Hello readers, I have another chapter for you. I hope to wrap this up within the next week as it's not a particularly long story.
Fanfic-Reader-88: Yep, things are starting to get back to normal but still have a bit of work ahead of us.
They fortunately know she's really alive, but how mentally stable she is at the moment is up for debate. They certainly have stumbled into something dangerous and certainly into the unknown, but Q said in Q-Who: 'If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.'
Rating: T
Chapter 3
Rex and the marines followed the straight line path from the shuttle bay, passing several rings of corridors that were presumably crew quarters, until they reached one of the doors to the operation center of the station. It was a square frame, but with slanted interlocking sections with the seam running diagonally from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. They apparently were in range of door and opened for them, making a considerably clunking noise. The marines tightened their respective grips on their phasers.
Anderson cautiously stepped inside, keeping his phaser shouldered and taking a sweeping look to take bead on anything that could appear. Isabe moved left and Rex moved right, sweeping the rest of the command center with their sidearms.
The room was well lit and clearly brought up to working order with various consoles displaying and a soft hum of equipment and various beeps. The ops center was arranged in a circular fashion with control stations lining the walls not too dissimilar to Star Fleet bridge designs other than there were five other cutaways sixty degrees to each other for access corridors and turbolifts and/or other rooms. In the center of the circular room was a control island standing at about one meter high with several stools around it.
The color scheme for the command center ranged from sterile white for trimmings of the exits and floors to eerie grey for the stations, chairs (made for humanoids) and rest of the room with the consoles giving off an eerie green glow. Above the stations and the access doors was a circle of seamlessly connected monitors to give a panoramic view station's surroundings. On one side showed the gas giant and if they turned their heads, they would see the Tori trailing behind the station.
The survey team had set up in various places in the circular command center with a few 'laptop' versions of PADDs sitting at some of the stations and connected to them with various cables. There was a stray tricorder and communicator lying about and a cot set up with a footlocker at the end of it by one group of stations that weren't operating.
Anderson idly commented, "Looks like nobody is home."
Isabe read off her tricorder, "I'm picking up radiation several decks below us. It's what the captain warned us about."
The lead marine commented, "The power plant is probably under us. The shielding is doubtlessly wearing thin after all this time. Is there any danger?"
"No, the in-between decks are shielding us fine, but I wouldn't want to go down there for any particular amount of time without a radiation suit."
Rex took a seat at one of stations and in front of the PADDs and started typing on the 'keyboard'. He idly commented, "Assuming they interfaced their computers with the station's controls…" He grinned and remarked, "Yes they did." He continued typing, brining up a number of displays on the PADD and on the station's built in monitors. "I can see why there's a radiation spike… most of the power is going to the gravity bubble trying to keep the station in orbit—or keeping it a floating enough to not already have sunk in it. They had a stable orbit when they got here, so… they were drawing just enough power for life support, so it wasn't a problem."
Isabe stood behind him, resting her left hand on his shoulder after letting her tricorder hang freely from the strap over her shoulder, and asked, "Can you stabilize the orbit and buy us some more time to find the others?"
The helm officer blatantly grinned from her putting her hand on his shoulder, but focused on answering her question, "I'm not sure and even if I could, the power requirement might start flooding the rest of the center with radiation."
"Do you have access to internal sensors?"
Rex typed away for a few more seconds then answered, "Yes… and according them… it's just us plus one."
"So, they're either dead or they left."
"Their shuttle is still here and there are the signs of a firefight in the bay."
"Is there a record of when the shuttle bay was opened or any transporter signal? Pinpoint when this happened?"
Rex pulled his hands away from the keyboard, laced his fingers then stuck his palms out to needlessly stretch his arms then started typing again.
Isabe raised a curious eyebrow to Anderson and asked, "Would even Klingons risk beaming through this mess?"
The helm officer idly commented as he went through the logs of system activities, glancing between the PADD's monitor and two of the station's monitors, "The Captain would have to get one of us back, so I wouldn't doubt them doing it for this station."
The marines had to acknowledge Rex's point that the captain wouldn't leave any of his crew behind on this station.
After a few more moments, Rex reported, "Okay… this is getting whacked… the only record they have of the bay opening is our arrival and there is no record of any energy spikes of transporters."
