Post by Scribe on Oct 26, 2009 5:57:27 GMT -5
THE BADLANDS
Stardate: 05012171
The ship hung listlessly in space.
It construction was odd. Lacking in beauty or any attempt at aesthetics, the best description for it was functional. It was functional with eight sharp corners to make up its cube like ship. Trailing debris as it continued to hurtle through space, it drifted into the orbit of Athos IV, a mining colony on the edge the Badlands where it remained, listless, a ghost ship of mysterious origins.
*****
"Captain's Log, Stardate 05012171. We've been summoned to Sector 04-07, on the request of the Cardassian Union. Their colony of Athos IV has detected a derelict ship of unknown origin. They have requested we tow the vessel away before it crashes into the atmosphere. The ship is apparently of sufficient size to cause significant damage if it were to land in a populated area.
The Nemesis is proceeding at Warp Factor 5 to intercept the ship. We should be arriving at Athos IV, within two hours."
*****
Luke had been a non single guy on the prowl for two weeks now and to everyone's surprise, especially his own, he pretty much liked it.
For the last few years, he had always considered the relationship with Sean and Mack as unique because of how well it worked but Luke had come to suspect that his ambivalence was due to the fact that he was somewhat envious. Sure, he loved women. He loved as many of them as he could, sometimes twice in one night. However, since he and Cori had come to an understanding, where she had claimed him as her own, he found a little piece of heaven that wasn't exclusively owned by his older brother and it was pretty damn satisfying. It helped that he and Cori were friends first and that he aw her as more than just a piece of tail to be had and discarded.
No, he loved being her boyfriend, loved listening to her talk, and loved the way her eyes lit up when something touched her. Of course he played it cool, hiding how much it delighted him because he'd never hear the end of it from comrades who might be inclined to crow that the lady killer was finally lassoed. Luke had no desire for anyone save Sean now just how hard he had fallen.
And because of that life was good
Two hours away from their arrival at the Badlands to play the role of salvage, Luke found himself seated at the end of one of the longer tables in the mess, with Sean, Cori and Mack. It was according to ship chronometers, morning and the mess was full with Sharks and Fleeters alike, filling the air with chatting and laughter. All the sounds associated with breakfast.
"Look at those two," Mackenzie 'Mack' Brook said under her breath as she nudged her fork in the direction of Shark Captain Tate Starkova who was seated across First Office Commander Zack Okoro. "I'll bet my last edible thong that those two are twitter patted."
Luke laughed out loud, almost choking on his coffee as he stared at his brother's girl. "Did you say twitter patted ?"
"Yeah," Mark smiled, "I saw it on this old Earth cartoon last night called Bambi. Way...way...sad."
"Starsky and The Original Captain Tight pants?" Cori chuckled happily, glancing in the direction of their Captain and the XO. Of course, Luke happened to be on that side and she couldn't help but flash him a smile. They were in a place she had never expected, something where friends had become so much more. Usually, she'd never turned a friendship into a relationship and never had a friendship gone into something more. It was a first, and territory Cori was more than happy to explore with Luke. "You think so?" she asked Mack.
Beside Mack, Sean grinned and nudged Mack. "You lied…said you were out...." he teased, with a glance across the table at his brother. A glance that only men were capable of sharing.
"Well she'd have to say that dumb ass,' Luke smirked, "or else you'd get fat on edible underwear. Try to explain that gut to Dr. Nallon. Sorry ma'am, just been giving my girlfriend way, way too much head."
"Jesus!" Mack tossed a bun at him. "Cor, his training not coming along well…" She gave him a withering glare.
Well..." Cori shrugged, grinning at her friend and shot an affectionate glance at Luke. "He's hard-headed.... I can only beat him so much," she joked.
"I'll have you know, Mr..." Sean wagged his finger between his brother and Cori. "Mr. Thinks He's Being Discreet that they are calorie free and I do a hundred push ups every morning."
"Mack doesn't count, Sean," Cori retorted, laughing as she snagged up the bun missile. "Speaking of twitter patted, Captain Riggs and Dr. Nallon...those two are worse than you and me," she told Luke.
"Oh I hear the rumour is they did it on Gaia and didn't realise that they'd be serving together," Luke sniggered, throwing her an affectionate wink as he relayed that interesting piece of gossip.
In the corner of his eye, Luke noted the arrival of two Fleeters from Engineering taking a seat further along the table. Olsen and Carter, Luke's eidetic memory identified them promptly before he returned his attention the conversation with his brother and their girls.
That wink just totally warmed Cori up from the inside. "You should be in Sickbay when he comes in," she said, handing the bun back to Mack. "Can we say 'snap, crackle, pop'?" she chuckled. "So I think in this case anyway, rumour is fact."
Sean laughed, leaning back in his seat. Out here in the mess, it was hard to NOT drape his arm over the back of Mack's chair. Upon his promotion and their concurrent assignment to the same ship, they had discussed their relationship. Sean would definitely honour Mack's wishes, and truth be told, he was very proud of her for not wanting to be seen as the Sarge's lay, for wanting to make her own name. Which she was, with a very strategic mind that thought things out carefully. She wasn't the genius Luke was (then again, not many were) but in her beautiful head, there was a strategy expert in the making.
