Feb 12, 2023
Which La Sirena Emergency Hologram deserves a mobile emitter and the chance to go on little adventures with the La Sirena crew?
Emil (EMH)
Emmet (ETH)
Ian (EEH)
Enoch (ENH)
Steward/ Mister Hospitality (EHH)
Voting ended onFeb 19, 2023
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Which La Sirena Emergency Hologram deserves a mobile emitter and the chance to go on little adventures with the La Sirena crew?
Emil (EMH)
Emmet (ETH)
Ian (EEH)
Enoch (ENH)
Steward/ Mister Hospitality (EHH)
I didn’t have the time (yet) to write anything new for Holoween, but since it’s okay to repost old stuff and I didn’t want to NOT post anything today, here’s a ficlet from my Whumptober 2020 series that may suit the bill. At least I think it’s got some spookiness along with some humor, and our holos once more save the day.
What’s A Whumpee Got To Do To Get Some Sleep Around Here?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Hollow-eyed, Rios crossed the bridge to drop into the pilot seat. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Hospitality Hologram shimmering away, but he was too tired to voice his chronic annoyance with that particular crew member, and he secretly had to admit that he was grateful for the cup of tar-black coffee he found steaming within reach. He took a sip of the scalding hot liquid, desperate for a caffeine kick.
“Got any sleep?”
Rios hadn’t even seen Raffi, slumped as she sat in the navigator’s seat. She swiveled around to him with hanging shoulders, her curls wilder than ever, the rings under her eyes so dark they looked like bruises.
“No,” Cris sighed. “You?”
It was a rhetorical question, really, and Raffi huffed, pointing at her face. “Do I look like I slept?”
Fact was, none of them had slept in three days - except for Picard, who was out like a light in his quarters after the EMH had insisted on dosing him with a narcotic, worried about the old man’s heart. Sleep deprivation, he’d lectured them, could kill, and Rios was starting to believe him. Only that he was close to killing someone. Anyone, honestly. After nearly seventy-two hours of being trapped, with an offline engine, in a cosmic phenomenon that was somehow affecting their brainwaves, Rios was suffering from a very short fuse.
The most enraging part: While Raffi, Picard and him - the only human crew members on board at the moment - were turning into zombies, the holograms remained completely unaffected. Bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed, they zipped through La Sirena’s decks, running system checks and analyzing scans and fiddling with the ship’s engine, driving Rios crazy with their limitless energy and chipper mood.
Too bad that a hologram didn’t die when you choked it with your bare hands.
Rios threw a murderous glance at Emmet, the hologram currently slumbering in his seat in front of the tactical controls. He was the worst to bear, falling asleep in an instant as soon as his code told him he was sitting and no hostile activity required him to be awake. Feet propped up on the console, head tipped back and mouth open, he was currently snoring obliviously. And as a hologram, he didn’t even need to sleep.
Rios’ fingers involuntarily curled into claws.
“What is the nature of your psychiatric emergency?”
The EMH had materialized beside him and, hands in his pockets, was studying him with professional concern.
“You heart rate is elevated, your blood pressure is climbing, and your cortisol output-”
“Deactivate!”
“But Captain, I am…”
“Deactivate!”
The hologram disappeared with an affronted poof.
“Nice,” Raffi commented sardonically, chin propped up on a weary arm. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”
Cris meant to roll his eyes, but it would worsen his headache, so he left it. Scrubbing his hand across his face, he tried to knit a clear string of thoughts together in his increasingly unreliable brain.
“We need to get away from here, Raff,” he said darkly.
She blinked tiredly. “I know.”
And it was true. What had felt like a weird anomaly three days ago - their impulse and warp drive dying suddenly, then the insomnia - had escalated into a dangerous crisis. In spite of incessant work, they hadn’t been able to bring the engines back online, and they didn’t need the EMH’s lectures to point out the consequences of sleep deprivation. They felt them.
Physical exhaustion was the least of it. Cris could get past the headache, the soreness, the nausea and the dizziness. But the tricks the insomnia played on his mind were an altogether different thing. He could no longer concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes, and his short term memory had gone to fritz. It was bad enough that the tiredness was affecting his eyesight, causing the EMH to suggest reading glasses and almost getting his programming wiped by an infuriated Cris. But now he was starting to see things.