The marine leader shook his head and incongruously remarked, "They clearly got into a fight with someone in the bay."
Rex looked over his shoulder and pointed out, "No, all we saw was that they shot up their shuttle."
Anderson rubbed his chin and asked, "Could they have erased their arrival?"
The Star Fleeter shrugged his shoulder and answered, "They could, but it would just be if they had the time. They capture the team, realize that we were on our way, so they scrub their tracks so we can't accuse them of anything… makes sense on their part. Why leave all the equipment? It would have everything they needed to analyze later short of actually having the station."
Anderson shook his head and mumbled, "I don't like mysteries…"
Isabe suggested, "Check the team's logs. Maybe the answer is in there."
"Right." He started typing again, searching for the commander's logs. After a few moments, he found them and started playing the visual log on the large monitor above the station.
A young man in a red operations shirt appeared on the screen and began, "Commander's Log, Stardate 2267.349, Commander Marshall reporting for the Bureau of Propulsion: The USS Vega has arrived at what we're calling 'Grey Station' after all the urban legends of twentieth and twenty-first century Earth about the 'Old Kings' to drop off me and my survey team to begin studying the recently discovered derelict space station. After the last day of helping us get the station up and running enough for the next two weeks until the Tori picks us up, the Vega has departed to continue her patrol along the Klingon Neutral Zone.
Our computer and science expert Lieutenant Commander Victoria Vega has figured out enough of the station's systems to turn on the main computer and effectively operate the life support systems, sensors and what we believe are the shields. We're still trying to figure how the station keeping system works for safety concerns even if the station is maintaining a stable orbit.
I'm quite confident that we'll be able to glean a great deal of information over the next two weeks about the station and justify staying longer and getting a larger team to fully analysis the station before the Tori arrives to pick us up.
Now, if we could only figure out how to jettison all the rotten food in the cargo attachments that are stinking up the station and get rid of the smell."
Rex tapped the next log entry and the young commander appeared on the screen wearing a pleasant expression.
"Commander's Log, Stardate 2267.352: This station is a gold mine of information and technology from a historical perspective. The Federation may have caught up with a lot of the systems that the 'Old Kings' used, but some are more efficient than ours. We've figured out how their food replicators work. They're preprogrammed with a number of dishes that turn out to be Klingon and their subject species dishes along with a number we don't recognize. We also found something interesting; we found a device that is something similar to a Klingon mindsifter built into what we think is a security station in a side room of the ops center—stations we believe are on Klingon vessels to keep their subordinates in check, giving credence that this is an 'Old King' station in case we had any doubts."
Anderson shook his head and muttered, "Everything is going fine for them so far."
The helmsman snorted out, "Yeah, but he just confirmed that this is an 'Old King' station and the Klingons would want this station if they found out about it."
Isabe motioned with a hand and asked, "Play the next log."
Rex smiled up at her and answered, "Anything for you…" He tapped a button and the next log started playing.
"Commander's Log, Stardate 2267.354: Well, that confirms it. This is an 'Old King' station. Commander Vega has been able to access a number of records, including visuals on the 'Old Kings' and the conspiracy buffs are right. They look just like all those representations of the 'Greys' from centuries ago. I just hope Star Fleet will clear us in writing a book about our findings. We'd make a killing with the conspiracy theorists back home and the colonies. Who am I kidding, Star Fleet Intelligence and the G.I.A. would probably classify this whole mission."
"Commander's Log, Stardate 2267.356: Another layer of the dying star's atmosphere has reached us and the planet and we've weathered it pretty good. The combination of the gas giant's magnetic field and the station's shields directed much of the brunt of the gases around us. There was a slight shift in our orbit, but we've figured out enough to operate the station keeping system to stabilize our orbit. It's a highly advance gravimetric drive system that's more efficient than what we use. I know the ship building businesses are going to be fighting over this technology.
Other than a bumpy ride and some electrical blowouts that we were able to restart without a problem, we should be fine until the Tori arrives to relieve us.
In the meantime, Commander Vega is working like a madwoman doing double duty trying to catalogue the computer system while monitoring the stellar phenomena for later analysis. I'm glad to have her as the team's science officer."