In private of course, he made sure she knew that she was the only girl for him.
"So how are your quals going, Cori?" Sean leaned forward, elbows on the table.
"Disgustingly slow." Rolling her eyes, Cori sighed. "Dr. Nallon says I'm progressing very well actually, better than most but ask Mack. I woke up again with a book on my face this morning." Poor Luke…he was being so patient. Cori made a silent promise that their next shore leave, she'd make up all her studying to him.
"Ah used to be days when I'd wake up with a girl on my face but now that I'm a tethered man, I just have to listen to Sean wet dreaming." He smirked.
"Oh my god," Mack laughed, "when are you ever going to learn to walk upright?"
Next to them, Luke continued to hear snippets of conversation from the two engineers. "... so pissed off. I'm telling you, we need a new regulator, I can't seem to get the plasma mix right in the exhaust chamber."
Luke tried to ignore them but the conversation had sparked his interested and he continued to listen on the periphery while still maintaining his conversation with his brother and the others. With a grin, he winked at Mack, "if we walked upright, how would we ever give great head?"
"For that matter, how would you get it?" Cori joined in, laughing as she raised an eyebrow at her boyfriend (how cool it was to say that!). Maybe it was just her though, as Sean didn't seem to pick up on the faint bit of tension she saw in Luke's (hot) body.
"I think we'd manage," Sean retorted with a grin. "I mean…it's one of my favourite past times..."
"This is wonderful breakfast conversation," Mack shook her head even though the smouldering gleam in Sean's eyes made her fight the blush that wanted to bloom across her cheeks. Luke and Sean were typical of Sharks men. Sometimes, being with these three made Mack think they were back in school again, without a care in the world and the future waiting for them. It was a good feeling.
"Hey, we're sharks…remember. Woof woof woof..." He pretended to howl, enlisting Sean as they thumped the table a little like two cave men banging on drums.
"...then the whole relay went down, I'm telling you the problem is unworkable…" Olsen grumbled, shifting a look at the sharks like they were a foreign species.
"Oh my god!!" Cori put a hand up between her and Luke, as if shielding as she looked off the other way. "I do not know you two," she joked, looking at Mack.
"We'll see what you claim when you finally do sit on my brother's face," Sean retorted, laughing.
"Hey if she claims anything, I'm not doing it right," Luke winked. "I only expect mindless chanting of my name." He smiled devilishly.
"..maybe you should reconfigure..."
"Oh for Christ sake," Luke couldn't stand it any more. The problem was so fucking obvious a five year old could see. He shot Olsen an exasperated look. "Just reroute the secondary transtator and reduce the gain on the No.3 adaptor. You're getting power bleed from the adaptor and its tainting your plasma mix. Fix the damn thing before the imbalance destabilizes the entire reactor and implodes."
Olsen and Carter stopped talking and stared at Luke for a moment saying nothing as the table went silent.
Finally, Olsen broke the silence, snorting derisively, "like I'm going to take advice from a grunt."
Her hackles up immediately, Cori snorted in a very adept mimicry of Olsen. "This grunt is probably right," she said icily. That was her pet peeve, when people automatically dismissed Luke or Mack or even Sean simply because they were a Marine.
Uh oh... Sean cleared his throat, putting on his sergeant's stripes. Mostly because Fleeters were involved and Cori was about three seconds from going Mother Bear on the two of them. "Uh…Hartwood..."
"Cori," Mack whispered in her ear, "don't provoke them." She could see that Olsen and Carter were taking offence to Luke in a big way and it would only take a nudge to turn this thing ugly.
"Don't you have some power packs to clean or something?" Carter bit back at Luke in before sniggering at Olsen.
"Done them faster than you're going to take to fix your unworkable problem," Luke replied. Obviously they had seen him at the workstation he had been assigned at Engineering. "But hey, be an asshole, have the plasma reactor implode during a calibration test of dilithium chamber."
"Listen grunt," Olsen stood up, properly pissed now. "I don't take engineering advice from a knuckle dragging ground pounder."
Luke's spine straightened, "I guess if I'm a dumb ass knuckle dragging ground pounder, that makes you the cum that your dad should have left on the sheets since you're too stupid to take advice." He retorted turning away.
Olsen's eyes widened as the insult engendered some laughter among the surrounding crew. Fists clenched, he saw the smug bastard Shark turn around and took the opportunity to strike when the man turned away.
Mack saw the punch coming and tried to warn Luke. "Watch….!"
Luke turned just in time to feel the blow connect to his jaw. It was hard enough to topple him off the chair because he wasn't expecting it. Landing on the deck hard, Carter's laughter rang in his ears, as Luke's rage went from mildly pissed to boiling mad by the time he was on his feet.
Mack watched Luke go after the engineer and whatever pleasant breakfast they were having was shattered as Luke's response ended up with Olsen landing face first in his food.
"Hey!!!" Cori called out, getting to her feet. Carter brushed past her, pushing her hard, a hand to her back and sent her stumbling to her knees, coughing because the jerk whacked her hard enough to bruise. "Sean! Carter!" she spit out.
