-RED ALERT- Orb problems!

The Orb of Serenity, situated in in The Bajoran Temple, has created chaos on Deep Space 15. Bolts of energy have created power failures throughout the station, plunging the diplomatic summit into darkness. Panic has taken a hold of the station. All senior staff needs to report to Command immediately to run diagnostics.
Security, the Promenade, and portions of the Habitat ring have lost power, and the Promenade is flooded with terrified Bajorans, some injured.

Rai had been taking cocktails with the Cardassian dignitaries when the station began to shudder.
"What now," he muttered, tossing back his synthale.
"Ops, report!"
An ensign replied.
"Commander, there appears to be a sub space anomaly originating in the Bajoran temple. Power is out in major portions of the station."
"Lieutenant Oz, Lieutenant Inabnet, please report to command. Commander T'Klass, monitor the Promenade, I need you to patrol the Promenade, prevent riots. Casualty report?"
"None yet sir, energy burns and tramplings have been reported."

It had been T'Pren's intention once she got settled in her quarters to go pounce on the good doctor. She'd been thinking for days about her opening line and had settled tentatively on something like 'Hey, Doc, I've got this oozing rash on my...' Or maybe something about Bolian herpes. But when the door closed behind her on her new rooms and she was alone with her father's guitar and her suitcase and absolutely nothing else...alone in a bare Cardassian room that was just a little too much like the one in which she'd spent her teen years...well, it was either meditate or cry.

For once, she chose to be Vulcan.

So when the red alert went off, she was sitting on the floor of her living area with her eyes closed, breathing deeply. She may have been there for hours. But when the station went berserk, her eyes popped open and she was on her feet and out the door in seconds. She'd studied the layout before she'd arrived and, anyway, a Cardassian base is a Cardassian base. It wasn't difficult to figure out what was what.

"On my way!" she replied to her orders, and without too much further delay, she was calm, collected, and intensely focused as she rushed into Command.

If Rai was looking for a placid Vulcan, he had one now.

"Inabnet, I need you running analyses of the Orb and the subspace anomaly. We need to get it under control, and we need to know why morning services have unleashed hell on my station."

The power of prayer? T'Pren held back on that one, though. She'd already made enough of a fool of herself in front of her new commanding officer, and she liked to maintain a minimum level of dignity most of the time.

Instead, she said, "Yes, sir."

With the ease of someone who'd worked at this very science station for years already, she slid into her seat. Her fingers flew across the console expertly.

"Were there any scans of the orb before I arrived? Are we positive it isn't a forgery?"

"Only an initial scan when we let Kai Bennya on the station. We were waiting on your arrival, actually. It was stable then. Is there a way we can drop the orb in stasis somehow? Perhaps surround it in a subspace magnetic field? We just need to stabilize it, then you can study it at length."

Lieutenant Inabnet bit back a slew of jokes. They bounced off her concentration as though her Vulcanness were its own subspace magnetic field.

"I can't give you guarantees without more information, but based on the electrical surges, we should be able to contain it in the temple with a localized field." She hesitated, but like the fastest sperm wriggling into an egg, one joke got through: "Failing that, may I suggest giant rubber gloves."

But her joke didn't keep her from already setting up her best-guess containment field tweaks and finding a competing frequency that would hold the energy in without bouncing it back at the orb.

"At your command, sir."

"Do it."
He crossed his fingers behind his back.

With only a Vulcan's nanosecond of hesitation to double-check her calculations and a very deep breath, T'Pren sent her brave little containment field out into the Bajoran temple.

Please don't have just embarrassed yourself irreparably, she begged silently.

The Orb rumbled, and then rocked from within it's containment field. Finally, it subsided to a throb, pulsing blue.
It might hold for the time being. It was still highly unstable, but no longer damaging the station or it's residents.

T'Pren let out a sharp breath, but did not sit back or relax or celebrate.

"It's pretty volatile, sir, but it's holding for now. I need to get a closer look at it. I need--" She smirked despite her current Vulcan concentration. "I need giant rubber gloves."

The lieutenant looked over at Rai, "Or at least something to ground me. I want to get in there with it."

