After making sure Ensign Stroyer and Lt. Kazansky were on their way to sick bay Hina had been unsure what to do. They still hadn’t heard from the bridge, and there was a potential exploding ship near them now. That worried her, so she had decided to head there next. She looked over at Shahr as the turbolift raised them toward the bridge.

“I don’t know what we’ll find when we get up there…” she commented, pacing slightly in the small confines of the lift.

Shahr was equally baffled. He was worried about the state of the crew. He felt it unlikely that he was hallucinating now – the events of the transporter room had gone of far longer than his previous episodes.

“They couldn’t all be incapacitated… right? I mean, we haven’t been hallucinating here. At least, it’s been significantly more mild since we were on that nightmare ship.”

She shrugged. “Its unlike Saffiya to be out of contact for so long…” she said “I really hop everyone is ok up there…” she added. She knew there was every chance they weren’t. Even though she hadn’t had another hallucination for a while that didn’t mean everyone was as lucky. Or that she was suddenly safe from them.

Shahr braced himself as he felt the turbolift slow. He drew his phaser from its holster, just in case. Glancing at Hina to see if she was ready, he turned to face the door.

The turbolift door opened onto the bridge. At first glance, it was relatively normal. Shahr was unsure why he was expecting a war zone, but he felt relief at seeing it intact nonetheless. He called out questioningly.

“Captain? Captain Nassar?” Shahr stepped tentatively out of the turbolift, eyes quickly scanning the bridge for anomalies… or enemies. Maybe it was his IG training, or the ghost ship he’d just been on, or both, but Shahr found himself expecting a disruptor or bat’leth any second.

The Captain, in the meanwhile, was feeling like she had complained far too much about having to work her own job, and half of Frisco’s. Now she was actually working several jobs – owed to the fact that her bridge crew wasn’t coping terribly well with the things they saw. Even if many of them had figured out by now that they weren’t real.

“Great timing.”, she commented as her fingers moved over the helm’s console while the officer who actually belonged there sat in a corner and cried. “Wait, are you real? I could really use you being real.”

Hina took in the sight of the bridge and frowned. It was both better and worse than she had been expecting, and that was an accomplishment. She was pleased to see Saffiya in control of herself for the moment.

“Im real…” she said, looking to Shahr. “What about you, Ensign?”

Shahr patted down his body. “As far as I can tell. Though I will say, it is much easier to tell reality from hallucination here than it was on that ship” he nodded towards the viewscreen.

She nodded, then looked at Saffiya. “But are you real?” she asked.

“I feel very real.”, Nassar confirmed.

Hina shrugged. There really was no way to tell, but she had to trust that they weren’t collectively hallucinating, like Shahr had pointed out in the transporter room.

“Good enough for me…” she commented. She eyed Saffiya, moving to the operations station.

“You know when you promised ‘no reports’ this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, Saf…” she commented. “What do you need from us?” she asked.

Saffiya frowned. “Let me know if we actually have to move the ship or if that was a hallucination.”

Shahr stepped over to tactical, frowning at the controls he now had at his fingertips. “Scanning now… I’d suggest we move regardless, captain. Worst case scenario, we get out of these distortions.”

“Well, if Ensign Stroyer wasn’t hallucinating… that ship is definitely almost certainly about to explode.” she said. “Can you get any readings on it, Shahr?” she asked.

“Readings coming in now… I admit I am unfamiliar with that vessel design, but its reactor is powering up… No systems appear to be utilizing the power… Looks like it’s building to overload, captain.” Shahr looked up. “I can pilot the Valkyrie out of the distortion fields, captain. If you wish.” He immediately winced at himself. Now was not the time to jump on the opportunity to fly, yet he couldn’t help himself.

“Do it.”, Saffiya nodded.

“Lieutenant, did you get a look at their engineering specs over there? Any idea what kind of power that thing will sustain before containment fails and it detonates?”

Hina tapped a few controls.

“Yea… it was a pretty standard matter/anti-matter reactor system, not anything as modern as the Valkyrie, but close to one of the older Constitution-class vessels, before they were refit. If its anywhere near as efficient as they were, it’ll build up to a couple thousand teradynes per second before it explodes. Our shields seem to be mostly intact, so if you can get us to a reasonable distance, we should be fine.” Hina said. “Call it twenty kilometers to be safe.” she added, letting Shahr do his thing. She kept an eye on their power levels feeding systems as needed.

Shahr quickly moved away from the tactical console, stepping across the bridge to the conn. Lowering himself into the chair, he swiveled forward and placed his hands gingerly onto the control panel. “Here goes nothing…” he thought to himself.