Cascade – The "Rescuers"
by Commander Karen Villiers & Commander Rakka & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin
Post Details
It was a short hop at warp 1 from the station to the stricken vessel. As the runabout approached the it slowed to impulse then glid to a halt alongside. “Let’s get a visual,” Karen said. “Any signs of external damage?” she couldn’t see any with her own eyes, but then she wasn't an expert.
Ensign DeRoot's fingers flicked over the glowing control panel as her eyes traced through the scrolling data, “Scans show a weak lifesign, unlikely to be more than one individual. The atmosphere is thin, but breathable, and the tox scan shows no airbourne threat,” she said.
Karen nodded and turned to Straggard, “Ensign, any chance of stabilizing the vessel without us having to go aboard?” though she already knew the answer. Certainly towing the ship back to the station without stability was out of the question.
"I can bypass the main computer core of the vessel and access the primary propulsion systems." David said as he typed the keys. "Seems the controls are not responding to an outside access. We'll have to go in." David said.
“Very well.” Karen returned her attention to the Ensign DeRoot, “Co-ordinate from here. The rest of the team will go aboard the ship. Extreme caution there is something or someone on that ship and until we find out what we cannot discount a threat. Let’s get to the transporter room.”
Rakka checked on all of her weaponry, both the externally worn and hidden pieces, and brought up the rear of the team as they filed into the transporter room. She took a quick head count before stepping up onto the pad.
Both medics reported, carrying their med-kits. It did seem like 'a hammer to crack a walnut' if there really was only one life form to assist but they were both here in case there might have been more and there was no point in staying behind now. "Ready Ma'Am" Lissie broke off her constant chatter for long enough to report to Commander Rakka as they lined up on the padd.
David readied himself on the transporter pad. He felt a bit nervous being his first away mission. He felt ready, though...
Finally Commander Villiers joined them on the transporter padd, equipped with an emergency kit, and unusally for her a phaser. "Ensign DeRoot, energise," she requested.
[The Unidentified Ship]
THe first thing that hit the away team was the heat. It was like materialising into a sauna that was meant to make Horta feel hot and sticky. The air hung is dense waves, permeating their hair, their clothes. The room itself had only emergency lighting, the dull red, like light shone through eyelids, casting short squat shadows.
The control panel beeped patiently. Beyond that, there was no sound.
Karen reached for her trichorder her hand caught at her collar. She ran one finger down the inside as far as her pips; it emerged damp. The atmosphere was stifling even in a uniform that was supposed to regulate external environmental fluctuations. She let her hand fall and her fingers fold around the tricorder at her hip as she stepped forward.
"DeRoot are you reading us?" she asked with a tap of her comm badge.
"Your life signs are clear, comm signal strong," the Strategic Ops Officer replied. No change to any other readout since you hae gone aboard. You appear to be in a central location, I'd say its the bridge or an equivelant command centre."
Karen nodded and cut the channel, "Straggard, see if you locate engineering controls on this level and get us some power so we can see by something other than flashlight." she then turned to the medics, "see if you can amplify and locate the lifesign aboard, but don't leave here until the Commander says its ok."
Commander Rakka's shoulders tensed, her nose twitching. Her naturally predatory sense of smell picked up something very wrong, emphasized by the thick heat that permeated the ship. She struggled enough with her beastly appearance; Rakka did not like people thinking of her as some kind of werewolf. Only monsters smelled blood from miles away. This natural ability, however, did occasionally come in handy.
"Commander Villiers," she said, her voice husky and tinged with urgency, "I would prefer we did not split up." She shifted uncomfortably, the blood-smell making her agitated; her pupils dilated and her breath shortened.
Karen stopped where she was then turned and glanced stared into the Nausicaan's dark eyes, feral in the red tinged emergency lighting. Villiers had no intention of pulling rank, Rakka was an experienced security officer, and as a trained observer of expression and body language even in this poor light she assessed that the Commander's concerns were genuine.
"Very well. We stay together and take guidance from Commander Rakka," she said, unaware that it was more than caution that had prompted the Nausicaans concern.
