Legal Disclaimer: Any characters or events that seem to mimic real life are purely coincidental . . . and, hey, if there is anyone meeting nasty gray aliens with claws, I want to talk to them! hee, hee>
Alternative Universe: Well, folks, because I'm insane enough to combine seaQuest, Voyager, and DS9 all together into one plot, there are some obvious changes! You'll notice the "obvious changes" quickly, I think.
Rating: R. This part of the series is R because of a rather violent and emotionally charged scene towards the end.
Archiving: Just ask first. I'll probably say yes. :)
Cautionary Advice: (Clearing throat) Be prepared for a hefty dose of "suspension of disbelief." There is a degree of the intentionally ludicrous here. :) But remember . . . I warned you!
Length Advisory: Be prepared for a long haul! Currently, I haven't even set a cap on the number of parts involved . . .
Summary: seaQuest, plus Deep Space Nine, plus Voyager equals . . . lots of fun! Here's the short synopsis: Captain Bridger commands a starship, the Voyager both reaches earth and doesn't, and the Defiant gets sucked into yet another wormhole! Hmmm . . . crazy, isn't it? Well, of course it is . . . this is Sheri writing! :)
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (snicker, snicker) . . .
[You are reading happily along when a text mysteriously, magically even, appears right smack before you. You stare at the text for a moment, then frown as you see the words "Infinity," "Part Twelve," and "Labor Camp" scrawled across it.]
READER 1/YOU: (Looking at text, then placing hands on hips and frowning) Hey . . . where's the pre-writing stuff? You know . . . the crazy stuff that happens before the story starts.
READER 2: (Appearing out of nowhere, as most things in "Infinity" are bound to do . . .) I like the pre-writing stuff. It must be a conspiracy. Yeah . . . that's it: a conspiracy. SHERI'S trying to drive us mad by changing her format . . . again.
READER 1: What's this all about, SHERI? (Stomps foot) I like the pre-writing stuff . . .
[Out of the thin air, SHERI suddenly appears . . . drifting aboard a cloud, naturally (of course, while there's nothing "natural" about this, it makes perfect sense in SHERI'S world) . . . SHERI disembarks her cloud-like vehicle, looking around in wonder]
SHERI: Hey, where are we?
READER 1: (You find you have miraculously been transported from your comfortable reading location to . . . well, someplace ELSE, a place as yet undetermined by this whacky author!) How should we know? This is your story, after all. (Shuddering) It's your imagination we're stuck in, you know . . .
READER 2: (Horrified, starts looking for an exit. As READER 2 moves, the scene moves with her) Oh, just great! Now, we're stuck in part of your story! (Stark terror) That means . . . we'll be forever stuck in this absurd, bizarre, crazy, demented, inane, insane, luny, mad, perverse, ridiculous, strange, twisted, weird . . .
SHERI: (Impatiently waits for the alphabetically arranged and highly organized list of faults to end, but runs out of patience at "W"--then abruptly claps hands together) Oh, yes, that's very good, I'm sure . . . but, hey, the show must go on, mustn't it?
READER 1 and 2: (Looking at one another and frowning; obviously, they don't agree on this little point)
SHERI: (Waving hands. People start popping out of the air everywhere) Come, it's almost curtain time . . .
[READER1 and 2 are forcibly ejected from the stage. A curtain suddenly appears, dropping from the once-empty air. Lights and stage equipment accompany it]
SHERI: (Smiling) Well, that looks about right . . . (Starts screaming as she, too, is ejected from stage)
[The curtain rolls into the sky, and, slowly, the darkness falls back to reveal the frozen alien wasteland . . .]
And with that, let us return to poor Lucas and the nasty aliens . . .
Infinity: A Crossover
Part Twelve
Labor Camp
The landscape was dark, cold, hostile. Sharp, piercing rocks scraped out of the frozen planet's surface. Mist coated the area, sparkling frigidly in the strange alien light.
Howls drifted into the air. Something gray slunk towards him, its movements choppy, almost halting: monstrous. His heart beat faster, faster, faster. Mist swirled around him, gradually thickening, clinging to the skin, vaporous leeches--drawing on the skin and refusing to let go.
More howls, more wails chopped through the heavy night air. The mist writhed around him, coy, dangerous, lethal.
Suddenly, claws whisked through the air.
A claw struck out at him. Then another. Then another. Pain erupted through his arm, through his mind, and through his entire body. Agony ripped him apart until only darkness encompassed his mind.
Then more shrieking. Images whirring by. Noises he couldn't identify, didn't want to identify . . .
Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it . . .
A shrill voice filled the cavern, bouncing off the walls and reverberating back towards his shocked ears. Lucas's eyes snapped open, staring blindly around him; he flailed his fists against the unseen attackers, the unseen claws.
Human words, a human voice, whispered at him, "It's okay. Just a dream. No one but us here."
Lucas thought he recognized the voice: the Irishman, Chief of Engineering somewhere . . . oh, yeah. Deep Space Nine. That would be Miles O'Brien . . . his . . . cellmate.
Slowly, his breathing calmed, and he looked at Miles. He swallowed hard. "Sorry, Miles. Didn't . . . didn't . . ." The words stopped as a shudder tore through him. He closed his eyes. God. He wished he could just get the images out of his mind: the gray claws, ripping through rock as if it had never been there. Aliens staring at him with cold, emotionless, pitiless eyes. Words uttered at him in confusing, nonsensical language.
"It's a'right, Lucas," O'Brien said softly, sighing as he forced Lucas to meet his eyes. "I was the same way when they brought me in, too. Screamed th' entire night, I think. I hope to God and earth that I kept th' alien bastards awake the whole time, but I doubt it."
So, it had been a dream . . . kind of. But, unfortunately, the dream was based on an unbearably true reality. The reality seemed to be consist of the following lovely elements: there were aliens; he was still stuck on the damned planet of ice; he was now down . . . wherever he was, sharing a prison cave with O'Brien; and, finally, he had been "enlisted" into some form of Alien Chain Gang.
Just flaming great. Lucas wondered what would happen next. With his luck, a giant asteroid would crush the planet, with him and O'Brien still, unfortunately, on it.
Well, he supposed complaining did him no good; somehow, he thought the aliens weren't likely to listen to him. Suddenly, he shivered as he remembered the aliens he'd briefly encountered on his way over from . . . who knew what it was . . . the alien version of Sick Bay, perhaps? Though the black-robed creature he'd first encountered had seemed somewhat kind, these two had been anything but kind. Their eyes . . .
Abruptly, Lucas stopped himself from pursuing that thought. Instead, he looked around, trying to get his bearings. He inhaled sharply. Yeah, that's what he needed to do right now: get his bearings. Maybe that way he could say or do something at least partially intelligent. It at least gave him the chance to look for an escape route.
As Lucas started walking carefully around the cavern, Miles simply watched him. Lucas was peering up what looked like ten or more body lengths to the hole in the ceiling that led to the rock slide when Miles joined him. "Yeah, I've been lookin' every day, too. Can't find a way out yet. You see anything that might help?"
Lucas heard the obvious hope in the man's voice, though he also suspected Miles already knew the answer. He crossed his arms, examined the slide from every angle he could think of . . . only to arrive at the same conclusion as Miles: unless they grew a hundred feet taller, they weren't going to be escaping through that damned hole.
"No. Sorry." He kicked at the ground, watching as plumes of dust filtered into the weak light above. His eyes then narrowed as his head snapped up towards O'Brien's waiting face. His blue eyes practically glowed with excitement in the darkness. "But wait a sec! Chief . . . how . . . if there's no other entrance, and if we can't just sprout wings and fly up to that hole . . . how do they get us for . . . their little Chain Gang?"
O'Brien sighed, looking away. Lucas decided that the Irishman looked decidedly ill, as if he'd just ate something repulsive. His own stomach muscles tightened as he considered the possibilities. If O'Brien was . . . sickened . . . by however the aliens got them, just what . . .
He shuddered. He knew imagination could often be worse than the real thing, but right now his imagination was driving him right towards terror.
"Lucas, how they get us . . . it's not goin' to help us escape." O'Brien looked away, then suddenly snorted. "Well, not unless you know how to melt the blarmy rock."
Lucas stared at this. Melt the blarmy rock? How the hell did you melt rock?
But then strange images began rushing back at him. He'd been standing with Lieutenant Krieg, typing frantically on the di-corder and he tried to get the formula in exactly right so their atoms didn't get distributed across several quantum realities. Just as he'd entered the last of the formula, the howls around them had intensified. He'd sent the information, his eyes darting everywhere . . . wondering where (and from what) the howls were coming.
The transport beams had settled around him . . . and then the cave walls had melted. He'd never forget that. They'd just . . . melted: drip, drip, drip. Stone had become liquid in less than the blink of an eye.
He choked. "We're supposed . . . they're gonna' make us . . ."
Lucas was still choking, his face turning several shades green, when he heard a noise.
