Sil followed Commander Lorra and Lieutenant Frisco into the Valhalla. The loud commotion was heard almost from the corridor. He raised an eyebrow as they headed to a large group. The crowd was surrounding three other crew members.  A golden shirt Human was in a shouting match with a… Was that teal or blue?

Sil was never able to tell the difference. Anyway, the blue Bajoran was in a shouting match with the golden shirt. To his side was another golden uniformed Human, or so she looked like it. They were all Ensigns, and Sil stepped from the crowd and placed himself in the middle of them. With a stern expression, he loudly shouted.

“WHAT THE FRACK IS GOING ON IN HERE? DO I NEED TO GET EVERYONE ON THE BRIG”

Lieutenant Sienna Frisco scrambled down to Valhalla and walked into the middle of something loud and out of control.  She turned and stared at the security officer, amazed and amused at his approach.  “Thank you, Lieutenant.  Everyone except for these three can take their leave.”  The crowd grumbled, and Sienna tightened her posture and slowly turned on her heel, “You can take your leave.”  The grumbling quieted as the only sound was feet clattering out of Valhalla, leaving the three officers from the bridge facing the three troublemakers.  “What happened?  Ensign Orlav?”

Tegan Orlav’s fast was red with fury, and her eyes remained wild, “That bastard Bolian was making moves on my man.  I saw him lookin’ at him.  He was gonna take him from me.”  The ensign spat on the ground to emphasize her point, muttering an invective or two for good measure.

Sienna took notes on her PADD, “I’ll leave out some of those words.  Porle?”

Porle, the aggrieved Bolian, stared mutely all around him. His lips moved, but his words were at a whisper.

Niala’s frown deepened, her eyes narrowing at the Bolian as she drew in a breath, ready to speak. Her fingers twitched at her side, but just as her lips parted, something stopped her.

“Thing is…” interrupted a young woman – civilian, at least if one went from her lack of uniform – who had been on her way out but made her exit a deliberatively slow one.

Lieutenant Sienna had taken the lead after Sil managed to break the potential fight. But he took a step close when the young woman interrupted them.

He smiled at her politely before asking. “What thing?”

“Well, none of these things actually happened. I mean, sometimes, you can misunderstand stuff. A certain look, a phrase, a tone.. but not in this case. What they are saying… ” she motioned vaguely to the three officers at the center of the near-brawl. “never happened.”

Sienna stared at the young officer, “That’s quite an accusation to make, Ensign.”  She looked back to the other three, focusing on the Bolian, “Porle?”

His eyes were wide, his words coming faster now: “I…I would never. I…I was just standing here talking with him about the latest article from the Olympic Journal…and she just…went off on me. Yelling…shouting…accusing me of…all kinds of…terrible things.”  He looked imploringly at the arriving officers, “You have to believe me.”

Sil raised an eyebrow. If that was his version of the story, something was wrong. He turned to the civilian that had interrupted them. “Have you seen what happened?”

“They just… I don’t know… zoned out. And then the one got mad, and the other did, and everything was chaos.”

He raised an eyebrow at her reply and tipped his head to Lieutenant Sienna as if saying, Are you buying this?

Frisco was frowning.  Her medical training was kicking in as the symptoms began to have a common theme.  “I think we’ve got a…”

Suddenly a movement at a small distance called Sil’s attention. The Valhalla was now less crowded but a familiar face passed by, just two tables away, only to disappear behind two other crew members.

Sil took a few steps in that direction before stopping by the words of those behind him.

He turned with a confused look, glancing around the room.

“I am sorry, I thought I saw someone who isn’t supposed to be here.”

“Like.. me. I am not supposed to be here.”, Claybrook said vaguely and turned to leave – unsuccessfully so.

“What do you mean by that?” Niala asked, she had a hunch but liked it to be confirmed.

“I just don’t want to get into any trouble. I’m not exactly reliable with any of this.”

Niala tilted her head, eyes narrowing as she studied the person in front of her. “What do you mean by that?” Her voice was smooth, but there was a glint in her eyes that suggested more was at play.

“I know it’s the officer’s lounge, and I am not supposed to be here.” Vivienne sighed and sat down at a nearby chair. “It just felt… weird. That’s the best way I can describe it. That’s why I came.”

Sienna tightened her hands into fists at her side.  She stared down a vision of her mother, long dead.  She looked as real as the day she had been alive.  She knew her mother had died in a fire in the colony she had retired.  She knew the body had been hard to identify.  Sienna blinked once, twice, and on the third hard blink, her mother was gone, replaced by empty space.

“Tricorders out.  Now.  I didn’t just see my dead mother for nothing.  Whatever is happening…it’s shared.  It’s either here in this room or somewhere outside.  Whatever you see or hear…it’s not real…as hard as that is to practice.