Rakka ran her tongue across her fangs and surveyed the room. She had been born in a dark place, and in this gloom, she could trust her eyes fairly well. However, with the only light being red, it was difficult to distinguish red things... red substances. She followed her nose, stepping slowly and carefully. It had been a long time since she had had to navigate by scent, and was embarrassed by the sense of near-euphoria it gave her. To calm her baser instincts and clear her mind, she mentally recited bits and pieces of the UFP Charter.
~We the lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets.... determined to save... succeeding generations.... from the scourge of war........~
She crept toward what appeared to be the command chair. There was a strong smell.
~.....justice and respect...... for the obligations arising from treaties.........~
*Tap*
It was a very subtle noise, only with concentration distinguishable among the constant beeping of the control panel. A dripping noise.
*Tap*
~to promote.... social progress....... and better standards of living.....~
Rakka bent over the chair, the smell of blood hot in her nostrils. The seat was pooled with it. It had soaked gradually into the upholstery and was dripping steadily onto the floor.
*Tap*.... *tap*.
"Medics?" the Nausicaan rasped, holding herself under careful control.
Lissie moved quietly forward and held our her medcorder to scan.
Rakka took a careful step back and covered her nose with her sleeve. To the casual observer it would appear she was merely put off by an unpleasant smell, but the truth was far more unsettling. The smell was starting to make her hungry.
"Can you determine the... the species?" the Nausicaan managed.
"The DNA is not dissimilar to andorian but I am also detecting human derivation too..." Lissie commented, absorbed in the identification and unaware to the same degree of the smell that the Commander was being almost overwhelmed by.
"We'd have to take some samples back to the lab.... unless they have a lab on board but I doubt that.... " Lissie did as she said she would and put samples of the mutilated body-tissue into hermetically sealed containers from her medbag.
David had been exploring the engineering section of the ship. The stench of death was almost getting to him. He tried to keep it together while he accessed the control panel. David rerouted power from non-essential systems to the engines to attempt to restart the engines. =^= Ensign Straggard to Commander Villiers =^=
Karen almost jumped as her comm badge chirped. Damn! She hadn't even noticed that Straggard had wandered off despite Commander Rakka's request, and Karen's following re-iteration that they stay together and follow the Nausicaan's lead.
=^=What is it, Ensign? =^= she asked curtly, her throat dry and scratchy from the heat.
=^= I've accessed the engineering controls and it seems the warp core is offline. I'll access the backup reserves and try to stop the ship using thrusters. It'll probably take me an hour to manually reroute some of the power. Some of the power relays have fused beyond reapir... =^= David was saying as he pulled off a panel and started to work on the relays.
Karen pursed her lips. He was already away from the team and it didn't make sense to bring him back, it made even less sense to send someone after him. =^=OK, Ensign. Continue to work where you are but don't leave the engineering section. The team will be with you once we've made our way through the intermediate sectors. Understood?=^=
=^= Understood. Straggard out. =^= David could feel the tension in Villier's voice. He wanted to impress her on his first away mission with her. Seems he'll have to make this risk worthwhile. He continued working on the relays.
Once the comm was cut Karen tapped her badge again, then as she spoke wiped the beading sweat from her brow with the back of one hand. =^= DeRoot, Ensign Straggard is in the Engineering section of the ship. Plot his location, and keep an eye on him, he's seperate from the rest of the team. Villiers out.=^=
With that Karen swallowed, hoping that the spittle would lubricate her throat, and turned back to the grizzly scene on the bridge.
[Main Engineering]
In the egineering section it was eerily quiet, like the rest of the ship. Living ships were full of noise. the rattle and thrum of a warp core, the buzz of the impulse engine, even the soft organic noises of a crew working.
There was none of that. Just the sounds of a young ensign working on the relays. After a few moments pulling at fused relays and hunting for replacements, there was obviously something not right. The sound was muted, and arrived a little too slowly. a fraction of a second after it should.
And the temperature was dropping. When Villiers had closed the comm line, he'd been soaked through with sweat. now it was heading for cold.
David felt an odd sensation as if he was being watched.
Then his comm badge chirruped, a sad little sound, like it was running out of battery
David pulled out his tricorder and scanned the vicinity. The tricorder read a dampening field just before the power started to drain. The tricorder died. David felt the air sucked out of him. This didn't seem right.