Hallucinations. They were a well-known but nevertheless deeply disturbing side-effect, and Cris, all too familiar with the phenomenon from his breakdown after the Ibn Majid disaster, was once more stalked by demons he thought he’d laid to rest. Captain Vandemeer had visited him in his quarters when he’d been staring into the darkness last night, sleepless, but too exhausted to remain on his feet. The top of his head gone, blood and brain matter dripping from the ceiling, Vandemeer had looked at Cris with opaque eyes, and it had taken half a bottle of Pisco to make him disappear.
Rios punched a button on his holographic controls.
“Ean!” He barked. “Status report!”
“We’re still offline, Cap’n,” came the instant reply. “But Enoch thinks he may be on to something. There’s a pattern of sub-photon waves that seems to be targeting the temperature sensors with galandrion radiation, effectively-”
“Only the bottom line, Ean,” Cris cut him off. His brain had shot down after “sub-photon waves”, unable to process anything more complicated than a spaghetti recipe.
“Bottom line?” Ean repeated. “We’re working on it, Cap’n.”
“What Ean means,” Enoch picked up, flickering into existence on the bridge with an avid expression, “is that we think we’re close to solving the problem. Now, if the scan check that I reprogrammed to include sub-photonic and pseudo nano-neurologic patterns reveals that not only the temperature sensors but also the newtonian reverse weight-speed effect of-”
“Callate!”Cris shot up from his seat. “Shut the fuck- Jesus!”
He’d closed up to the ENH in two strides, right fist pulled back to punch, and he’d managed to rein himself in only at the very last moment. He shook out his arms, trembling, trying to get rid of the tension and the shock he felt at his near loss of control.
Eyebrows raised in innocent wonder, Enoch cocked his head.
“Captain?” he asked kindly. “Would you like me to re-activate Emil? I am sure he could provide you with a sedative, if you’d like.”
Rios shot around again, blood boiling. All of a sudden, the bridge’s ambient lights felt too bright, and the cluster of stars visible through the panoramic window seemed to move forward, speeding up, threatening to attack and swallow La Sirena.
“Emmet!” Cris yelled. “Deflector shields!”
The ETH jerked awake and blinked at his screens in confusion. “Que? No veo nada.”
Raffi had gripped the arms of her seat and was looking at Rios in alarm.
“Babe,” she said anxiously and got up. “There’s nothing out there. You have to… Here.” She grabbed his arm and tried to lead him back to his chair. “Here, sit down.”
“What?!”
Rios glared at her. Raffi’s face looked strange all of a sudden. It… reshaped. Her hair shrank back into her skull, getting shorter, smoother… white. Her skin brightened, nose widening, her eyes morphing from brown to blue. Stubble appeared, and her clothes… his clothes… a Starfleet uniform with a captain’s badge.
“Sit down, son.”
Vandemeer. Intact, smiling paternally, he gently led Rios to his seat and sat him down.
Then, still smiling, he lifted a phaser, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Rios screamed, and he was still screaming when the EMH put a hypospray to his neck and cut his strings.
XXX
“Coffee, babe?”
Rios blinked a veil of deep sleep from his eyes. When his vision sharpened, he saw Raffi’s hand in front of him, balancing a cup that smelled of heaven.
He sat up and stretched before he took the coffee, looking around his cabin. He felt rested, and, to his surprise, he heard the familiar hum of La Sirena’s impulse drive propelling the ship through space at cruising speed.
“We’re back online?”
“Yes. Three days ago.”
“Three days ago?!” Rios almost spilled his coffee. “How long was I out?”
Raffi smiled, but there was an uncomfortable edge to it. “Three and a half days.”
“Dios.”
He racked his brain, memory creeping back in. Memory - and shame. Scratching his beard, he looked at Raffi with unease.
“It was pretty bad, huh?”
“Pretty.” She nodded. Then she placed her hand on his arm and rubbed it gently. “But you weren’t the only one. I cracked a few hours after Emil put you out. He says I was trying to open the cargo hatch to take a walk.”
Cris lifted astonished brows. “Good idea.”
Raffi’s worried face softened into a chuckle. “Not one of my best. I’m glad your holos were there to stop me. They’re not entirely useless, you know?”
“Right.” Cris smirked. God, he hadn’t felt this rested in ages. “Not entirely. But please don’t go and tell them I agreed with you on that. Enoch will never stop rubbing it under my nose.”
As if on cue, the EMH materialised at the foot of Rios’ bed.
“Captain Rios,” he said. “I am pleased to see you awake! And your brain waves have returned to a normal pattern. Now, if I could ask you to meet me in sickbay for a thorough scan of your neural-”
“Deactivate!”
Raffi smiled as the hologram begrudgingly dissolved.
“You ready to come back to the bridge, Captain?” she asked Rios, the twinkle back in her eyes. “Or do you need more sleep?”
