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Star Trek: Bounty - 9 - "But One Man of Her Crew Alive"

Part Two (Cont'd)

Captain Grinya growled in renewed frustration as the console in front of him remained resolutely dark and powered down.

He had finished the laborious process of rewiring the main power grid of the derelict moments earlier, which should have been enough to get everything back up and running. But the ship was still refusing to cooperate with him.

His mood wasn’t being helped by the message from Jirel. Not just the unhappy content, but the deeply unprofessional way it had been communicated.

Not for the first time since he had accepted this salvage job, he was beginning to sense that Commander Turanya had cheaped out on him once again.

The slimy commander of the Reja Gar station had promised to make sure that the Ret Kol was back up to a full crew complement for their recovery mission. But he hadn’t told Grinya that he’d be sending him a trio of untried and entirely untested newbies instead of genuine like-for-like replacements for the reassigned members of his team.

And ever since the three newcomers had arrived onboard the Ret Kol, Grinya had been feeling more and more irritations over what was supposed to be a simple salvage mission. Irritations that were now being added to by the entirely non-functional power grid.

“What the hell is wrong with this thing?” he muttered to himself after muting his suit-to-suit comms link with Lieutenant Deroya, leaving the angry words of frustration to echo emptily around inside his helmet.

He began to check over the connections with his wrist-mounted scanner once again, searching for a broken connection, or any sign of a fault he had missed.

Then, in the corner of his eye, he saw something move. A shadow flickered across the wall somewhere to his right.

He instinctively spun around and grabbed his phaser rifle where he had placed it next to the bulky console, bringing it to bear in the direction he had seen the shadow.

But there was nothing there.

Still, he was sure he had seen something moving.

“Lieutenant Deroya?” he called out.

No answer.

He scanned around the dark recesses of the section of the engineering deck he was working in with furtive darting looks, feeling his breathing grow sharper and more tense as his torchlight illuminated jagged metal edges in amongst the shadows. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, even inside the carefully temperature controlled confines of his spacesuit.

Then, as he swung around, he saw another movement. His instincts told him that this one was much closer.

Already fearing it was too late, the gruff Flaxian whirled around, bringing his phaser rifle to bear on whatever was approaching at the same time.

The torch beam of his weapon illuminated the face of Lieutenant Deroya.

She stared at him in shock. Through the visor of her helmet, he could see her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear her.

His suit-to-suit comms link was still off.

He silently cursed himself for missing such a basic issue. He’d temporarily switched it off in order to be able to grumble to himself in private, but hadn’t switched it back on after being distracted by chasing shadows.

With a tap of his wrist controls, he reactivated the link in time to catch the end of Deroya’s monologue.

“...checking the secondary systems. Are…you ok, sir?”

She maintained her formal tone as she delivered her report, while still warily eyeing up the rifle, which Grinya now lowered, slightly sheepishly.

“I’m fine, Lieutenant,” he replied, a little more sharply than he’d intended, “Just losing my patience with this goddamn power supply, that’s all.”

He gestured back to the console he’d been working on, as Deroya considered the issue.

“There could be a fault in the plasma grid matrix?”

“Yeah,” Grinya muttered back with a scoff, “Could be about two dozen other things as well. Bad enough that worm Turanya sent me those three newbies to do this with, now he’s sent me to a derelict that doesn’t want to cooperate either.”

He forced himself to pause and stop chewing his loyal lieutenant’s ear off, reminding himself that he needed to make sure he was following his own orders as much as his own team should be. He needed to make sure that he wasn’t allowing his own frustrations to affect their work. The only way that he had been pulling off these sorts of salvage missions without a serious hitch for the last fifteen years was by ensuring that everyone kept focus.

So he reined in his growing list of irritations for the time being, and nodded at Deroya through his helmet.

“You’re right,” he grunted, “Could be the plasma grid matrix. Let’s check it out.”

She nodded back, betraying no sense that she had been thrown off by his sharp tone or his raised weapon.

The two Flaxians stepped away from the console and moved across the expanse of the engineering deck of the derelict. Both of them kept their rifles drawn, but kept them down at their sides for now, using the flashlights on their helmets to illuminate their path.

The engineering deck itself was a vast expanse of a room, dominated by the warp core arrangement on the far side. A vertical tube-like structure surrounded by scaffolding and platforms to allow for maintenance access.

Only the very top part of the core was visible at the level of the engineering deck itself. The rest of the huge cylinder disappeared down into the very lowest decks of the ship, into a cavernous hole that was only accessible via those same scaffold platforms, all the way down to the bottom of the vessel.

It was a somewhat antiquated design, even compared to older Flaxian cruisers like the Ret Kol. And Captain Grinya remembered stories he was told by his former chief engineer about the dangers of maintaining such an exposed core. But the design had persisted amongst some older Flaxian transports like this due to their cheapness and their reliability.

Although this particular example seemed somewhat lacking in the latter department.

As they passed by the core, heading for a specific access point on the far wall, the two long-serving salvage experts walked in lock step.

“Plasma controls are over here,” Deroya noted with a nod.

She hadn’t needed to say it out loud. Both she and Grinya knew enough about the layout of this ship to know that. But she had also wanted to break the tension in the air. And distract herself from the unsettling fact that, regardless of what her wrist-mounted scanner was telling her about the lack of local lifesigns, she was sure she kept seeing something moving in the shadows.

They got to the requisite panel, and Grinya crouched down to remove the dirty metal plate in order to get to the plasma controls. He paused.

“Look,” he grunted, gesturing at the panel.

Deroya crouched down next to him. For the time being, both of them hunched over the panel, their backs to the rest of the engineering deck.

She saw what he was pointing to immediately. Several of the clips that held the panel in place had been snapped clean off, and the few that remained were only holding the panel flush to the wall very loosely indeed. Lieutenant Deroya couldn’t help but feel a chill pass down her spine.

“What are you thinking?” she muttered over the suit-to-suit line.

“I think,” Grinya replied with a dark grimace, “That we’re not the first people to have worked on the plasma grid just recently.”

Deroya allowed the words to drift around in her helmet as she took in what he meant by that.

In truth, he could only have meant one of two things. Either the crew of the derelict had been working behind this panel recently, and done a very clumsy job of it.

Or something very strong had wrenched the panel off. To tamper with the ship’s power supply.
 
Part Two (Cont'd)

“Jirel.”

There was no response from the Flaxian next to him as they walked away from the latest pile of body parts that they had tagged.

So far, the search team had tagged around half a dozen sets of remains, roughly a quarter of the derelict’s crew. Though with some of them having been discovered close together, it was sometimes hard to see when one Flaxian ended and another one started.

Each time they happened upon a set of remains, Jirel’s stomach tightened a little more, and his grip on his phaser rifle got a little more strong.

Whatever had happened, the increasingly pointless search for survivors was becoming as grim a job as he had ever been involved in out in space. The unsettling nature of their work was beginning to take its toll. And things weren’t being helped by the ongoing silent treatment he was getting from his entirely formal and focused search partner.

So he tried again to break that particular strand of tension.

“My name’s Jirel,” he continued, “Just so you don’t need to keep calling me ‘newbie’.”

Alongside him, Kataya didn’t offer him as much as a glance, keeping his focus dead ahead as they paced on down the latest corridor. But he did eventually reply.

“I know what your name is. Newbie.”

Jirel strained to detect a sliver of good humour in the Flaxian’s voice when he delivered that comment over the suit-to-suit link. But he heard nothing.

“Right,” Jirel sighed, “I get it, you’re doing a thing. It’s just…I’d kinda like to think we’re at a stage where we can drop all that now?”

No response. They turned another corner to find a mercifully empty corridor greeting them.

“I mean,” Jirel continued as winningly as he could manage under the circumstances, “I thought we’d got past this back in the mess hall…”

Kataya grunted with a trace of amusement at this, but any hopes Jirel had of making a breakthrough in his relationship with his search partner were dashed when the Flaxian looked over at him with a dismissive glare.

“That fight gave me respect for your Klingon friend. But not for the rest of you. And around here, on this crew, respect has to be earned.”

Before Jirel could muster any sort of response to that, Kataya swiftly walked on and rounded another corner. Then, as the Trill followed him and looked down the next corridor, a response suddenly came to him.

“Holy crap.”

There was no response from Kataya. But, truth be told, his thoughts were similar. They both stopped dead in their tracks and stared at the sight that their torches were illuminating ahead of them.

On the right side of the corridor, about halfway towards the next intersection, the lines of the dark and weathered walls were interrupted by a huge misshapen hole, torn through the metal itself as if a photon torpedo had slammed through it. Great ugly shards of grey metal stuck out from the rupture, glinting in their torchlight, unsettlingly twisted outwards into the corridor itself.

Kataya raised his phaser rifle without a sound, and slowly stepped towards the carnage. Bereft of an alternative plan, Jirel brought his own weapon to bear and cautiously followed.

As they approached the tear in the wall, his eyes widened at the evident ferocity of whatever had so completely wrenched a direct path through the solid wall.

“Holy crap,” Jirel repeated in a whisper, struggling to think of anything else to say.

As he got to the twisted metal, Kataya was already tapping his wrist-mounted controls, scanning the area to try and ascertain their surroundings.

“These are the main laboratories,” he muttered over the suit-to-suit link, gesturing with his other hand to the scene of carnage on the other side of the hole.

