DARK TERRITORY:
QUAGMIRE
USS Nehsi
Time had become meaningless. Hamilcar Glover had long given up checking the chronometers that still worked. He marked time by the rending of metal, and then the screams. After that it was the sharp screeching of laser fire, and then time would become meaningless again, as they checked the wounded and picked up the dead.
Hamilcar also couldn’t remember how long they had been inside the star desert. They had first thought what they were flying into was a nebula. In his nightmares-there were no dreams now without them-he remembered how Captain Holm had thought the nebula would be a refuge, a place for them to evade the Sheliak.
Glover, like so many others had come to express, wished they had stood their ground against the Sheliak ships. Even if they had been turned into space dust, it would’ve been preferable.
“Maintain present course and speed Mr. Glover,” Commander McGrath rasped as she placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze.
Hamilcar turned around to gaze up at the older woman. “Aye captain.” Unkempt strands of lank red hair hung over her face, almost shielding her hazel eyes, but not hiding the dirt or lacerations. They all were roughed up, with the Federation blue of their uniforms often matted with grime or blood.
There had been little time, or much use, to change clothes, and the thought of wasting power to materialize fresh uniforms was unthinkable. Always on guard against the next incursion, the bridge crew, and other survivors on the ship, had taken to even sleeping in the same rooms. For the bridge crew, food had been placed in the captain’s ready room, which also was the only place with the closest refresher. But even when relieving themselves, they had a chaperone. As the days piled up, Hamilcar wasn’t sure whether it would be the creatures or the smell from the ready room that would take him out first.
“First speck of starlight you see, you take us toward it,” McGrath was now saying, softly now, almost as if talking to herself, more than him. Glover knew the woman was talking mostly to feel like she retained a modicum of control. With the warp engine offline, all the vessel could do was putter along on impulse, and that was slow going, especially when you didn’t know where to go.
McGrath was captain now, a role the woman had never sought, and from what Hamilcar had heard of her tempestuous history, Command would’ve never given her. Yet Captain Holm had given her another chance, perhaps her last chance, and now she was committed to seeing this ship home, if for no other reason, to honor the faith the Zelonite had placed her. She had blurted all of that during one of the few respites.
Dottie McGrath wasn’t much for standing on ceremony. Her openness had both pleased and vexed Hamilcar.
He had only been back in the Fleet for six months, and only aboard Nehsi for two of those, and was still get reacquainted with Fleet life. So much had changed since he had resigned shortly after graduating the Four Years War ended to raise his nieces and nephews, orphaned by the war with the Klingons. A war that had took their parents, his older sister Claudia. That damnable war had also taken his older brother Hannibal.
He had had to squelch his own desire for vengeance, to join the war effort to avenge Claudia, Hannibal, and his stepbrother, in order to be there for his family. It had been a hard lesson for him to learn, but one he eventually saw the necessity of.
Now that the children were older, and his nephew Evander was a freshman at the Academy even, Hamilcar had resumed his dream to serve in Starfleet. Old friends, including classmate, Robert Wesley, had helped him. He had returned after the war with a new, enigmatic enemy, the Sheliak Corporate, had ended. From the last Federation News Service article, he had read, Federation diplomats were still haggling over details of the peace with Sheliak counterparts.
He thought the embers were almost doused. But then a Vulcan survey ship went missing in space once contested between the Federation and the Corporate. When Nehsi had been ordered to investigate, they had encountered three Sheliak warships.
The battle had been fierce and devastating. Hamilcar recalled it all, each move he made, each order that had been given. The nebula had appeared out of nowhere, and Holm had ordered the ship to go in it, in an attempt to evade the Sheliak. Hamilcar had voiced reservations, but the captain, or Commander McGrath could not be swayed.
Hamilcar didn’t know if the Sheliak had followed them in. He wasn’t heartened by the thought that even their enemies had faced the same trials they had.
The space around them was so black that Lt. Unggoy had likened it to being inside a womb. The too garrulous Ursinoid navigator had been ripped apart protecting Dr. Fugeman, who had been attending to one of the downed crewmen. The man’s sacrifice had ultimately been for naught, since Fugeman and even the wounded crew had since been slaughtered.
Hamilcar regretted rebuffing the talkative Unggoy now, but he didn’t even attempt to warm up to his replacement, certain that Ensign Leifer wouldn’t last long. Glover only figured he only had a matter of time, seconds, minutes, maybe even hours, before it would be his time.
Glover piloted the ship into the unknown. It was complete darkness outside, as thick and oppressive as it had become inside the ship. At this point, Science Officer Amador didn’t have to be prompted to inform McGrath of what the ship’s sensors were not telling them. The longest-lived survivors from the bridge crew-McGrath, Glover, and Amador-all had achieved a strange simpatico.
