroom separate from the rest of the living space but she had a large table with several chairs, multiple couches, a desk with a computer terminal, three windows and of course her own replicator. There were plants large and small, photos in frames, nik-naks, paraphernalia and keepsakes. Excellent as this generally was, all of these benefits now became obstacles between her and her exit into the corridor. The counsellor took her bearings again from the windows. The exit was a roughly forty five degree angle to her right and about twenty to twenty five feet. There were no items of furniture between her and the door. She took a step.

Wham.

“Ow!”

The toes of her right foot erupted in pain. There was now furniture where previously there had been none. Trying to determine which piece had ended up in such an unlikely location and how would be fruitless, so after a few more moments of seething and a couple of choice swear words Squidge edged around whatever this was carefully and continued her journey.

Disaster five, Squidge one.

She hobbled a few experimental steps forward encountering no further unlicensed furniture pieces, and then a few more.

Good.

Another experimental step gifted the Counsellor a mouthful of bamboo leaves.

“Ugh… pff, pff… fuck’s sake,” she spat, batting the leaves away like she was trying to swat a fly. That was until her stray hand smacked something very, very hard.

“OW, FUCK!”

Six-one. Seven if you counted the leaves.

Squidge cradled the fingers of her right with her left for a few soothing moments, feeling the throb in her digits and willing it away before continuing. So there was something hard to her immediate right, and she was facing the bamboo plant. That meant her angle had been off and she needed to move further to her right. Squidge skirted that way with plenty of cynicism in her movements and, carefully and very gently reached out in front of her for what she hoped was the wall adjacent to the corridor. A wall met her touch, joyous in its cool smoothness. Squidge had never experienced so much happiness from a wall.

Seven-two.

With two hands sliding across the surface Squidge experienced the wall in a way so intimate she never would have previously conceived, but like a glorious, steady beacon devoid of unexpected and painful hard surfaces it guided her to the door and the manual release. Squidge fumbled open the cover and gripped the lever. She pulled. Nothing happened.

“Come on Astrid you squiffy old flapper.”

Squidge re-arranged her grip, wrapping her hands around the lever with acute firmness. She pulled.

Nothing happened.

She pulled harder.

Nothing happened.

Squidge pulled with all her strength. The lever suddenly jerked downward, speeding Squidge’s fingers into the solid edge of the control panel with force.

“FUCKING SON OF A… OW!”

It was at this point that Squidge gave up keeping score. Whatever this disaster was, it had won as far as she was concerned. Unsure which hand to cradle and grumbling obscenities about the lever’s mother she felt the edges of the door with her shoulder, finding a gap of around six inches in the middle where the two sliding sections had parted.

“Haha!”

Seven-three. No, eight-three. I thought you weren’t keeping score any more…?

Squidge was not a particularly strong person, but with much grunting and other such unattractive noises she was able to walk the door open far enough to be released into the corridor. Of course the corridor didn’t have windows so it was even more utterly dark than her quarters, but, more pertinently it didn’t contain furniture for her to walk into.

Firmly re-examining her relationship with furniture Squidge set off down the corridor towards the nearest weapons locker, running her freshly throbbing fingers along the wall as a guide.

“Anyone there?” She called loudly. “Anyone need help? Call out!”