Unity – The Heartbeat
by Colonel James Darson & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Karen Villiers & Alderman Dorian Gabriel
Post Details
OLD:
Darson remained limp as they fastened the restraint vest onto him. To the credit of whoever these people were, they managed to put it on nice and tight…it wouldn’t be a problem though when the time came.
As luck would have it, they propped him up against a crate that had a great view of the entire scene, in close proximity to where the people were working. Behind his faceless mask, he gave a small smile as he let his head loll back limply against the crate.
ON:
Darson had watched the progress intently from behind his mask, all the while maintaining the facade of being unconscious. He watched as they clustered around the ancient technology, exchanging words that were clearly of the scientific persuasion. He accounted for all the military people, the soldiers…or, at least the ones that wanted to look like soldiers. More like glorified security guards if you asked him.
They had taken his belt and side-arm, as well as anything that wasn’t bolted onto his armor. He was still chuckling a little over the guy who had tried to remove his helmet, only to get fried by an electric shock for his trouble.
He had seen enough from the side for the moment, and figured that now would be a good time to spring phase II of his plan into action. He rolled his head a little from side to side, and let out a light groan like he was just waking up from his state of unconsciousness.
Stacey heard the soft groan from their uninvited guest and looked in his direction. "Dr. keep working on maintaining our connection. We still need to correctly decipher the temporal coordinates from the Romulan device. Whoever Kash relied upon to unlock the device didn't quite translate the code properly." She said to Giles as she walked over to the human who was slowly returning to consciousness.
"Romulan device means Romulan code," Giles remarked, "Have you ever tried to translate code that is capable of corrupting itself if you accidentally trip the wrong embedded protocol?" Giles said, "If it wasn't done by an expert it could take us days to make sense of the co-ordinates," longer if it had been done by an expert, a thought that Giles kept to himself.
As she walked to Darson she picked up a noticeable 2x4 laying on the ground. She examined it for several moments before nodding approvingly.
"Who are you?" she asked in a calm tone as she observed the armor that adorned the individual. She made sure to take note of what had happened to her colleague that touched the helmet and suffered severe burns. She would have to be more careful.
Darson feigned panting from the pain he should have suffered from the fall from the cliff earlier, “Well you know,” he said with strain evident in his voice, “I’m just a simple intergalactic pizza delivery man…I was making a delivery of 500 fresh hot pies in stasis to that building up above here, but wouldn’t you know it, they started shooting at me! I had to shoot back, it was just self defense-“ He was cut off as the obviously angry woman cracked him over the head with the wooden post she was holding.
"Don't lie to me you sonovabitch. . .You've come and taken the lives of my friends. You will NOT sit here and lie to me!" She coldly.
"Answer my question. . . or I promise you there won't be enough pieces left of you to identify." she said with an apparent edge in her voice.
Darson coughed and made a spitting sound inside his helmet, “I’m telling you I don’t-“
*WHACK*
The next one caught him full in the face plate and smashed his head into the crate behind him. Before he could say anything, she was on him again.
*WHACK*
“Hey, quit it!”
*WHACK*
“Stop-“
*WHACK*
“I said-“
*WHACK*
“STOP-”
*WHACK*
“HITTING-“
*WHACK*
“ME!!!!!!!”
*WHACK* *WHACK**WHACK**WHACK**WHACK**WHACK**WHACK*
On the last one, the 2x4 gave into the strain and snapped in two, coming apart in Stacy’s slightly bloody hands. As she stood over him gasping slightly for breath, Darson rolled over as best he could in his restraint vest looking a bit dirty if not that much worse for wear and said in a deadpan expression, “Are you quite finished?”
Stacey was running out of patience. "Dr. Giles, this little restraint vest that you brought with you, they restrain the individual by amplifying the gravity immediately surrounding the person and using it to pin the person down or against something, right"? She asked rhetorically to the Dr. as she continued to observe Darson.
"Something like that," Giles replied unmoved by the recent display of violence, "Its a Romulan thing I picked up on my ... travels," he said.