“Captain,” Amador said, her voice tight, her expression controlled. The dark brown woman had the steeliness of a Vulcan. “There are no new readings.” While Glover latched onto the theory they had entered a star desert, the science officer had also proposed that Nehsi was trapped inside a subspace node, a bubble of curved spacetime, like the infamous Barrens where Emory Erickson had undertaken sub-quantum transporter experiments. The Barrens was an area of space where no stars could be seen within one hundred light years. Hamilcar wasn’t the only one to hope that their journey to salvation wouldn’t be as long.
McGrath huffed before she sat down. The woman scrunched her face and immediately got out of the chair, as if allergic to it. Before she had confessed that she didn’t like sitting in the center chair. That she felt it still belonged to Holm.
Pacing in front of the chair, hands clasped firmly behind her back, McGrath let loose her frustration. “We send a probe, they come! We shoot phasers or Great Bird knows a torpedo, they come! These bastards are relentless. And I thought the Klingons were our greatest threat!”
Like Hamilcar, McGrath had also fought in the Four Years War. With a grim, humorless smile, he recalled how some younger officers scoffed at the idea. Most bought into the idea that the four-year conflict was an intense series of terror raids and not a full-blown war. Hamilcar had witnessed it up close and personal and knew the truth. He would never downplay the horror and tragedy of those years.
The captain threw up her hands. Snorting, she blurted, “We might as well just stop running, and let the bastards finish us off!” Their scrape with the Sheliak had made the ship fair pickings for the creatures inside whatever this expanse was. Once they had crumpled the shielding around the perforations in the hull, they had swarmed. They moved so quickly; their gleaming rows of teeth were surely the last thing most of their victims saw.
Hamilcar had survived long enough to piece together a nightmare recreation of them. They were long, cylindrical in shape, oil-black bodies writhing and contorting as if they felt the pain they inflicted on others. Tentacles emerged and then retracted into their bodies. What he took for eyes moved throughout the black mass. The only thing that seemed permanent was the gaping mouths they all had, mouths that always were looking for sustenance.
“Captain,” gasped one of the newbies at the communications terminal.
“Maybe if we did activate the auto-destruct, at least we could take many, or all of them down with us,” opined the burly Rigelian at the weapons station. The navigator’s complexion took on an unhealthy green sheen. Hamilcar’s stomach twisted at the thought.
“You can’t be serious,” the Ayt communications officer said. “Bour, I mean, come on? Suicide is the answer? Really? From you of all people?!” She shook her head, ruffling its feather-like pate.
The formidable Rigelian slowly looked at the exasperated avian. “Enough Ensign Suletu,” McGrath said.
“But sir,” Suletu protested.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” McGrath said. The other reeled back whatever her next words were going to be.
“I don’t see us having much of a choice here,” the captain said. Glover hated to agree, but they had tried communicating with the creatures, then attempted to capture one for study, but had failed each time. If they continued doing what they had been doing, they were mincemeat. At least, destroying Nehsi would hopefully be a lot of payback.
“Even if we make it out of this…quagmire,” Suletu pointed out, “There could be an armada of Sheliak out there waiting for us.”
“We don’t know how long we’ve been here,” McGrath retorted, “And right now, I would rather face whatever the Shellies threw at us than spend one more nanosecond in the belly of this beast!” The ship had taken so much punishment it was barely holding together as it was. The shields were now only strong enough to keep the ship’s atmosphere in, but with each new assault they grew weaker. If the creatures didn’t kill them all, the vacuum would claim them.
“Belly,” Amador said the word slowly, “Beast.”
“Yeah,” the captain shrugged, “Like Jonah and the whale.”
Amador looked at her askance. “I guess you never read the Bible then?” The captain asked.
“I did not,” the science officer replied, her voice distracted.
“What’s up Najeeba?” McGrath asked. “I know you well-enough now to know you’re thinking about something.”
“It’s…it’s just,” the woman paused, at a loss for words.
“Go on, spit it out,” McGrath coaxed. Turning to the communications officer, she added, “It can’t be worst than my idea to turn Nehsi into a Roman candle.”
“That’s just it Captain,” the science officer replied, her eyes now alit, “That’s just what we should do.”
“Blow ourselves up?” McGrath sounded skeptical, even though it had been her idea.
“Not. Exactly,” the younger woman was now cryptic.
“You’re going to have to give me than that Lt. Amador,” the captain said.
“I understand Captain,” the scientist sighed. She checked her terminal, made a few calculations, and then swiveled back to look at the captain, but she made certain to gaze around the bridge. While looking at Hamilcar, Amador added, “You are not going to like this.”
