Unity – From Fear to Eternity
by Colonel James Darson & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Karen Villiers & Alderman Dorian Gabriel
Post Details
ON:
The harsh light from the portable lamps attached to the scaffolding did a poor job of illuminating the entire cavern underneath the surface of the planet, managing only to shed their artificial light on a small area in the center, with the darkness claiming all the rest.
Guards milled around the archeological area toting disruptor rifles, most of which were trained on Darson as he worked at the portable workstation placed before the massive artifact. His fingers flew smoothly across the keyboard at speeds that made the hands look like a blur, receiving and organizing the information he was receiving in real time across the sub-space connection to Deep Space 5.
He examined the data, made several “Hmmm” sounds, and then resumed typing. The ancient machine before him pulsed in time to the keystrokes as the information was fed into it in a format that it could understand.
He paused for a moment and tugged half-heartedly at the restraint vest he wore, before turning to the irritated woman from before and Prendergast who was standing next to her. Leaning back against the console he said in a calm tone, “I’ve managed to decode about 70% of the coordinate data. But it’s tough going. Whoever you have on the other side is either a complete idiot, or he’s deliberately tripping as many of the safeguards as he can get away with while still trying to give you what he thinks you want.”
"Who is on the other side?" Prendergast asked, there were not many people capable of purposefully corrupting the code; that required a particular knowledge, and a complete idiot seemed too much to ask for. "We can extrapolate much of the rest from what we have," he continued. "But that won't be much use if we have insufficient power."
Darson made a thoughtful sound as he looked at the glowing pillars of the artefact, running mental calculations, “…No. Power requirements aside, as it is we won’t have enough to be able to open a gateway.”
Stacey looked up from her padd and stood up and began to walk towards the increasingly annoying invader.
“But,” he said quickly as he saw the woman’s gaze turn murderous, “That was before you had me,” he turned to the console again, “The good doctor has the right idea. I’m going to run some extrapolation protocols based on what we have so far…it won’t be as precise, but I can make do with less then what you needed originally...that's just how amazingly amazing I am. You should all be bowing down at my feet in amazement at how actually amazing I am."
"We'll only need enough power for the gateway to transport a small group on our end. Fortunately, the station will be able to 'generate' its own power needed to bring that team through the local anomaly that was recently discovered." She said as she continued to make the last minute preparations.
"It is my sincere hope, Mr. Darson, that you are not stalling for time." She said as she turned to face him again. "Because if this plan fails, I assure you that my very unhappy face will the last thing you ever see before Starfleet rushes in." She said without the slightest hint of a jovial tone in her voice.
“Of course,” he said with faux respectfulness turning his attention back to the console. This woman would very soon see that he was not just stalling for time.
"Anthony, you can begin uploading the coordinates to our system right now. Tell Hartsfield to begin setting the charges and begin targeting the anomaly." She said to the other Cordova halfway across the quadrant onboard the captured space station.
Anthony jerked slightly at her order, catching slightly unaware as the tension began to build. He took a breath as his fingers tapped the single key with the co-ordinates and transmitted them.
"Done. Good luck." He said as he closed the channel and is if on automatic, he turned off the lights as he left, heading to Elliotts position.
As the datastream began to come into her console she transferred it to Darson's console. "Hurry, we don't have much time." She said as the room shook slightly from the sound of explosions from outside.
"Obviously your men do not recognize the significance of what we are trying to do here." she added.
Darson shook his head, “That isn’t my men…we already took the base, why would something else need to be blown up? Do you know of anybody else who would be trying to interfere?" he asked rhetorically.
"It won't matter, in a few minutes, none of this will matter anymore." she said as the information downloaded into the console.
Darson shook his head and briefly tried to make contact with the teams in the main building top-side. However, the rock in the cavern was too thick, and all he got over the communications channel was static, “We’d best get back to work then, right? I mean…I got through that blockage at the cave entrance, so somebody else could too.”