“So,” Jirel offered in return, “You gonna tell me this was a meteor as well?”

The Flaxian didn’t respond immediately, keeping his focus on his scans for some sort of clue as to what had happened here. But Jirel persisted.

“I’m serious. What the hell have we beamed into over here? What were they transporting on this crate, Kataya?”

Inside his helmet, the Flaxian shook his head. The words of his response rang hollow when they finally came. His previous assertiveness eroded slightly.

“I…have no idea,” he admitted, “Captain Grinya might have seen a full manifest, but he didn’t flag any issues to us. We were just ordered to salvage the ship. Tag and retrieve.”

“Yeah, well, looks like you’re gonna need some bigger tags.”

Kataya ignored him, continuing to scan the remains of the wall. Jirel turned the torch beam on his rifle onto the widest available setting and cautiously peered into the room on the other side of the wall, trying to make out details in the darkness.

The light illuminated the eerie scene of a trashed laboratory, bouncing off wrecked consoles and overturned tables and casting foreboding shadows onto the walls.

Just as he plucked up the courage to take a step through the gap and into the room, being careful not to nick the fabric of his suit on the jagged edge of the hole, a sudden noise caused him to literally jump back in fright.

It took him a moment to calm his heart rate as his helmet filled with a familiar gruff voice.

“Klath to Jirel, come in.”

The unauthorised communication not only caused Jirel to jump, but caused him to follow up with a slight flinch. He felt Kataya’s glare on his back without turning around, as his colleagues once again went against clearly established protocol during Flaxian salvage operations.

Still, given the circumstances, he elected to answer the call.

“Hey, Klath,” he managed to get out as he felt his spots start to itch all over again, “Remember those long, super interesting briefings back on the Ret Kol, right? All salvage team comms are addressed to the team leader?”

“Yes,” Klath grunted back, “But that is proving difficult. I am unable to raise Captain Grinya.”

Jirel stepped back out of the ruined laboratory and looked over at Lieutenant Kataya, whose gaze became slightly more steely as he opened a second channel.

“Search team to Captain Grinya. Please respond.”

Jirel watched on as the Flaxian waited for a response, then shook his head and talked back to Klath via his own link.

“Nothing here either. Could be interference if they’re still down in engineering?”

“Perhaps,” the Klingon replied, in a tone of voice that suggested he didn’t believe that particular explanation for a second.

Kataya cut into the main comms line and barked out a response before Jirel could muster anything further to his friend.

“We’re closer to the engineering section. We’ll go down and check it out.”

“Oh,” Jirel couldn’t help but reply, “We will, will we?”

Kataya fixed him with a freshly determined glare.

“Until we’ve re-established contact with Captain Grinya, I’m in effective command of this operation. So yes, we will. Newbie.”

Before the Trill could retort any further, the Flaxian turned and walked off. Jirel sighed inside his helmet and began to follow, keeping his eyes on the scene of destruction that still dominated this stretch of corridor.

“Hey, Klath, you still there?” he called out over the comms link, not caring what Kataya thought about another breach of procedure.

“Yes,” the Klingon replied.

“Listen, buddy, you two keep an eye out up there, ok?”

“For what?”

“I…don’t really know,” Jirel admitted with a sigh, “But based on what we’ve seen down here, I’m pretty sure there’s something else onboard this thing with us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Looks like…something got out of the labs down here. You should see the damage. Whatever it was made mincemeat out of the place.”

“I see,” Klath’s response came, “Something…big?”

Jirel cast a final look at the twisted wreckage that had once been a solid tritanium bulkhead and suppressed a fresh grimace.

“Yep,” he replied, “Something big.”

****************************

Lieutenant Rondya sat in the command chair on the Ret Kol’s bridge and sighed.

As second in command of a Flaxian cruiser primarily tasked with salvage missions, he found that there was a lot of sitting and waiting involved.

Perhaps if his commanding officer was more of a delegator, he might have had the opportunity to actually lead more of the salvage teams, and get in on some of the action.

But Captain Grinya had never been a delegator. He was a leader. And so his second in command was usually left with little more to do than keep the centre chair on the bridge warm for hours on end, while the real work happened elsewhere under the eagle eye of Grinya himself.

On the main viewscreen, the derelict hung at a slightly awkward angle compared to the Ret Kol itself, a testament to the ship’s lack of power.

It was a substantially larger vessel than the cruiser, featuring a large rectangular secondary hull which housed the sensor banks, storage areas and laboratories alongside the main engineering areas, and a smaller semi-circular forward hull housing the bridge and crew accommodation, connected to the larger section with a short neck. Two stubby nacelles branched out from either side.

It wasn’t an ugly design by any means. But given that Rondya had been staring at it for the best part of four hours by now, he was definitely starting to dislike it.

The bridge was largely understaffed, as it often was during the meat of a salvage operation. Aside from Rondya himself, there was a junior officer keeping an eye on the helm and matching their course with their target, and a relief officer at the rear comms and engineering panel to keep an eye on the derelict itself.

There was some concern among the bridge crew at some of the reports from over on the derelict, not least the complete lack of survivors found so far. But equally, it wasn’t the first time they had dealt with such an unhappy situation. It was part of the salvaging process, after all.

As time ticked on, Rondya found himself absently drumming his fingers on the armrest of the command chair, apparently to the irritation of the helmsman, whose shoulders flinched slightly as the noise persisted.

Then, out of nowhere, the comms panel behind him chirped, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Captain Grinya and the team were ready to return. Like clockwork.

Except, this time, that wasn’t what the comms traffic was.

“Lieutenant,” the comms officer reported, “You’re being contacted. From below decks.”

“What?” Rondya scoffed, as he swung around in his chair.

“It’s Crewman Jadaya. From the port engineering section.”

The Ret Kol’s executive officer couldn’t help but raise a curious eyebrow. Jadaya was one of the newest members of the crew, and pretty much the lowest-ranking. He was very much the subordinate’s subordinate.

Having actually met the sickly young crewman when he first came aboard, Rondya had considered it very lucky of him to be joining the Ret Kol at the same time as the three newbies had joined up for salvage duty. If it hadn’t been for the Trill, the Vulcan and the Klingon distracting the more rowdy members of the crew, he was pretty sure they’d have eaten Jadaya alive.

Still, contacting the bridge from his lowly position, especially in the middle of a salvage operation, suggested that someone had gotten to the crewman for a spot of old-fashioned hazing anyway.

“Crewman,” Rondya responded, keeping his tone formal despite the amusement he was feeling inside, “How can we help you down there?”

“Um,” the weak voice of Jadaya stammered, “I--I just thought I should report it in, sir.”

Rondya couldn’t help but shake his head as he heard the helmsman snort behind him. Everyone on the bridge was wondering exactly what fanciful message the bullied crewman was being asked to deliver to his senior officers.

“Report…what, Crewman? Out with it.”

“R--Right, um, y--yes. It’s just…Captain Grinya said I didn’t need to report it, but I r--really thought I should--”

The amusement vanished from Rondya’s face in an instant.

“What the hell are you talking about, Crewman? Captain Grinya is aboard the derelict.”

“Yes, sir. B--But he beamed back. Just now.”

Rondya rolled his eyes. Maybe the Ret Kol’s crew were losing their touch if this was the best they could come up with as a plan to haze their newest arrival.

“Ok, Crewman, I don’t care who put you up to this, but you need to clear the line. We’re in the middle of--”

“Sir,” Jadaya’s voice came back, a little more certain, “I’m telling the truth.”

Rondya glanced at the officer at the comms station, who seemed equally perplexed by the effort that the junior crewman’s persistence. Still not entirely sure he wasn’t being hazed as much as Jadaya was, he reluctantly stood up from the command chair and left it spinning behind him.

“I’m on my way.”

The Ret Kol’s exec strode off the bridge in a foul mood. He was already cooking up a suitable punishment for the young crewman for all of this. A couple of weeks spent cleaning the waste reclamation unit was the first thing that sprung to mind.

A few moments later, when he arrived in the Ret Kol’s engineering section, he was as shocked as anyone to discover that Crewman Jadaya had been telling the truth.
 
Spookier and spookier... Really nice mood setting... I gather that Grinya came back...

But perhaps he came back wrong?

Not so much "Yay - he's back..." More like... Pet Cemetery...

This would make a good Halloween story. Thanks!! rbs
 
Part Two (Cont'd)

“Something big?”

Klath ignored the question and busied himself with re-checking the power settings on his phaser rifle, even as Sunek nervously rambled on.

“That’s what he said? Something big?”

Their work on the bridge was now complete. The data transfer back to the Ret Kol was underway, and controllable from their end. Sunek had even found time to use some of the remaining battery power in the data systems to get another few bits up and running. The main viewscreen was now active, bathing the still-darkened bridge with a static-covered view of the Ret Kol where it hung off the port bow of the derelict.

But with only battery power to work with, there had been no real chance to get anything more significant up and running. Certainly not anything as powerful as internal sensors.

Which meant that they only had Jirel’s unsettling and vague description to work with.

“I mean,” Sunek continued as he paced nervously around the bridge, swinging his phaser rifle around as he went, “What does that even mean? Something big? Like, how big? Your shoes are big.”

He gestured down dismissively at Klath’s significantly outsized spacesuit boots, even as the Klingon grunted back his straightforward response.

“It means that we must be prepared to fight.”