"Fuck..." Not having heard Cori, Sean lunged to his feet, not to go after his brother's attacker but to do the responsible thing and pull Luke off Olsen. "Luke!" His brother was an excellent fighter and would certainly wipe the floor with any Fleeter. He was too late though because just as he put a hand on Luke's shoulder, the dumb shit known as Carter joined in and sucker punched Sean in the jaw.
"What the fuck!?!" he snapped, tasting blood, defensively shoving the engineer off him.
The room descended into chaos as the fighting broke out. Luke was holding back, trying to subdue Olsen without actually doing any serious damage. The guy was Fleet after all and he was a Shark, hardly a fair fight.
Mack shot a look at the table where Starkova and Commander Okoro had been, wanting to know why they weren't here to stop this from becoming any worse. However, their table was already empty.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!" First Officer Zak Okoro's voice boomed through the air like a slamming door, making everyone who wasn't expecting it jump startled. Mack turned to see the man standing in the thick of things just as Captain Starkova went to help Sean up. Seeking out Cori, Mack went to her best friend to help her to her feet.
"Sir!" Sean went to attention, bloodied lip and all as he pulled his arm free from Starkova's hand, giving her a nod. "Ensign Olsen sucker punched Corporal Randolph, sir."
On her feet, thanks to Mack, Cori gave her friend a worried glance and squeezed her hand.
"Because he was mouthing off, telling me how to do my job!" Olsen bit back, wiping mash potato off his face as he glared at Luke.
"I see," Chief Engineer Nathan 'Iceberg' Decker commented. Decker was a man in his mid fifties, with dark hair that was greying rapidly and ice cool eyes. "And you decided to hit someone to prove otherwise?"
Nathan Decker was one of the most respected engineers in Starfleet. He had spent the years following the destruction of Earth at the Acheron shipyards, designing better ships for then Admiral Teagarden, utilising technologies from numerous space faring races. It was Decker who had configured the Romulan cloaking device for use on the Nemesis and most of the design of this ship was owing to his genius. Called Iceberg Decker because he rarely lost his cool under pressure, rumour had it the man could keep his head while the entire ship was falling apart around him and hold it together with spit and baling wire.
"No Sir..." Olsen blustered, "but he said my parents should have left me on the sheets!"
Okoro winced at the insult. Starkova maintained her game face but she was trying very hard to laugh and Decker, well Decker was cool as a cucumber, showing no reaction whatsoever.
"Hey, I gave you the answer to your unworkable problem asshole," Luke snapped, not about to let the guy accuse him out of context, "and you told me you didn't take advice from grunts…what did you expect? And for your information, I could have pounded your Fleet ass into mush!"
"Screw you!" Olsen lunged for Luke again only to be intercepted by Carter.
"I SAID ENOUGH!" Okoro fairly roared, freezing everyone in their tracks.
"Hey!!" Sean grabbed Luke this time, pulling him back as Carter had enough sense to grab Olsen. "Luke.., alright...let's just calm down," he said easily. "Hartwood, take him out of here..."
Nodding, Cori stepped forward as Carter snickered. She shot him a glare but moved forward anyway. "Sir, there's an issue with the reactor core," she said, glancing at the Chief Engineer. "Something about the Number 3 adaptor and a power bleed and…and the transtator," she said, moving over to stand beside Luke. Hey, when he opened his mouth, she listened, despite outward appearances.
Decker's brow twitched ever so lightly.
"Like you know what the fuck you're talking about," Carter grumbled under his breath.
"Bite me!" Cori fired back, not afraid to call him out.
"Hartwood!" Starkova snapped, silencing her further. The girl was hot tempered and possibly justified in her outrage but this was not the time. "You're dismissed! Sargent take these three out and cool off. I'll talk to you guys later."
Shit, Luke cursed inwardly, realising for the first time that his outburst had consequences beyond himself. He hadn't meant to get Sean and the others into trouble.
"Olsen, Carter," Decker said quietly, his expression mercurial. "Leave. I'll talk to you both later. Corporal Randolph, you can stay."
Miserably the two left, knowing the gleam in Decker's eyes and suspecting that nothing good was going to come out of it. Luke held his ground, wondering what Iceberg Decker wanted from him.
"If you don't mind," Decker turned to Okoro, "I'd like to handle this matter."
Decker was a legend even in the eyes of Zak Okoro who nodded. "Alright, Chief," he glanced at Luke. "He's all yours."
Luke didn't like the sound of that one bit.
"That okay with you?" Okoro asked Starkova.
Tate glanced at Decker and Luke before nodding, "yeah. That's fine. I'll talk to you later Corporal."
"Yes Captain," Luke answered, wondering if he was going to get reamed by everyone tonight.
Okoro swept his gaze at the audience in the mess who still watching the proceedings with interest before declaring loudly, "nothing to see everyone. Get back to your duties or your breakfast."
Leaving Luke to face Iceberg Decker
*****
Cori glanced at Luke, obviously not wanting to leave him but she let Mack lead her out anyway. Once out in the passageway, she sucked in a deep breath and let it out. "What if they don't listen to him..." she began.
"They will, Cor, the XO's a smart man," Sean offered as consolation, looking up when the Captain as she came out. "Ma'am."