"So then, Dr., what would happen if we increased the force of the restraint vest? How much force would it take to crush an individual's suit of armor?" she asked.
"It is tested up to 1400 psi," Giles commented, this constant distraction was preventing him from his work in preparing the Iconian device for use, "That will crush bone."
"Really? Well, at what point would the force be great enough to damage internal organs?" She inquired.
"A while before that, I imagine the internal pressure would be ... unpleasant."
"Then by all means. . .until our friend here starts talking. . .increase the force." She ordered.
“Gravity, eh?” Darson thought bemusedly, though not for the reasons anybody might think…though if things continued in this vein these people would almost certainly find out in a couple of minutes. He decided though that this was the perfect point to ‘give in’.
“Hold it! Hold it!” He said frantically, before they could start doing anything with the vest, “I’ll tell you who I am. My name is Darson…James Darson. I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the Starfleet Marine Corp.” Not exactly an Article V rendition of his name, rank and service number, but these weren’t exactly normal circumstances.
Stacey raised her hand to signal for the Romulan to cease his actions as she turned back to the Marine. "Starfleet, isn't it amazing how they always seem to step in whenever someone decides to work outside of their rules and regulations?" She asked rhetorically. "What does Starfleet want with this planet?" she inquired.
Darson continued in a subdued tone, as if they really had broken him, “I was conducting the final stages of a joint training exercise between the SFMC and the Klingon Shock Troopers…these exercises were meant to serve as ‘inter-power team building’…but they mostly just beat the shit out of each other a hundred times. We were supposed to turn around and go home, but I received orders to come here.”
"From whom?" She followed.
“I don’t know,” Darson said petulantly, “All the orders said was that there was a terrorist training camp here, and that we were supposed to destroy it. I sent the majority of my battalion down to have a good time, while I took a small squad of men to check out the area. We made the decision on the spot to invade the camp…and it certainly didn’t look like any training camp we ever saw. We got inside the perimeter, cleared the building, and checked around. We discovered the elevator and the scientific facilities…I made the command decision to come down and scout alone when we realized that the entrance to the underground cavern was blocked by the cave in…I was the only one who could get through. I had only just gotten inside this room when I was tackled from behind…and now here I am.”
"A 'terrorist training camp'?" She asked incredulously. "Is that what you think this is? Just some breeding ground for subversive misfits who want to spread fear and loathing throughout the galaxy!?" She asked as her temper began to rise.
The reaction to the word ‘terrorist’ told Darson a lot of things. These people considered themselves above that…that what they were doing was right. And they believed this in such a fashion as to firmly believe that everybody else was wrong, regardless of consequences. That would make them easier to drag information from.
“Well…if you aren’t terrorists…what exactly are you? And what are you doing here?”
"We are here to save you." She replied in a direct unwavering tone. "We are going to stop the Dominion War from ever happening. How many terrorists do you know that wish to SAVE lives instead of taking them away senselessly?" She said moreso than asked.
The answer shocked him to the core, a very difficult feat to accomplish on a man as disciplined as James Darson. He sat back heavily against the crate in surprise as he considered the information that he had just been given by the very smug looking woman. This was…well, it was more different than he could have ever imagined. This wasn’t just some sort of statement being made…this was an attempt to change the timeline itself, the biggest violation attempt he had ever seen or heard of. The Temporal Prime Directive was very clear here…stop them at all costs.
But…was that really the right thing to do? After all, they were trying to save billions of lives here. Darson thought about it for a couple more seconds, then made his decision, “If I had known,” he said to Stacy slowly, “what you were doing here…I would not have come, and just let you be on your way. I’m sorry about your…friends…the ones up stairs but we have to move past that…I want to help you.”
"Oh really?" She said with a quirked brow. "Why in God's name would a Marine turn against his own kind?" she continued.