“Oh no,” Sunek scoffed, wagging a gloved finger at the battle-ready Klingon, “Nuh-huh. It means that we need to entirely and immediately leave this stupid ship.”

He pointed at the benign image of the Ret Kol where it hung on the viewscreen as their sanctuary, to further underline his point.

“We need to get them to beam us back, and then we need to get the hell out of here. That’s what we need to do. So you can take that look off your face right now.”

Klath stared back at the fretting Vulcan through the visor of his helmet, doing his best to feign a look of ignorance.

“What look?”

“You know exactly what look. The look you always get when crap like this happens. The one that says ‘I’m a big dumb Klingon warrior, so even though the only sensible thing to do is run away, I’m gonna go charging right towards all the scary things’. Honestly, it’s a miracle your people made it this far in life, it really is.”

“My people,” Klath retorted, a tad offended, “Have learned that there is little to be gained from running away from one’s problems.”

“Yeah, right. It’s just like that old joke, isn’t it? You hear the one about the Andorian diplomat who slayed an entire Klingon army? He advised them to make a tactical withdrawal.”

Klath grunted without a trace of amusement. He didn’t get it.

“And that’s exactly the sort of dumb thing you’re doing right now,” the Vulcan concluded with a final accusatory jab of his finger, “And don’t even think about pretending it isn’t, cos I’ve seen it all before. Remember Starbase 216?”

Klath looked up from his weapons check at this unhappy reminder. Some months ago, Sunek had been an unwilling witness to another of his more foolhardy moments, when Klath had been hunted by a vengeful Klingon called Kolar on a planetary Federation starbase that the Bounty had visited for repairs.

After Sunek had been kidnapped by his enemy, instead of seeking help, Klath had taken off into the wilderness by himself to challenge his rival. And he had not only ended up having to reveal the details of his discommendation to the talkative Vulcan, but had nearly ended up being killed.

Still, whatever regrets those memories dredged up inside of him, Klath remained a Klingon warrior at heart. And Klingons didn’t run. So, instead of wasting time responding to Sunek’s comments, he merely shouldered his rifle and made for the access hatch that led back into the conduits of the derelict, his mind focused on the battle that was to come.

A battle with something big.

“Ugh!” Sunek whined, “You’re really gonna do it, aren’t you. Well, that’s great. Just great. Cos that means that I’m gonna have to come and do the really stupid thing with you, doesn’t it?”

“I am more than happy to go alone.”

Sunek watched the Klingon stooping down towards the hatch and suppressed a sigh. It was true that he could call the Ret Kol and try to ask to be beamed out. That was definitely still an option that was available to him.

But he also knew that he couldn’t let his friend face danger alone. No matter how much a significant part of his less brave side wanted to.

“Yeah, well,” he sighed again as he set off towards the hatch, “Tough.”

Just as Klath’s head entered the conduit, though, Sunek’s more cowardly side was granted a last second reprieve. Because suddenly their helmets were filled with an incoming transmission.

“Guys,” Jirel said, sounding more serious than either of his colleagues had ever heard him, “We’re leaving. Now.”

“Thank Surak for that!” Sunek sighed, throwing his hands up in satisfaction.

Klath, for his part, couldn’t help but look a little upset that he wasn’t going to get his fight. But he managed to keep that from his voice as he crawled back out of the conduit and responded.

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back,” the Trill simply responded, “Prepare for beam-out.”

Sunek stood and waited for the transporter effect, and looked over at the Klingon.

“Look on the bright side,” he offered with a shrug, “Maybe they’ll let you keep the gun?”

****************************

She made her way through the ship, still keeping herself hidden.

In truth, she didn’t need to be quite so cautious right now. She was all alone for the time being. Still, her instincts told her to remain secluded.

She didn’t think to question those instincts. Most of the time, that was how she operated. Her body and her subconscious reacting in ways that her conscious mind didn’t understand. She had never been told about the concept of a survival instinct. But regardless of that, it was a potent force inside her.

As she silently moved, she allowed herself a moment of satisfaction, even of pride, in what she had been able to do. She wondered if her parents would be as proud to see what she had become, how much she had learned to do.

She liked to think that they would be. Wherever they were.

But part of her was also filled with self-doubt. Over whether she was really doing the right thing, and whether all of this was necessary.

And then she remembered the pain, and the torment that she had been put through. She recalled the way that she had been snatched away from her home. How scared she had been, and how disorientating it had all felt.

She thought about the tests they had run on her, the challenges they had forced her to complete, and the punishments that were handed out when she didn’t do as she was told.

And that was more than enough to convince her that what she was doing was necessary.

So she stealthily walked on in the shadows, and waited for the next part of the plan she only tangentially understood to be completed.

****************************

Down in the engineering deck, Lieutenant Kataya stood back up and tapped the comms unit on his wrist controls to signal their ship.

As he did that, Jirel kept his phaser rifle raised, scanning the expanse of the darkened engineering deck with his wide-beam torch. Looking for something big.

“Kataya to Ret Kol, requesting emergency beam-out.”

For a moment, there was no answer. Only an eerie silence. When the comms link did splutter into life, it did so with a burst of static which did little to ease either man’s concerns.

“Rondya here. Say again, salvage team?”

Kataya displayed no outward sign of concern or irritation at this response, but raised his own weapon defensively as he repeated himself.

“I say again: This is Lieutenant Kataya, requesting emergency beam-out now.”

Another burst of static. Jirel felt the knot in his stomach tighten further.

“Message received,” Rondya eventually replied, “That won’t be possible at the moment. We’re having some power supply issues over here. Transporters are temporarily offline.”

Jirel instinctively turned back to Kataya, forgetting about the need to scan the room for the moment, though the Flaxian remained calm.

“What sort of power supply issues?”

“Our engineers are still trying to figure that out. There’s some sort of power drain affecting almost every system. Happened as soon as we beamed Captain Grinya back over to you.”

Now it was Kataya’s turn to offer a moment of silence as a response. The Flaxian’s mouth gaped open, but he struggled to find any words.

“Sorry,” Jirel offered instead, jumping in to fill the silence, “When you beamed who back over?”

“Captain Grinya. He beamed over here to check the data link, then returned to the derelict.”

Jirel licked his lips, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down his neck. His spots itched like crazy.

“Wh--When was this?”

“A few minutes ago. Why?”

Jirel glanced at the gobsmacked Kataya, then looked down at the two mutilated corpses they had discovered as soon as they had got to the engineering deck. The reason they had called for the beam-out in the first place.

The two victims were more readily identifiable than the other victims they had found, despite the severity of their injuries. One was Lieutenant Deroya.

And the other was Captain Grinya.

“That’s…not possible,” Jirel managed eventually.

On the other end of the comms link, he was hit by a fresh burst of static.

“Ret Kol?” Kataya urged, “Come in, Ret Kol?”

****************************

Up on the bridge, Sunek and Klath had been following the back-and-forth over the comms link with growing concern.

“What the hell’s going on down there?” Sunek snapped, as he paced the room impatiently.

“I do not know,” Klath admitted, “But--”

He was silenced as the entire bridge was suddenly bathed in a bright light.

Both Sunek and Klath followed the source of the light, turning as one back to the viewscreen at the front of the room.

Just in time to see the Flaxian cruiser Ret Kol being devoured by a fiery, all-consuming explosion.

End of Part Two
 
Really quite liking seeing a modicum of courage with Sunek. There is an odd sense of loyalty and family that has grown up among the Bounty's crew.

So the Grinya that beamed over to the Ret Kol wasn't exactly Grinya...

And now they're stuck on a derelic... Things are getting desperate...

Thanks!! rbs
 
Part Three

“What the hell?”

Natasha grunted in frustration as she tapped the console in front of her, being confronted by the same defiant buzz from the system she was trying to access. On the other side of the lab area on Reja Gar, Denella looked up from her work with a patient smile on her face.

“You know, I’ve had better engineering assistants over the years.”

Natasha looked up at the Orion and offered an apologetic smile of her own, as she gestured down at the console.

“Sorry. But this is really, really odd.”

Denella reluctantly got up from where she had been connecting up the lighting system for the caged-off section of the lab, dusted herself down, and walked over to where her colleague was still tapping away.

“Trying to order us some lunch?”

“I wish. I’ve been trying to find out…anything, actually. About what they’re doing on this station.”

“Huh,” Denella mused, “So you’re spying?”

Natasha looked up at the green-skinned woman’s amused face and affected a mock-defensive air.

“I’m exercising curiosity.”

Denella accepted that defence with a shrug, as Natasha gestured around the room.

“Besides, it’s your fault. You got me all paranoid talking about those forcefields. I mean, what sort of plants are they putting in this arboretum?”

Denella considered this for a moment as she wiped a smear of dirt across her face and set down the hyperspanner in her hand.

“I dunno. Back where I grew up on Orpheus IV, there was a type of vine with four inch spines on it. If you so much as grazed it with your skin, the poison on the spines was strong enough to kill you in about half an hour.”

She offered the other woman a shrug.

“I don’t like forests.”

Natasha nodded in understanding, casting her mind back to her own recent run-in with a toxic plant on a pre-industrial planet that the Bounty’s crew had accidentally found themselves on. One which had nearly ended up killing her.

“Fair point,” she conceded eventually, “But that still doesn’t explain all of this.”

She tapped the console again, and another buzz rang out around the room.