Rex relaxed back in his seat and remarked, "So the collapse was six days ago and no Klingons…"
He straightened up and played the next log entry.
The commander looked a little worried on the screen as he recorded his next log. "Commander's log, Stardate 2267.357: We may have a few problems. We found that the extra power we're using to stabilize our orbit is causing a slight radiation leak. The system is just so old, some of the shielding is starting to fail. If we stay out of the engineering section, we should be fine until the Tori arrives, but if there becomes a problem down there… my lead engineer might have to go down there.
Our other potential problem is that the sensors are starting to pick up erratic signals that look like a ship in the system, but the Tori isn't due to arrive for another five days. It could just be a passing commercial vessel on its way to any number of destinations, probably the Tafelland colony just several dozen light years away.
Commander's Log, supplemental: The sensor contacts are a ship and it appears to be a Klingon vessel roaming the system taking a survey from the scant silhouettes we keep getting. They could just be on a scientific survey for suitable planets for colonization or mining privileges that they'll use to start another argument with us and drag the Organians into it and just traveled too far from the Neutral Zone or… they could be scouting the area to launch raids into the Federation or worst… they know about the station and are looking for it—us.
I believe it is only a matter of time until they find us. The Tori is still five days out and I don't want to risk sending out a signal, one I'm not sure would even get through the interference of all the planetary body shifts and ionized gases."
"Commander's log, Stardate 2267.358: While we've been waiting to figure out whether we're tracking a Klingon ship or not and trying to keep the station in orbit, the rest of the team continues to inventory the rest of the station. It's kind of creepy being on such a large station with just the five of us, especially with the possibility of a Klingon ship out there looking for us, trying to baby the station in remaining in orbit and just the age of the station. We're having power fluctuations with lights and temperature differences throughout the station while we catalogue everything, especially abandoned crew quarters that still had a number of personal belongings. The team is claiming they're starting to hear things and not just the normal creeks of metal settling."
The young commander cleared his throat and he looked a little apprehensive, his eyes shifting back and forth as he recorded his next log entry, "Commander's log, Stardate 2267.359: The sensor ghost we've been tracking over the last two days finally cleared enough of the stellar gases enough to give us a clear silhouette of the ship and it's a Klingon E-Three Corvette. We don't have many options. We can't power down and get lost in the noise of the system without sinking into the atmosphere and we can't escape in the shuttle as they'd just chase us down."
Commander's Log, supplemental: Commander Vega claims to have seen an 'Old King' in one of the station containers, asking why she was in league with us. She says it told her that it was her responsibility to 'deal with us' and protect the station because she's Klingon. There is nothing on the internal sensors that show that there is any other lifeform on the station, any record of a shuttle landing or airlock opening or transporter signal.
I just think she's getting a little jumpy and I don't blame her. She's been putting in twenty hour days doing double, triple duty, the advantage of Klingons only needing five hours of sleep, but I think even she's over doing it—frankly, I think all of us are overdoing it. We're not getting enough sleep with having at least two of us awake at all times to monitor the power plant and keep an eye out for that ship. Everyone is on edge with that Klingon ship out there and just the general creepiness of this place. Odd noises around the station are becoming more…"
Something caught the commander's attention and they watched as the commander paused in his log entry, looking over to his right and visibly gripping a phaser pistol. He called out, "April, is that you?"
He waited for several seconds, scanning the rest of the ops center where it appeared he was the only one manning it. He took several more breaths then looked back at the screen. "Such as that… we can't seem to track the sounds either through the diagnostics or tricorder readings. They're too random just to search the whole station while we continue to catalogue it and they're happening in places after we've secured them."
The screen went blank as he cut off his log entry.
Anderson asked the others before Rex moved onto the next entry, "Did you hear anything?"
Isabe shook her head and answered, "No, could he have imagined it?"
"With how jumpy he seems, he might have been imagining it. This place is creepy and if you stayed long enough, I'm sure you'd start imagining hearing things."
