Hello dear readers, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving for my American readers and for the rest, I hope you have a great weekend. I thought I had actually posted this last week, so here it is.
Fanfic-Reader-88: They've heard at least her voice and with what have happened so far, everyone else is either dead or something worst happen to them. Maybe the Klingons are on the station and they can't find them, who knows?
You are the only one reviewing so far. The fusion idea probably doesn't appeal to most fans, but I enjoy writing them together.
Rating: T Violence
Chapter 4
After finishing their conversation with the rest of the landing party, Carter led the trio of Star Fleet officers down the corridor of the large cargo cylinder that was increasingly loosing illumination with a few more burnt out lights and flickering ones.
There was a primal sense of nervousness prickling at the back of their respective necks as Jade's remark about them being in a potential horror movie could be more accurate than first thought. The survey team save for one were dead, lighting was becoming intermediate at best, the station was starting to creak more and more with the various external pressures, the air was still permeated with the smell of death and their sensor readings were suspect about whether or not they were actually the only lifeforms on the station.
Carter glanced up at the ceiling as he carefully put one foot in front of another, believing he had heard something. He didn't see anything but the flickering lights. He shook his head and continued forward for a few more seconds then stopped, raising his left fist to signal that they should stop. He softly whispered over his shoulder, "Did you here that sir?"
Benson paused to see if he could hear anything, but the only thing he could hear was the background noise they had been hearing for the last few minutes "No, I didn't. What did you hear?"
"It sounded like… sounded like a buzzing?"
"Buzzing? Vega, life-sign reading again."
Trina was bringing up the rear and looked to her tricorder and answered, "I'm still not reading any others but ours and intermitted Tori's."
Jade was behind Benson and offered after another glance of her tricorder, "It could be a short in any number of electrical systems. This thing is hundreds of years old."
Carter nodded, though that didn't make him feel any better. He gripped under the barrel of his weapon again then continued leading the party, becoming almost hyperaware of his surroundings. After another few meters of slow progression, Trina motioned for them to stop in front of a corridor with a slightly larger door than the ones to the various rooms they had passed for what was assumed to be used for secure cargo.
The brunette security officer looked down at her tricorder as she explained, "This looks like one of the entrances to the main outer cargo holds."
Carter asked with a squiggly gaze, "We passed several ones just like this, why didn't we enter through those?"
"It's the closest one Tori's lifesign and we had a clear path this way instead of being possibly ambushed in a maze of cargo. The outer portions of these sections are designed like warehouses."
Benson and Carter took point, taking position on either side of the door while the ladies stood behind them about a meter. Trina covered the marine around his shoulder while Jade finally reached to pull out her palm phaser, making sure it was set for stun. Carter tapped a control and the doors parted. They were hit with another whiff of rotting food. They had to turn their heads and cover their noses and mouths.
Benson covered his nose with the inside of his left forearm sleeve and lowered his weapon. He let it hang freely from the combat sling and drew his phaser pistol while he continued to cover his face. He took the first step inside followed by the others, carefully eyeing their soundings as the entered the large cargo hold, reaching dozens of meters high and out with the curved wall of being inside a cylinder. There were numerous stacks of crates, some reaching several decks high to nearly the ceiling, refrigerator units that had gone out and various barrels stacked several times high, casting various and long shadows inside the hold from the barely functioning overhead lights. The combination of foul air and poor lighting with unseen corners and hidden shadows really did make it feel like a potential haunted house.
They were several strides into the hold when Trina called out, "Let me go in and get her. She's obviously on edge and if she sees anyone else, she might start shooting."
The starship captain dropped his arm away from his face and gave her a supportive smile as he answered, "Trina, I admire your concern, but you don't know if she's the only one in there. Sensors say we're the only ones here, but she's insistent that there are Klingons onboard."
"It's a risk I'm willing to take."
"But is it a risk I'm comfortable for you to take?"
The pair looked as if they were about to have a standoff, but Jade carefully took Benson by his right elbow and suggested, "Let her go Freddie. With how she sounded on the communicator, she wasn't too far away from having a panic attack… those aren't pretty when she has something like one."
The captain looked to the doctor, giving her a questioning expression, but she sweetly smiled in return that suggested that it would be kind of point to argue with her. Benson looked back to Trina and relented, "Okay, but if you have to stun her for your and her safety then don't hesitate to do it. We'll carry her back if we have to."
"Right."
Trina turned and headed deeper into the cargo hold, watching out for any shift in shadow and listening out for any unusual sound. She kept her phaser carbine at a semi-raised state, holding her tricorder with her other hand to the side of the barrel to be able to use it to raise her weapon in a moment's notice, while she carefully made her way through the maze of cargo containers.
After about a dozen meters, she hadn't spotted anyone and the tricorder wasn't much help with all the rotten food and the scent starting to make her eyes water. It was a risk, but she started calling out, "Tori! It's me Trina! I'm here to take you home! Tori!"