Keeping her mouth shut, Cori knew she'd almost overstepped back there and she glanced at Tate.
"What the hell jus happened?" Starkova demanded, having come into the play in the middle. She directed her question at Sean even though she hadn't missed Cori's remark to Chief Engineer Decker.
Sean ran a hand through his closely cropped hair. "Luke must have overheard the engineers talking about..." He looked at Cori.
"I didn't hear their conversation," Cori replied, giving Starkova an apologetic look. "I just know that Luke told them where the problem was, and how to fix it. Like I said, the Number 3 adapter and the transtator and a power bleed. The one, Olsen, took offence and told Luke he wasn't taking advice from a grunt. I.. well," she sighed. "I told them that Luke was probably right. Olsen called him a knuckle dragger and Luke told him..." She tried not to smile but the corner of her mouth went up anyway. "He should have been left on the sheets and Olsen sucker-punched him," she finished, glancing worriedly past Tate into the galley.
"That is how it went down, Captain," Sean said, backing Cori up not just because she was his friend and the object of his brother's heart, but because she was right.
"Alright," Starkova nodded, disliking it when the divide between Shark and Fleeter was so clearly displayed but it appeared that Luke Randolph had been trying to help and the situation had become incendiary because the Fleeter's ego had been too big to take the advice. Knuckle draggers indeed. She wondered if he knew that the so called knuckle dragger had one of the highest IQs on the ship.
"Next time, keep your cool." She looked at Cori in particular. "We should know better."
"Yes, Captain," Mack nodded, answering for Cori, grateful that it wasn't going to go any further than that.
"Yes, ma'am..." Cori nodded, just as grateful. Starkova was right, she should know better, especially being a medic. That automatically meant she needed a cool head despite any situation.
Giving Starkova a grateful glance, Sean made to herd Cori and Mack away from the galley. "Why don't we go back to the Tank? We can wait for Luke there, alright?"
"Alright," Cori replied, glancing again at the galley.
*****
"Walk with me," Decker ordered Luke as he started walking out of the mess.
Luke sucked in his breath and followed, expecting the worst.
They had just left the mess and were in the hallway leading towards engineering when Decker paused and stared at him, once they were away from the mess. "I've seen some of your specs at your workstation."
Luke stiffened immediately, his eyes wide. He had been modifying some of the phase rifles, trying to understand the polaron phase energy that Jem'Hadar used on their weapons based on the information retrieved from the Vanguard some time ago. Like all geniuses, he kept methodical specifications of everything he had done, trying to map up the scientific process each step of the way.
"Oh." He said mutedly.
"I like your conclusions," Decker pointed out.
Luke had never seen the Chief Engineer other than in passing when he was down at his workstation in Engineering, that Decker had been monitoring him was a surprise. He hadn't decided pleasant or not.
"Uhm thank you…"Luke stuttered his thanks.
"What I can't figure out is, whether or not you're happy doing what you're doing, which is fine I suppose if you want to waste all that intelligence, or you're just so unfocussed you can't put the time to realise what you can do."
Luke shot him a look. "I'm happy doing what I'm doing." He insisted, except Luke didn't feel like he convinced himself any better than he convinced Decker.
"Then why not just stay a ground pounder, why pay attention to two engineers who would have figured out the problem eventually?"
"It was obvious…" Luke bit back.
"But still not your problem," Decker pointed out. "You wanted to speak up because you could, because you like solving problems. I'm guessing, the harder the better."
Luke stared at him defiantly, wanting to deny it but it was true. In the last couple of years in the Shark, he had found himself getting bored. It was okay when they were on a mission but they weren't always on missions and during the off duty hours, he found his mind seeking out puzzles, challenges.
"People get pissed off looking at you Randolph," Decker said without mercy. "You know why? Because what you have in your head, they have to work all their lives to be able to see even half as clearly as you see problems. And what do you with it? Nothing."
"Being a Shark is not nothing…" Luke protested, feeling pissed but Icebergs were hitting home, every damn one of them. Like the man could look into his eyes and know the secrets he hid from everyone, especially Sean, even Cori.
"But you're not even doing that. You could be the best in anything you do but you're not even willing to try. I've read your record, you get by with as little effort as you can. You want to stay with your brother, that's fine but I don't think he would like to see you waste away what you've got either. You'd sleep through officer training, you'd probably sleep through Starfleet bridging exams too. You're smart enough to get your own ship if you tried, why don't you?"
His own ship? The guy was crazy. He was a Shark…Sharks didn't run starships. Then again, Colonel Hayes had been in charge of the Enterprise once, he remembered reading that. It was possible except Luke never considered because…
…because it was too much effort.
*****
Luke returned to the Tank not long after, seeking it out Sean, Cori and Mack. Decker's words swirled around in his heard, provoking thoughts he too often buried. Now the man had forced Luke to confront those thoughts and in its aftermath, left Luke somewhat dazed.
"Hey," he greeted when he saw them.
"Luke!" Cori couldn't help herself. She was off the big overstuffed couch in a flash and threw her arms around his neck in a welcoming hug.
While not as enthusiastic, Sean smiled at Mack and went to meet his brother. "Hey yourself," he said. "How did it go?" he asked.