[Bridge]
The heat seemed to cram the smell of blood right up Rakka's nose, and press it against the parts of her brain marked fight and Kill Afterall, somethign had got to the crew of this place. It could still be here. find it, kill it. The words arrived in her brain, on the smell. It somewhere here, hiding, lurking, stalking. Find it, Kill it.
Rakka wrung her hands and cracked her knuckles, pacing anxiously.
"I d-don't like this--don't like it!" she exclaimed, and there was an even more raw edge than usual to her voice. "No one should be alone here. I should... go after him. But... don't want to leave you."
Karen considered her options - the decision to stay together had been the right one, but with one person alone ... it was too much risk. "OK, Commander, go and find Straggard, no-one should be alone here. Contact me once you pair up."
=^=Ensign Straggard, Commander Rakka is going to join you in Engineering. Do not change your location.=^= Karen said.
David jerked upward from his unconsciousness. He felt a lingering fear from the dream, but what was it? He got up and walked around. He felt uneasy, he didn't understand it. He picked up his tricorder on the floor, it booted up and read the last reading scanned. It showed a dampening field that was there an hour ago, it also showed some erratic bio-neural energy signatures that had moved past him and approached him before he lost consciousness. He tapped his badge when he heard the Commander. =^= Acknowledged. =^= He replied out of instinct. He didn't really even know what she said, he just stood there.
Rakka gave Karen a long, worried stare. "Prepare to beam out if anything should... go wrong...." She finally said before turning to disappear into the red shadows.
"Sound advice, Commander. Good luck," she said.
[The Corridors en route to Engineering]
The Nausicaan followed her nose through the ship. There were bits and pieces of carnage everywhere. She nearly put her hand down on a door release that was clotted with gore, including a clump of hair. The blood smelled fresh. Rakka moaned. Perhaps she, too, should not have gone off alone.
She reverted to base instincts, keeping her posture low as she slipped through the gloom, a knife in her hand instead of a phaser. She was on the hunt. She smelled her prey; she was getting closer. She argued silently with her growling stomach. When she took down an animal she was never allowed to eat. The meat went to father and brother. If there were scraps left, mother took them. Little sister got only the bones; her sharp teeth cracked them open to get to the nutritious marrow within. Chewing on the bones was the best part of the meal to her even now when food was plentiful.
She sniffed... listened.
"Ensign?" she rasped, rounding a corner and feeling the warmth of a live body nearby. "Ensign St-St-Straggard?"
David heard approaching boots in the dark, he reached for his phaser. He had been broken down to basic instincts for reasons unknown, he pointed the phaser into the darkness.
The Nausicaan shivered--it had suddenly gotten very cold. And she was hungry... so hungry. Doggedly she reminded herself she was on duty, and had to stay focused.
A shadow at the corner of her eye. She turned sharply with a snarl, raising her knife, and suddenly found herself face-to-face with Ensign Straggard's phaser. She froze.
David jumped at the sight of Commander Rakka. He dropped the phaser and fell his knees. The phaser was set to maximum... David looked up at the Nausicaan. "My apologies commander... I seemed to have lost some of my sanity." David said with a slight chuckle. "I've repaired the relays." David said as he stood up and walked over to the control panel. He tapped a few keys. The ship jerked slightly. "The inertial dampeners seems to be offline. We are stabilizing though..." David barely finished the sentence before he felt himself losing control again. He fell onto his back, eyes wide open.
"Ensign... dammit......" Rakka breathed, shivering again despite herself, and not from the cold. She picked up his dropped phaser and shoved it into a spare pocket. Standing over him, she looked into his eyes. He was far away. What the hell happened? She tapped her comm badge, intending to have him transported straight to sickbay, but there was no response. She looked down at the little gadget accusingly. It was as dumb as a rock, despite how many times she pressed on it. She tried Straggard's--there also, no response.
Another shadow moved. Rakka turned in a full circle.
"Hello?"
She walked around the room slowly. As she moved she seemed to be passing through strange microclimates, for the air felt alternately hot and cold. And the smell of blood was becoming unbearable. She couldn't see where it was coming from anymore--there were no blood pools here, no scattered clots of gore, no remains of any kind. Her stomach groaned audibly.