Darson nodded as the question was asked, “Why? Well…I suppose that’s an appropriate response,” he sighed and lowered his head in thought, “A lot of reasons I suppose. The Dominion war was the most bloody and catastrophic war that this galaxy had ever seen. And yet, you’re right in saying that it was so preventable. Billions of lives lost…due to what? Those mistakes that could have been avoided? So what if the Romulans and Klingons ended up as our allies? Such peaces do not last. Already the Romulans are trying to gain back their might and upstage the Federation.”
“As for me...the Marines took especially heavy casualties during the war. Hundreds of thousands died on ships before they even got their boots on the ground…and more fell to the Jem’Hadar shock troops in ground based conflict. They had us outnumbered and outgunned in every engagement…it was only thanks to our superior tactics that we managed to hold out as well as we did. Across the entire war, I lost 1,983 Marines. They fought, bled, and died under my command. The thought of losing so many haunts me every day of my life.”
“But that’s not even the worst of it. Look at me,” he wiggled around in the vest a little bit, “I fought in 28 major engagements, and innumerable smaller ones. And for what? I lost 82% of my biomass over two years. More than enough to kill a normal man of any race. But you know what? The brass decided that I would make a good pet project. I’ve been, I guess rebuilt, with genetically modified tissue and cybernetics…I’m more machine than man now. This armor and what’s underneath it are the only things keeping me alive. I still suffer pain from limbs that aren’t there anymore. Is that anyway to live? I swore to myself that if there was any chance of escape, of changing this, then I would take it with no hesitation.
"What benefit could you be to anybody, you couldn't even infiltrate our area without being captured." She replied flippantly.
“You’ll find that I am an extremely valuable resource,” Darson contended seeing that he was beginning to convince her, “not only am I extremely proficient in combat, but I possess knowledge that will prove beneficial in your attempt to change the past. Specifically extensive knowledge of military protocols and fleet movements that were never part of the public record. Also, I see that you’ve been having trouble decoding some Romulan code? I could be of assistance there as well. I have many code-breaking algorithms stored on my onboard computer for just such an occasion.”
"Go on. . ." she pressed.
One would push would do it, “You want something else? Alright…how about something really important? I can help you operate the artifact itself. You’ve never dealt directly with Iconian technology before, have you? Let me tell you it’s not as easy as pressing the buttons on a modern terminal. The tech itself is semi-sentient…each one has its own unique frequency…almost like a heartbeat I guess. In order to make the artifact work, and ensure safe power flow, you need to not only modulate all the generators to that frequency, but also make sure that whatever control device you’re using to input the coordinates is tuned to it as well. You’re going to need somebody who’s got prior experience with this tech…well, I’m your guy. In fact you can even say that over the years,” he leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial tone, “It’s become my heartbeat, if you catch my drift. So…what do you say?”
Stacey was no fool. She knew the Marine was desperate for a way to save his own life. She knew that he had no other choice but to comply with them or else he would share the same fate as her friends and comrades. However, he did appear to know a significant amount about the Iconian technology and time was a luxury that was in dwindling supply.
"Dr. Giles, see what useful information our friend here can provide." She said as she ordered one of the guards to help Darson to his feet. "But if you do anything to stop our mission. . ." she began to speak, but stopped as she gained control over her emotions again. She knew that there was too much on the line to waste time making idle threats. She simply turned and went back to the nearby console to report back to DS5 the status of their mission.
"Make sure that Vest stays on him." She added.
Darson stayed still while his hands were freed, and then stood up. He plucked at the vest with one hand, shrugged to himself, and dusted himself off, then headed over to Prendergast, “Alright Dr. Giles move over…let we see what I can do with this.”
OFF
Giles Prendergast
Archaologist, and totally not a deep cover Romulan Agent.