Luke hugged Cori with a welcomed embrace before lifting his gaze to Sean. "Decker wants me to help him fix the problem down in engineering. Apparently," Luke said, recalling his stunned surprise at the request after Decker had gotten through telling him he was wasting his talents. "He'd been monitoring my workstation down in engineering and wants me to think about officer training."
"Oh wow, Luke, that's awesome!" Cori said, squeezing his hands.
"Dude…that's awesome," Sean echoed, coming up to clap his brother on the shoulder in encouragement. Sometimes, Luke was the only one who thought he wouldn't make a good officer.
"I don't know…" Luke confessed, trying to process all the thoughts that Iceberg Decker had planted in his head. He'd always been adamant about not going officer but what Decker said had struck home. People get pissed off looking at you Randolph.
Noting the look on Luke's face, something like confusion (and something he didn't sport often), Cori stepped back, giving him his space. Maybe she could get him to talk later, but she also knew it would be better if she let him come to her on his own. Sean of course, knew the inflections better, could read him like a book. Officer wasn't something Luke had wanted but Sean knew him well enough to see that his brother, lo and behold, was actually giving it thought.
"I like being Shark but..." he looked at them."Am I wasting my abilities though?" He asked them because they knew him better than anyone else. "Decker said it was pissing people off looking at me because most work all their lives to be as half as smart as I am."
Whoa. Heavy thinking. Cori glanced at Sean, indicating the open room. "C'mon. Let's go in our room, bro," Sean said with a slight nod to her. This conversation wasn't for the openness of the Tank. His brother always had been a heavy thinker, but that usually had to do with physics or something, that kind of heavy.
"Sure," Luke started to walk but Decker's words continued to taunt him. "But you see when those two assholes were talking I could see what was wrong in my head, it was clear as day, I mean you know that's all ways been easy for me but this was...like breathing. I could see it."
"Really?" Considering that for a moment, Sean led the way and keyed the door open. Once all of them were inside, he shut it as Cori sat on the floor, back against the bottom bunk.
"Yeah," he said sitting down on a chair. "I mean it was so clear what it should be. I mean I get a lot of these kinds of insights, you know with problems. I like solving them." He never talked about this part of himself. "Like it used to be at school."
"Luke, you operate on a level most of us don't even reach, even in our most…insightful moments," Sean told him, taking the other chair in the room. He left his lap 'open', in case Mack wanted to claim it. "In school, half the time the teachers didn't know where you got stuff because it wasn't in their lesson plans. I could see it in their faces, heard them talking about it."
It just so happened that Mack did choose to take up the space on his lap. She was silent because she could see that Luke was having something of an epiphany.
Luke fidgeted uncomfortably, nearing a conclusion that could really change his life. "Does that translate into officer material?" But that wasn't all Decker had said. If he became an officer, if he took those bridging courses that Starfleet had for Marine officers, he could end up being a colonel with a starship to command.
A frigging starship.
What had gone down? Sean figured something had to have happened to send his brother into this deep a chasm of self exploration. "I think so,"
Cori spoke up, her words carefully thought out so they wouldn't appear to be that blindly adoring bullshit. "I see in your eyes, especially when you're working on something in your workshop, I see the same thing in Captain Rigg's eyes, Colonel Merrick's," she offered quietly.
Luke swallowed thickly and confessed, "Decker wanted to know am I happy being a grunt or do I want my own starship?"
Watching his brother, Sean smiled proudly. "Do you?" Cori remained silent. If Luke chose officer, it might mean a different world for them, one where they couldn't be together. Not that he would choose that but that it might be out of his hands. She breathed deeply, letting it out, casting those thoughts to the wind to let them fall where they would because above all, she trusted him.
"I never considered it to tell the truth..." Luke admitted. "But now it's in my head. I don't know..."
"I think Gaia, Starfleet... the human race would only benefit." Cori smiled at him, reaching out for his hand. "I think so too," Sean nodded, looking at Luke with conviction.
"I'll think about it..." Luke replied, not prepared to make any decision.
His head was still buzzing with Decker's words.
A frigging starship.
******
An hour later, the Nemesis found itself facing the strange ship that had been deposited into the space above Athos IV. Its design was unlike any ship that he had ever seen before. Captain Cal Riggs stared at the craft and looked over his shoulder at Commander Zak Okoro. "That is the ugliest looking ship I have ever seen."
"Big bastard though," Zak replied because the vessel was almost five times the size of the Nemesis. Thank God for tractor beams and inertia or else they'd never move the ship out of Athos' orbit. "Must have come out of the Badlands and got caught in the planet's gravity."
"I've never seen a design like that," Cal replied. "Nothing even remotely resembling it. Are there any life signs at all?"
Lieutenant Xenia Papas shook her head. "No Sir," the young woman replied from the science station. "Everything is dead over there although there is minimal life support. I'm reading an oxygen atmosphere."
"Let's take a look inside," Cal glanced up at Zak.
"Right," Zak nodded and nodded at Lieutenant Yuan, "put me through to the Tank."
"Yes Sir," the young communications officer nodded. "Putting you through."
