The Dalek scanned the Skuman female in front of him. Shaana Lepreis: Skuman [female]; 39 years old; Chief Technician, Calley - authorised his systems flashed up. It was a formality, as he knew her anyway, but one that needed to be completed. "Go through.", he said, which she did. She was now in the Weapons Bay, one of the most high-security areas on any ship, but particularly this one. An Omnicron Accelerator was housed here.
The area held few actual personnel - most of the casings around here were Remotes. There were some actual Daleks here - the ship's Chief Engineer and his senior crew of four. Remotes, with 'R' etched into their casings, were easy to spot. The Chief Engineer approached her. "Chief Technician, everything is ready for your inspection. All systems are off-line.", he said. Shaana nodded perfunctorily. "That's good. If it's all right with you, then I'll start the inspection.", she said, moving towards the Omnicron Accelerator. "Malfunction in systems detected.", one of the Remotes reported.
At the same time as the malfunction was reported, the Remote uploaded the information to the Chief Engineer, who promptly distributed it to the rest of his crew. "Shaana, there's a malfunction in the Accelerator's systems.", he called. Too late. Shaana had interfaced her scanner to the Accelerator's data input. The malfunction was with the firing protocols. The first test the scanner ran was on the firing protocols. Which triggered them.
All space explosions are silent. But this was no explosion in the normal sense of the word. The craft seemed to shimmer, become translucent, before splintering into billions of microscopic pieces - throughout time and space. The Pelza's explosion caused reverberations throughout Spacetime. A shred of organic matter - belonging to the late Shaana Lepreis - was caught up in a distortion of Spacetime. This distortion caught hold of some other organic matter and spewed out the results somewhere. Anywhere. Anytime.
[TO DO!]
Carl blinked. And blinked again. He rubbed his eyes, shook his head, slapped his face. This wasn't the University. Not remotely. This was a forest. Then his mind caught onto something else, and he went back over the last few seconds. He blinked - twice - no problem. He rubbed his eyes. With his hands. He lifted his hands up, looked at them. Covered in fur. Black fur. His hands weren't covered in black fur last time he'd looked. So he looked at them again. Black fur, palms furless but black skin. The fur ran up his arms. This prompted him to look down at himself. His front was covered in white fur... but something was wrong. His body...
Carl sat down, hard. And regretted it, as pain shot up... up his (her?) tail. He had a tail too. His mind whirled, trying hard to make sense of what had happened, what was happening. He'd stepped not into the lecture theatre but into a forest. Naked. He was covered in fur. He was, apparently, female. He had a tail. "Oh.", was about all his shocked mind could come up with.
«Security Commander! There's been a ship explosion in orbit!», came the call to Alhpa. «Details!», he demanded. «We don't know much yet. Apparently, the explosion was on the Pelza. The Omnicron Accelerator must have malfunctioned, judging by initial reports.», his lieutenant reported. Alert: Lifeform in area; appearance without reason; no teleport signature his own systems suddenly reported. Alhpa went to investigate at once. There was a likelihood this appearance was connected to the Pelza's destruction.
«A lifeform has just appeared in the area. No teleportation signal. I'm going to investigate.», Alhpa reported. It wasn't that far away. Assuming whoever was behind the signal didn't try to run away if he (she?) didn't hear him coming, he'd apprehend them in a minute or so.
Carl didn't realise anyone was coming, such was his state of shock, until they were almost on top of them. Alhpa looked at the Skuman. Female, nude. She appeared to be in a state of severe shock. «Medical team to my location immediately.», he broadcast back to Shaker City. He ran a scanner to see if he could identify her. Alert: No identical match on record; closest match - Shaana Lepreis his systems flashed up after a minute. A few moments later, they flashed up Alert: Shaana Lepreis has no siblings on record. Alhpa wasn't particularly concerned about that, even though he knew that much already. There was the question of this female Skuman still to deal with.
Carl found... herself, she supposed, in a building of some kind.
Copyright 2001, Stuart Moore.
Daleks created by Terry Nation.
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