O'Brien bolted up, his back straight and unyielding. He swallowed hard.
Silence passed between them before the noise sounded once more: a soft whirring, followed by . . . almost a hum, but it wasn't anything like a human hum. It was, somehow, different. Lucas couldn't quite decide if the sound was organic or mechanical, for its pattern was consistent, without stop. Several minutes passed by, and still the sound kept coming, never skipping or changing by even the slightest note.
Lucas stared at O'Brien, eyes almost painfully wide; O'Brien finally caught his look. After clearing his throat, the Chief explained, voice shaking slightly, "It's them. It must be time to go to work."
Momentarily stricken silent, Lucas eyed the . . . rock from where the noise seemed to be coming. The sound had suddenly increased in pitch, now resembling more of a shriek--a hissing shriek. Lucas shivered.
He was rapidly trying to swallow, and finding even that simple motion nearly impossible, when the wall started running down the ground in little rivulets of molten stone. O'Brien yanked him back as several tendrils of the steaming stone started smoldering around his feet.
Then . . . several feet of the wall just collapsed in on itself. The remaining wall stood solid, seemingly unaffected, as a gaping hole shone from the darkness in their cave. Light shimmered from within the hole, its golden color gently undulating against the walls of their prison.
Lucas was standing, for the first time in many yearly utterly bereft of words, utterly bereft of any idea on how this could be possible, on earth or any planet within his known reality, when his breath stuck in his throat.
Slipping through the hole and looking at them with coldly glittering gem-like eyes were two aliens clad in green. As they stooped through the make-shift entrance, Lucas noticed for the first time how truly tall these creatures were. From what he could tell, the hole had to be at least six feet tall . . . and yet these creatures had to bend to pass through. Their intimidating height became increasingly clear the closer they got. The towered over both humans, probably by three or four feet.
O'Brien quickly looked at Lucas, then--seeing his frightened, almost paralyzed expression--pulled him towards the hole before the aliens could. He simply hauled the boy after him, not bothering to explain his actions--simply hoping Lucas would have his wits together enough not to speak right now.
If he knew anything, O'Brien knew that speaking in front of the aliens was a punishable offense. Another punishable offense was not moving until after their captors motioned them to move. O'Brien himself had a long scar on his forearm to prove that.
Thankfully, judging by Lucas's suddenly very active glance, O'Brien judged that the boy understood their predicament quite well. He only wished he'd been able to explain a bit more of what was to follow before their abductors came for them.
O'Brien figured that such an explanation would have saved Lucas a great deal of confusion and, perhaps, pain, but the chance simply hadn't been given them. However, Miles was determined to help Lucas, as much as humanly possible, through this first day in Hell.
*****
The warm, undulating light that had looked so comforting from their prison was no such thing, Lucas grimly decided.
The cavern they entered from their own prison chamber was monstrous. It was the same height as their own prison cell, or so it seemed, but in over all expanse it measured nine, maybe ten times more. Lucas wondered if the whole Infinity could be shoved inside the cavern, bow to bow. Providing the aliens could somehow rip open the ceiling cave--which was entirely within the realm of possibility in this Alice in Wonderland nightmare--Lucas imagined the Infinity could probably fit.
This wasn't an entirely pleasant idea, come to think of it. Lucas shuddered. Here was the last place the entire Infinity needed to be. He didn't know how many people were onboard that ship, for he'd only seen it as it drifted in space before his frightened eyes, but . . . he figured an entire crew of expendable prisoners wasn't a good idea.
O'Brien continued to haul him along, never pausing a second. The engineer hurriedly walked straight past several . . . stone things. As O'Brien dragged him on towards the opposite side of the cave, Lucas stared at these stone things, eyes widening. Stone slabs wove throughout the cavern. On these stones . . . Lucas swallowed hard, his stomach nearly rushing into his mouth.
Oh, God.
His eyes were glued to the . . . stone slabs . . . when O'Brien glared at him and jerked the teenager's face around until he was looking straight ahead. He continued to drag him forward, giving him no chance to speak as their alien escorts growled something, claws tapping against each other and making a strange, frightening clack.
Lucas's mind whirled. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead, feeling O'Brien's nails cutting into the back of his neck. What he had seen . . .
Chills struck. He was trembling as they abruptly halted at the other side of the cavern. Anxiously, Lucas looked around himself; relief pounded into him as he saw that there were no slabs here. He focused on these more mundane details, trying to push the horror of what he'd just seen away.