NPCd by Louise
Stacy Cordova
On-site Commander
Founders of the Beginning
Colonel James Darson
Marine Commanding Officer / Tearjerker
6th Combined Operations Group
Deep Space 5
by Colonel James Darson & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Karen Villiers & Alderman Dorian Gabriel
Post Details
| Title | The Heartbeat | |
| Mission | Unity | |
| Author(s) | Colonel James Darson & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Karen Villiers & Alderman Dorian Gabriel | |
| Posted | Sun May 09, 2010 @ 7:05am | |
| Location | Beneath the surface of Greiirh (Omicron Theta I) | |
| Timeline | SD 17 - 1500 |
Darson remained limp as they fastened the restraint vest onto him. To the credit of whoever these people were, they managed to put it on nice and tight…it wouldn’t be a problem though when the time came.
As luck would have it, they propped him up against a crate that had a great view of the entire scene, in close proximity to where the people were working. Behind his faceless mask, he gave a small smile as he let his head loll back limply against the crate.
ON:
Darson had watched the progress intently from behind his mask, all the while maintaining the facade of being unconscious. He watched as they clustered around the ancient technology, exchanging words that were clearly of the scientific persuasion. He accounted for all the military people, the soldiers…or, at least the ones that wanted to look like soldiers. More like glorified security guards if you asked him.
They had taken his belt and side-arm, as well as anything that wasn’t bolted onto his armor. He was still chuckling a little over the guy who had tried to remove his helmet, only to get fried by an electric shock for his trouble.
He had seen enough from the side for the moment, and figured that now would be a good time to spring phase II of his plan into action. He rolled his head a little from side to side, and let out a light groan like he was just waking up from his state of unconsciousness.
Stacey heard the soft groan from their uninvited guest and looked in his direction. "Dr. keep working on maintaining our connection. We still need to correctly decipher the temporal coordinates from the Romulan device. Whoever Kash relied upon to unlock the device didn't quite translate the code properly." She said to Giles as she walked over to the human who was slowly returning to consciousness.
"Romulan device means Romulan code," Giles remarked, "Have you ever tried to translate code that is capable of corrupting itself if you accidentally trip the wrong embedded protocol?" Giles said, "If it wasn't done by an expert it could take us days to make sense of the co-ordinates," longer if it had been done by an expert, a thought that Giles kept to himself.
As she walked to Darson she picked up a noticeable 2x4 laying on the ground. She examined it for several moments before nodding approvingly.
"Who are you?" she asked in a calm tone as she observed the armor that adorned the individual. She made sure to take note of what had happened to her colleague that touched the helmet and suffered severe burns. She would have to be more careful.
Darson feigned panting from the pain he should have suffered from the fall from the cliff earlier, “Well you know,” he said with strain evident in his voice, “I’m just a simple intergalactic pizza delivery man…I was making a delivery of 500 fresh hot pies in stasis to that building up above here, but wouldn’t you know it, they started shooting at me! I had to shoot back, it was just self defense-“ He was cut off as the obviously angry woman cracked him over the head with the wooden post she was holding.
"Don't lie to me you sonovabitch. . .You've come and taken the lives of my friends. You will NOT sit here and lie to me!" She coldly.
"Answer my question. . . or I promise you there won't be enough pieces left of you to identify." she said with an apparent edge in her voice.
Darson coughed and made a spitting sound inside his helmet, “I’m telling you I don’t-“
*WHACK*
The next one caught him full in the face plate and smashed his head into the crate behind him. Before he could say anything, she was on him again.
*WHACK*
“Hey, quit it!”
*WHACK*
“Stop-“
*WHACK*
“I said-“
*WHACK*
“STOP-”
*WHACK*
“HITTING-“
*WHACK*
“ME!!!!!!!”
*WHACK* *WHACK**WHACK**WHACK**WHACK**WHACK**WHACK*
On the last one, the 2x4 gave into the strain and snapped in two, coming apart in Stacy’s slightly bloody hands. As she stood over him gasping slightly for breath, Darson rolled over as best he could in his restraint vest looking a bit dirty if not that much worse for wear and said in a deadpan expression, “Are you quite finished?”
Stacey was running out of patience. "Dr. Giles, this little restraint vest that you brought with you, they restrain the individual by amplifying the gravity immediately surrounding the person and using it to pin the person down or against something, right"? She asked rhetorically to the Dr. as she continued to observe Darson.