A minute or two later, Darson tapped the final buttons on his console and declared, “Finished! Now…continue feeding the data to the artefact, but make sure the flow is even and steady…we barely have enough as it is, and I don’t want any mistake to be made at this juncture.”
"For your sake you had better hope so, Mr. Darson." Stacey replied ruefully as she input the information transmitted from Deep Space Five.
Stacey looked up as the device before her began to come to life and the temporal field began to form before the trio.
"Yes. . .yes. . .this is it. Prendergast! Begin the final sequence and input the temporal coordinates." Stacey said as the final moments of their plan was upon them.
Darson moved away from the console and began to slowly make his way around the back of the group, unnoticed in the excitement. Everybody had diverted their attentions to the unusual glowing artefact and was too busy to notice their prisoner slinking around the back.
The ground began to rumble and dust fell from above. A temporal distortion of this magnitude was bound to have some side effects in its production, and the generation of gravitational eddies was one of them. They flitted around and though relatively weak, began to wreak havoc with anything not tied down and light enough to be thrown around by the equivalent of a strong wind. Just not everywhere at once.
The pillars appeared to tremble as the energy fed through them became greater and greater. Darson had worked the calculations down to an exact science. Using the symbiotic Iconian power supply in his chest cavity, he had engaged in a form of…well, I guess you could call it a semi-mind meld with the artefact. After greeting the mind that inhabited it, he had set about learning the correct carrier wave amplification frequency. It had to be extremely precise. A few nano-hertz one way or the other would render it ineffective. And with that in hand, it was a simple process to work the power requirements to something within the range they had available.
Too little, and it would just fizzle out, and everything that he worked for would have been for naught. But too much, and this would explode like a block of C8 planted in somebody’s office, bringing the entire cavern collapsing down on their heads. But this was perfect. It would work.
It had to work.
He approached the group from behind, and stopped to gather up all the weapons that had been stripped from him in the first place. He idly toyed with the restraint vest on him before ripping it off with a very satisfying crack and dumped it to the ground. Man, they were really a bunch of incompetent boobs. But, he thought, when presented with something so fundamentally life changing as this, it was probably impossible to pay attention to anything else.
He was about to move on when he spotted a TR-119b. He nodded to himself in appreciation as he picked it up and checked the magazine. It was full. He pumped the slide to ready a round in the chamber. He didn’t know where these terrorists got their weapons from, but they went for the high grade stuff. No doubt about that. He slung it over his shoulder and went towards the group.
There was a high-pitched whine as the temporal field approached its critical mass, and then a tiny anti-climatic pop as it jumped into fully formed existence. There was a sudden silence as the assembled beheld the time portal, save for the rumbling of a rapidly destabilizing cavern.
"Let's begin." Stacey stated as she began to walk towards the portal. Various emotions were running through her system as she began to take the first step towards accomplishing what had become her obsession for the past ten years. She would finally have the chance to put right what had gone so horribly wrong so long ago. Her hands began to tremble as she could feel the energy resonating from the field as she began to approach it.
Darson wandered into the crowd of amazed onlookers, and made his way to the front where Stacy and Prendergast were. He placed his hands lightly on their shoulders and leaned in between them, lowering his voice to a mere whisper, “Doctor…madam. Thank you very much for your services…though I fear that they are no longer required.”
Before they could work out exactly what he meant by that, he leaned back and tightened his grip on their clothing. With super-human strength, he spun on his feet and whirled them around, releasing them after they had gained enough speed. They flew far, over the heads of the gathered crowd and clear to the other side of the cavern. Prendergast was immediately knocked unconscious, though Stacy managed to maintain her conscious faculties.
The entire group of assembled soldiers turned to watch their progress, and then turned back to Darson, weapons raised and ready to open fire on the traitor. Unluckily for them, he was already ready for it.
The shotgun was up and pointed directly at the face of the nearest guard. Couldn’t have been older than twenty. And he wasn’t going to be getting any older. Darson gently pulled the trigger, years of experience giving it a nice smooth pull.