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QUAGMIRE
USS Nehsi
Time had become meaningless. Hamilcar Glover had long given up checking the chronometers that still worked. He marked time by the rending of metal, and then the screams. After that it was the sharp screeching of laser fire, and then time would become meaningless again, as they checked the wounded and picked up the dead.
Hamilcar also couldn’t remember how long they had been inside the star desert. They had first thought what they were flying into was a nebula. In his nightmares-there were no dreams now without them-he remembered how Captain Holm had thought the nebula would be a refuge, a place for them to evade the Sheliak.
Glover, like so many others had come to express, wished they had stood their ground against the Sheliak ships. Even if they had been turned into space dust, it would’ve been preferable.
“Maintain present course and speed Mr. Glover,” Commander McGrath rasped as she placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze.
Hamilcar turned around to gaze up at the older woman. “Aye captain.” Unkempt strands of lank red hair hung over her face, almost shielding her hazel eyes, but not hiding the dirt or lacerations. They all were roughed up, with the Federation blue of their uniforms often matted with grime or blood.
There had been little time, or much use, to change clothes, and the thought of wasting power to materialize fresh uniforms was unthinkable. Always on guard against the next incursion, the bridge crew, and other survivors on the ship, had taken to even sleeping in the same rooms. For the bridge crew, food had been placed in the captain’s ready room, which also was the only place with the closest refresher. But even when relieving themselves, they had a chaperone. As the days piled up, Hamilcar wasn’t sure whether it would be the creatures or the smell from the ready room that would take him out first.
“First speck of starlight you see, you take us toward it,” McGrath was now saying, softly now, almost as if talking to herself, more than him. Glover knew the woman was talking mostly to feel like she retained a modicum of control. With the warp engine offline, all the vessel could do was putter along on impulse, and that was slow going, especially when you didn’t know where to go.
McGrath was captain now, a role the woman had never sought, and from what Hamilcar had heard of her tempestuous history, Command would’ve never given her. Yet Captain Holm had given her another chance, perhaps her last chance, and now she was committed to seeing this ship home, if for no other reason, to honor the faith the Zelonite had placed her. She had blurted all of that during one of the few respites.
Dottie McGrath wasn’t much for standing on ceremony. Her openness had both pleased and vexed Hamilcar.
He had only been back in the Fleet for six months, and only aboard Nehsi for two of those, and was still get reacquainted with Fleet life. So much had changed since he had resigned shortly after graduating the Four Years War ended to raise his nieces and nephews, orphaned by the war with the Klingons. A war that had took their parents, his older sister Claudia. That damnable war had also taken his older brother Hannibal.
He had had to squelch his own desire for vengeance, to join the war effort to avenge Claudia, Hannibal, and his stepbrother, in order to be there for his family. It had been a hard lesson for him to learn, but one he eventually saw the necessity of.
Now that the children were older, and his nephew Evander was a freshman at the Academy even, Hamilcar had resumed his dream to serve in Starfleet. Old friends, including classmate, Robert Wesley, had helped him. He had returned after the war with a new, enigmatic enemy, the Sheliak Corporate, had ended. From the last Federation News Service article, he had read, Federation diplomats were still haggling over details of the peace with Sheliak counterparts.
He thought the embers were almost doused. But then a Vulcan survey ship went missing in space once contested between the Federation and the Corporate. When Nehsi had been ordered to investigate, they had encountered three Sheliak warships.
The battle had been fierce and devastating. Hamilcar recalled it all, each move he made, each order that had been given. The nebula had appeared out of nowhere, and Holm had ordered the ship to go in it, in an attempt to evade the Sheliak. Hamilcar had voiced reservations, but the captain, or Commander McGrath could not be swayed.
Hamilcar didn’t know if the Sheliak had followed them in. He wasn’t heartened by the thought that even their enemies had faced the same trials they had.
The space around them was so black that Lt. Unggoy had likened it to being inside a womb. The too garrulous Ursinoid navigator had been ripped apart protecting Dr. Fugeman, who had been attending to one of the downed crewmen. The man’s sacrifice had ultimately been for naught, since Fugeman and even the wounded crew had since been slaughtered.
Hamilcar regretted rebuffing the talkative Unggoy now, but he didn’t even attempt to warm up to his replacement, certain that Ensign Leifer wouldn’t last long. Glover only figured he only had a matter of time, seconds, minutes, maybe even hours, before it would be his time.
Glover piloted the ship into the unknown. It was complete darkness outside, as thick and oppressive as it had become inside the ship. At this point, Science Officer Amador didn’t have to be prompted to inform McGrath of what the ship’s sensors were not telling them. The longest-lived survivors from the bridge crew-McGrath, Glover, and Amador-all had achieved a strange simpatico.