“It’s like the entire station database is completely locked down to the public. And I mean everything. I get that they’re not about to let me hack into the weapons controls, but this is a science outpost, and I can’t even call up a manifest of ongoing research projects without hitting half a dozen dead ends. I’ve served on Starfleet ships during wars, and even they had less computer lockouts in place.”

Denella stepped over and looked down at the screen with a thoughtful expression, seeing the error message that she had run into.

“Yeah, but in defence of the Flaxians, you guys could really do with investing a bit more in security over there.”

Natasha gave the Orion woman a withering look, as Denella simply offered back a knowing smile and a casual gesture down at the controls.

“I guess I can try and force my way in. Whatever it is they’ve got in place, there’s always a way through somewhere.”

“Didn’t you get arrested the last time you tried to do that?”

Now it was Denella’s turn to look a little unhappy, reminded of her run-in with Starfleet Security on Starbase 216 after she had hacked into their database to try and help Klath track down details about his enemy.

“Yeah, well,” she offered back, “If Starfleet put as much effort into their system encryptions as they did into arresting people, they might save themselves a lot of trouble.”

“Still,” Natasha smiled, “I’m not sure we want to risk that sort of thing happening again. We’re already down one ship and three crewmates. I just wish there was some other way…”

Denella nodded thoughtfully, then an idea came to her, even if she was reluctant to suggest it.

“Well…I hate to say it, trust me. But if you really do want to get some more information, you might have another option open to you.”

Natasha realised what she was getting at immediately. And she didn’t like it.

“No,” she said with a defiant shake of her head.

Denella just shrugged again.

“He did say the views were very good…”

Natasha failed to suppress the grimace that raced onto her face at warp speed, and looked back down at the uncooperative screen with a frustrated sigh. She was desperately curious to find out more about what the hell was really going on here on Reja Gar. Her sense of curiosity and intrigue had well and truly been piqued.

The question was whether or not she was curious enough about it to actually go to dinner with the oily Commander Turanya.

And she had a horrible feeling that she was.

****************************

“We’re boned.”

It wasn’t the first time that Sunek had offered his own personal report on their current survival prospects, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

But while it was getting repetitive, it was also an entirely concise and accurate summary of their situation. As good as anything else that anyone else could offer.

It had taken Jirel and Lieutenant Kataya some time to make their way up to the bridge to meet up with the two other remaining survivors of the late Flaxian cruiser Ret Kol.

By that point, it had already dawned on Klath and Sunek that there were no survivors of the explosion that had so suddenly consumed the other ship. While they still had no power for sensor sweeps, the image on the viewscreen had resolved into little more than a scattered debris field, with no visible signs of shuttles or escape pods.

“So,” Jirel managed eventually, as he stood next to the command chair of the unfamiliar bridge of the derelict and stared at the floating patch of debris on the screen, “We’re on our own.”

“No,” Sunek snapped, as he continued to pace around the rear of the room, “We’re not on our own, are we? That’s kinda the whole problem here, isn’t it? It’s not just us. It’s us, and whatever the hell this great big scary monster is that’s spent the last week gorging on every passing Flaxian in the sector!”

As the Vulcan ranted on, Jirel looked over at Kataya, who was sitting slumped on the deck next to one of the bridge consoles to the left side. He had collapsed there as soon as they had gotten to the bridge and seen first hand the fate of the Ret Kol, and hadn’t even said a word.

But before Jirel could worry any more about that, Klath stepped over to him. The Klingon still carried his phaser rifle in his hands, ready for action inside his bulky spacesuit.

“Jirel,” he boomed over the open suit-to-suit comms line, “What exactly are we dealing with?”

Clearly Klath was in no mood to panic, as Sunek was doing. Nor to retreat inside himself, as Kataya had. There was only one thing on his mind, and that was to fight.

The Trill reached for an answer, thinking back to what he had seen down in the belly of the ship.

“We’re dealing with a lot,” he said eventually, “Once, back at the Tyran Scrapyards, I saw a guy lose his footing and fall into a tritanium-crushing machine we used to compact down whatever we scraped off an old ship’s hull to be transported away and sold off. And it ended up being my job to clean up what was left of him…”

He suppressed a shudder at the memory, and then looked back at his friend.

“As of today, that’s officially the second worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

Klath pondered this summary for a moment, then nodded in understanding.

“We’re totally boned,” Sunek offered, having heard the same explanation over the open comms line.

Jirel shot the Vulcan a look, then turned back to the shellshocked Kataya, stepping over to the silent Flaxian and crouching down next to him.

“Hey, Lieutenant?” he offered with a calm tone, “We kinda need a plan here. And…I hate to say it, but I guess you’re in charge.”

The Flaxian slowly looked up at the Trill in front of him, a lost expression clearly visible on his face through his helmet.

“Fifteen years,” he muttered, “Captain Grinya had been doing this for fifteen years. He’d never lost a team member. Not one. Fifteen years…”

Jirel grimaced as Kataya’s voice trailed off. Without his captain, his crew and his ship, the hardened lieutenant that the Trill had endured an uncomfortable search with had vanished, replaced by an entirely less confident and perplexed individual.

“Right,” he nodded in understanding, patting Kataya’s shoulder with a gloved hand, “But me and my friends have been doing this for fifteen minutes. So we’re gonna need you to help us out here if we’re all gonna get through this, ok?”

Kataya just stared back up at him, the silence over the comms link hanging heavily in the air. Realising that there were going to be no orders forthcoming from the single remaining member of the Flaxian Science Agency onboard, Jirel reluctantly stood back up and turned to the others.

“Ok,” he sighed, “Let’s figure this out. What have we got up here?”

He gestured around the unpowered and darkened bridge. Klath grunted an unhappy response as Sunek continued to pace around.

“Very little,” the Klingon admitted, “What power remains gives us access to the data banks and computer records. Life support is minimal, internal and external sensors are still offline, and we have no propulsion or navigation beyond limited thruster control.”

“Can we send a distress call?”

“Short-range only. And this is not a populated sector of space.”

Jirel knew it was a stupid question before he’d asked it. But, as he’d already explained to Kataya, he didn’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing.

“The data banks,” he offered, switching focus as his brain tried to figure out the puzzle that they were all trapped inside, “All that stuff that the Ret Kol was downloading. That should tell us what we’re dealing with, right?”

“You’d think,” Sunek scoffed from behind him.

Before Jirel could lash out at the Vulcan for his latest unhelpful comment, the fretful pilot actually opted to expand on his point.

“I’ve already checked the database out while we were waiting for you to get up here. The whole thing is locked down to anyone without about half a bajillion access codes.”

“Locked down?” Jirel asked.

“Yeah. Like a freaking Romulan prison ship. Everything’s quadruple encoded. The logs, navigational history, ship’s manifest. Can’t even tell you what these guys had for lunch yesterday. We’ve been properly set up here, Jirel.”

Jirel sighed, even as his spots started to itch with a fresh intensity. Given that life support was still just about functioning, he gave serious thought to just ripping off his helmet and scratching them, but for some reason he felt ever so slightly safer with the suit on. Instead, he turned back to the static Kataya.

“Look, Lieutenant, you need to give us something here. What the hell is on this ship? And why did the Ret Kol think that Captain Grinya had beamed back aboard?”

Kataya looked up at the Trill again, but remained slumped next to the control panel, his phaser rifle lying at his feet. After a moment, he shook his head.

“I--I don’t know. We were just told to…secure the cargo.”

That seemed to be all they were going to get out of the formerly gruff salvage expert.

“Secure the cargo,” Klath echoed with an ominous tone.

Jirel thought back to the wreckage of the laboratory and felt himself grimace for what felt like the thousandth time since he had left the Reja Gar station. He still felt a long way from safety. A long way from the Bounty. He forced himself to shake those thoughts from his mind.

“Ok, so, what now?” he said instead.

“We fight,” Klath inevitably replied, “We turn the hunter into the hunted.”

“Whatever this thing is,” Jirel countered with a stern glance, “It’s picked off two ship’s-worth of Flaxians for fun.”

Klath didn’t miss a beat. He had clearly already considered this.

“Still, if we fight, then we die with honour--”

“Ok, gonna stop Rear Admiral Suicide Mission right there,” Sunek cut in, “And, for a less entirely stupid plan, I still say we get the hell out of here.”

“Our lift home just exploded, Sunek.”

“Yeah, but this crate has a shuttlebay, right?”

Klath looked distinctly unimpressed by this suggestion, but Jirel nodded at his pilot inside his helmet. It was pretty clear what their best option was.

“Ok, good plan. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

He gestured in the direction of the access conduit, and watched as Klath and Sunek set off with their weapons raised, before he turned back to Lieutenant Kataya, who remained where he was.

“Hey,” he continued to the Flaxian, stepping over to him and holding out a hand to help him back up to his feet, “You with us, Lieutenant?”

The Flaxian met his gaze again with a set of sunken eyes. For a moment, he didn’t move, to the point that Jirel began to wonder whether they could realistically drag him all the way down to the shuttlebay. Instead, he decided to use his powers of negotiation.

“Look, I’m sorry. For everything that’s happened here. And I don’t know much about Flaxian Science Agency protocol, as I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed. But I’m pretty sure Captain Grinya would have taught you never to give up. And I’m definitely sure the chances of us three idiots getting home alive are gonna be a hell of a lot better with you alongside us.”