The guard’s head disintegrated in a spray of blood and buckshot. Darson spun the gun around, pumped the slide again and moved on.
What followed was an epic and almost completely indescribable scene of violence.
Men and women alive were blown apart Guns went off, but hit nothing but air or comrades. Blood splattered everywhere, and much more general chaos. And it was over all too soon.
Stacey rolled across the cavern's ground several times before hitting the side wall. It took her several moments to regain her bearings and to realize what had just happened. Her vision was blurred slightly as she staggered to her feet despite the pain that was consuming her.
When she looked up, she saw the remains of a massacre. A blood splattered Darson stood atop a pile of corpses, looking all the more like the evil demon king that his reputation proclaimed he was. He had discarded the blades and was holding the one remaining guard by the head. It was the same one who had pushed him off the cliff a couple of hours ago. He was wounded, and scrabbled desperately against Darson’s armor.
Darson laughed loudly, the crumbling cavern ringing with the cruel sound, “Hey come on…I’m expecting an apology…you pushed me off a cliff before. It hurt a lot you know? So come on…apologize. Or even I, who am called a Buddha of the Mystigian system, will not be able to forgive you!”
The man made several gurgling sounds, but it was evident from the blood coating his neck that his voice box had been crushed. He wouldn’t be speaking anytime soon. Darson shook his head in mock disappointment, “Well then, since it seems that you don’t want forgiveness, that must mean that you want death instead. Allow me to oblige you.”
He drew a knife and proceeded to run him through with the blade, then dropped him to the ground as his bowels emptied themselves.
"You bastard!" Stacy shouted with the remaining bit of her strength as she jammed the dagger into the treacherous Marine that had managed to cause so much destruction in such a short time.
The blade snapped off as soon as it impacted on the armor, leaving not even a scratch. Darson turned calmly, and backhanded her cleanly across the face, snapping her neck around. He grabbed her by the shirt collar and lifted her up, “I just wanted you to know,” he whispered to her, “That everything I said before…was a lie. And you bought it. Hook, line and sinker. Good bye,” Without further ado, he snapped her neck, and sent her to the ground.
As she fell to the ground, the last sensation to travel through her mind was the regret of never knowing how different the universe would have been had her mission succeeded.
Now alone in a cavern that was rapidly becoming unsafe, he began to weigh his options. But before he could get very far, he was overcome by a strange desire to approach the portal. He wandered over there, and, though an act that was somewhat not on his own volition, stepped into it.
The portal glowed fiercely, and suddenly Darson was overtaken by a bright light, and passed from man to silhouette, to legend.
…
He then promptly reappeared at the ledge above the artifact, stepping out from where he had been hiding in the shadows. But this was not how he had been just moments ago. His cloak was in tatters, more of a shawl than anything else. His armor as well, showed what appeared to be decades of wear and tear on it. He hopped down from the ledge and landed gently on the floor below, “Hoo…” he thought to himself, “It’s been a long time…too long.”
He hunted around for a little bit, looking where he remembered Prendergast being, and found his unconscious body quickly. He picked him up easily, tucking him under his arm. As he made to leave before the entire cavern came crashing down on them, he paused to glare a little at the device that had stolen so much time from him. There was a silent exchange amongst the falling rock, then Darson scoffed and looked away. He dashed for the entrance and in one leap made it up the cliff and dashed down the hallway, Pendragast tucked safely under his arm.
As soon as he left, the cavern entered the final stages of demolition, bringing down millions of tons of solid rock on the artifact, burying it for the foreseeable future.
