By: trekker
CHAPTER 5: We've Got Casualties!
"Rommel!" Damond had to whisper now that the two people were within earshot. "Rommel! What happened!?!" Nothing. No response whatsoever. "Damond to Columbia. I've lost contact with Rommel. Beam him up!"
"Columbia Columbia to Damond. We can't see him either! What's going on down there?"
"No idea. But, I have a hunch that Rommel just got killed by something in the well. Two local people are going in now. What should I do next?"
"There are four more behind them. Do what you think is best; just be careful. Colombia out." Then came some shouts from the well: "The hair! Yura followed you!" "What hair! I don't see any hair! Seems that Kaede was right about you having the special eyesight. Tell me where it is!" "Right!" "Left!" "Oh, shit! Both sides!"
Then the other people arrived at the door. "Kagome! Get out of there!" "Open the doors!" "I can't do that!" "Left!" "Right!" "Again!" "Back!"
Damond crept over to a window in the back wall of the well building and peeked in. What he saw made him dizzy right away. There were these massive, black, wormish (but a thousand times larger) things flailing around as someone wearing a red coat–– make that a white coat–– what the hell!
The white side of the coat, when examined more closely, turned out to be a girl {!} clinging to the back of someone else's red coat as if her life depended on the wearer of that coat (and it probably did)! And there, on the floor was what could only be a Starfleet uniform… worn by a dead, headless guy. This didn't gross out Damond. He'd seen at least fifty dead guys on the Columbia alone during the war. His Starfleet training was now telling him to get Rommel's body out of there before someone figured out what his [Rommel's] phaser could do (the hard way). Now he had a dilemma: how to get past everyone else and into the well building unnoticed. Time for reinforcements. He tapped his combadge "Damond to the armory. I need a couple concussion grenades and another phaser if I'm supposed to do my job down here." A moment later, four grenades and a phaser reintegrating from the transporter effect appeared in front of him. He set them [grenades] to stun, and he set his phasers to their lowest stun setting. He knew he couldn't afford any more casualties, but he had to get Rommel out of there. He crept around the side of the building prepared a grenade. He rolled it in just behind the small crowd of people and ducked out of view… BOOM! The grenade detonated, leaving all four people unconscious… give or take the old guy. Damond checked his tricorder to see if he [the old man] would live, just to be safe. He'll live. Now, for the people inside…
He moved to the door and could now see that the girl, who was no longer clinging to the other… person? – What's up with the hair? Maybe he's the guy the Beatles sing about in their Abbey Road Album…
(Damond is a fan of the 20th century band "The Beatles", which has a song called "Come Together" on their Abbey Road album. Inuyasha is, apparently, the only 'he' Damond has ever seen with "…hair…down… belooooow… his knee…")
…was now standing in front of the well, trying to direct attention to something in front of her… which was when the other person seemed to slash at her… and suddenly all of the black stuff went limp. Damond waited for the doors to open. The girl and the other person were now approaching the door at a jog.
"What happened?! Where's mom? Mom!" "Now what?"
"Where did they–– How––!" Kagome was startled to see everyone lying around outside the door! She opened the door just as the person with the silver hair said something about someone else being just outside––
And was knocked unconscious as something yellow appeared at the corner of her vision. Inuyasha had jumped over her as she collapsed, so Damond missed when he tried to stun him at the same time. As Inuyasha readjusted his trajectory to land on Damond, Damond rolled through the open door and jumped to where Rommel's decapitated corpse was lying. "Damond to Columbia: one to beam up!" Rommel vanished in the sparkle of the quantum mist that consumed him.
Inuyasha reoriented himself and dove for the open door. The first thing that caught his attention was the bluish glow that came from near the well. The next thing that caught his attention was the person kneeling next to it. He lunged and landed on top of a surprised person wearing a yellow and black uniform.