There was a slight flicker in Kataya’s eyes, and then he accepted Jirel’s hand. The Trill even did a manful job of disguising the wince of pain that shot up his arm as he fully appreciated the effort required to help lift a burly Flaxian up off the ground.

With Kataya standing back on his own two feet, he hoisted his phaser rifle, locked eyes with Jirel again, and nodded firmly.

“You’re right,” he muttered, “Let’s go.”

With that, they turned towards where Klath and Sunek were impatiently waiting at the entrance to the access conduits.

“Ok, team,” Jirel nodded, “Let’s find ourselves a shuttle.”

One by one, they headed back into the narrow confines of the conduit. As he dropped to his knees and inched himself inside, Jirel tried his best not to think about what might be waiting for them between here and the shuttlebay.

“Just FYI,” Sunek tutted over the comms link, “We’re definitely boned.”
 
Nice mixture of horror and humor with the depressed Flaxian straw man, the Vulcan doing his best cowardly lion, a semi-suicidal Klingon tin man and Jirel going his best Dorothy. Time to go avoid meeting Toto...

Thanks!! rbs
 
Part Three (Cont'd)

The concept of the honeypot was one of the oldest techniques in covert operations across the whole galaxy. One that seemed to be practised in some manner by just about every sentient species in one way or another. And Natasha Kinsen hated it.

Many years ago, when she was a junior ensign in the medical staff onboard the USS Tripoli, she had been chosen for a special away mission on the planet Bravik VI, where the Tripoli had been dispatched to deal with a severe case of cultural contamination.

A rogue Idanian businessman had found the planet to be rich in latinum deposits, and had infiltrated the pre-warp society on the planet. He had ingratiated himself with a ruthlessly ambitious politician who he had helped rise to become president of the largest continent, in exchange for exclusive mining rights. All before the Idanian had fled with the latinum and left Bravik VI in chaos.

The Tripoli had been tasked with correcting the damage by returning the former president to his rightful place, and she had been delighted to have been personally selected to play a key role in such vital work, especially given her lowly rank onboard at the time.

Until she realised that she hadn’t been selected because of her advanced medical training, or her tactical skills, or the extra credits in pre-warp socio-economic theory that she had meticulously collected at the Academy. Instead, she had been selected because the former president’s head of security had needed to be distracted, and he apparently had a thing for redheads.

So, while the Tripoli’s first officer, security chief and operations officer had tooled up with weapons and infiltrated the former president’s summer house to kidnap him, posing as operatives sent by the current president as a ruse designed to turn the population against him, she had been stuck wearing a scandalously low-cut and high-hemmed dress, lying on a picnic blanket and giggling flirtatiously while she shared a bottle of the local wine with an especially unattractive Bravikian a safe distance away from the compound’s monitoring station.

It wasn’t exactly what she’d dreamed that covert operations would be. She’d rather hoped that her years of training would count for more than her natural hair colour and her ability to squeeze into a mini dress.

And yet, ten years later, here she was again. Playing the honeypot.

At least this time she was dressed with substantially more dignity, having turned up for her dinner date in her everyday tunic and trousers. But regardless, she was still having to use her looks, rather than her actual skills, to make their plan work. And she hated it.

Still, on the plus side, at least Commander Turanya hadn’t been lying about the view.

“It’s amazing,” she cooed in deliberately exaggerated awe.

Turanya’s private dining room was located on the top edge of the main rectangular body of the Reja Gar station, a little further around from the recreation area they had been in earlier.

It was a small room, containing little more than a modest table and chairs. Their food was brought to them by a diligent and discreet waitress, who occasionally scurried into the room to present the next course to the pair of diners.

But the modest interior didn’t really matter when the entire outer wall of the room consisted of a single unbroken piece of transparent aluminium, affording a stunning view of the cosmos. And especially, as Turanya had advertised, of the Plavian nebula.

She stared out at the vivid green and yellow hues of the phenomenon as it temporarily hung in the middle of the starscape as the station slowly rotated. And, for a moment, she forgot all about the less pleasant aspects of her current assignment.

Her dining partner didn’t take long to remind her.

“Yep,” Commander Turanya replied, having switched into his most libidinous gear, “I’m a big fan of the view myself.”

Natasha looked over to see that the Flaxian was staring directly at her as he said that, leaning back in his chair in front of his empty dessert plate with a glass of Flaxian riesling in his hand. She suppressed the sudden urge she had to stand up, walk around to his side of the table, and tip the rest of the bottle of dessert wine over his head, and instead did the exact opposite to what her instincts told her to do.

She smiled coquettishly and tossed her hair back with a flick of her head. And then she repressed the feeling of self-loathing that immediately washed over her, and stored it away with the other similar feelings she’d been building up since dinner had begun.

Oblivious to all of that, and only seeing her outward demeanour, Turanya leaned forwards and set his glass back down on the table.

“You know, I’m very glad you reconsidered my offer. Very, very glad. I’m sure you’ll make a fine addition to the Flaxian Science Agency, Natasha.”

She added a few more helpings of self-loathing to the pyre inside of her as Turanya paused for a moment to look her up and down.

“A…very fine addition.”

In her mind, she switched the bottle of riesling she was pouring over his head for a bottle of some sort of chemical. She hadn’t decided which one. Nothing that would permanently scar him, she wasn’t going that far, but definitely something that would sting. For a very long time.

In reality, she widened her smile and gave his hand a playful tap across the table.

“Oh, Commander,” she tutted in a display of mock admonishment, “I bet you say that to all the girls you invite up here.”

Turanya’s grin widened, in a tell-tale manner that suggested he was increasingly of the opinion that he wasn’t going to be sleeping alone tonight.

Natasha compartmentalised the latest feelings of revulsion, and gently ran a finger down the back of the Flaxian’s hand, delicately curling one of the whisker-like tendrils around her finger in a way that caused Turanya to breathe in sharply.

“Actually…I was wondering if you had a list of current projects,” she offered casually, “I’d love to see the sort of thing I’d be getting involved with while I’m here.”

At this, Turanya’s blissful look shifted slightly. He looked a little suspicious for a moment. She momentarily worried that she’d gone too far.

“Ah, well. You know, that sort of thing is for Science Agency eyes only. Being ex-Starfleet, I’m sure you understand that, right?”

She reacted quickly, stroking his tendrils again and focusing on distracting Turanya from thinking straight about precisely what she was asking for.

“Aw,” she pouted, “But Commander, if I’m joining you, then I’m going to be part of the Science Agency anyway? Surely you can let me get a little…sneak preview?”

Summoning up all her reserves of strength, and discarding her last vestiges of dignity, she punctuated her request by idly running the fingers of her other hand down the v-shaped neck of her top, with enough of a knowing smile to convey the implication that she might be willing to offer something of a sneak preview of her own in return.

The entirely unsubtle action, coupled with another gentle stroke of the tendrils on his hand, were enough to seal the deal with the increasingly blissful Turanya. He reached into his pocket and took out a mini padd device, tapping the screen before passing it to her.

“Ah, fine, you twisted my arm,” he grinned, “There’s an overview of all current and planned projects aboard Reja Gar. But don’t tell anyone I gave you that.”

She disguised her relief as she accepted the padd, and celebrated by nailing down the precise chemical that she was pouring over his head to a particular compound of dermatological agent, used by Dopterians to treat all manner of skin conditions, but infamously known to irritate and aggravate the basal skin layer on every other humanoid species in the quadrant to the point of madness.

“Now,” Turanya continued, still oblivious to his fate in her mind and clasping her hand for effect, “I’ve shown you mine, so how about--”

Before he was able to complete the rest of that sentence, and before the corresponding rising sense of nausea in Natasha’s stomach overwhelmed her, there was a merciful chime on the door of the dining room.

With visible irritation, Turanya withdrew his hand and stood up, walking over to the door. As soon as he left, Natasha slipped the mini padd underneath the table and deftly went to work as fast as she could manage. She glanced up to check that she wasn’t being watched, and was surprised to see that the individual at the door wasn’t the waitress from earlier, but a new Flaxian dressed in a far more formal uniform of the Science Agency.

And there was a muttered, but clearly serious conversation going on.

After a moment of frustrated gesticulating from Turanya, the uniformed man retreated. Natasha quickly slipped the mini padd back on the table just as the commander turned and walked back to the table.

“Natasha, my dear, I’m terribly sorry,” he offered with his usual oily demeanour, “You have…no idea how sorry. But we may have to pick this up another time.”

“Oh,” she replied, momentarily trapped between her enforced flirting and the overwhelming sense of relief that erupted inside her, “That’s, um, such a shame. How come?”

Turanya glanced back at the door and sighed.

“There’s been an issue,” he managed eventually, “We’ve lost contact with the Ret Kol.”

In an instant, all thoughts of her honeypotting vanished entirely. Replaced by a pit of dread that opened up inside of her.

“When?” she demanded.

The Flaxian sighed, a little reluctant to go into too much detail. He was very much back in business mode after his more relaxed patter over dinner.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he placated her with a weaselly smile, “It’s just…they’re supposed to check in on schedule, but we’ve heard nothing for the last three cycles. They’re probably just busy, it’s probably just an anomaly, but we’re gonna send another ship to take a look--”

“I need to be on that ship,” she snapped immediately, the pit inside her growing wider all the time, “Me and Denella.”

