-RED ALERT- Orb problems!

For a moment, T'Pren wasn't sure which was worse: nothing happening or everything. But then there he was, and this time she was so tired that not even tears could happen. Her chin dimpled slightly, and while she already looked younger than her years, that little shift in expression made her seem a child.

Now that she was here, she suddenly found she didn't know what to say. She stood silent for a long time until her fingers shifted on her tricorder. Oh, right. That.

"Can you see everything?" she wondered quietly. "Everything that has ever happened and everything that could ever happen? Do you see it all?"

"You ask linear questions. We are all things at once."
He showed her a battle in space. Cardassians opened fire on the station. Bajoran assault class vessels gathered like swarms.
"You must be prepared."

"I am a linear being," T'Pren replied sincerely, and she managed a tiny hint of a smile that vanished as soon as the battle was revealed.

"I suppose it's pointless to ask when it will happen," she murmured, mostly to herself. She glanced down at the tricorder in her hand and pressed a button with her thumb to see if it would even work here, and, if it did, to take a few scans. It also gave her the opportunity to clear her mind. Because while the battle was clearly very important, her head was full of more personal questions.

The half-human looked back up, taking in her father's face even when it felt like knives in her Vulcan heart. And despite her overwhelming urge to find out what the Cardassians were doing to her or whether or not her fathers somehow made it off their ship before it exploded and whether or not they felt any pain if they didn't...despite those things, she chose first and foremost to be the science officer of DS15. Mostly because of duty and a belief in Starfleet...but also because the answers to the questions might be too terrifying to bear. So she asked, "What can be done? Why is the Obsidian Order bothering with the Bajorans now when their own world is in ruins? Why this station?"

He shook his head.
"Look closer," said Adlai. With that, she was brought out of her vision and back into Ops.

"Wait!" protested T'Pren. Out loud. In Ops. First her mouth hung open in shock and mortification. Then it snapped tightly shut. Her skin blanched and then flushed, which, because she inherited her blood type from the Vulcan side of her DNA, turned her cheeks a bright green color.

She shot an inwardly horrified but carefully neutral look at the Commander and then immediately busied herself with her tricorder to see if she got any worthwhile readings. And also to avoid everyone else in Command.

And underneath that embarrassment was the built up pressure of all those questions she didn't ask for fear or duty, closing in around her windpipe and lungs.

And now that she'd been through the rift twice, her hands were shaking just a little bit harder.

"Their were no casualties, but there were some injured," Rai said. He was onscreen with an Admiral from Starfleet when Lt. Inabnet had her outburst.
Both the Admiral and the Commander turned to look at Inabnet.
"Everything alright over there, Lieutenant?"

T'Pren took her sweet time carefully placing her fried tricorder down on the science station so that when she finally met the Commander's gaze she could at least pretend to have some kind of dignity and professionalism.

"I apologize, sir," she began, "I was...communicating with the other-dimensional beings. It appears the Cardassian/Bajoran relations are going to get considerably worse from here. And it seems Deep Space 15 is going to be in the middle of it."

"Thank you for telling me. That's certainly a perceivable outcome of the events of the last few days."
He saw the tears still gathered at the corners of her eyes and the pools of grief in her mind. And still she worked.
"You've had a long first day, Lieutenant. Why don't you go get some rest. Leave the Orb in a containment field, it'll still be here when you've had some sleep. You're dismissed."

T'Pren opened her mouth to protest but realized just in time that arguing about dismissal or second-guessing her commander on her first day in front of a Starfleet admiral was probably not her best career choice. She pressed her lips together and gave a short nod. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Even as she turned her attention to the science console to set up the containment field around the Orb, she started fighting back the waves of dread at the prospect of going back to a Cardassian room to be alone in silence with the image of her father fresh in her head. But finishing up in Ops didn't take long at all and finally there was no choice but to walk a slow, funereal path back to her room, her head held up strictly by sheer force of will.