ILLUMINARRPG: (4 - 0957) ACSO Ensign jg Zara Khatri

[Zara Khatri]

Mission: Exogenesis
Day 4
Stardate: 2446.06.04

(USS Hillary - ACSO Ensign jg Zara Khatri - 0957)

Pex was studying his engineering test results.  Bored, Zara was playing Tetris on her PADD.  The game was hundreds of years old, but she found it to be an excellent challenge to her mind to think logically and plan ahead for where the different shapes would go.

Lieutenant Commander Gregory, who was also in the room, made a comm call for her and Pex.

Odd, thought Zara.

After Pex pointed out they were there, he urged Gregory to rest, as Doctor Solice ordered.  His response was... odd.  Pex was handling it, so she went back to her game.

Zara heard someone coming.

“Dieter Gregory, Just what do you think you are doing?”  It was Doctor Solice.

Zara let Pex handle it.

"Have you been eating the magic mushrooms again?” said Solice.

Zara chuckled.  On Lorica, they had something similar, a berry from the alpa tree.  She smiled as she remembered the first time she and her friends tried them.

Zara was fifteen and on summer break from school.  There were five of them, two boys and two other girls.  Finding a tree in the woods, Gary dared everyone to try them.  Knowing it was wrong, but always willing to conquer a new challenge, Zara went first.

The ripe berries were red and the size of a marble.  The juicy, sugary sweet flavor exploded in her mouth.  It took only a few moments for colors to be more intense, for everything to be brighter and louder, for her mind to feel like it was seeing the deepest secrets of the Universe.

A few hours later, Zara and her four friends were puking their guts out.

Zara chuckled.  Focusing again on the scene in the runabout, she waited to see how it played out, unable to shake the nagging thought something bad was going to happen.

(reply Gregory, Pex, Solice, any)
(posted by Mary Lou)