"Something like that," Giles replied unmoved by the recent display of violence, "Its a Romulan thing I picked up on my ... travels," he said.
"So then, Dr., what would happen if we increased the force of the restraint vest? How much force would it take to crush an individual's suit of armor?" she asked.
"It is tested up to 1400 psi," Giles commented, this constant distraction was preventing him from his work in preparing the Iconian device for use, "That will crush bone."
"Really? Well, at what point would the force be great enough to damage internal organs?" She inquired.
"A while before that, I imagine the internal pressure would be ... unpleasant."
"Then by all means. . .until our friend here starts talking. . .increase the force." She ordered.
“Gravity, eh?” Darson thought bemusedly, though not for the reasons anybody might think…though if things continued in this vein these people would almost certainly find out in a couple of minutes. He decided though that this was the perfect point to ‘give in’.
“Hold it! Hold it!” He said frantically, before they could start doing anything with the vest, “I’ll tell you who I am. My name is Darson…James Darson. I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the Starfleet Marine Corp.” Not exactly an Article V rendition of his name, rank and service number, but these weren’t exactly normal circumstances.
Stacey raised her hand to signal for the Romulan to cease his actions as she turned back to the Marine. "Starfleet, isn't it amazing how they always seem to step in whenever someone decides to work outside of their rules and regulations?" She asked rhetorically. "What does Starfleet want with this planet?" she inquired.
Darson continued in a subdued tone, as if they really had broken him, “I was conducting the final stages of a joint training exercise between the SFMC and the Klingon Shock Troopers…these exercises were meant to serve as ‘inter-power team building’…but they mostly just beat the shit out of each other a hundred times. We were supposed to turn around and go home, but I received orders to come here.”
"From whom?" She followed.
“I don’t know,” Darson said petulantly, “All the orders said was that there was a terrorist training camp here, and that we were supposed to destroy it. I sent the majority of my battalion down to have a good time, while I took a small squad of men to check out the area. We made the decision on the spot to invade the camp…and it certainly didn’t look like any training camp we ever saw. We got inside the perimeter, cleared the building, and checked around. We discovered the elevator and the scientific facilities…I made the command decision to come down and scout alone when we realized that the entrance to the underground cavern was blocked by the cave in…I was the only one who could get through. I had only just gotten inside this room when I was tackled from behind…and now here I am.”
"A 'terrorist training camp'?" She asked incredulously. "Is that what you think this is? Just some breeding ground for subversive misfits who want to spread fear and loathing throughout the galaxy!?" She asked as her temper began to rise.
The reaction to the word ‘terrorist’ told Darson a lot of things. These people considered themselves above that…that what they were doing was right. And they believed this in such a fashion as to firmly believe that everybody else was wrong, regardless of consequences. That would make them easier to drag information from.
“Well…if you aren’t terrorists…what exactly are you? And what are you doing here?”
"We are here to save you." She replied in a direct unwavering tone. "We are going to stop the Dominion War from ever happening. How many terrorists do you know that wish to SAVE lives instead of taking them away senselessly?" She said moreso than asked.
The answer shocked him to the core, a very difficult feat to accomplish on a man as disciplined as James Darson. He sat back heavily against the crate in surprise as he considered the information that he had just been given by the very smug looking woman. This was…well, it was more different than he could have ever imagined. This wasn’t just some sort of statement being made…this was an attempt to change the timeline itself, the biggest violation attempt he had ever seen or heard of. The Temporal Prime Directive was very clear here…stop them at all costs.
But…was that really the right thing to do? After all, they were trying to save billions of lives here. Darson thought about it for a couple more seconds, then made his decision, “If I had known,” he said to Stacy slowly, “what you were doing here…I would not have come, and just let you be on your way. I’m sorry about your…friends…the ones up stairs but we have to move past that…I want to help you.”
"Oh really?" She said with a quirked brow. "Why in God's name would a Marine turn against his own kind?" she continued.
