Campfire Tales

Chapter 2



Travis cleared his throat one more time, mainly just to make Elizabeth roll her eyes.

"Ok were was I, oh yes I remember now."



After three days with nothing more exciting then Peter, the ships xobioligist, coming down with a cold, Isabel decided to take a liberty as captain and sleep in. Andrea, the ships navigator, was more then able to take over for a few hours; they could all do each other's jobs as it was anyway. With six crewmembers and two passengers, protocol was just not the order of the day.

That's why Isabel was surprised when the COM chime woke her only an hour later.

"Isa?" it was Jerome.

"Yeah, what is it." She didn't try to hide her irritation, or the sleep in her voice.

"Are you going to make your shift or not?" maybe the crew was too informal, she thought irritably as she rolled over on to her side.

"Andrea took mine." She said in a whiney sleep ridden tone that she hoped said 'now please, end of conversation'.

"Well she's not here."

Great now she would have to wake up and she would of course never be able to get back to sleep. The least Andrea could have done was warn her she was going to be late, or at least tell Jerome so he didn't wake her up to ask her.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

"Try to raise her Jerome, if she's unreachable page me back." She rose and began to dress. If he did find her Isa wanted to let her know she was awake now. And if he didn't, well shed just have to bumble through somehow.

Not a minute later the COM chimed again.

"Yeah?" she answered it.

"I'm so sorry Isa I fell right back to sleep." From the background noise behind Andrea's voice Isa could tell she was down by engineering where her quarters were.



"And I thought it was about to get good." Trip said scratching the back of his neck.

"Come on you cant just interrupt like that." Travis protested.

"It dose seem to disrupt the flow of the storyline." T'pol concurred from her place still outside the fire circle.

"Sorry, please continue." Trip said with a bit of a laugh in his voice.



"I'm so sorry Isa I fell right back to sleep." From the background noise behind Andrea's voice Isa could tell she was down by engineering where her quarters were. "I'm on my way now, honest, I'll be there in…" there was a pause. "What are you doing down here?"

"Andrea?" Isa asked. But got no answer. All she heard was the happenings down in engineering.

The next sound was one of the most gruesome Isabel had ever heard, it was deep and throaty and almost completely animal, a hair raising howl like none she had ever heard before.

"What are you doing?" Andrea asked her unknown companion. 'What are you doing' Isabel thought, trying to will Andrea to get out of there.

Before she could form the words on her tongue though, the COM went dead.

That's when chaos broke loose. Lights all over the ship went down and the read emergency lights flashed on in hypnotic rhythms. Then come the slight shutter as the ships engines when down and its forward motion through space ceased.

Isabel rushed out of her quarters and straight in to Miguel.

"I was just coming to see you." The short black surgeon told her. "All this happened rather suddenly, didn't it?" there was no panic in his voice, but then there rarely ever was. On this ship engine problems and lighting failures were a common assurance since the loss of their engineer in a freak plasma explosion.



"I think he threw that in there just for you." Elizabeth commented with a giggle to Trip.

"I think you may be right. Not very nice though."

Travis continued as if they hadn't even interrupted.



"Walk with me to engineering, and tell me what you needed." She said. She almost forgot her current situation in her shock. If the reclusive little man had ventured out of sickbay, it had to be something extremely important, may even explain the current situation.

"I think I found the reason for the crimes on C1425."

"I thought it was just some psychopath that Eval missed."

"Not quite, there were actually three murderers, each as normal as you and I. One was Grocho Veen, then Justin Farr, and lastly Nicolas Mandrake who was the only one apprehended."

"So what was the cause?" Isabel asked, impatient not so much with Miguel, but to get to engineering as fast as possible.

"The air."

"Excuse me?"

"You're excused, and yes I said the air. It seems a hormone excreted by one of the aquatic creatures when exposed to air rises in potency and causes extreme violent tendencies in its breathers. Its not a problem for the indigenous life forms because they don't breath the air and so it therefore went unnoticed. It wasn't until Peter and I started digging that we dug the information up."

"You mean it's like a disease?"

"Yes exactly, that's exactly what its like. It can even cause changes in physical structure as well as in behavior."

"So your saying those people down there," she pointed toward guest quarters as they passed another vacant hall, "are infected with this?"

"Yes. I wouldn't worry overmuch though, the virus as it were, takes hold in a relatively short time, a couple of days or so, and these people have exhibited no overly violent behaviors"

"Maybe they have." She yelled as she broke in to a run and left a perplexed Miguel fighting to keep up.





To Be Continued…

More to come shortly...I promise. : ) I know its unconventional, story wise. But I kind of like it.