She paused every so often as she stopped by a stack of cargo, careful to peer around them in not being blindsided. She walked about another dozen meters before she heard a voice call out, "Trina?"
The security officer snapped her weapon up and looked up to see that Tori was lying on top of a stack of creates and holding a phaser pistol in her direction, wearing a near panicked expression.
The older sister lowered her weapon and breathed out a sigh of relief, "Tori?"
The science officer nodded her head and smiled, relieved beyond belief that she saw her sister.
The two Star Fleet officers and marine guarded the surrounding area as they waited for Trina to find her sister. If the situation wasn't so dire, Jade would have enjoyed the atmosphere of the creepiness. Benson was on guard, wondering how a glorified archeology mission could turn out so badly. If it was the Klingons responsible, he wouldn't let it slide and he wouldn't let the Organians make excuses for them to maintain the piece. He didn't exactly know he was going to hold a bunch of 'gods' feet to the fire, but he'd figure out a way. Carter was becoming more agitated, glancing around almost in a desperate fashion trying to find the source of what he believed he was hearing.
Carter snapped around to their left side and raised his weapon, desperately looking for the source of the buzzing. He harshly whispered out, "Do you hear that?"
Benson gripped his weapon a little tighter and raised it halfway up, preparing for a fight as he looked in the direction the private directing his sights. He returned with a hushed whisper, "No, I don't."
The blonde young man snapped in frustration, "How can you not hear it?"
"You just might have better hearing than me private," the captain curtly answered him, signaling that he shouldn't speak to him in that tone.
Jade had holstered her palm phaser into her belt, but now had subconsciously moved her hand back over the small handheld weapon. She wasn't so much apprehensive to what he could be hearing, but the increasing anxiety he was displaying.
"Jade, do hear anything?"
She shook her head and uttered, "I wish I did. This place certainly is creepy enough to put us on edge and make us think any little noise or shadow could be something ready to jump out at us." She glanced up at the ceiling where one of the many overhead lights was fading and brightening in an erratic pattern. "It would make for a fantastic haunted house…"
Carter swallowed, feeling his voice suddenly dry, as his eyes continued to dart around to spot the incessant noise. He called out over his shoulder to Jade and asked, "Do you think it's haunted? Maybe the crew is haunting the place after their deaths?"
Jade turned her head to look at the back of his head, slightly squinting as she didn't think she heard him correctly. She didn't think they would take what she was saying literally. "What?"
The private looked over his shoulder and asked, "It's an old station and we really don't know why the Old Kings left. Maybe all of them couldn't get away and they were trapped here. They eventually died and their spirits couldn't leave. What if that's causing Anderson and Isabe to see things that aren't there? It could explain why there isn't any distruptor fire anywhere. They made them hallucinate it?"
The doctor was about to point out how absurd it would be for a ghost or even a number of ghosts to do such a thing, but Benson humored the young marine with a smile and answered, "It's more likely that they simply abandoned the station like the rest of their people and moved on with them, but about any ghosts… I've always been on the fence about the existence of ghosts, but… we know that non-corporeal entities do exist. The Organians and Medusans being the most obvious examples that I can think of off the top of my head…"
"And you think something like that could be 'haunting' this place sir?"
Benson continued glancing around, trying to spot what Carter believed he was hearing. "I don't know, but it certainly shouldn't be ruled out as a possibility until I get a statement from Commander Vega and look through all the logs of the survey team."
Carter nodded his head and turned his attention back to keeping an eye on their surroundings.
Jade took a step next to Benson and whispered, "You shouldn't encourage him like that."
The captain raised an eyebrow and answered, "What? I can't rule that out. There are things we'd call disembodied spirits in the galaxy. The Organians jump out as the biggest example. At the beginning of the year, the Enterprise ran into one that was obsessed with the Napoleonic Era and was basically a child treating them like playthings. Something like him might have set up this situation to be a modern horror house. People come in to stay for a while and never come out? We could just be some playthings for some malevolent being."
The doctor raised her formerly pierced eyebrow and replied, "Okay… now you getting me scared."
"Jade West scared? That'll be the day," he returned with a soft tease and smile.
The blue dress doctor crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head, fighting a smile.
As the pair was talking, Carter started seeing shadows shift at the highest stakes of cargo to the left of the entrance. His breathing and heart rate steadily increased as the buzzing got louder in his ear. He suddenly jerked his head to the side as he looked like he had seen something in the higher stacked cargo. His eyes went wide as he apparently got a good look at the thing that had set him on edge.
"Oh my God! A Wasp!"
He raised his carbine and squeezed off a quick burst of fire at the top of stake of cargo. Several short blue beams left the barrel and struck a plastic cargo container, blasting several nice clean holes through a corner of the container.