"Captain Starkova," Zak said with a bit of a smile that Cal didn't miss. "Is your team ready?"
"Aye Commander," Starkova's voice replied promptly over the bridge. "We're proceeding to Transporter Room 1 right now."
******
Leaving aside the confusion of earlier, Luke adjusted his helmet as he jogged down the hallway behind Starkova and Sean with Cori and Mack following behind him. The five of them would be the first members of the crew to enter the mysterious ship to conduct a preliminary sweep of the ship, to ensure that all was safe.
Behind him Mack followed, having study the data provided so far in the tricorder, revealing what little they had on the vessel. "God it’s a weird looking ship," she commented, observing the cube like structure.
Second breakfast (What, she was a hobbit now?) had been going so well... until that call had come through and the quartet of friends had to leave Cori's favourite breakfast (eggs and bacon) for The Twilight Zone. Great. So now, kitted out and suited up, she filed on board the shuttle behind her friends. "I'm going for spooky," she replied, boarding the shuttle with her friends. "That's my adjective for the day," she joked.
"Cut the chatter..." Sean looked back at them affectionately, saying that not out of need but out of habit. And out of being sergeant. He likened it to a child becoming a parent and swearing they'd never do things the parent did... only to find out they were exactly like the parent. There were still things he remembered from the Captain and Sergeant Richards that he'd sworn he'd never do.
Like saying 'cut the chatter'.
"Sure Red," Luke quipped, knowing that Sean would hate the inference. After all, that was solely a Ren Richards saying."
"You're such an ass," Mack shoved him a bit, chuckling.
"Thinks he's a comedian too," Sean told his girlfriend, though out here she was Lance Corporal Brook. "Mom only laughs at your jokes because she's obligated, dude..."
Laughing, Cori took a seat, sliding her pack off and down between her feet. She pulled out a padd, to continue going over the information that the ship sensors had picked up. Which didn't amount for much but when you're talking a ship as sophisticated as the Nemi, the info they'd gathered amounted to Squat. Settling into her seat, she pulled the jump bars into place.
"Like she was obligated to bring you home from the hospital..." Luke smirked.
Mack shook her head as Captain Starkova rolled her eyes wondering who she had screwed over in another life time to owe a karmic debt that inflicted the Randolph twins on her.
Alright Abbott and Costello, on the platform please." She ordered. "Let's get over to this ship and go salvaging."
"Yes Captain," Mack said climbing on the pad dutifully.
"Yes ma'am." Cori followed right behind Mack, taking the disc next to her. "Come on Frick and Frack," she chuckled, looking back down to her tricorder.
"That's Sergeant Frick to you," Sean retorted, taking up position beside Starkova. "And Ensign," he said, eyeing the transporter tech with something akin to evil. "Try and keep Luke's brain IN his head this time."
"Yeah, he lost his balls the last time," Luke replied.
"Okay, game face boys," Starkova reminded gently. "Commander Okoro," she spoke into the communicator, "we're ready to transport now."
"Acknowledged Tate," Okoro's voice echoed back from the bridge.
Turning to the ensign who was manning the transporter pad, Starkova gave him the signal to proceed. "Send us through.
*****
They materialised a fraction of a second later, in a narrow, dimly lit corridor, surrounded on either side by machinery that seemed as alien as the ship they were on. For a moment, the Sharks could have been forgiven for thinking that they had been transported to an Industry Row factory in Gaia. While all the machinery seemed sophisticated enough, there was no attempt to keep anything tidy. Whatever was needed to fit was forced to do so, no matter how awkward it look.
About them, there was no sound, no movement, just stale air and that ominous dystopian machinery surrounding them like walls closing in.
"Oh yeah," Cori looked around her, eyes taking in the walls, the ceiling, everything. "Spooky was right," she said, inspecting the closest thing. An umbilical or.. hose of some sort. Aiming her phaser rifle up, and therefore the light attached to it, she followed it up to where it disappeared into darkness. "I'll even throw in creepy," she told Mack quietly.
Inspecting his immediate surroundings, Sean gave Tate a nod. "Alright… helmet cams, ladies and gent.
Letting her rifle hang from the harness for a moment, Cori checked her tricorder. "Energy readings are coming from that direction," she said.
"Captain," Starkova spoke as she started moving down the walkway, taking the lead as always and following procedure by contacting the Nemesis. "Do you read us?"
The internal cams in their helmets provided the bridge of the Nemesis a visual of everything they were seeing.
"We read you," Cal answered from his command chair. "It doesn't look much better on the inside than it does on the outside." Inwardly, everything about the ship was making Cal Riggs nervous and while his voice sounded relaxed, his thoughts were nowhere that casual.
"We're following the source of some energy readings," Starkova narrated for his benefit and continued down the darkened corridor, careful not to touch anything. She shivered a little at how claustrophobic it felt and likened the atmosphere to that of a tomb. Certainly was a silent as one that was sure.
Luke on the other hand was fascinated by what he was seeing. Already he was using his engineering tricorder to take readings technology which like the design of the ship, was unlike anything they had ever seen. "This is amazing stuff. Interplexing beacons, bioorganic machinery..."