Turanya seemed taken aback at her tone, but she fixed him with a determined enough look to suggest that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

Eventually, he reluctantly nodded. And the two of them turned and strode out of the room, leaving the padd and the view of the Plavian nebula behind.

As they walked through the doors, Natasha clasped the data chip in her pocket tightly in her hand.
 
Part Three (Cont'd)

“Huh,” Sunek muttered, “You really weren’t kidding about this thing, were you?”

They had found the latest set of remains right next to the shuttlebay doors. What was left wasn’t easily identifiable, but they seemed to be those of a Flaxian female.

Next to the Vulcan, Klath regarded the bloody vista and impassively grunted.

“We are dealing with a beast,” he said simply, looking back up as his eyes flitted around their immediate surroundings.

While Sunek and Klath got some first-hand experience of the sort of scene that the others had become grimly used to, Jirel and Kataya were focused on the shuttlebay doors themselves, the corridor illuminated by their twin focused phaser beams as they cut through the metal.

As soon as they had reached the shuttlebay, Kataya had found that the manual release had failed in some way, and so they had instantly resorted to more brute force means to get through.

“How come the crew of this thing didn’t try this?” Jirel asked as he completed the vertical cut on his side and turned the beam to work towards connecting with Kataya’s own path.

“This was a science transport,” Kataya grunted, “No real weapons. Nearest laser cutter would have been back in engineering.”

The Flaxian’s expression slipped slightly as he thought about the helplessness of the situation they would have been in. But before he could dwell on it too much, he brought his beam into contact with Jirel’s and they completed their cutting work. With one deft kick, a section of the metal gave way and allowed them through to the bay itself.

Once inside, the four figures shone their torches around. And Jirel felt a palpable sense of relief when he saw the row of half a dozen stocky shuttles, all waiting patiently to lift off.

“The area seems secure,” Klath noted with a grunt.

“Right,” Kataya added, the Flaxian having recovered a modicum of his earlier confidence as their plan unfolded, “We’ll use the shuttle’s phasers to break through the outer doors, then get free of the derelict and send a rescue signal back to Reja Gar. Let’s get moving.”

“That is something I am totally onboard with,” Sunek replied, as he scampered over to the nearest shuttle as fast as his suit would allow and disappeared inside.

Seconds later, as the others approached, the Vulcan poked his head back out of the doorway of the support craft.

“Um, guys? This one’s dead as a Kaelon old folks’ home.”

“What?” Kataya snapped back.

“Yep. Power cells have been ripped right out.”

The Vulcan exited the shuttle and bounded over to the next one, even as Jirel felt a fresh sinking feeling inside. It didn’t take long for Sunek to call out again.

“Entire console’s fritzed on this one,” he said, “Couldn’t fly it even if we wanted to. Plus, the power cells look like they’re totally drained. Anyone else seeing a pattern here?”

As Klath kept his weapon trained on their improvised entry point to the bay, Jirel and Kataya joined the Vulcan in checking over the remaining shuttlecraft. It didn’t take long for them to find that the pattern extended across the whole fleet.

“Goddamn it!” Jirel exclaimed in frustration, kicking the final shuttle with his heavy boot for good measure.

“Every one of them?” Klath called back, not taking his eyes off the entrance.

“Every one,” the Trill sighed, “Every goddamn shuttle’s been tampered with somehow. None of them are good for flight!”

“Interesting,” the Klingon muttered.

“Oh, right,” Sunek scoffed as his frustrations boiled over, “Hear that, everyone? Professor Klath over here thinks that’s ‘interesting’. Yeah, how interesting it is that our only escape route is completely screwed! And how interesting that we are - and I hate to repeat myself here - entirely boned!”

The Klingon ignored the Vulcan’s latest panicked rant, and glanced over at Jirel, gesturing to the ruined shuttles.

“This is not the work of a beast,” he pointed out, “But an intelligence.”

Jirel considered this for a moment.

“Not sure that makes the situation any better, to be honest.”

“No,” Klath conceded, “But it does change the rules of combat. This is not a battle of brute strength, but of skill, and tactics.”

“And brute strength?” Jirel offered, gesturing grimly back to the remains out in the corridor.

Klath acknowledged that point with a slight nod, then immediately returned to scouring the entrance to the bay for warning signs. Still ready for the battle.

Feeling distinctly less ready for the battle, Jirel turned back to the others.

“Any chance we can fix up one of these things?” he asked, gesturing to the ruined shuttles.

“There may be enough working components here to repair one of them,” Kataya muttered, “But we'd need to fetch some additional parts from the stores. And it'll take time to recharge the power cells using the ship’s final reserves.”

“Which all sounds like time that we don’t have,” the Trill grimaced.

“Hey,” Sunek chimed in, deepening Jirel’s grimace, “I’ve got an idea--”

“Sunek, I swear if this is anything other than a genuinely constructive plan, I’m gonna test the stun setting of this rifle on the back of your head.”

The Vulcan scrunched up his face inside his helmet, mildly affronted at the suggestion that he would be anything other than helpful and productive given the circumstances.

“Engineering,” he offered in response, “I don’t like to say it, but we’ve gotta head right the way down there.”

“But the shuttles--” Turanya began.

“Are gonna take too long to repair. We can’t escape, so we’re gonna need to get enough power back into this crate to send a long-range distress call. Doesn’t matter who to. Anyone passing by with a transporter can get us out of here.”

Jirel glanced over at Kataya, who offered a reluctant nod.

“Ok,” the Trill affirmed, “I guess that’s our new plan.”

The four figures started back towards the improvised door they had carved out for themselves, Klath leading them with his rifle still raised.

“And do not forget,” the Klingon offered over the comms link, “We are still being hunted.”

Sunek had lost count of the number of shivers that had passed down his spine in the last few hours, but he raised his own weapon even as he muttered back at his colleague.

“You’re a barrel of laughs right now, you know that?”

****************************

She watched them moving once again, each of them still oblivious to her presence.

There was a fresh sense of pride inside her for the work she had done on the smaller vehicles, the ones that she had discovered shortly after she had dealt with the last of those that had hurt her. Before these new people had arrived.

Once again, she had been operating more on some form of preternatural instinct. Something in her mind telling her exactly what needed to be done, even if she didn’t quite understand why she was doing it. But once again, it worked.

Now, the new people were heading elsewhere. And she was following.

As she had been watching them on their journeys around the ship, she found them more and more curious to observe. She even found herself trying to figure out who they were and where they had come from.

But she didn’t need to figure out what they were here to do.

She knew they were here to hurt her. They were just like the others.

And so, while she found them curious, she also knew that there was only one thing to be done with them. The same as all the others.

She crept onwards. And prepared to strike.
 
Part Three (Cont'd)

The Flaxian cruiser Sud Yot effortlessly cut through the vacuum of space at high warp.

It wasn’t a brand new ship, but it was significantly less weathered than the Ret Kol, with a smoother and more curved raptor-like design.

It was also substantially faster, with this particular class of cruiser having been handed a major warp core upgrade over all of their predecessors by the Flaxian Science Agency after having been commissioned. As a result, it was set to make the long journey out to the derelict in a much faster time than the Ret Kol had managed.

Although, as far as anyone onboard was concerned, it still wasn't making it fast enough. Even at their maximum cruising speed, they were still over 30 hours away.

Inside the habitation levels of the ship, Natasha tried to put her worries about the duration of their journey to the back of her mind and instead focus on the task in hand.

Alongside her, Denella was wrestling with similar feelings of concern. The feeling of being separated from so many people that she cared about wasn’t new to her. She had experienced that feeling before when she had been taken from her home on Orpheus IV by the Syndicate. And now she was feeling it again, separated from Klath, Jirel and Sunek. Not to mention the Bounty, her home. Her ship.

But, like Natasha, the Orion engineer was similarly trying to keep those feelings submerged for now, and kept equal focus on their task.

In their shared cabin, in the interior of the Sud Yot, Natasha watched on as Denella worked on the small padd device. The one that now contained the set of data she had been able to copy from Commander Turanya’s own device.

Except, even the copied data was still locked down.

“Got something?” Natasha muttered at her colleague, eliciting a slightly irritated glance in return.

“For the tenth time: No.”

Natasha mustered an apologetic smile and stepped away from the single table of the cabin they’d been assigned, where Denella was working. There was little else in the room aside from the uncomfortable bunk beds where they were to sleep, which at least meant that, despite the relatively small size of the cabin, there was plenty of room for a spot of worried pacing.

“I’m sorry,” she managed as she walked, “It’s just…I sacrificed a lot of dignity for that. And I really want us to get something from it in return.”

Denella nodded in understanding and returned to her work.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, all your work made it a lot easier to get past the encryption.”

“So you’ve got something?”

“For the eleventh time: No,” she smiled patiently, “But this snapshot of the data is no longer tethered to the live encryption cycle of the main Science Agency network. It’s still switching between different encryptions, but only a local repeating sequence, which I can definitely work with.”

Natasha nodded in satisfaction.

She had already had a chance to browse through the smattering of unencrypted data that Turanya’s padd had contained on it. But that was little more than a dry list of ongoing research that he had been using to impress her over dinner.

And there was nothing in the projects, with titles such as ‘An investigation into the efficiency of hypospray delivery systems in zero gravity’, or ‘Assessing the impact of warp speed deceleration on the gut microbiome of a Horta’, or ‘Chaotic space: A topological study of trimetric fractures in the eighteenth dimensional gradient’, that had really helped shed any light on anything.