OFF:
Colonel Darson
Somewhat worse for wear after traveling through time and space
Anthony Cordova
By Mark
Giles Prendergast
Former deep-cover Tal'Shiar agent (a bit on the dead side)
NPCd by Louise
Stacey Cordova
by Thom
by Colonel James Darson & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Karen Villiers & Alderman Dorian Gabriel
Post Details
| Title | From Fear to Eternity | |
| Mission | Unity | |
| Author(s) | Colonel James Darson & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Karen Villiers & Alderman Dorian Gabriel | |
| Posted | Sun Jun 20, 2010 @ 8:11pm | |
| Location | Beneath the surface of Greiirh (Omicron Theta I) | |
| Timeline | SD 16 - 1530 | |
| Tag | Tags |
The harsh light from the portable lamps attached to the scaffolding did a poor job of illuminating the entire cavern underneath the surface of the planet, managing only to shed their artificial light on a small area in the center, with the darkness claiming all the rest.
Guards milled around the archeological area toting disruptor rifles, most of which were trained on Darson as he worked at the portable workstation placed before the massive artifact. His fingers flew smoothly across the keyboard at speeds that made the hands look like a blur, receiving and organizing the information he was receiving in real time across the sub-space connection to Deep Space 5.
He examined the data, made several “Hmmm” sounds, and then resumed typing. The ancient machine before him pulsed in time to the keystrokes as the information was fed into it in a format that it could understand.
He paused for a moment and tugged half-heartedly at the restraint vest he wore, before turning to the irritated woman from before and Prendergast who was standing next to her. Leaning back against the console he said in a calm tone, “I’ve managed to decode about 70% of the coordinate data. But it’s tough going. Whoever you have on the other side is either a complete idiot, or he’s deliberately tripping as many of the safeguards as he can get away with while still trying to give you what he thinks you want.”
"Who is on the other side?" Prendergast asked, there were not many people capable of purposefully corrupting the code; that required a particular knowledge, and a complete idiot seemed too much to ask for. "We can extrapolate much of the rest from what we have," he continued. "But that won't be much use if we have insufficient power."
Darson made a thoughtful sound as he looked at the glowing pillars of the artefact, running mental calculations, “…No. Power requirements aside, as it is we won’t have enough to be able to open a gateway.”
Stacey looked up from her padd and stood up and began to walk towards the increasingly annoying invader.
“But,” he said quickly as he saw the woman’s gaze turn murderous, “That was before you had me,” he turned to the console again, “The good doctor has the right idea. I’m going to run some extrapolation protocols based on what we have so far…it won’t be as precise, but I can make do with less then what you needed originally...that's just how amazingly amazing I am. You should all be bowing down at my feet in amazement at how actually amazing I am."
"We'll only need enough power for the gateway to transport a small group on our end. Fortunately, the station will be able to 'generate' its own power needed to bring that team through the local anomaly that was recently discovered." She said as she continued to make the last minute preparations.
"It is my sincere hope, Mr. Darson, that you are not stalling for time." She said as she turned to face him again. "Because if this plan fails, I assure you that my very unhappy face will the last thing you ever see before Starfleet rushes in." She said without the slightest hint of a jovial tone in her voice.
“Of course,” he said with faux respectfulness turning his attention back to the console. This woman would very soon see that he was not just stalling for time.
"Anthony, you can begin uploading the coordinates to our system right now. Tell Hartsfield to begin setting the charges and begin targeting the anomaly." She said to the other Cordova halfway across the quadrant onboard the captured space station.
Anthony jerked slightly at her order, catching slightly unaware as the tension began to build. He took a breath as his fingers tapped the single key with the co-ordinates and transmitted them.
"Done. Good luck." He said as he closed the channel and is if on automatic, he turned off the lights as he left, heading to Elliotts position.
As the datastream began to come into her console she transferred it to Darson's console. "Hurry, we don't have much time." She said as the room shook slightly from the sound of explosions from outside.
"Obviously your men do not recognize the significance of what we are trying to do here." she added.
Darson shook his head, “That isn’t my men…we already took the base, why would something else need to be blown up? Do you know of anybody else who would be trying to interfere?" he asked rhetorically.
"It won't matter, in a few minutes, none of this will matter anymore." she said as the information downloaded into the console.
Darson shook his head and briefly tried to make contact with the teams in the main building top-side. However, the rock in the cavern was too thick, and all he got over the communications channel was static, “We’d best get back to work then, right? I mean…I got through that blockage at the cave entrance, so somebody else could too.”