Darson nodded as the question was asked, “Why? Well…I suppose that’s an appropriate response,” he sighed and lowered his head in thought, “A lot of reasons I suppose. The Dominion war was the most bloody and catastrophic war that this galaxy had ever seen. And yet, you’re right in saying that it was so preventable. Billions of lives lost…due to what? Those mistakes that could have been avoided? So what if the Romulans and Klingons ended up as our allies? Such peaces do not last. Already the Romulans are trying to gain back their might and upstage the Federation.”
“As for me...the Marines took especially heavy casualties during the war. Hundreds of thousands died on ships before they even got their boots on the ground…and more fell to the Jem’Hadar shock troops in ground based conflict. They had us outnumbered and outgunned in every engagement…it was only thanks to our superior tactics that we managed to hold out as well as we did. Across the entire war, I lost 1,983 Marines. They fought, bled, and died under my command. The thought of losing so many haunts me every day of my life.”
“But that’s not even the worst of it. Look at me,” he wiggled around in the vest a little bit, “I fought in 28 major engagements, and innumerable smaller ones. And for what? I lost 82% of my biomass over two years. More than enough to kill a normal man of any race. But you know what? The brass decided that I would make a good pet project. I’ve been, I guess rebuilt, with genetically modified tissue and cybernetics…I’m more machine than man now. This armor and what’s underneath it are the only things keeping me alive. I still suffer pain from limbs that aren’t there anymore. Is that anyway to live? I swore to myself that if there was any chance of escape, of changing this, then I would take it with no hesitation.
"What benefit could you be to anybody, you couldn't even infiltrate our area without being captured." She replied flippantly.
“You’ll find that I am an extremely valuable resource,” Darson contended seeing that he was beginning to convince her, “not only am I extremely proficient in combat, but I possess knowledge that will prove beneficial in your attempt to change the past. Specifically extensive knowledge of military protocols and fleet movements that were never part of the public record. Also, I see that you’ve been having trouble decoding some Romulan code? I could be of assistance there as well. I have many code-breaking algorithms stored on my onboard computer for just such an occasion.”
"Go on. . ." she pressed.
One would push would do it, “You want something else? Alright…how about something really important? I can help you operate the artifact itself. You’ve never dealt directly with Iconian technology before, have you? Let me tell you it’s not as easy as pressing the buttons on a modern terminal. The tech itself is semi-sentient…each one has its own unique frequency…almost like a heartbeat I guess. In order to make the artifact work, and ensure safe power flow, you need to not only modulate all the generators to that frequency, but also make sure that whatever control device you’re using to input the coordinates is tuned to it as well. You’re going to need somebody who’s got prior experience with this tech…well, I’m your guy. In fact you can even say that over the years,” he leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial tone, “It’s become my heartbeat, if you catch my drift. So…what do you say?”
Stacey was no fool. She knew the Marine was desperate for a way to save his own life. She knew that he had no other choice but to comply with them or else he would share the same fate as her friends and comrades. However, he did appear to know a significant amount about the Iconian technology and time was a luxury that was in dwindling supply.
"Dr. Giles, see what useful information our friend here can provide." She said as she ordered one of the guards to help Darson to his feet. "But if you do anything to stop our mission. . ." she began to speak, but stopped as she gained control over her emotions again. She knew that there was too much on the line to waste time making idle threats. She simply turned and went back to the nearby console to report back to DS5 the status of their mission.
"Make sure that Vest stays on him." She added.
Darson stayed still while his hands were freed, and then stood up. He plucked at the vest with one hand, shrugged to himself, and dusted himself off, then headed over to Prendergast, “Alright Dr. Giles move over…let we see what I can do with this.”
OFF
Giles Prendergast
Archaologist, and totally not a deep cover Romulan Agent.
NPCd by Louise
Stacy Cordova
On-site Commander
Founders of the Beginning
Colonel James Darson
Marine Commanding Officer / Tearjerker
6th Combined Operations Group
Deep Space 5