But she was sure that there would be more information than was being shown to her, and so Denella was now trying to break through to the full database. To try and give them a better idea of what might be going on as they raced on to find out what had become of their colleagues.

Neither woman was certain that there would be anything helpful on there, but even if there wasn’t, it was at least proving to be something of a distraction from their deeper worries on their long journey out to the derelict.

Natasha lost count of how many laps of worried pacing she had completed when Denella finally called out from the table.

“Ah-hah!”

“You did it?” Natasha called out, as she rushed over to the table and accepted the padd back from the satisfied Orion.

“The tougher they make ‘em, the easier it is to break ‘em.”

Natasha tapped away at the device in satisfaction for a moment, but it didn’t take long for that expression to turn into a frown.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she sighed, “There’s...nothing here. Just a bunch more lists of research projects, crew rotations, requisition forms, station admin.”

“What were you expecting? A big folder marked ‘secrets’? There’s gotta be something that’ll tell us more about what the hell’s going on here.”

“Like what?”

Denella paused and considered that question for a moment. Then, inspiration hit her.

“What about the transit logs for the transport ship the others went off to salvage? Where had it been? What was it carrying?”

Natasha nodded and went to work, quickly tapping away at the device to find the relevant information.

“Got it. Seems like it was dispatched to a trading outpost in the Drura sector.”

“Hrm,” Denella mused, recognising the name, “Pretty lawless part of the galaxy for a Flaxian transport to be waltzing by.”

“All the transit log says is that they were sent to pick up a ‘package’ for Commander Turanya and the Reja Gar station. Let me see if there’s anything else here…”

She worked on, checking through the padd’s files for the right information. And then she gasped.

“Oh my god.”

Denella glanced over at the screen, and her eyes widened in shock.

“Well,” she managed eventually, “That’s not something you read every day.”

****************************

Jirel stared down at the complex of platforms and scaffolding as they stretched out below them, the fragile structure only partially illuminated by his torchlight.

With a grim sense of foreboding, he looked back up at Lieutenant Kataya, who stood next to him overlooking the railings that fenced off the derelict’s warp core, and associated long drop down into the depths of the engine decks.

“And you’re sure this is the only access to the secondary power matrix?”

“Yes,” Kataya nodded inside his helmet, “It's an old design. Not built for convenience. Usually this sort of repair would be carried out at a maintenance facility. Not in deep space.”

“Yeah, well, packed my spare maintenance facility in my other spacesuit, didn’t I?”

The Trill clocked a flicker of something on Kataya’s face in response to that. A slight softening of the Flaxian lieutenant’s icy complexion which made him wonder whether he was finally making progress on a rudimentary friendship. Although, he quickly conceded to himself that this wasn’t exactly the most pressing issue.

“Klath?” he called out over the comms link, “How are things looking?”

“Still clear,” the Klingon reported back, “For now.”

After they had ascertained that the deck was clear, Lieutenant Kataya had posted Klath and Sunek next to the entrance to the engineering deck to keep watch, as he and Jirel had got on with fixing the power issues.

The repairs had proven to be more complicated than either man had hoped, with the main power relays all out of action. Which is what had ultimately brought them over to the silent warp core, and the very long drop next to them.

“Ok,” Jirel managed, as confidently as he could, “Guess we should get on with this.”

With that, he took a deep breath, and went to clamber over the guardrail around the core, to begin his journey down into the pit. Just as he swung his leg over, his heart skipped a beat in shock as he felt something grab his arm.

He tried to hide his embarrassment as he realised it was Lieutenant Kataya.

“I should be the one to go,” he muttered over their short-range comms link.

Jirel channelled all his own power reserves into maintaining a brave face, and into keeping thoughts of the mauled Flaxians they had passed on the way here from the forefront of his mind. On both aspects, he was only partly successful.

“You’re the expert on Flaxian engineering,” he pointed out, gesturing to the array of controls and consoles around them, “I’m the doofus who can just about clamber down there and flick on the secondary connections. Plus, you’re in charge.”

Kataya considered the logic of this statement for a moment, then reluctantly nodded.

“Well,” he offered, “Good luck, Jirel.”

“What, no ‘newbie’?”

The Flaxian regarded the Trill and shook his head.

“Not any more.”

Jirel mustered a friendly nod and allowed that breakthrough to feed his wavering sense of confidence in himself. Then, he fully swung himself over the guardrail and set the heavy boots on his feet down on the first level of the elaborate scaffolding platforms that dropped down into the depths of the ship below him.

“Jirel,” he heard Klath grunt over the comms link from the other side of the engineering bay, “Make sure you stay alert.”

It was as close as the Klingon got to a heartfelt expression of concern.

“Yeah,” Sunek chimed in, “If you die, I’m gonna be really annoyed.”

And that was as close as the Vulcan got.

Stifling a smile despite himself, Jirel shone the torch beams from his helmet down below him, keeping a lid on the rush of vertigo he felt from the sight of the drop.

There were several further open mesh platforms to the labyrinth below him, each connected by narrow ladders and secured to the walls of the cylindrical expanse and to each other with stout metal poles. He still couldn’t get an accurate picture on how far down it dropped. But it seemed to be several decks-worth of distance down to the bottom.

He forced himself to look back up and tentatively stepped over to the ladder down to the next platform.

“Secondary connections’ll be two levels down,” Kataya reported as he watched on.

“Got it,” Jirel muttered back, as he began to descend.

There was barely enough room on each rung for one of his bulky boots at a time, forcing him to awkwardly swing each leg past the other with each step down he took. His phaser rifle rocked back and forth where it was slung over his back.

After a moment, he breathed a sigh of relief as he touched down on the next platform, and quickly swung his head torches around to check his next move.

And then he saw her.

She was crouched on the opposite side of the platform he had just set down on, staring at him with a curious expression.

She couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and looked for all the world like a human child, with dusky brown skin and piercingly bright yellow eyes. She wore a simple green dress and flat shoes. Given the context of where they were and what was happening, she couldn’t have looked more out of place.

“Hello,” she said.

Jirel just stared back, frozen to the spot in shock. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t find anything to say through the speaker on his suit.

Above him, he heard Kataya call out over the comms link.

“What are you doing? You need to go down another level.”

“Um,” Jirel finally managed, keeping his focus on the mysterious girl that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, “I think I’ve…found a survivor.”

“What?” Kataya snapped back in disbelief.

Up above, the Flaxian craned his neck over the guard rail. On the other side of the bay, Klath and Sunek immediately exchanged a look of concern.

Down on the platform, the little girl jerked her head up and spotted Kataya above them, peering down at them. Though he could seem to see her in the gloom. She cocked her head to one side as she studied the Flaxian in the spacesuit, before looking back at Jirel.

Despite the shock of seeing her, something inside Jirel instinctively made him want to help this lost child. Keeping his rifle slung behind him, he took a slow step forwards and crouched down towards her eye line.

“Hey,” he managed, hoping his voice sounded as calm as he was intending through the tinny speaker on his helmet, “It’s alright. We’re here to help you. Ok?”

She seemed to consider his words, but was still primarily focused on his face through the helmet visor, peering at the two rows of spots down either side of his head.

“You’re not like the others,” she said eventually.

Jirel wasn’t quite sure what that was supposed to mean. But before he could ask any follow-up questions, the girl took a half-step back and scrunched her nose up.

“But I still don’t like you.”

In an instant, her expression hardened. The girl’s face began to fold in on itself. Her entire body seemed to contort and deform as she transformed into something else entirely.

And Jirel, helplessly suspended on a platform above a long drop into the depths of the derelict, found himself clinging to one of the scaffolding poles for dear life, as the whole structure started to vibrate and groan.

And his eyes widened in horror.

End of Part Three
 
Last edited:
Part Four

“A chameloid?”

Natasha’s angry voice filled the small ready room of the Sud Yot, accompanied by a hefty thud as she slammed the small padd in her hands down onto the desk.

Behind the desk, Commander Turanya sat as impassively as ever, his tendriled fingers steepled in front of him. Her outburst did little other than provoke a flicker of annoyance across his features.

Natasha stood alongside Denella, both of them having found out the truth. To the side of the desk, Captain Sonaya of the Sud Yot was just getting up to speed.

“A what?” the younger Flaxian managed eventually.

“A type of shapeshifter,” Natasha explained for her benefit, through gritted teeth, “There’s only ever been contact with a handful down the years. But apparently the Flaxian Science Agency found one.”

“Yeah,” Denella added, “From a trafficker in the Drura sector.”

The Orion felt her fists balling up instinctively. For reasons that she didn’t need to explain to anyone else in the room, she had a particular hatred for anyone engaged in people trafficking.

Despite all of this, Turanya maintained an entirely becalmed exterior behind the desk, not flinching in the face of the accusations being thrown at him. Even as Sonaya turned to her superior officer.

“Is this true, Commander?”

The male Flaxian kept his focus on the human and the Orion, ignoring his colleague’s question.

“You know,” he chided with a slight tut, gesturing at the padd, “Hacking into a Flaxian database is a very serious crime--”

He was silenced by the sound of Captain Sonaya’s fist impacting on the desk with almost as much force as the padd had done. His face betrayed a slight flinch for the first time. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“I said,” the other uniformed Flaxian hissed, “Is this true, Commander?”

Turanya glanced back over at his subordinate and fixed her with his most smarmy of expressions.