"Commander's Log, Stardate… stardate two, two, six… seven… point… three six… zero: Those Klingons… those Klingon bastards found us and boarded the station. We tried to fight them off, but there were too many of them. We lost April then the rest of us made it back to the ops center except Vega…" He took several deep breaths and there was a wild look in his eyes. He licked his lips and continued, "I know that Klingon bitch is out there somewhere… somewhere… I know she's in league with them. She gave away our position to them. I should have never trusted her. I don't know why some mad fool would ever trust a Klingon in the service."
four two… zero two… point… four:
He took several more heavy breaths then continued, "Fernandez went after Commander Vega in one of the cargo cylinders and Russell is down in the powerplant, trying to make sure it stays online for us to hang on until the Tori gets here… and if not… to blast it and take as many of those Klingon bastards as we can to plunge into the planet."
Isabe idly commented, "It sounds like he was losing it. He must not have seen much combat."
"Commander's Log, Stardate… stardate two… two, six seven… point… three six… two: The Klingons have gotten through the sealed decks and… I've lost contact with Fernandez and Russell has sealed himself in the engineering section. I assume they're both dead either by the Klingons and the radiation poison. So… I'm the only one left… I won't be a Klingon prisoner… we should have fought them when we had the chance… to Hell with them and to the Organians…"
He held his phaser pistol and turned the back knob to the highest setting. He placed the crystal tip under his chin then pulled the trigger. In a moment, he let out a horrifying yell as he was consumed and dissolved in a glowing yellow light until nothing remained.
Rex tapped the button to end the playback while the others glanced away, trying to hide their horrified reactions of watching someone not only disintegrated, but doing it to one's self. The helm officer cleared his throat, unable even to make a witty and usually bad taste remark, then spoke, "So… Vega is somewhere in the station, the commander is dead and let's assume the engineer is in the engineering section dead of radiation poising, so… that's three down. So, where are the other two?"
Anderson took a seat in the neighboring station to Rex and started bringing up the sensor logs. "Either they're dead or the Klingons got them as hostages." He tapped back to the sensor logs to the stardates mentioned in the Commander's logs and started scrolling through them to find the Klingon ship. After several seconds, he called out, "Found the Klingon silhouette they were talking about."
Isabe stood between the seated men while Rex slightly swiveled in his seat to look at the station monitor, showing a sensor display of what the survey teamed said was the Klingon ship.
The Cygnan marine squinted as she looked at the display and muttered, "What silhouette? All I see are scrambled pixels."
Rex shook his head and commented, "I don't see anything at all. I see a blank screen."
The marine knotted his brow and pointed to the screen. "It's right there. Clear as day, a Klingon Bird-of-Prey."
Isabe and Rex looked to one another for second then the helmsman commented, "Okay, hold up a sec. You see a Klingon ship; tall, blue and gorgeous here sees scrambled pixels and I'm not seeing anything?"
The Cygnan squinted her black eyes, unsure if the lieutenant was what humans would call 'flirting' with her. She refrained from commenting, unsure if she should tell him to stop or that she was flattered. She wasn't particularly attracted to people outside her own species, except for perhaps Andorians, but she did find his humorous demeanor intriguing.
"So… which one of us is having the eye problems."
"There's nothing mechanically wrong with me and since Isabe isn't seeing it either…"
The marine team leader frowned, not liking the idea that he was the one seeing things.
"Go through the rest of the sensor logs just for the contact and find the logs with the Klingon lifeforms," Rex told him while he reached behind him for his belt and pulled out his communicator. He flipped open the gold antenna grill, waiting for the beeping to finish to signal that he had an open channel, "Rex to Captain Benson."
He waited a few seconds before he was answered, "Benson here."
"We've secured the ops center and went through the Commander's logs."
"So do you know what happened?"
"Yes and found a few freaky things."
There was a pause on the other end then Benson questioned, "Freaky? I think Doctor West is ready to call this whole place 'freaky'… if things weren't so serious, I think she'd love it."
"Hey!" Jade's voice could be heard in the background.
Rex ignored it and answered, "The commander said they were boarded by Klingons, but couldn't hold them off. They lost a member named April to the Klingons and he thought Commander Vega betrayed them. He sent another member, Fernandez, to go get her after she went missing in one of the cargo containers while he and the engineer held up in ops. After he lost contact with the one he sent after Vega and we think the engineer is dead in the powerplant as he's been in there for the last few days… he took his own life before becoming a Klingon prisoner."
