Barge of the Dead

Author's Notes: This is a storyline that I did for the Columbia on the Twitterfic ENT group. I'm just elaborating on it here, because telling a story in 140 characters isn't quite enough. It's not exactly the same as what I've posted on Twitter because of its limitations. It's not betaed but I do welcome reviews, but as usual, no flames.

Captain Erika Hernandez, Hess, Major Foyle, and Sergeant Pembleton are owned by TPTB (I grabbed Foyle and Pembleton from the Destiny novels for names, but they're not the characters you see in the Destiny novels); all other characters are my own creation.

I'd like to thank Memory Alpha for being a great resource. I've watched all the Enterprise episodes, but sometimes, memory can fail a person. :)

April 28, 2156 – Columbia, Bridge, 1431 Hours

"Lieutenant Eagle, full stop. Commander Morrison, tactical alert."

The lights dimmed as Columbia came to a stop, and I stood up from my chair. I never liked sitting down in that chair. It wasn't that it was uncomfortable – on the contrary, it's one of the best seats that I've sat in – but that I was used to standing up whenever I was needed. It was a by-product of formerly being the Republic's Tactical Officer – on that ship, the only person that sat down on the bridge was the Captain.

"Ensign Burnside, anything ahead of us?" I asked, looking at the science station on the bridge. She was looking at her terminal, reading the sensor data.

Ensign Jules Burnside perked up after a moment and looked at me, slightly embarrassed. "Captain! Twenty thousand kilometers ahead. It's a J-class freighter, the ECS Zephyr," She replied. She then looked down at her screen, engrossed in the sensor data.

I nodded, acknowledging her report. "On screen." I looked at the comm station, helmed by Ensign Sophia Loussier. "Hail the freighter." She nodded, pushing a few buttons. "This is Captain Erika Hernandez of the starship Columbia. We're responding to your distress call." I paused. Loussier pushed a few more keys, then looked at me, her green eyes furrowed with worry.

"No response, Captain."

I turned to Burnside. "Biosigns?"

She looked up at me, a frightened look on her face. Her voice shook a bit as she replied, "None."

I felt a chill go through me. I had already pushed the ship to warp 5 to respond to the freighter. If I had pushed this ship to Warp 5.2, would I have made it? What happened with the crew? I looked down at my shoes, and then looked up, trying to portray some confidence to the bridge crew. Everybody was feeling the same way I did, I noticed, no doubt from what Burnside had just said. "Morrison, get Major Foyle to assemble a four man MACO team." I looked at Hess, who was trying to keep herself busy at the Engineering station. She was probably the one most shaken up. "Hess, come with me." I started to head for the turbolift, but a voice rang out in the deafening silence on the bridge.

"Captain!"

I turned to Morrison. Worry was etched on his face, making him look much older than he really was. His green eyes radiated concern, and I sighed. He was always like that whenever I made an away team without him. "I'll be fine, Commander." I smiled. "You have the bridge." I walked over to the turbolift, and closed the door after Hess entered.

"Captain," Hess said as the turbolift went down. She quickly hit the stop button. "Captain, shouldn't you reconsider coming with us? Whatever killed them..." Her lip quivered as her voice trailed off. I looked at her, putting a hand on her shoulder for reassurance.

"Lieutenant Commander. I'll be fine. You'll be fine. We'll figure out what happened to the Zephyr." I pushed the button to resume the turbolift, and tried to keep a straight face, for her sake. Lieutenant Commander Alice Hess had never experienced something like this before. I took her on away teams but not one where there were going to be dead bodies. But I needed to know what happened to the Zephyr's crew, and to do so, I would need one the best engineers in Starfleet. I prayed that the ordeal would be merciful to her.

Major Foyle ran his fingers through his bleach white hair. It was cropped on the sides and the hair on the top of his head was spiked. In his right hand held his MACO-issued phase rifle. Next to him was Sergeant Pembleton, who had a shaved head and was also holding a phase rifle. The other two MACOs were Corporals Robertson and Jameson. They had their rifles in their laps and both looked pretty nervous – it was their first real away mission with the captain. The MACOs all wore their gray EV suits.

I entered the shuttle through the hatch (carefully – it wasn't easy when you wore an EV suit and carried your helmet in one arm), and the MACOs sat at attention. I gave them a curt nod. "At ease. I don't want any of you getting hurt before the mission." I gave them a wry smile as took the pilot's seat while Hess took the secondary controls. I did a run through of the shuttle's systems, and opened a com channel to the bay.

"This is Shuttlepod One. We're ready for launch."

"Godspeed, Captain."

Foyle took the lead with Robertson, then Hess and I in the middle, and Pembleton at the back with Jameson. We all had our weapons in our hands as we went through the corridors of the Zephyr.

The Zephyr was completely dark. No oxygen, but there was an atmosphere, filled with carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. The lights from our helmets shone onto pure darkness, which held who knew what. At least the corridors were blissfully clear of any debris. The major set the pace, which was a slow and careful one.

We finally reached a junction, and I turned to Hess. "Get to the engineering section and see if you can get the ship running. Pembleton, Jameson, go with Hess." They left, and I walked past Foyle and Robertson into the junction. I looked around and took the left fork.

As I turned to face the corridor, the lights from my helmet shone on a man's face, contorted with pain, eyes wide open, mouth gaping, face covered in black ichor that I knew to be blood. "Madre de dios," I muttered, trying to hold back the vomit. For the love of everything that is holy, don't vomit in the EV suit. My mouth started to taste sour, but I held it back as I looked into the abyss.