“That was the rumour,” he conceded, “But we wanted to see for ourselves. After all, it’s not every day that you get wind of a chameloid specimen out here in the cosmos.”

Denella couldn’t help herself.

“You son of a--”

“But,” Turanya patiently interjected with a placating tone, “You understand that this was a rescue mission, first and foremost. As you pointed out, the Drura sector is a hive of trafficking. We heard the reports of a juvenile chameloid being traded, and we…intervened.”

“Right,” Natasha snorted, “One big altruistic gesture.”

“We’re a science agency, Doctor,” Turanya calmly replied, “I’d rather hoped I’d made that clear with your job offer. Which is rescinded at this point, you should probably know.”

Natasha felt her hackles rise all over again at the superior smile that accompanied Turanya’s latest comment, but she forced herself to keep a lid on her emotions.

“There’s a hell of a lot more to this than just a rescue, isn’t there?” she persisted, “Otherwise, why all the secrecy? Why don’t your own captains know what you’re doing?”

She gestured to Sonaya, whose eyes widened a little more as she took in the back and forth of the discussion in front of her.

“And,” Denella added with a pointed glare, “Why the hell are you building that…cage back on your station?”

“That’s just a--” Turanya began.

“You weren’t rescuing it,” Natasha jumped in with venom in her tone, “You’d bought it from the traffickers. You were experimenting on it, weren’t you? Even as that transport was heading back to the station.”

“Doctor, you don’t know what you’re--”

“Except,” Denella continued, “By the sounds of it, this poor thing didn’t much like being caged up and experimented on, did it? Looks like it used its powers to break out, disable the transport, and now it might have destroyed one of your cruisers. And…maybe our friends along with it.”

Natasha maintained her poker face despite the rush of emotion she felt as Denella laid out their own personal stakes in all of this, even as Turanya’s expression failed to shift an inch.

“Really,” he sighed, “This is all speculation. And I’m not going to--”

“Answer them!”

The trio of arguing figures turned to see Sonaya brandishing a small phaser she had produced from the belt of her uniform. She pointed it straight at her superior officer, who reacted in shock.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting you to answer them,” Sonaya replied with a firm glare.

“You’ve just made a huge mistake,” Turanya scoffed back at her, “Pulling a phaser on a commanding officer? You’ll never see a captain’s chair again.”

Sonaya knew that this was a gamble. She might be in command of the Sud Yot itself, but in the pecking order of the Science Agency, Turanya was her superior. Nevertheless, she kept her weapon poised and licked her lips.

“That is possible,” she conceded with a thin smile, “But if my career really is over, at least I’ll have heard the truth.”

Turanya looked down at the weapon, and then up at the determination in her eyes.

“Ok, fine,” he sighed eventually, “The truth? The truth is that…thing is the most incredible scientific marvel in the galaxy. Chameloids are shapeshifting creatures with humanoid DNA! If we understand the processes involved in that, if we can crack the biological code and harness the potential--”

“It’s a living thing,” Denella hissed through gritted teeth.

Turanya paused, a little thrown off by that statement of fact. But he’d justified this all to himself so often that it didn’t take him long to recover.

“We weren’t going to kill it. Just study it. And you have to see what it might allow us to do? We could allow any individual to manipulate their own cellular structure! We could eradicate any number of ailments! We could wish away disease! You see that, Doctor Kinsen?”

Natasha shook her head coldly.

“Even if that was true, that doesn’t justify any of this. Any of the trafficking, or the experiments, or the deaths…”

She let that word hang in the air, seeing the glare on Captain Sonaya’s face darken further.

“Captain Grinya,” she growled, “You sent him and the Ret Kol out here. How much did he know about what he was getting into?”

Turanya glanced at the phaser being pointed at him again, and licked his lips slightly, realising that the situation in the ready room was threatening to get away from him.

“I thought he knew enough,” he replied in his most measured tone, “I swear, I didn’t know this would be so dangerous. All I knew was that the transport had suffered a power failure.”

“No,” Sonaya said, shaking her head, “When I first told you about the loss of contact with the transport and volunteered to head out there, you said you ‘didn’t want to risk the Sud Yot’. You knew there was a risk.”

“I didn’t think the package would be this--”

“Enough!” Sonaya called out, punctuating her comment with another thump of the desk, silencing the oily commander at last. Then, she looked over at the other two women.

“You have to believe me, I had no idea that--”

“We believe you,” Natasha nodded with a trace of a mirthless smile, “Question is, what the hell do we do now?”

A silence descended. Everyone in the ready room knew they were still more than a day’s flight from reaching the derelict, even with the Sud Yot’s newer engines.

“We need to tell them,” Denella said eventually, “If there’s anyone left alive out there, on the derelict, or the Ret Kol, they need to know what they’re dealing with.”

“We’re still trying to raise the other cruiser,” Sonaya replied, “No reply. And long-range sensors still can’t locate it.”

“The derelict?” Natasha pressed.

“Still drifting, from what we can tell. No power, no communications. Besides, if Captain Grinya is following procedure, the boarding party on the derelict will be suited up.”

At that comment, Denella’s face suddenly lit up.

“Spacesuits? With internal comms links?”

“Yes. But they’re only short-range--”

“Got it,” the Orion nodded, “And I think I’ve got an idea.”

Natasha saw the look of satisfaction on the face of the Bounty’s engineer, and felt the knot in her stomach untangle slightly. If Denella had a plan, she felt a little more hopeful.

“Ok,” Sonaya nodded, “You can tell me all about your plan. After I’ve escorted Commander Turanya here to the ship’s brig.”

The commander snapped a look at his still-armed subordinate.

“You can’t do that--!”

“After what you’ve just told me, I can, and I will. We’ll let a Science Agency tribunal decide if I’m doing the right thing.”

With that, she waved his phaser at him. He reluctantly stood, still protesting under his breath, and the two Flaxians walked off. Left alone, Denella looked over at Natasha.

“Don’t worry,” she smiled, “Jirel, Klath and Sunek, they’re survivors.”

Natasha nodded back, and tried to force her concerns to the back of her mind, focusing instead on the plan to let the others know what they were dealing with.

But she couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that they were already fully aware of that.

****************************

Jirel had never seen a mugato in real life before.

He had seen plenty of pictures of them. He had encountered them in holosuite programs before. He even used to have a stuffed mugato when he was a young adoptee back on Earth, which as far as he was aware was still in a storage crate somewhere in his family’s Colorado home. But he had never seen one in the flesh.

Until now.

The figure in front of him on the platform, which had previously been an innocent small girl who had inexplicably appeared in front of him on the derelict, had fully transformed. Now, a two metre tall monster, covered in white fur and complete with a vicious horn on top of its head, stood in front of him.

He didn’t have time to fully comprehend what had just happened. Whether he was facing a little girl, or a giant mugato, or something else entirely. Because, whatever it was, it immediately began to rush towards him, causing the thin metal platform under their feet to shake and shudder.

Without any other escape option available to him, Jirel acted on instinct. He kept a tight grip on the metal pole in his gloved hands and swiftly spun his body right around it, to dodge the attack.

It was only partly successful. As the mugato reached him, it flailed out with the claws of its left paw, and caught him on the left side of his torso. His ears registered a tell-tale hiss as his suit was compromised, and his brain registered the intense flaring pain as the claws tore into his flesh.

He thought he heard Kataya say something over the suit-to-suit comms link, but his senses were too overwhelmed for the words to register. He considered trying to grab his rifle from behind his back, but the pain was too disorienting.

The mugato lumbered past him to the edge of the platform, then spun around for another inevitable attack. He had seconds to act.

As the beast charged again, Jirel gritted his teeth and jumped off the platform entirely, sliding down the scaffold pole in his gloved hands the fifteen feet or so to the next platform below. His feet made contact and he managed a ragged breath. He heard a roar above his head.

Forcing himself to keep moving, he staggered over to the ladder to the next platform, and swung his leg out. After a vertigo-inducing glance downward with his helmet spotlights, he scuttled down the rungs as fast as his injured form could move.

At the last second, he lost his footing, and for a dizzying moment he felt his left foot dangle out into the murky drop below him. His injured side caused his left arm to spasm, and with a rush of nausea, he found himself hanging on by just one arm and one foot.

Another roar came from above.

He thought he heard Klath’s voice over the comms link.

Everything was becoming a blur.

With one desperate swing, he flung his entire body off the ladder, landing in a crumpled heap on the platform with enough force to cause a fresh flare of pain to stab through his entire body.

He forced himself to roll onto his back, even as the unstable metal grid shuddered from his landing, as he looked back up at the towering warp core, and the platforms above him. He tried to say something, but he could only manage a pained grunt.

And then he saw a huge shock of white fur. Descending towards him.

The mugato had jumped off the first platform.

He tried to cry out as he realised the likely impact the extra weight was going to have on the platform under him. But there was no time.

He tried to roll away, but it was useless. He heard the mugato land on the platform with a thud, and the telltale snapping sound of the supports holding it in place in the scaffold.

He felt something claw at his back, to the side of the rifle. He felt a fresh sensation of warm blood soaking into his clothing.

And then he felt the platform give way entirely.

He felt himself falling. He saw a shock of white fur folding in on itself as they fell.

He saw the deck at the very bottom of the warp core’s cylindrical housing approaching with speed.

And then he saw nothing.
 
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