The stone tables were all cluttered with what looked like beakers and vials. Or, at least, that's what Lucas supposed them to be. Liquids filled most of the small containers, and little lines were marked on the containers' sides, so, yeah, he supposed they resembled the scientific equipment he'd worked with before. The large difference between them seemed to be in material. If he weren't mistaken, the beakers and odd components were made of the same glass-like substance he'd seen earlier in the medical area when he'd awoken. The only real difference was that the substance here wasn't glowing.
A few paces away, he saw what looked like several tanks of chemicals, all very . . . odd . . . looking. In one tank was filled with a hazy green chemical; strange light glowed within the chemical, moving slowly, as if it had a life of its own. Another tank contained something black, almost like oil. A black cloud of steam hung over it. Beside it was yet one more tank, and Lucas could barely glimpse the chemical filling it; it seemed a glowing purple, but it was hard to tell from where he stood. He noticed with puzzled curiosity that the tanks lined the wall of the cave; though he couldn't be certain, Lucas was pretty sure each of the tanks contained some sort of chemical.
God above, Lucas felt like he was in some demented writer's version of Frankenstein meets X-Files. This was just getting too weird. Though he'd enjoyed watching halo-images of the two old earth shows, he'd certainly never wanted to be in them.
O'Brien suddenly stuffed a vial of some strange liquid in his hand, and they started moving. Lucas followed the Chief as he walked from one table to the next. Miles stopped in front of what looked like a clean beaker, inhaled deeply, and poured the contents of his own vial into the beaker. He then looked at Lucas, plainly waiting for him to do the same thing. After giving Miles a worried frown and getting only a short nod of the head in return, Lucas warily poured his vial's contents in with the Chief's and watched as Miles stirred the two liquids together. A soft blue mist rose, but . . . nothing more. Lucas waited a few seconds more, muscles tense. He was half expecting something to explode.
Apparently, so, too, was Miles, for he breathed a sigh of relief when, after a minute's time, nothing exploded. Lucas stared at him, eyebrows quirked in genuine wonder. But Miles simply continued with his work. The Chief next placed the majority of their concoction in a test tube rack at the back of the table, keeping only a small amount of it in one beaker.
He then moved towards the other side of the cavern: towards the stone slabs.
Lucas swallowed hard. He didn't want to go over here. However, the tight hold O'Brien had on his wrist didn't give him much choice.
They walked into the middle of what looked like thousands of slabs. He didn't want to know the exact number of slabs there, for to know would have been--awful. As he followed O'Brien, trying to look anywhere but at the slabs, he felt he was drowning in a sea of the dead, in a sea of faces and bodies surrounding him.
They neared one slab; Lucas forced himself not to vomit as he looked down. Pale yellow skin . . . scales . . . deep incisions. He stared at the torn skin, then shut his eyes. His stomach churned. Spasmodically, he swallowed, conscious that he was nearly gagging. He simply concentrated on breathing: one, two, three . . . one, two, three . . . one, two . . .
SSSS . . . whap!
Something exploded behind him. Lucas's eyes shot open. His head popped up. As he twisted around to see what had caused the noise, Lucas felt what was left of his control almost explode, too. A creature--he'd have to guess Vulcan, from what was left of the pointed ears--sprawled across the floor, the remnants of a shattered beaker in his hand. Burns scorched the Vulcan's skin, charring it beyond recognition.
Lucas watched in horror as several people surrounding the dead Vulcan simply . . . walked around him, as if nothing of serious concern had happened. Seconds later, one of the guards grabbed a Cardassian by the hair, shoved him towards the body, then gestured for him to move it. Only seconds after that, all signs of the accident had disappeared, the body now hidden in one of the large tanks of chemicals.
Darkness hovered before Lucas's eyes. Before he could stop it, Lucas clutched at his stomach, leaned over, and puked; hot, searing vomit tore through his throat. Tears scalded his eyes. Slowly, shaking, Lucas stood, avoiding O'Brien's eyes.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, then watched through bleary eyes as O'Brien pulled the glass-like shielding from the figure stretched out across the slab in front of them. Again, he swallowed convulsively, knowing he wasn't going to like whatever the hell it was O'Brien was about to do.
The alien was fastened to the slab by strange tubing. In fact, the tiny fraction of his mind still left semi-rational realized that the slab, the tubing, and the shielding all looked exactly like what he'd found himself on a day or so ago. That had been when he'd awoken shortly after his abduction. But this . . . this didn't seem to be for the same purposes. He thought he'd been in some sort of healing room, a medical center of sorts.
Here, though, his mind warned him in glaring tones that this wasn't a healing room. What they were doing to these creatures--these thousands of creatures, all lined up like lambs for the slaughter--was torture instead of healing.