"Oh look he's giddy," Mack teased following him but sticking close because this place sent shivers down her spine for some reasons. It just looked so bizarre.
"That's Thing One for you." Her Thing One, that was. Cori chuckled, which dissolved when her light fell on something. "Hey look at this. Looks like…the Orion slave cages." Upright, with those same umbilicals hanging down into it, the cage was every bit nightmarish. The front part hung off one hinge, and there was visible rust on the wires that appeared to be melded to fit over a face or a head. "Humanoid," she said.
Luke took a closer look at the thing and tried to understand the purpose of such a chamber. It look like something a person, a humanoid person if Cori was correct might step into but there was also exposed conduits that seemed to need connecting to something. The humanoid in it? "Could be some kind of medical chamber…" he ventured a guess.
Starkova walked further along the corridor until they emerged into a large open space where the corridor became a walkway. Stepping onto it, she gasped as she took in the sight before her. The inside of the ship was nothing more than a crisscross of such gangways. Just rows and rows of these narrow corridors, no decks, no living quarters, no engineering or bridge…nothing. It was unnerving.
Luke followed her out and swept his gaze across the open space at the heart of the ship. Staring, feeling a rising knot in his stomach too, that there was something here, lurking. Like a rock spider.
"Where's the crew?" Mack asked the obvious question. "I mean how does this ship run?"
"Maybe they're all dead," Cori ventured, frowning as she followed the Captain. "Or.. gone. Wouldn't be the first derelict we've come across," she said, aiming the taclight on her rifle to inspect another wall. Definitely creepy. Coming out into the wide open area, Cori stopped. "Whoa..." she breathed, eyes wide. "Definitely weird."
Moving towards the edge, she peered down over the railing. "Wow... " Beneath them, under the grating was... nothing.. and everything. So much space full of the same gangways and ladders and a platform here and there and it was bottomless. "Oh my god, I can't see where it ends," she said, looking back at Luke and Starkova.
Coming up behind her, Sean looked down. "Wow... this ship did not look this big from the viewer," he said. "Commander Decker, are you getting everything on the vid?"
"Damn straight," Starkova replied tautly, crossing the walkway to the other side.
Luke kept pace with the Captain, instincts telling him that it was a bad idea for any of them to go wandering about this ship without knowing anything about it. His tricorder was picking up faint energy readings which he was assuming were background systems operating but there was something about the readings that didn't fit either. It was low but steady and continuous. "Something's running in here," he commented.
"Life support?" Mack asked. "Maybe those are stasis chambers are so."
Stasis chambers, he had considered that but there was none of the life sustaining chemical mixes required. At least, not in the methods currently used for the purpose.
Starkova moved further into the new corridor once she'd left the walkway when something caught her eye. Turning to it, she found herself staring at a face and jumped. "Shit!"
In one of those cubicles they had spotted earlier, was a humanoid, with a pasty grey face, hooked up with cybernetic implants. Judging by the shape of his face, she guessed he was male. She stared a moment at that corpse like visage, thinking that it looked as if he were asleep as he stood inside his cubicle.
However, she soon forgot about him when her gaze shifted to the next cubicle and realised he wasn't alone, the entire wall was filled these motionless bodies.
"Oh my god!" Leaving her rifle dangling from the harness, Cori hurriedly dug out her tricorder. A medical tricorder, it was designed for this exact sort of thing. Aiming it at them, she stepped closer to study the first one. "Some of the tissue is necrotic," she said, glancing down at the readings and leaned in closer. "It's like.. machine parts incorporated into body parts. Organic matter."
*****
On the bridge of the Nemesis, Carys had joined Captain Riggs and Commander Okoro and she stood off to one side, out of the way. Arms crossed, she frowned at the view screen. "Lance Corporal, see if you can't get some tissue samples please," she asked.
"Yes, ma'am." Keying the tricorder to collect what was needed, Cori sidestepped down the line to look at the next one. "This is so strange," she said. "The tissue is still alive, even where it joins the cybernetics. Oh.. " Reaching out to take the arm of one, she thought better of it and pulled her hand back, instead leaning over to inspect it. "The vein structure is visible through the skin, see where it tracks down the arm." She was on a roll now, lost in her trade, as much as Luke could get lost in his. "Sending the readings back now, Doc."
*****
Luke's brain was firing and for once, he couldn't reach a solution easily and better yet, he had someone who might be smarter than him who was willing to answer the question of a grunt. "Captain Starkova, can I get Engineer Decker online?"
Starkova raised a brow and hid a little smile. It was the first time that Luke Randolph had asked for help and more surprisingly from a fleeter. Well, hell does freeze over, she thought. "I don't see why not. Captain Riggs, can we get a line to Engineering?"
****
On the bridge, Cal nodded at Zak and nodded. Zak who had been privy to the altercation this morning suspected that Luke Randolph might have just become Chief Engineer Decker's new pet project. A better mentor the young man could not have found. Nodding at the communications officer who promptly open a line engineering, Zak spoke up.
"Chief, I've got a Shark who needs a word."
In Engineering, Iceberg Decker allowed himself a smile. "Go ahead.".
