Mission into Nightmare: Chapter 1

MISSION INTO NIGHTMARE

In an asteroid field floating through the depths of space, a Federation starship was entering its death throes. Explosions and hull breaches dotted the surface. A shuttlepod emerged from the vessel and headed toward open space. It hadn't even left the field when the starship fell dark, becoming nothing more than a floating tomb.

The officer piloting the shuttlepod had a horrible look on his face. It was the pale, clammy, sweaty look of a man who knows that he's been condemned to death, yet can't do a thing about it. Racing away from any inhabited system in a shuttlecraft, he sat back in his seat. He moped his brow with a sleeve and decided he might as well get to work. He started entering a series of commands on the console before him. When he started having chest pains, he finished his work, and activated the log.

"This is... this is Commander Jason Prentice of the starship Gilgamesh. By the time you get this log, it'll be... it'll be too late for me." He groaned as another wave of pain hit him. "But... but it won't be too late... for you. If it is at all possible... do NOT... I repeat, do NOT enter sector 5174. Something horrible has happened there." He grunted. "I don't have... much time left. If by chance you cannot avoid entering that sector... if you come upon my ship... nggg... don't hesitate..." his breathing became labored, "Don't hesitate to destroy it. Please heed my warning. If you board that ship, you'll only doom yourselves." He sat back abruptly, blinded by pain. "Oh God, it hurts!!" He managed to hit one last command on the console before losing consciousness.

CHAPTER 1

Jim was never the friendliest of people. Ever since he got the job at the mine, he seemed to be in low spirits. It could be the planet... one of the most bizarre planetary bodies he had ever seen or set foot on. Somewhat of a cross between a Class-M and a Class-J planet, a solid crust covered most of the area for to move about on. The colony was situated on the largest of these "islands." But this crust floated on top of clouds of gas that churned and rolled, a thick bluish and olive green soup, and highly deceptive. Before the colony could even be set up, a science vessel had carefully mapped the area so there wouldn't be any mistake of where they could and couldn't go. He once overheard one of the crewmen from the ship comment that the islands were possibly the remnants of a moon that had somehow broken up, entered the gas planets atmosphere, and solidified into a patchwork surface. It only went down a couple hundred meters before the gases got so thick that the ground wouldn't go any further. Not so thick that someone couldn't fall through it, though. Jim had seen a worker step in the wrong place; he still couldn't get the man's screams out of his head, the poor soul kept falling and falling. The resident science geek said it had something to do with surface tension, how the ground is spread out over a large area, yet a person didn't cover that much area, so he could easily penetrate the cloud barrier. Yeah, that made Jim feel real good.

It was his shift. He only had about three or four left... if by the end of the month they were unable to find a sizable pocket of the gas to mine, the colony had to pack up and leave. Jim laughed when he heard that until the foreman, Chuck, had pointed out that the gas wasn't uniformly the same. Certain areas had just the right elements where, if mined and processed, made a prime warp plasma coolant. He was shocked to hear this, until Chuck assured him that in its natural state, the gas was harmless. Unless you happened to be falling through it, of course. Then it wasn't the gas that was harmful, but the fall. Nevertheless, for safety reasons, anyone venturing outside had to wear a filter mask. Jim was rather glad for it, since the mask partially muffled his grumbling and griping, something he would have been reprimanded for numerous times.

"What's that? I can't hear you," said his partner. Ethan was always an optimist. You could tell it when he spoke.

"Nuthin'," Jim mumbled. "If I wanted you to hear it, I would've said it louder."

Ethan shrugged. "All the same, you're probably just cursing this planet again. You really should cheer up. Just think, either we find something soon, or we'll leave, and you'll never have to see this place again."

"I'm hopin' for th' latter," Jim replied.

Ethan chuckled, and they kept walking. Jim once asked Ethan why they just couldn't find what they were looking for using a ship's sensors. Ethan casually replied that while they were powerful, for some reason, they couldn't penetrate too deeply into the gas for accurate readings; they got better results from sensor packs they carried with them. They were backpack-shaped, and came with what looked like a tricorder, except it had a wand extending from the top of the handheld unit. Jim had no idea what the wand was for, but he wasn't an engineer. The units trilled constantly when they were in use, just like a tricorder. They were at the point where their minds blocked out the trilling.

So it gave them quite a jolt when his tricorder started acting up. They both stopped in place. "Whoa! What's this?" Ethan said. He backtracked to where they first heard the sensors go off. "I think we found something."

"Are you sure?" Chuck said, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"I'm positive," Ethan answered, excited. They wasted no time in recording their position and racing back to the colony. "Just a few meters of ground, and then the largest deposit you could imagine."

Chuck smiled. "Good job. Very well done, guys. The administrator will be glad to hear this."

Jim had left for his quarters as soon as they'd confirmed their findings. He was definitely not pleased with the outcome.

Later, in the mess hall, there was laughter and good spirits echoing throughout the room. It was rumored that what they found would guarantee them not only a long-term stay there, but they also would make enough latinum for each person to be very well off. Everyone was in a good mood. Except one.

"Hey Jim! Why the long face?" This came from Ethan's friend, Michael. Jim just gave him a sour look and turned back to his meal.

"He's not too thrilled because now he thinks he's stuck on this rock." Ethan laughed when he said that.

Michael joined him. "Cripes, Jim! This is our chance to make a major contribution to the Federation, and all you care about is leaving. I'm not sure what to make of you."

"I don't wanna be here anymore, all right!?" Jim snapped.

"Okay, okay. Sheesh." They got up to dispose of their plates, trays, and dinnerware. "Why don't you just leave?"

"It's not that simple. I don't wanna just up and quit. I wouldn't... it just wouldn't seem right, okay?"

Michael shrugged. "Fine. Sounds like a personal problem to me." That drew another round of laughter.

"All right. Knock it off," Jim growled.

"Boy, Jim you really oughta lay off the caffeine. You're way too grouchy." More laughter.

Something within Jim snapped. "I SAID knock it OFF!" He turned and shoved Michael.

"Hey, watch it!" Michael said, shoving back. One thing led to another, and they were punching and shoving. Ethan and another friend tried to break it up, but Jim pushed them off. The fight moved into the adjoining chamber. This was where the gases and fluids needed to run the colony were pumped. Pipes of various sizes ran parallel to the floor at different heights. Some pipes curved up into the ceiling, while others curved downwards into the floor. Still others traveled to the far wall and disappeared into them.

Jim and Michael kept at it. Michael shoved Jim over a waist-high length of pipe. As soon as he hit the floor and got up, he picked up a fire extinguisher. Michael immediately knew the danger, and before Jim could do anything with it, he closed the distance and grappled with the extinguisher. In the midst of the struggle, it went off. Jim was shoved backward by the recoil, while Michael was hit in the chest by a high-pressure stream of extinguishing agent. He slid across the floor and slammed headfirst into a large pipe heading into the floor. The extinguisher petered down to nothing; as Jim got up, people who had heard the commotion started crowding in.

Ethan looked at his friend. Michael was more or less sitting against the pipe. His eyes were open, and his head hung at an odd angle. Ethan rushed over and checked for any signs of life. He then shouted to the crowd. "Someone get the doctor over here!!" Jim stood there, numb and entranced to what just happened.