The person didn't go down right away, in deference to Inuyasha's expectations. He rolled forward, knocking Inuyasha slightly off balance, but he recovered quickly. The human used the little time he had bought to pull something off of his belt (Inuyasha didn't see it) and crawl behind the well. Inuyasha leapt over the well and landed right in front of the person. He [the person; a.k.a. Damond] lashed out with his foot. Inuyasha grabbed it and threw him into the corner of the upper walkway to [the still unconscious] Kagome's left. The uniformed person tapped something on his chest and shouted something that, to Inuyasha, sounded like "dammit the fans order doom! Dammit the fans order doom! Beat (or 'beating') me up!" But that didn't matter. Inuyasha grabbed him and prepared to throw him again when he [Damond] suddenly started turning blue and Inuyasha realized they were both turning blue and dissolving somehow… and suddenly everything changed! They were in another place now. Someone shouted something and a yellow beam appeared out of nowhere and left a scorch mark on the wall behind Inuyasha. He had already thrown his victim somewhere else and now lunged where the beam came from.
On the U.S.S. Columbia. . .
When O'Hearne saw Rommel's decapitated corpse, he nearly lost his lunch. He had immediately contacted Doctor Gonzalez and watched him take it out of the room. He didn't realize he'd standing there, just staring at the door until he heard a chirping sound from the transporter control console. It was the sound of an incoming message from an away team person. He pressed the button that would let him hear it: "Damond to transporter room! Damond to transporter room! Beam me up!" He suddenly pressed the buttons so fast, it was as if he had been expecting it. Then again: he was still sort of in shock, so his actions were completely without thought. He was suddenly awoken from his shock when he saw the irregular shape of what was supposed to be Damond appearing on the transporter pad. It wasn't just Damond who beamed in! Someone (or something) with long, silvery hair and furry, pointed ears also appeared! Not your run-of-the-mill everyday Vulcan, O'Hearne mused. That was before he saw it throw Damond across the room, at which point he raised his phaser, tapped his combadge: "Intruder alert! Security to transport room one immediately!", and fired at it. But, he missed. Now he had become the center of the creature's attention. And it wasn't a very happy creature, either.
Inuyasha landed on the computer console right in front of O'Hearne, who ducked and rolled under the console, to hide in the leg room it was meant to provide underneath. Inuyasha slid off the console, pivoted in midair, and landed right in front of the person in a yellow and black uniform again. Another yellow beam shot out of the device the human was holding. It hit Inuyasha square in the center of his chest, which happened to be protected by his red coat. The beam knocked him backwards against the wall, but had no other affects on him. The human recovered and ran for the door. Inuyasha followed him–– but something heavy landed on him from behind: the first human. Inuyasha rolled over him and threw him into the transporter operator's chair and was about to get up when he got hit by another beam. He jumped forward only to be repelled by three beams, which knocked him all the way back to the alcove that he had initially arrived in. He recovered quickly but as he leapt off again, he was caught in another blue shiny cloud thing and he watched his surroundings dissolve into the well building he had been in previously.
Back on the planet. . .
Inuyasha had been caught in mid-leap when the transporter got him, so just after he reformed again, he rammed straight into the wall that had always been there since he had beamed up with the non-decapitated black-and-yellow human. OUCH! When he looked around the room, he saw that he was back where he had been before he was somehow transported to that other room. The only difference was that the humans in black and yellow uniforms were gone. As he looked through the opened door, he saw Kagome and her family picking themselves up, off the ground. When did that happen? Not that I actually care or anything remotely close to that. . He walked over to Kagome and proceeded to pester her to go back down the well. NOW! When everyone finished straightening the situation out, Inuyasha was practically red with impatience (correction: he was red with impatience); Grandpa was too upset about his scrolls and other "well-securing" stuff not working to realize anything else was going on; Mom was busy insisting that Kagome stay just long enough to pack a few important things, like shampoo, fresh clothing, sunscreen, bug spray, basically all of the stuff you would take for sleep away camp; sleep-away camp that does not provide cabins, bunk beds, and mess halls, as well as fun activities (give or take the fun activities).
"Mom! I have to go back down there now! I'll come back for the rest of my stuff after I deal with the hair demon Yura person."
"Alright, Kagome. We'll miss you. I hope you can take care of yourself, and, well, if you need anything, you can come home and pick it up," her grandpa said, finally.