Suddenly she was standing next to Ensign Straggard again, without even having any sense of how she had gotten back here. He still lay there, wide-eyed, unmoving but still very much alive. She knelt over him. He was the smell in this room--he was full of blood. Only a prick from a knife, and the blood would be free to flow.
A thought, unbidden: ~Humans are made of meat.~
Rakka jerked back, forcefully returning her knife to its sheath in her boot. ~What the hell? What the HELL?~
It had been five minutes, approaching ten, and nothing. She glanced at the medical team then made her decision. This was not right, they needed to search the ship, but it needed to be under secure and controllable conditions. From the bridge Karen made two communications in quick succession.
=^=DeRoot, lock on to all known lifesignals and prepare to beam us out on my order.=^=
Then without waiting for a response, =^=Commander Rakka, have you located Ensign Straggard?=^=
Rakka heard a small crackling noise from her comm badge. Leaping up frantically, she tapped it. "Hello? Hello...? Oh god..... If anyone can hear me, please beam out myself and Ensign Straggard at once....!"
She held her breath for several long moments before letting it out. Nothing happened. She was cut off for sure. Then she glanced back down to Straggard, only to find that he was gone.
"This... can't... be... happening," she whispered slowly.
=^= Rakka?=^= Villiers repeated. She shook her head in frustration. =^=DeRoot, beam us all off this ship, this second.=^=
=^=Understood Commander,=^= she replied from the ship, =^=Locked on and activting sequence now=^= Even though she hadn't been aboard she too had an interesting story to tell. She had been tracking the team aboard and their movement through the vessel was uncharacteristic, as if something was causing them to meander, almost on a spiral path.
"What about the ship?" DeRoot asked, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the warm damp smell rising from her colleagues uniforms, "Is it stabilisaed?"
"Enough to be taken out of the flight path and into a quarantined bay in DS5," Villiers replied. "Let's go home."
OFF
Commander Karen Villiers
Ensign Cori-Anne DeRoot
Strategic Operations (NPC)
Commander Rakka
Ensign David Straggard
Propulsion Specialist
The 'medics' ;) by the Docs
And a strange phenomenon by Notty!
by Commander Karen Villiers & Commander Rakka & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin
Post Details
| Title | The "Rescuers" | |
| Mission | Cascade | |
| Author(s) | Commander Karen Villiers & Commander Rakka & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin | |
| Posted | Thu Nov 29, 2012 @ 5:56pm | |
| Location | Runabout Tyne | |
| Timeline | SD70. 10:00-13:00 |
Ensign DeRoot's fingers flicked over the glowing control panel as her eyes traced through the scrolling data, “Scans show a weak lifesign, unlikely to be more than one individual. The atmosphere is thin, but breathable, and the tox scan shows no airbourne threat,” she said.
Karen nodded and turned to Straggard, “Ensign, any chance of stabilizing the vessel without us having to go aboard?” though she already knew the answer. Certainly towing the ship back to the station without stability was out of the question.
"I can bypass the main computer core of the vessel and access the primary propulsion systems." David said as he typed the keys. "Seems the controls are not responding to an outside access. We'll have to go in." David said.
“Very well.” Karen returned her attention to the Ensign DeRoot, “Co-ordinate from here. The rest of the team will go aboard the ship. Extreme caution there is something or someone on that ship and until we find out what we cannot discount a threat. Let’s get to the transporter room.”
Rakka checked on all of her weaponry, both the externally worn and hidden pieces, and brought up the rear of the team as they filed into the transporter room. She took a quick head count before stepping up onto the pad.
Both medics reported, carrying their med-kits. It did seem like 'a hammer to crack a walnut' if there really was only one life form to assist but they were both here in case there might have been more and there was no point in staying behind now. "Ready Ma'Am" Lissie broke off her constant chatter for long enough to report to Commander Rakka as they lined up on the padd.
David readied himself on the transporter pad. He felt a bit nervous being his first away mission. He felt ready, though...
Finally Commander Villiers joined them on the transporter padd, equipped with an emergency kit, and unusally for her a phaser. "Ensign DeRoot, energise," she requested.
