Making their way to the Science Labs the three of them walked through the corridors at an apparent ease. Sil wasn’t seeing anything out of the ordinary, only the red alert claxons and lights were disturbing the peace. 

“Is it possible we are in a less affected part of the ship?”

“If so, that would be good.”, mused Vivienne, but looked at Frisco for reassurance. “If we can figure out what’s different here, we have a better chance of getting rid of whatever causes the hallucinations… right?”

Sienna wasn’t so sure anymore.  The variables at play were starting to pile up, and she wasn’t as confident as usual.  It may have had something to do with the fact that everything around her threatened to break her psyche into several sharp pieces.  Frisco was good at her job.  She had the training.  This was pushing her.

“Here everything looks normal…. Maybe too normal…” mentioned Sil. 

As they arrived at the Science Lab, the door opened with the familiar hiss and revealed several crewmen who had come here to seek refuge. Most, if not all of them, swarmed Frisco as the woman entered, looking for the same reassurance Vivienne had needed.

Frisco repeated to each of the panicked crew members, “We’re here.  We’re here.”  The sickbay looked unusually…normal?  She wasn’t sure what to make of it.  The figures that had haunted her every step had faded.  They weren’t completely gone but the pressure…the pressure had lessened.  That was curious, she noted.

“Nothing here.”, responded a nervous-looking Ensign in blue. “Or at least not as much as out there.”

Another nodded. “We were trying to figure out what causes the hallucinations, but with us not even reliably being able to tell what is real and what is not, it’s proven… difficult.”

Sienna thanked them each for trying.  Being an ensign in the midst of a terrifying scenario was hard enough.  These two had tried despite everything.  That spoke of the medical crew.  Her pride swelled a bit, relieving her of some of her bubbling fears.

“Bridge to Frisco and Silveira.“, said the Captain’s voice from Frisco’s badge.

Frisco replied in the affirmative. Sil raised an eyebrow and replied after the Lieutenant. “Silveira here.”

“We need to move, but the whole bridge is hallucinating. Whatever you can do to give us a few minutes of calm, do it now.”

Sienna’s head was slowly clearing and she was thankful for the respite.  How long it lasted, she couldn’t predict.  That unnerved her all over again.

Sil shrugged, they hadn’t yet though seriously of a possible solution. He had suggested some kind of blocker, but they weren’t anywhere close to knowing what was really causing the hallucinations. He frowned as his mind raced, thinking of a possible solution.

Vivienne stood frozen. That sounded urgent, and she didn’t really want to know why it sounded that urgent. “Can we do something to… shield the bridge?”, she asked, looking at the assembled officers.

Sienna nodded, “It’s not impossible.  Engineering is not my strength to be fair.”

Sil turned to the Lieutenant. “The subspace distortions. Lieutenant, do you think we can find a way to shield them, or at least render them less harmful?”

Sil again shrugged. He was way out of his league here; he wasn’t a scientist. But there had to be it. Somehow, in a way he couldn’t quite explain it, his reasoning was to counter those distortions with safety measures that might contain them. “Is it possible to find… I don’t know… The frequencies of the distortions and put up a ship wide signal to counter them?”

Sienna snapped her fingers, “Damnit.  Why didn’t I think of it first?  There’s something in sickbay that’s keep it more at bay than anywhere else.  When they build most modern sickbays, they hardwire in passive fields to prevent all kinds of outside interference, interference with our medical equipment – it’s a long list.  I really need to read that damn technical manual.”  She dashed for her office and returned with an actual book, and she shrugged at the amused looks, “I like the smell of them.”  She put it down on the table and flipped page by page until she found what she was looking for, “This – several passive fields are operating at any one time…looks like about ten or so depending on the alert status.”  Another flip of the page, “We’re going to have to test out the fields ship section by section and see which ones work the best.  I don’t know how much power it will take, but if we take it step by step we could find a way to get at least the sensitive parts of the ship to have some relief from this thing.”

“Let’s get it done.”, nodded Vivienne, trying to appear as useful as possible as the rest got to work.