A minute or two later, Darson tapped the final buttons on his console and declared, “Finished! Now…continue feeding the data to the artefact, but make sure the flow is even and steady…we barely have enough as it is, and I don’t want any mistake to be made at this juncture.”
"For your sake you had better hope so, Mr. Darson." Stacey replied ruefully as she input the information transmitted from Deep Space Five.
Stacey looked up as the device before her began to come to life and the temporal field began to form before the trio.
"Yes. . .yes. . .this is it. Prendergast! Begin the final sequence and input the temporal coordinates." Stacey said as the final moments of their plan was upon them.
Darson moved away from the console and began to slowly make his way around the back of the group, unnoticed in the excitement. Everybody had diverted their attentions to the unusual glowing artefact and was too busy to notice their prisoner slinking around the back.
The ground began to rumble and dust fell from above. A temporal distortion of this magnitude was bound to have some side effects in its production, and the generation of gravitational eddies was one of them. They flitted around and though relatively weak, began to wreak havoc with anything not tied down and light enough to be thrown around by the equivalent of a strong wind. Just not everywhere at once.
The pillars appeared to tremble as the energy fed through them became greater and greater. Darson had worked the calculations down to an exact science. Using the symbiotic Iconian power supply in his chest cavity, he had engaged in a form of…well, I guess you could call it a semi-mind meld with the artefact. After greeting the mind that inhabited it, he had set about learning the correct carrier wave amplification frequency. It had to be extremely precise. A few nano-hertz one way or the other would render it ineffective. And with that in hand, it was a simple process to work the power requirements to something within the range they had available.
Too little, and it would just fizzle out, and everything that he worked for would have been for naught. But too much, and this would explode like a block of C8 planted in somebody’s office, bringing the entire cavern collapsing down on their heads. But this was perfect. It would work.
It had to work.
He approached the group from behind, and stopped to gather up all the weapons that had been stripped from him in the first place. He idly toyed with the restraint vest on him before ripping it off with a very satisfying crack and dumped it to the ground. Man, they were really a bunch of incompetent boobs. But, he thought, when presented with something so fundamentally life changing as this, it was probably impossible to pay attention to anything else.
He was about to move on when he spotted a TR-119b. He nodded to himself in appreciation as he picked it up and checked the magazine. It was full. He pumped the slide to ready a round in the chamber. He didn’t know where these terrorists got their weapons from, but they went for the high grade stuff. No doubt about that. He slung it over his shoulder and went towards the group.
There was a high-pitched whine as the temporal field approached its critical mass, and then a tiny anti-climatic pop as it jumped into fully formed existence. There was a sudden silence as the assembled beheld the time portal, save for the rumbling of a rapidly destabilizing cavern.
"Let's begin." Stacey stated as she began to walk towards the portal. Various emotions were running through her system as she began to take the first step towards accomplishing what had become her obsession for the past ten years. She would finally have the chance to put right what had gone so horribly wrong so long ago. Her hands began to tremble as she could feel the energy resonating from the field as she began to approach it.
Darson wandered into the crowd of amazed onlookers, and made his way to the front where Stacy and Prendergast were. He placed his hands lightly on their shoulders and leaned in between them, lowering his voice to a mere whisper, “Doctor…madam. Thank you very much for your services…though I fear that they are no longer required.”
Before they could work out exactly what he meant by that, he leaned back and tightened his grip on their clothing. With super-human strength, he spun on his feet and whirled them around, releasing them after they had gained enough speed. They flew far, over the heads of the gathered crowd and clear to the other side of the cavern. Prendergast was immediately knocked unconscious, though Stacy managed to maintain her conscious faculties.
The entire group of assembled soldiers turned to watch their progress, and then turned back to Darson, weapons raised and ready to open fire on the traitor. Unluckily for them, he was already ready for it.