"Damn!" he swore at missing what he was shooting. He lowered his weapon and started running down the hold to give chase.
Benson took a step to try to catch him, but missed his arm. "Private!"
Tori finished climbing down the stack of crates with Trina's hands up to catch her if she slipped.
The younger Vega sister turned and wrapped her arms around Trina, blowing out a relieved breath and slumped in her embrace.
Trina brushed her hand up and down her back. "You're okay, you're okay." She pulled back several seconds later then reached for her utility belt to pull out a cylinder canteen of water. She unscrewed the top of it then handed it to Tori.
The science offer cradled the silver cylinder and gulped a few swallows. She pulled it away from her lips and took a few more deep breaths.
The older Vega sister pulled off her field jacket then wrapped it over Tori's shoulders, brushing her hands up and down her younger sister's arms.
Tori smiled her thanks then Trina asked, "What happened?"
Tori brushed her mouth off the back of her left hand then took another breath. "We were boarded by Klingons. I tried to warn the Commander they were coming because a real life 'Old King' somehow got on the station. He told me the Klingons were coming and that I had to help them, but the Commander didn't believe me. There was no one else on the station."
She took another swig from the canteen then continued, "They showed up and we couldn't hold them off. We had to retreat to the command center, hoping we could hold out until you got here, but… the Commander… Commander, he started thinking I was… a Klingon spy. He wanted to know how I gave them away… how I… helped them and how many were there. He tried to…" She took several deep breaths. "I was able to grab a phaser and I ran. Fernandez came after me and…"
Trina took her by the upper arms and firmly stated, "It was either you or him. He had his phaser set for disintegrate. He wasn't trying to take you alive."
The science officer swallowed and took a deep breath. She licked her lips then uttered, "But… I had my phaser on stun. I promise to the Holy Mother that I had it on stun, but…" She looked back to the phaser she had stuck in her belt.
Trina carefully pulled it out and checked the setting, seeing the back knob was set to kill level heat setting.
The lovely but clearly agitated young woman asked, "Is it on stun?"
The older sister partially smiled and answered, "No, but it's not your fault. We've figured out something is stimulating our brains, making us see things… such as the record of the Klingon ship you were tracking."
Tori knotted her brow then took a step back. She breathlessly uttered, "What? There wasn't a Klingon ship? I could be… I might just be imagining you?"
Trina pulled her into a quick hug and held her tight, not letting her go and whispered into her ear, "I'm right here. I'm real. This is real. This is real."
She slumped into her older sister's arms, returning the hug, trusting that she could feel her sister, that she could feel her warmth and heartbeat.
The older sister pulled back again and brushed her hands up and down Tori's upper arms and assured her, "Okay, okay. You're safe and we're getting out of here. We found three others, but do you know where the last member of your team? We can't pick her up on sensors."
The younger brunette took a deep breath and answered, "So they're alright?"
Trina sighed then reluctantly answered, "No. The commander's dead and we believe so is the engineer in the engineering section."
Tori's shoulders dropped along with her chin. She shook her head, looking totally defeated and thoroughly exhausted.
The older brunette rested her hand on Tori's left shoulder and began, "We'll get you back to the ship then we'll figu—"
The whining sound of phaser fire several dozen meters down the cargo hold interrupted her, causing Trina to spin around and Tori to grip her older sister's arms.
Trina gripped her carbine then turned and grabbed Tori's right wrist with her free hand then set off in the direction of the fire.
Ops Center
'Old Kings' Station
Sector 2007
Isabe had finished packing up the other PADDs and stacked them on the footlocker at the end of the bunk. She had noticed that the name printed on it was 'VEGA, LT. COMMANDER'. She called out over her shoulder as the other two were busy on their task, "Hey, it looks like lieutenant's sister was sleeping here while she worked. This is her footlocker."
Anderson looked over his shoulder and remarked, "The commander did say that she was working herself nearly nonstop to understand this system, so she slept here to save time. I guess we can be curious enough to take it with us to use to carry the equipment."
The corporal walked back to the pair, resting a hand on the top of each chair's backrest and asked, "So, how are you doing?"
The fellow marine sighed, "I've confirmed the engineer is by the power core and… he's dead, but I'm still having trouble finding the last survey member."
Rex continued to type on the PADD, quite busy on his task and momentarily ignoring her.
Isabe patted the officer's shoulder and quietly asked, "What about you lieutenant?"
The helm officer finally acknowledged, "I'm still trying to track down the source of the mind altering signal. I figured out that it is a weak signal being pumped through the station's internal communication system. The problem so far is the controls to operate the system didn't appear to be within the computer system I'm operating."
The Cygnan marine asked, "Why don't you just shut that down? We're not using it."
He shook his head and answered, "It's being pumped through it, not actually a function of the communication system. I'd have to actually burn out the system for it to stop."