“Captain,” Amador said, her voice tight, her expression controlled. The dark brown woman had the steeliness of a Vulcan. “There are no new readings.” While Glover latched onto the theory they had entered a star desert, the science officer had also proposed that Nehsi was trapped inside a subspace node, a bubble of curved spacetime, like the infamous Barrens where Emory Erickson had undertaken sub-quantum transporter experiments. The Barrens was an area of space where no stars could be seen within one hundred light years. Hamilcar wasn’t the only one to hope that their journey to salvation wouldn’t be as long.
McGrath huffed before she sat down. The woman scrunched her face and immediately got out of the chair, as if allergic to it. Before she had confessed that she didn’t like sitting in the center chair. That she felt it still belonged to Holm.
Pacing in front of the chair, hands clasped firmly behind her back, McGrath let loose her frustration. “We send a probe, they come! We shoot phasers or Great Bird knows a torpedo, they come! These bastards are relentless. And I thought the Klingons were our greatest threat!”
Like Hamilcar, McGrath had also fought in the Four Years War. With a grim, humorless smile, he recalled how some younger officers scoffed at the idea. Most bought into the idea that the four-year conflict was an intense series of terror raids and not a full-blown war. Hamilcar had witnessed it up close and personal and knew the truth. He would never downplay the horror and tragedy of those years.
The captain threw up her hands. Snorting, she blurted, “We might as well just stop running, and let the bastards finish us off!” Their scrape with the Sheliak had made the ship fair pickings for the creatures inside whatever this expanse was. Once they had crumpled the shielding around the perforations in the hull, they had swarmed. They moved so quickly; their gleaming rows of teeth were surely the last thing most of their victims saw.
Hamilcar had survived long enough to piece together a nightmare recreation of them. They were long, cylindrical in shape, oil-black bodies writhing and contorting as if they felt the pain they inflicted on others. Tentacles emerged and then retracted into their bodies. What he took for eyes moved throughout the black mass. The only thing that seemed permanent was the gaping mouths they all had, mouths that always were looking for sustenance.
“Captain,” gasped one of the newbies at the communications terminal.
“Maybe if we did activate the auto-destruct, at least we could take many, or all of them down with us,” opined the burly Rigelian at the weapons station. The navigator’s complexion took on an unhealthy green sheen. Hamilcar’s stomach twisted at the thought.
“You can’t be serious,” the Ayt communications officer said. “Bour, I mean, come on? Suicide is the answer? Really? From you of all people?!” She shook her head, ruffling its feather-like pate.
The formidable Rigelian slowly looked at the exasperated avian. “Enough Ensign Suletu,” McGrath said.
“But sir,” Suletu protested.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” McGrath said. The other reeled back whatever her next words were going to be.
“I don’t see us having much of a choice here,” the captain said. Glover hated to agree, but they had tried communicating with the creatures, then attempted to capture one for study, but had failed each time. If they continued doing what they had been doing, they were mincemeat. At least, destroying Nehsi would hopefully be a lot of payback.
“Even if we make it out of this…quagmire,” Suletu pointed out, “There could be an armada of Sheliak out there waiting for us.”
“We don’t know how long we’ve been here,” McGrath retorted, “And right now, I would rather face whatever the Shellies threw at us than spend one more nanosecond in the belly of this beast!” The ship had taken so much punishment it was barely holding together as it was. The shields were now only strong enough to keep the ship’s atmosphere in, but with each new assault they grew weaker. If the creatures didn’t kill them all, the vacuum would claim them.
“Belly,” Amador said the word slowly, “Beast.”
“Yeah,” the captain shrugged, “Like Jonah and the whale.”
Amador looked at her askance. “I guess you never read the Bible then?” The captain asked.
“I did not,” the science officer replied, her voice distracted.
“What’s up Najeeba?” McGrath asked. “I know you well-enough now to know you’re thinking about something.”
“It’s…it’s just,” the woman paused, at a loss for words.
“Go on, spit it out,” McGrath coaxed. Turning to the communications officer, she added, “It can’t be worst than my idea to turn Nehsi into a Roman candle.”
“That’s just it Captain,” the science officer replied, her eyes now alit, “That’s just what we should do.”
“Blow ourselves up?” McGrath sounded skeptical, even though it had been her idea.
“Not. Exactly,” the younger woman was now cryptic.
“You’re going to have to give me than that Lt. Amador,” the captain said.
“I understand Captain,” the scientist sighed. She checked her terminal, made a few calculations, and then swiveled back to look at the captain, but she made certain to gaze around the bridge. While looking at Hamilcar, Amador added, “You are not going to like this.”
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