The shotgun was up and pointed directly at the face of the nearest guard. Couldn’t have been older than twenty. And he wasn’t going to be getting any older. Darson gently pulled the trigger, years of experience giving it a nice smooth pull.
The guard’s head disintegrated in a spray of blood and buckshot. Darson spun the gun around, pumped the slide again and moved on.
What followed was an epic and almost completely indescribable scene of violence.
Men and women alive were blown apart Guns went off, but hit nothing but air or comrades. Blood splattered everywhere, and much more general chaos. And it was over all too soon.
Stacey rolled across the cavern's ground several times before hitting the side wall. It took her several moments to regain her bearings and to realize what had just happened. Her vision was blurred slightly as she staggered to her feet despite the pain that was consuming her.
When she looked up, she saw the remains of a massacre. A blood splattered Darson stood atop a pile of corpses, looking all the more like the evil demon king that his reputation proclaimed he was. He had discarded the blades and was holding the one remaining guard by the head. It was the same one who had pushed him off the cliff a couple of hours ago. He was wounded, and scrabbled desperately against Darson’s armor.
Darson laughed loudly, the crumbling cavern ringing with the cruel sound, “Hey come on…I’m expecting an apology…you pushed me off a cliff before. It hurt a lot you know? So come on…apologize. Or even I, who am called a Buddha of the Mystigian system, will not be able to forgive you!”
The man made several gurgling sounds, but it was evident from the blood coating his neck that his voice box had been crushed. He wouldn’t be speaking anytime soon. Darson shook his head in mock disappointment, “Well then, since it seems that you don’t want forgiveness, that must mean that you want death instead. Allow me to oblige you.”
He drew a knife and proceeded to run him through with the blade, then dropped him to the ground as his bowels emptied themselves.
"You bastard!" Stacy shouted with the remaining bit of her strength as she jammed the dagger into the treacherous Marine that had managed to cause so much destruction in such a short time.
The blade snapped off as soon as it impacted on the armor, leaving not even a scratch. Darson turned calmly, and backhanded her cleanly across the face, snapping her neck around. He grabbed her by the shirt collar and lifted her up, “I just wanted you to know,” he whispered to her, “That everything I said before…was a lie. And you bought it. Hook, line and sinker. Good bye,” Without further ado, he snapped her neck, and sent her to the ground.
As she fell to the ground, the last sensation to travel through her mind was the regret of never knowing how different the universe would have been had her mission succeeded.
Now alone in a cavern that was rapidly becoming unsafe, he began to weigh his options. But before he could get very far, he was overcome by a strange desire to approach the portal. He wandered over there, and, though an act that was somewhat not on his own volition, stepped into it.
The portal glowed fiercely, and suddenly Darson was overtaken by a bright light, and passed from man to silhouette, to legend.
…
He then promptly reappeared at the ledge above the artifact, stepping out from where he had been hiding in the shadows. But this was not how he had been just moments ago. His cloak was in tatters, more of a shawl than anything else. His armor as well, showed what appeared to be decades of wear and tear on it. He hopped down from the ledge and landed gently on the floor below, “Hoo…” he thought to himself, “It’s been a long time…too long.”
He hunted around for a little bit, looking where he remembered Prendergast being, and found his unconscious body quickly. He picked him up easily, tucking him under his arm. As he made to leave before the entire cavern came crashing down on them, he paused to glare a little at the device that had stolen so much time from him. There was a silent exchange amongst the falling rock, then Darson scoffed and looked away. He dashed for the entrance and in one leap made it up the cliff and dashed down the hallway, Pendragast tucked safely under his arm.
As soon as he left, the cavern entered the final stages of demolition, bringing down millions of tons of solid rock on the artifact, burying it for the foreseeable future.
OFF:
Colonel Darson
Somewhat worse for wear after traveling through time and space
Anthony Cordova
By Mark
Giles Prendergast
Former deep-cover Tal'Shiar agent (a bit on the dead side)
NPCd by Louise
Stacey Cordova
by Thom