Cris swung his legs from the bed.
“Sleep is overrated,” he said sardonically and headed off to take a shower.
What each of the holograms said after they were activated for the first time.
Quotes from the novel "Rogue Elements" by John Jackson Miller
1: EMIL
Emil: How may I assist, Captain?
Rios: Help him!
Emil: Certainly. Curious flooring choice.
Rios: Just shut up and look at him!
2: EHH
EHH: Greetings! Are any of you having a hospitality emergency? Tell me all about it, and I'll be sure to make everything beyond perfection."
Rios: Uh... Mister Hospitality, can you help these people?
EHH: It would be my absolute pleasure. Make your requests one at a time or all at once. Your wishes are my command. A problem is nothing but a divine solution waiting to happen.
Rios: Here. *shoves a weird lizard-dog into his arms*
EHH: A glink! How even more delightful! I adore when passengers bring pets.
Rios: Think again in about ten seconds.
3: IAIN
Iain: Hello! Please state the nature of your engineering emergency!
Rios: Let me guess. You're Scottish because of Montgomery Scott.
Iain: I am as my good creator made me, sir. And ye'd best not judge someone by the way he talks.
Rios: I need information and I don't have time to search for it.
Iain: Ooh, an emergency. Are we going to red alert?
Rios: There are no alerts. This is a freighter. I would want an engineer to know that.
Iain: Gotcha! Just a wee bit of humor. It makes for a good introduction, I find.
Rios: You've literally never met anyone before.
4 & 5: ENOCH & EMMET
Enoch: And would there be a navigational emergency you're having?
Emmet: ¿Qué deseas?
Rios: Are you alright?
Emmet: Ay, que caña que tengo. Hay demasiado gente en este hotel.
Enoch: This fella thinks there's too many people in this hotel.
Rios: I heard. Well, now I know which one of you I created last that night.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/3 Fandom: Star Trek: Picard Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Cristóbal Rios & La Sirena's Emergency Holograms Characters: Cristóbal Rios, La Sirena’s Emergency Holograms Additional Tags: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Cristóbal Rios, Some angst, Some Humor, and a not insignificant amount of gagh, Pre-Series Summary:
When Cris finds himself kidnapped and injured, he has to hope for help from an unusual source to get him out of his predicament.
Cris groaned as memories started coalescing in his mind, still jumbled and in bits and pieces. A Klingon scout ship decloaking off his starboard bow. Frantic shooting and shouting. Blinding pain in his right temple…
He… he’d been on an away mission and… and some Klingon lowlifes had… boarded his shuttle and must have taken him prisoner. The smell around him, which was increasingly hard to ignore, definitely fit that picture.
Cris Rios’ personality bits
(Or: how the whole Aramis in Space subfandom had totally guessed that the holos were aspects of his identity as early as ep 4, how we had totally guessed that they all had different accents as well as their own names, how we had totally guessed that their looks had something to do with Cris’ self-loathing, and how we as a fandom respect and admire the writers for creating such well fleshed out characters.)
ET(S)H (Emergency Tactical (& Security) Hologram/Emmet): carefree asshole who likes booze and bad words, and would get tattoos on every single inch of his skin but then they wouldn’t look as cool, sleeps through meetings, the jerk Cris wishes he could be but isn’t
EEH (Emergency Engineering Hologram/Ian): practical, no nonsense, a very hand-on approach to problems, Starfleet™ to the core, the proud spiritual descendant of Montgomery Scotty, a nerd
EHH (Emergency Hospitality Hologram/Mister Hospitality, Steward for the fans): not that great with people (probably deleted that somewhere along the way), Starfleet Commander stick so far up his arse, a neat freak, a nerd, doesn’t like people sleeping during meetings or putting their feet on the furniture (Cris puts his feet on the furniture, because his self loathing is that strong), the well groomed prick Cris has in himself to be but absolutely despises
EMH (Emergency Medical Hologram/Emil?): a sweety, no-nonsense, too nice to be a Starfleet doctor, competent, people should listen to him, a nerd
ENH (Emergency Navigational Hologram/Enoch): full of innocence and sunshine, a nerd, everyone’s favorite, light of everybody’s day, gets flustered when people are nice, says “moodiness overload” in all seriousness, an angel, absolute puppy
All of them: shipload’s worth of daddy issues, nerds
moodboard for @beelzebooty !!!
Look what I can do!
"So you're all Rios, overlaid on the five basic installs?"
A handy guide to La Sirena’s five Emergency Holograms.