[The Unidentified Ship]
THe first thing that hit the away team was the heat. It was like materialising into a sauna that was meant to make Horta feel hot and sticky. The air hung is dense waves, permeating their hair, their clothes. The room itself had only emergency lighting, the dull red, like light shone through eyelids, casting short squat shadows.
The control panel beeped patiently. Beyond that, there was no sound.
Karen reached for her trichorder her hand caught at her collar. She ran one finger down the inside as far as her pips; it emerged damp. The atmosphere was stifling even in a uniform that was supposed to regulate external environmental fluctuations. She let her hand fall and her fingers fold around the tricorder at her hip as she stepped forward.
"DeRoot are you reading us?" she asked with a tap of her comm badge.
"Your life signs are clear, comm signal strong," the Strategic Ops Officer replied. No change to any other readout since you hae gone aboard. You appear to be in a central location, I'd say its the bridge or an equivelant command centre."
Karen nodded and cut the channel, "Straggard, see if you locate engineering controls on this level and get us some power so we can see by something other than flashlight." she then turned to the medics, "see if you can amplify and locate the lifesign aboard, but don't leave here until the Commander says its ok."
Commander Rakka's shoulders tensed, her nose twitching. Her naturally predatory sense of smell picked up something very wrong, emphasized by the thick heat that permeated the ship. She struggled enough with her beastly appearance; Rakka did not like people thinking of her as some kind of werewolf. Only monsters smelled blood from miles away. This natural ability, however, did occasionally come in handy.
"Commander Villiers," she said, her voice husky and tinged with urgency, "I would prefer we did not split up." She shifted uncomfortably, the blood-smell making her agitated; her pupils dilated and her breath shortened.
Karen stopped where she was then turned and glanced stared into the Nausicaan's dark eyes, feral in the red tinged emergency lighting. Villiers had no intention of pulling rank, Rakka was an experienced security officer, and as a trained observer of expression and body language even in this poor light she assessed that the Commander's concerns were genuine.
"Very well. We stay together and take guidance from Commander Rakka," she said, unaware that it was more than caution that had prompted the Nausicaans concern.
Rakka ran her tongue across her fangs and surveyed the room. She had been born in a dark place, and in this gloom, she could trust her eyes fairly well. However, with the only light being red, it was difficult to distinguish red things... red substances. She followed her nose, stepping slowly and carefully. It had been a long time since she had had to navigate by scent, and was embarrassed by the sense of near-euphoria it gave her. To calm her baser instincts and clear her mind, she mentally recited bits and pieces of the UFP Charter.
~We the lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets.... determined to save... succeeding generations.... from the scourge of war........~
She crept toward what appeared to be the command chair. There was a strong smell.
~.....justice and respect...... for the obligations arising from treaties.........~
*Tap*
It was a very subtle noise, only with concentration distinguishable among the constant beeping of the control panel. A dripping noise.
*Tap*
~to promote.... social progress....... and better standards of living.....~
Rakka bent over the chair, the smell of blood hot in her nostrils. The seat was pooled with it. It had soaked gradually into the upholstery and was dripping steadily onto the floor.
*Tap*.... *tap*.
"Medics?" the Nausicaan rasped, holding herself under careful control.
Lissie moved quietly forward and held our her medcorder to scan.
Rakka took a careful step back and covered her nose with her sleeve. To the casual observer it would appear she was merely put off by an unpleasant smell, but the truth was far more unsettling. The smell was starting to make her hungry.
"Can you determine the... the species?" the Nausicaan managed.
"The DNA is not dissimilar to andorian but I am also detecting human derivation too..." Lissie commented, absorbed in the identification and unaware to the same degree of the smell that the Commander was being almost overwhelmed by.
"We'd have to take some samples back to the lab.... unless they have a lab on board but I doubt that.... " Lissie did as she said she would and put samples of the mutilated body-tissue into hermetically sealed containers from her medbag.
David had been exploring the engineering section of the ship. The stench of death was almost getting to him. He tried to keep it together while he accessed the control panel. David rerouted power from non-essential systems to the engines to attempt to restart the engines. =^= Ensign Straggard to Commander Villiers =^=
Karen almost jumped as her comm badge chirped. Damn! She hadn't even noticed that Straggard had wandered off despite Commander Rakka's request, and Karen's following re-iteration that they stay together and follow the Nausicaan's lead.