Nausea clutched at Lucas's stomach again. His eyes widened, face paling, as O'Brien lifted the vial towards the alien's arm, his own mouth pinched into a white, pained line. Lucas desperately reached his free arm towards O'Brien. Blind, numb shock warred with disgust in his mind. O'Brien . . . he couldn't . . . he wouldn't . . .
But the Chief tightened his grip on Lucas. With a quick look towards their captors--Lucas noted for the first time that there were about twenty of them--he hissed, "It's either it or us, Lucas. It or us. Which would you prefer?"
Lucas vaguely noted the dehumanizing "it." He shivered, then shook his head--first slowly, then with increased determination. "No. No. You . . . you can't . . . you just can't go and pour chemicals on another creature's skin, O'Brien! He's helpless! He can't stop this. If we do this, we're worse than our captors, worse than . . ."
Placing the beaker on the slab, O'Brien suddenly slid his hand over Lucas's mouth as the boy's near-hysterical voice increased in volume. He glanced from their jailers back to Lucas, then whispered fiercely, "Lucas, this isn't easy for me, either. I'm not a monster. But if we don't do as we're told, we will be killed. It's that simple."
Lucas wrestled his face away from O'Brien's hand, eyes narrowed in anger. He backed away from the Chief as far as the man's hold would allow him. "Yeah? And just exactly where did you learn your ethics, Chief? Hmm? Machiavelli's School for the Sadistic?" Lucas pulled at his hand once more, but it was still tightly in O'Brien's grasp. His voice edged up one more note as he snapped, "Let me go. Damn it, let me go . . . "
"What? So you can get yourself killed?" O'Brien snapped right back. He then lowered his voice, watching as several of their captors started to look their way. "Lucas, if you want to keep your skin in one piece, listen to me. We're attractin' their attention. If we attract much more of it, they'll beat the hell out of us--or worse. Just . . . shut up and listen to me for a change."
Lucas opened his mouth, then shut it. He kept his mouth clamped shut as O'Brien again lifted the beaker. Lucas stared at its contents, a tear silently tracing its way down his cheek.
O'Brien's eyes looked his way, studying him, his right hand holding Lucas still as he slowly began to pour the chemical over the alien skin. He looked back up, then increased the pressure around Lucas's wrist as the teen started to hyperventilate. He leaned in towards him. "Breathe. In, out. Good. Just breathe for a moment." O'Brien glanced at the alien's arm, closing his eyes in shame at what he saw. A dark burn could be seen on the arm. The chemical had obviously had some effect, but he doubted it was what his captors were looking for. He wasn't positive, but he thought they were looking for something much more . . . aggressive.
After a second's pause, O'Brien looked back at Lucas. He sighed. "Lucas, we have no choice on this. And this . . . creature . . . was dead long before we came here. It's breathin', it's alive, but at the same time it's dead. It's been dead since it's been these aliens' enemy. There's no way it will ever escape these bastards. It's dead . . ."
"Oh?" Lucas finally threw at him, eyes sparking with something near hatred. The teen shook his head quickly. "So it's just fine and dandy for us to come along and play a few tests on him? Is that it?" Lucas inhaled sharply, then exploded, "Well, that's just fine, O'Brien. Just fine! What a perfect idea you have there!
"But . . . wait a second!" Lucas facetiously pretended to think. "What if someone thinks we're 'just dead,' too? What if someone else just decides their survival is more important than . . ."
Lucas abruptly found O'Brien's hand slammed back over his mouth. He watched as the captors looked their way. After a moment's time, Lucas saw the aliens turn back to what looked like a heated conversation.
Again, O'Brien leaned in towards Lucas. The Irishman shook his head. "I'm not sayin' this is right, Lucas. I'm just sayin' this is how we survive here. And I know--I know--it's not easy. But we have no choice, and these aliens are already in our captors' hands. There's nothin' we can do for them. If we don't do this, though, we'll end up in one of those." O'Brien's head jerked towards one of the tanks. He looked back at Lucas, eyes practically glowering as he met the boy's angry gaze. They stared at one another for several moments, anger warring in their eyes.
Finally, O'Brien looked away, shaking his head. "When you have a better solution for this, let me know. Until then, though, just do what you need to. If you don't, they'll kill you. They don't care if they kill you because they can always replace you."
With that, O'Brien walked away, dragging Lucas with him. Lucas was silent, pale, seeming almost haunted.
But O'Brien remembered he himself had been that way the first day, too.