"I think it's going to take more than rubber gloves, Lieutenant. Go and check it out, but be careful. Check the radiation levels before you go. If it gets too hot, get out of there."
He was wary of sending the young Lieutenant out, but he had to get the station back under control. Starfleet wouldn't send her if she wasn't capable of handling a crisis.
"Doctor Ozan, we need you in the Bajoran temple. There are injuries."

Safety is highly logical but no fun.

"Radiation outside the field looks normal, sir," T'Pren promised, grabbing up the necessary equipment and launching to her feet. Besides, even if it did get hot, someone would need to be there with Ozan to stabilize the field for as long as possible to get the injured parties to safety.

With one last glance to check in with the Commander, the half-Vulcan spun on her heels and jogged for the door, whipping her long hair behind her.

Life support was barely functioning, power was done in large swaths of the station, Kais were being forcibly scanned, prisoners were off in their quarters getting paid for sex: it was anarchy.

But the station, at least, was no longer under direct attack. After helping to make sure none of the injured were in any kind of immediate medical danger, and with a box containing the Orb tucked under one arm, T'Pren returned silently to Command.

Her face was flushed, but otherwise she looked none the worse for wear. Her expression was Vulcan in its neutrality. Which was probably something to do with the fact that inside, behind a hastily erected emotional wall, her whole emotional core was raw and exposed.

Rather than take her seat at the science console, she stopped just inside the room to present herself and the box to Rai. "Commander," is all she said, and it sounded particularly logical.

Rai was sitting in command, barking orders at engineering when Lt. Inabnet returned to command, Orb in tow.
"You brought it here? Are you sure that's entirely safe?"

How best to explain the situation with as little detail as possible?

"It...likes me, sir," T'Pren admitted awkwardly. "Until we get to the human acolyte, I think it's safest with me."

"They -- the other-dimensional beings -- wanted our attention. And now that they have it, the Orb should no longer be a threat." At least not to anyone who wasn't already a threat.

"Lieutenant, I respect your intuition but, how do you know it likes you? Did you and the Orb talk it out like chums?"

If the situation were less dire, T'Pren's expression -- a deeply uncomfortable half-grimace, half-embarrassed smile -- would be comical. But at least she was still capable of making expressions. That's always a good sign after hugging your dead father.

"Yes. Yes, sir, we had a very productive talk."

She was keenly aware that she could very well be held for psych eval on her first day.

"I expect a full briefing, later. Is it stable enough to leave here? The doctor wants me in the infirmary."

A full briefing? If only he wanted an abridged one. 

T'Pren hesitated, looking down at the box in her arms. On the one hand, leaving it here would mean not being around to talk to it if it freaked out. On the other hand, there were probably impostors in the infirmary.

"Yes, sir. It should be fine." The lieutenant lifted her slanted brows. "Would you like me to accompany you, sir?"

"Yes, I have a feeling we'll need you."
(Continued in infirmary, let's go see Dr. Ozan!)

Although T'Pren didn't run from Val's room to Ops, she didn't dawdle either. She arrived not too long after being summoned, looking more and more Vulcan the more exhausted and raw she was on the inside.

She went straight to check out the Orb, and, if allowed, to take it back with her to her station.

The Orb whirred softly, nearly silent now, as if the worst had past. She arrived as Commander Rai explained to the Bajoran government that they had Cardassian infiltrators at one of the highest powers Bajor had. They were not pleased. They were threatening to send ships to meet the Cardassians.
The Cardassian representatives on the station had disavowed all knowledge, which only left for Rai to question the Kai and the two Ranjen, now in custody. People had returned to their quarters, power was returning. The station was slowly returning to order.
That left T'Pren enough time to investigate the Orb, which still glowed invitingly from within it's case.

Because T'Pren was first and foremost the science officer and deeply curious anyway, she made sure to take lots of readings of the Orb and make notes, comparing her earlier findings to the much calmer ones she was getting now.

She kept one well-tuned ear to whatever she could glean from Rai's conversation, but eventually there were no more scans to run, nothing left to do but...touch it. She kept her tricorder in one hand because if she got back through the rift, it would be fascinating to come back with readings. But mostly, even while the logical part of her brain was telling her there's no way they were just going to let her back in, mostly her heart is desperately yearning to see Adlai again. So she finally touches the Orb.

As she hoped, there was a spirit, at least in the shape of her father, if not him.
"It is not over. This is only the beginning, now."