=^=What is it, Ensign? =^= she asked curtly, her throat dry and scratchy from the heat.
=^= I've accessed the engineering controls and it seems the warp core is offline. I'll access the backup reserves and try to stop the ship using thrusters. It'll probably take me an hour to manually reroute some of the power. Some of the power relays have fused beyond reapir... =^= David was saying as he pulled off a panel and started to work on the relays.
Karen pursed her lips. He was already away from the team and it didn't make sense to bring him back, it made even less sense to send someone after him. =^=OK, Ensign. Continue to work where you are but don't leave the engineering section. The team will be with you once we've made our way through the intermediate sectors. Understood?=^=
=^= Understood. Straggard out. =^= David could feel the tension in Villier's voice. He wanted to impress her on his first away mission with her. Seems he'll have to make this risk worthwhile. He continued working on the relays.
Once the comm was cut Karen tapped her badge again, then as she spoke wiped the beading sweat from her brow with the back of one hand. =^= DeRoot, Ensign Straggard is in the Engineering section of the ship. Plot his location, and keep an eye on him, he's seperate from the rest of the team. Villiers out.=^=
With that Karen swallowed, hoping that the spittle would lubricate her throat, and turned back to the grizzly scene on the bridge.
[Main Engineering]
In the egineering section it was eerily quiet, like the rest of the ship. Living ships were full of noise. the rattle and thrum of a warp core, the buzz of the impulse engine, even the soft organic noises of a crew working.
There was none of that. Just the sounds of a young ensign working on the relays. After a few moments pulling at fused relays and hunting for replacements, there was obviously something not right. The sound was muted, and arrived a little too slowly. a fraction of a second after it should.
And the temperature was dropping. When Villiers had closed the comm line, he'd been soaked through with sweat. now it was heading for cold.
David felt an odd sensation as if he was being watched.
Then his comm badge chirruped, a sad little sound, like it was running out of battery
David pulled out his tricorder and scanned the vicinity. The tricorder read a dampening field just before the power started to drain. The tricorder died. David felt the air sucked out of him. This didn't seem right.
[Bridge]
The heat seemed to cram the smell of blood right up Rakka's nose, and press it against the parts of her brain marked fight and Kill Afterall, somethign had got to the crew of this place. It could still be here. find it, kill it. The words arrived in her brain, on the smell. It somewhere here, hiding, lurking, stalking. Find it, Kill it.
Rakka wrung her hands and cracked her knuckles, pacing anxiously.
"I d-don't like this--don't like it!" she exclaimed, and there was an even more raw edge than usual to her voice. "No one should be alone here. I should... go after him. But... don't want to leave you."
Karen considered her options - the decision to stay together had been the right one, but with one person alone ... it was too much risk. "OK, Commander, go and find Straggard, no-one should be alone here. Contact me once you pair up."
=^=Ensign Straggard, Commander Rakka is going to join you in Engineering. Do not change your location.=^= Karen said.
David jerked upward from his unconsciousness. He felt a lingering fear from the dream, but what was it? He got up and walked around. He felt uneasy, he didn't understand it. He picked up his tricorder on the floor, it booted up and read the last reading scanned. It showed a dampening field that was there an hour ago, it also showed some erratic bio-neural energy signatures that had moved past him and approached him before he lost consciousness. He tapped his badge when he heard the Commander. =^= Acknowledged. =^= He replied out of instinct. He didn't really even know what she said, he just stood there.
Rakka gave Karen a long, worried stare. "Prepare to beam out if anything should... go wrong...." She finally said before turning to disappear into the red shadows.
"Sound advice, Commander. Good luck," she said.
[The Corridors en route to Engineering]
The Nausicaan followed her nose through the ship. There were bits and pieces of carnage everywhere. She nearly put her hand down on a door release that was clotted with gore, including a clump of hair. The blood smelled fresh. Rakka moaned. Perhaps she, too, should not have gone off alone.
She reverted to base instincts, keeping her posture low as she slipped through the gloom, a knife in her hand instead of a phaser. She was on the hunt. She smelled her prey; she was getting closer. She argued silently with her growling stomach. When she took down an animal she was never allowed to eat. The meat went to father and brother. If there were scraps left, mother took them. Little sister got only the bones; her sharp teeth cracked them open to get to the nutritious marrow within. Chewing on the bones was the best part of the meal to her even now when food was plentiful.