Anderson suggested, "Why don't we try that then? I don't want to start imagining something and accidentally shoot one of you… or shoot myself."
"I don't think the brass would like us to damage the station anymore than we have to and besides, we shouldn't play around with that janked up power core or we might all start glowing. I just have… wait a second… there's a separate computer system." He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I feel as dumb as Robbie. The security station."
"What?"
Rex looked over his shoulder and up to Isabe to answer, "The security station they mentioned in the log. It's a separate unit from the main computer to override the system if necessary. This could be some self-defense program to protect the station and…" His eyes went wide as another thought hit him. "…the Klingon mindsifter. It's basically a mind reader for interrogation that sends signals into the brain and gets a feedback reading. Instead of using it to stimulate the brain for memories, it's stimulating it to make you see things that aren't actually there."
Anderson knotted his brow and asked, "Is that possible?"
"Your brain is being stimulated and there's a device here that stimulates people's brains…" He squinted and finished in a sarcastic manner, "…is it that big a leap?"
The senior marine tightened his smile and answered, "I see your point."
Isabe stated the obvious, "We have to get into that room."
Rex got up from his seat and Isabe joined him to check out the attached rooms as they didn't know which one was the room they spoke of in the log. Rex went left while Isabe went right to check two of the rooms.
The door opened for Rex and he took a quick glance around, seeing that the room was just a lavatory with several stalls.
Isabe approached her chosen room, but before she was close enough to activate the door, she knotted her brow and started glancing around in place.
Anderson noticed her sudden change in demeanor and turned a curious look to his fellow marine. "Isabe, what is it?"
She turned to the access door at the opposite end of the ops center from which they entered, "I thought I heard… scratching."
"Scratching?"
Rex turned away from the door and offered, "I didn't hear anything and I have a greater range and sensitive to hearing than either one of you. You're just being a little nervous because of the creepy surroundings." He shook his head and chuckled, "I bet Jade is getting a thrill out of it."
The marines gave him a shared perplexed expression.
He lazily shrugged a shoulder and answered, "She's into horror movies."
Anderson nodded in acknowledgement.
Rex continued with a grin towards the Cygnan corporal and asked with a smooth, flirtatious manner, "You can always slide up next to me. I'll make sure nothing happens to you."
Isabe looked to Anderson and asked, "Is he what humans refer to as 'flirting' to me?"
The Lance Corporal snorted a laugh and answered, "I think he is flirting with you."
The Cygnan's cheek blushed a darker hue of blue.
The gold shirt Star Fleet officer smiled and replied in a teasing voice, "Take it any way you want corporal…"
"It's against regulations for officers and enlisted personnel to fraternized… even on a five-year mission."
Anderson leaned over and whispered with a grin, "I don't think he's concerned about that."
She was about to respond, but she turned her head with a snap. She walked away and closer towards the door. "I know I hear something out there."
Anderson offered with a soft laugh, "There's nothing out there to do that."
Rex followed up with a snort and grin, "It's not like Cat beamed over and found herself a scratching post."
Isabe's right hand rested on the butt of her phaser pistol that was holstered while she picked up her tricorder and took a glance down at it. The display showed that they were the only three in the immediate vicinity. She took another breath and approached the other entrance into the ops center. It registered her presence and opened, revealing an identical corridor to the one they entered except the more of the overhead lights were flickering or nonfunctional, leaving far more shadows. She squinted as she tried to pick up any movement down the dark corridor. She had the best chance of seeing something with the advantage of lowlight vision.
She looked for several seconds until she saw a shadow move at the end of the hallway. She pulled her phaser pistol and glanced over her shoulder with the corner of her right eye and shouted, "I saw something."
Rex approached from behind and asked, "What did you see?"
Isabe took another step out of the door and answered, a perplex expression across her face, "I'm not sure."
"What does your tricorder say?"
"There's… wait, I got a lifeform reading…" Her eyes went wide and uttered, "…by the Sky Fathers…"
The helmsman's concern suddenly spiked and asked, "What?"
Isabe dropped the tricorder for it to loosely hang by her hip and she pulled her phaser from the holster. She called out before suddenly dashing down the hallway, "Stay here!"
"Isabe!" Rex shouted after her.
She ignored him as she was several meters down the corridor and turning to her right. She paused before she finished rounding the corner. She shouted out as she raised her phaser pistol, "Kzinti!"
Rex watched the Cygnan fire off her phaser down the corridor. He could hear and thus easily imagining the phaser beam striking some piece of bulkhead and sending out sparks from explosively melted metal.
She started running again to chase down her phantom intruder.
The helm officer snapped his head and order, "Find out what she's chasing!" He didn't wait for an acknowledgement as he started running after her.
Author's Note: They found Tori, but it looks like everything is spinning out of control for them with two of them terrified of something that are in their souls. Thanks for reading, OneHorseShay.
