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" Decoy "
(Previous Post was Craig's "Smoke")
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Setting: NEW ALEXANDRIA, Section H, Level 8, Training Holodeck Control Room
Stardate: 63071.1030
 
Lt. Drenall sat at the control consol, her eyes locked on the monitors which displayed the progress of the ANUBIS' senior staff through the holodeck. Normally Captain Rikar and the rest of her command crew would have encountered some sort of resistance or challenge to be overcome, but since Admiral Koneki had ordered for the program to be "scrapped", the Vidian woman had been forced to improvised.
 
Through the use of holographic manipulation the landscape had been made to shift and change without the crew's knowledge… leaving them to run in circles until the Admiral would decide otherwise.
 
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Setting: NEW ALEXANDRIA, Section H, Level 8, Training Holodeck 1
Stardate: 63071.1145
 
The young woman had manage to overcome the ANUBIS' COO in their little race and taken the lead, but still something troubled her. Something about their surrounding had not *felt* right and the more the ANUBIS' CO pressed on the more she became certain that this sensation had not been some sort of personal delusion.
 
Without any warning the redheaded woman came to an abrupt stop at the edge of a small clearing. Before Elliot could realise what had happened, the Ensign had rushed past the young woman to stop several meters into the clearing.
 
"Did I miss something?" Ensign Thomas inquired, half worried that he had triggered some sort of a trap that the Captain had noticed.

"No you didn't," Rikar replied as she slowly joined the COO inside the clearing. "I think we *all* have missed something… these hills have been in front of us for over two hours," the CO offered as she pointed to a group of hills in the distant. "They were in front of us when we entered this clearing now and they were in front of us when we entered this same clearing from over there," the Captain added as she pointed to a set of trees to her far right.
 
"That's impossible," Elliot stated with disbelief. "The only way those hill could have been *in front* of us if we came from that direction would have been for this clearing…"
 
"To have been rotated 90 degrees and placed in our path again," the young woman explained, a distinct hint of displeasure having appeared in her words. "Either I am losing my mind or someone is playing games with us," Sabrina huffed as she carefully scrutinized their surroundings.
 
"You have been aware of this for a while haven't you?" The Chief of Operations inquired, assuming that this had been the reason for his CO's overall quietness.
 
"Aware is too strong of a word to describe it," the redhead corrected. "I suspected that something was not as it should have been. That we have yet to come across any real obstacle to challenge us made no sense… Admiral Koneki is not the type to send his officers into a training exercise without putting them against *something*."
 
"So what do we do now?" Elliot queried as he rubbed the back of his neck. If his CO had been correct in her assessment there had been little reason to continue on.
 
The young woman debated for a few moments the question presented to her… logic dictated that they remained here and waited, but Rikar had not been ready to just stop and do nothing. "As useless as it may be… we need to continue on, while keeping a sharp eye open for specific details in our surroundings. If this is actually what we have been sent here to figure out, we are inside a maze of some sort… all we need to do now is find the cheese."
 
"Great," the Ensign sighed to himself, "just what I have always wanted to be… a mouse stuck in a giant holographic maze."

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Sabrina Jones {sabrina_sweet@hotmail.com}
Captain Sabrina Rikar
Commanding Officer
USS ANUBIS, NCC-18501

"We are Grey, we stand between the Candle and the Star, between the Darkness and the Light"
-Entilza Delenn, Babylon 5