"Hey! What's this?" her younger brother had found a small, burned-out piece of the grenade that had knocked everyone out. No one seemed to be paying him any attention, though. But when the cat found another piece and started chewing on it, Kagome diverted everyone's attention to the cat playing with a who-knows-what (more like "they-don't-know-what-it-is" as opposed to "we-know-what-it-is-but-we-can't-say-it-because-it's-evil" {such as "you-know-who" in Harry Potter}) he had found lying on the ground.
"What is that? Put that down right now! That's not food!" she scolded. "Okay, mom, I think I'm ready to go. I love you and I already miss you. Bye! Alright, Inuyasha: let's go."
"Since Yura followed us, I think you should wear this," he pulled off his red coat, explained that it was made from the fur of a firerat, and let her put it on.
And they went into the well…
BACK ON THE U.S.S. COLUMBIA. . .
"Pierce to the captain: I don't think I need to tell you why I'm calling." It had only been fifteen minutes since the last transport. They had already lost one crewmember and his [that crewmember's] head, and they had nearly lost two more crewmembers if it had not been for the expertise and swiftness of the security team that responded to O'Hearne's call in the transporter room. They'd been learning about the physiology of the creature that had beamed up with Lieutenant Damond (who was now in sickbay having his injuries treated by Nurse Harrison), as well as its red coat, and they still didn't know anything of real consequence about the planetside transporter. This is depressing, Ramon thought. All we know is that that the creature is part-dog, part-human and that it is unaffected when attacked with three phasers set to heavy stun! All right: Sark's got an idea and I'll bet its our only lead to getting anywhere closer to solving this mystery. "Geoffrey, prepare some of the pattern enhancers. Sark's gonna do something that could help us a lot, or not help at all. Unfortunately, he's got the only idea that might get the job done."
"Yes, sir." Geoffrey started pulling out the long cylinders and had them ready when Sark came into the room.
"Yes, captain?" (Sark's talking)
"Ah, Sark. Go do your idea with the pattern enhancers. If you come out somewhere else in the system, we'll find you. And if not, well, you know." Sark proceeded to pull on an EVA suit (which would protect him if he reappeared somewhere in an inhospitable environment) and proceeded to the transporter pad with the pattern enhancers under one arm. "In the event I am irretrievable, do not waste time searching for me. The good of the many outweighs the good of the one. Live long, and prosper. Energize." And then he dissolved in the blue mist of the transporter.
"Well, people," the captain declared, "Now we wait. I'm willing to wait forty-eight hours before declaring him a casualty. Any objections?" No one replied. "Okay, then. What have we learned so far about the creature that beamed up with our lieutenant?"
"It's physiology is similar to both that of a human and that of a Terran canine. And it has a coat made of an unknown organic compound that is apparently dense enough to absorb a point-blank phaser blast at the 'heavy stun' setting, which would normally kill a humanoid, given the extremely limited distance and the intensity of the blast. It is very agile and further contact with it should be made with extreme care."
"That's a start. What can we learn about the coat to make our phasers more effective? Geoff, I want a full report and a 3-D of the coat. (he taps his combadge) Doctor Gonzalez, I need you in transporter one. Ensign O'Hearne will brief you on the situation and your purpose.
"Bridge to the captain. We just detected an unidentified subspace frequency emitting from the other class-M planet. It seems to be consistent with carrier wave used by Federation transporters."
"Understood. Maintain orbit. Boslin, Take a shuttlecraft with Lieutenant Sloane to retrieve Sark. Anything else?."
"Bridge out."
On the bridge. . .
"Let's go see what Sark is up to. Let's go, lieutenant." Boslin gestured for Sloane to follow him and they walked to the turbolift. "Deck twenty," ordered Boslin as the lift doors closed.
When they arrived at the shuttle bay, Sloane made a beeline for the second type IX shuttlecraft. Boslin didn't feel the need to ask why, since the Cortez shuttlecraft was the only one that had survived the whole war. It was also the one that he had saved during the war by taking a few extra hits to distract the Jem'Hadar. All of the other four shuttles were replacements. They were cleared for launch and Sloane skillfully piloted it out of the back of the Columbia's stardrive section. When they'd cleared the ship, Sloane took the shuttle into warp one and slowed down as they approached the other planet. Boslin checked his interface for the coordinates of the Sark's pattern enhancers. Then Sloane piloted the shuttle toward the surface.