She sniffed... listened.
"Ensign?" she rasped, rounding a corner and feeling the warmth of a live body nearby. "Ensign St-St-Straggard?"
David heard approaching boots in the dark, he reached for his phaser. He had been broken down to basic instincts for reasons unknown, he pointed the phaser into the darkness.
The Nausicaan shivered--it had suddenly gotten very cold. And she was hungry... so hungry. Doggedly she reminded herself she was on duty, and had to stay focused.
A shadow at the corner of her eye. She turned sharply with a snarl, raising her knife, and suddenly found herself face-to-face with Ensign Straggard's phaser. She froze.
David jumped at the sight of Commander Rakka. He dropped the phaser and fell his knees. The phaser was set to maximum... David looked up at the Nausicaan. "My apologies commander... I seemed to have lost some of my sanity." David said with a slight chuckle. "I've repaired the relays." David said as he stood up and walked over to the control panel. He tapped a few keys. The ship jerked slightly. "The inertial dampeners seems to be offline. We are stabilizing though..." David barely finished the sentence before he felt himself losing control again. He fell onto his back, eyes wide open.
"Ensign... dammit......" Rakka breathed, shivering again despite herself, and not from the cold. She picked up his dropped phaser and shoved it into a spare pocket. Standing over him, she looked into his eyes. He was far away. What the hell happened? She tapped her comm badge, intending to have him transported straight to sickbay, but there was no response. She looked down at the little gadget accusingly. It was as dumb as a rock, despite how many times she pressed on it. She tried Straggard's--there also, no response.
Another shadow moved. Rakka turned in a full circle.
"Hello?"
She walked around the room slowly. As she moved she seemed to be passing through strange microclimates, for the air felt alternately hot and cold. And the smell of blood was becoming unbearable. She couldn't see where it was coming from anymore--there were no blood pools here, no scattered clots of gore, no remains of any kind. Her stomach groaned audibly.
Suddenly she was standing next to Ensign Straggard again, without even having any sense of how she had gotten back here. He still lay there, wide-eyed, unmoving but still very much alive. She knelt over him. He was the smell in this room--he was full of blood. Only a prick from a knife, and the blood would be free to flow.
A thought, unbidden: ~Humans are made of meat.~
Rakka jerked back, forcefully returning her knife to its sheath in her boot. ~What the hell? What the HELL?~
It had been five minutes, approaching ten, and nothing. She glanced at the medical team then made her decision. This was not right, they needed to search the ship, but it needed to be under secure and controllable conditions. From the bridge Karen made two communications in quick succession.
=^=DeRoot, lock on to all known lifesignals and prepare to beam us out on my order.=^=
Then without waiting for a response, =^=Commander Rakka, have you located Ensign Straggard?=^=
Rakka heard a small crackling noise from her comm badge. Leaping up frantically, she tapped it. "Hello? Hello...? Oh god..... If anyone can hear me, please beam out myself and Ensign Straggard at once....!"
She held her breath for several long moments before letting it out. Nothing happened. She was cut off for sure. Then she glanced back down to Straggard, only to find that he was gone.
"This... can't... be... happening," she whispered slowly.
=^= Rakka?=^= Villiers repeated. She shook her head in frustration. =^=DeRoot, beam us all off this ship, this second.=^=
=^=Understood Commander,=^= she replied from the ship, =^=Locked on and activting sequence now=^= Even though she hadn't been aboard she too had an interesting story to tell. She had been tracking the team aboard and their movement through the vessel was uncharacteristic, as if something was causing them to meander, almost on a spiral path.
"What about the ship?" DeRoot asked, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the warm damp smell rising from her colleagues uniforms, "Is it stabilisaed?"
"Enough to be taken out of the flight path and into a quarantined bay in DS5," Villiers replied. "Let's go home."
OFF
Commander Karen Villiers
Ensign Cori-Anne DeRoot
Strategic Operations (NPC)
Commander Rakka
Ensign David Straggard
Propulsion Specialist
The 'medics' ;) by the Docs
And a strange phenomenon by Notty!