They heard Benson audibly sighed, not wanting to hear such news. He continued in a professional tone, "We found Fernadez with a phaser wound to the chest. He's been dead for several days, so… that just leaves April and Commander Vega. She broke into our communications with the ship and we're on her way to get her. She says there are Klingons still onboard, but they're hiding themselves from sensors. Any sign of them on the internal sensors?"
"No, it's just us plus one."
"So what was the 'freaky' part you found?"
"Anderson found the sensor log of the Klingon ship they were tracking for a few days before they were boarded, but… we're looking at the silhouette record and we're each seeing something different. He's seeing a Bird-of-Prey, Isabe is seeing scrambled pixels and I'm not seeing anything at all."
There were a few moments of silence until Jade's voice spoke through the communicator, "Rex, find their medical kit and pull out the medical tricorder."
Rex didn't hesitate to get up from his seat and walked over to a Star Fleet supply crate in front of another set of turned off consuls. He knelt down and opened it, revealing a number of field rations, power cells, an extra phaser pistol, jugs of water and the med-kit. He retrieved the kit then pulled out the tricorder.
"Okay, got it."
"I want you to do a scan of Anderson and Isabe then transmit the results to my tricorder."
"Right."
He stood up and walked back to the marines. He sat the communicator down on the console next to the PADD then pulled out the hand scanner from the front compartment of the black box. He turned the display to himself and started running it over the pair, the swirling sound of the medical scanner cutting through the soft hum of the background noise.
Anderson ignored him while looking through the records of the sensor contacts.
After several seconds, he tapped a few controls on the tricorder then leaned over and spoke into the communicator, "Transmitting it to you now."
They waited a few moments to pass then the doctor to report, "Interesting…"
Rex asked, "What?"
"They have elevated brain activity, particularly in their audio and visual centers."
Benson spoke up, "We're in a stressful situation and we're all on alert, of course we're going to have 'elevated brain activity'."
Jade answered with a doubtful tone, "No, this is showing they're actively processing more information as if they have their full attention on watching something than just being on alert, so…"
"So something is directly stimulating their brains?"
"It looks like it."
The marines shared concerned gazes while Benson asked over the communicator, "Is it dangerous?"
"At the levels Rex found, no, but it could be making them see things that he's not seeing. It could easily make them start hearing things that aren't there or replace things they hear with something else or nothing at all."
"Any ideas what's causing it?"
"Offhand? Some form of hallucinogen, but there's nothing I'm reading in the air." She asked in a joking manner, "You haven't ingested anything have you?"
Isabe answered, "No doctor, but are you saying we can't trust our senses?"
"I'm saying they'll partially compromised, but you seem to have a partial immunity to what is going on as the parts of your brain that are being stimulated don't necessarily correspond one to one to the parts that process your senses. It may be due to Cygnan brains are slightly structured differently than human brains."
"Is that why I'm seeing the pixels instead of the silhouette?"
"It's the only guess I have."
Anderson certainly didn't like the idea that he was potentially seeing things. He didn't feel any different other than the natural apprehension of being in an unfamiliar and dangerous place, one he was trained and experienced in handling.
Captain Benson spoke up, "Okay, Lieutenant Powers, try to see if you can track down the source of what's causing the brain stimulation. Anderson, use the station's systems to try to find biological mass that could correspond to the last two missing survey members. I want confirmation of their remains. Isabe, pack up the rest of the survey team's equipment, especially all the records of their stay, so we can take the most important stuff in one trip. You have fifteen minutes to get all that done then get to the shuttle."
Three series of 'aye sirs' sounded to acknowledge his orders.
"We'll contact you as soon as we have Vega. Benson out."
Rex looked to his companions and ordered, "You heard him, let's get to work."
He took a seat back at his console and started his scans, Anderson switched from looking through the logs and started the scans and Isabe started going to the other consoles to safely shutdown the other hooked up PADDs and disconnected them.
Author's Note: So they have some answers and not very pleasant ones for the survey crew and now what happened to them, looks like it's starting to happen to our brave Landing Party. We'll see how they handle it in the next chapter.