*****
Hearing Decker's voice, Luke found himself looking at the man as someone he never had in his life, a mentor that was equal if not more, to his intellect. "Chief, I'm standing at a console that's running a subroutine that's drawing power through life support and maintenance. It's like the life support energy is being used to fuel the maintenance. These people by the looks of it are cybernetic organisms but the subroutine is coming from a neural pathway. If I didn't know better..."
"You think they're repairing their ship." Decker caught on quickly, impressed though hiding it.
"With their minds?" Mack explained. "All of them?" She looked at the size of those minds, all of them working together to fix the ship....like..like... "Like an insect colony?"
"That would fit with these readings," Cori interjected to Mack, looking down when her tricorder beeped. "To back up Corporal Randolph's theory and Brook's, they're giving off EM as well as a bio reading. These umbilicals are physically connected to the head, to the cybernetic part, which appears to be in place of some if not all of the brain, if you go with a humanoid life form. Randolph, here..." Moving next to him, she showed Luke her medical tricorder.
*****
Carys glanced over at Cal. "A collective conscience?" Wouldn't be the first time, though anything Starfleet had on record was nowhere near the extent of these. "Are they human or Bajoran?"
*****
"I haven't scanned all of them yet but this one is human." Cori nodded towards one. "The tricorder doesn't recognize the species of a couple but everyone appears to be humanoid."
"This one isn't," Starkova returned, looking at the greyish skin of an alien that was humanoid but appeared to be reptilian of some kind. Not Xindi though, she noted
"Neither is this one," Mack piped in looking at one of them that seemed Tellerite perhaps. "They're every kind."
"Pakled even." Inherently stupid, Cori figured the poor creatures were mostly innocent. They might commit crimes but it was like any scavenger. They had no clue of sacrilege. Only survival. Deep underneath her Shark exterior and Boomer upbringing was a kind heart and Cori felt for them. "This is.. amazing. The level of cybernetics is... it looks like a hack job, but the scanner and everything else say it's very sophisticated and complex. We're talking multiple internal organ replacement, synapse replacement... "
*****
"See if you can't get a full scan on one, Cori." From her spot off to the side, Carys was frowning. "Captain, I can use it to build a 3-D holo to send back for the First Contact unit."
Cal didn't answer and merely nodded. Something about this was bothering him but like Luke Randolph, could not put his finger on it.
*****
Starkova moved further along the corridor, feeling herself shudder at the sight of these people, locked in place within their cubicles, eyes closed as if they were asleep. They looked like pawns in a game of chess, frozen in place until… until needed. Around the Sharks, the low drone of machinery operating on autopilot continued to be heard.
The corridors were dimly lit, providing just enough illumination for none of them to go bumping into walls. Starkova arrived at the juncture where four corridors met in the middle. Pausing, she noted the machinery in the middle and wondered if it was some kind of control port. Attracted by the slow blinking on the clear glass screen, she leaned forward and called out to Luke. "I found something, Corporal Randolph, come take a look at this." As she issued the order, Starkova leaned forward to take a closer look.
Suddenly a tiny strobe of bright red light appeared from the display. It dragged the illumination across Starkova's face, beginning at the forehead and moving right down the chin. The sharp light blinded her as Starkova stepped backward, seeing spots. "Damn!"
"What is it?" Luke demanded, moving towards her rapidly.
It was a question she never had a chance to answer.
Without warning, one of the occupants of the cubicle suddenly came alive and stepped out of the shadows directly behind Starkova. He moved so quickly that there was no time for any of them to react, least of all the Shark Captain. Starkova started to turn as a hand grabbed her neck , forcing her head to the side. Sharp spikes extended outward from the other hand, through the knuckles, piercing Starkova in the neck before she had time to break free. She uttered a short cry, a mixture of pain and indignance before going slack in his grip, her own skin turning grey.
*****
"TATE!" Okoro who could see everything from the bridge, shouted.
Cal who had poised for the shoe to drop, reacted automatically almost on reflex. "Transporter Room get them all back now!"Cal ordered.
*******
Around them shadows began to move. It took Mack but a second to realise what was happening in the midst of Starkova's incapacitation. Footsteps could be heart, creaking and shuffling. The sound of feet on the go. Staring at Sean, she shouted.
"Sarge! They're waking up!"
"How many!" Cal demanded, about to tear the Transporter Chief for not getting them off that damn ship already.
Luke saw the movement across the different levels, the slight shuffling that made shadows longer and replied grimly, "all of them."
*******
"Transporter Room why the hell aren't they being beamed out of there already!" The Captain fairly roared.
"Working on it!!!" Lieutenant Erika Miller called out from her post in the transporter room, her voice ringing through the bridge on top of Carys' orders to Sickbay. Her fingers flew over the screen, even holding a fingertip in place just to keep a lock on them.
The Bajoran doctor was already heading off the bridge, just getting a foot in even by the time Luke started speaking. "Nallon to Sickbay, prep the OR for class 3 trauma and get a crash cart to the transporter room. Casualties incoming," she ordered, nearly slapping the turbo lift's commands because seconds weren't fast enough right now.
*******
Zero to hell in a split second... Sean didn't waste another moment, he fired automatically on the one with Starkova, phaser bolt lancing into the creature's skull and exploding out of the back in a mess of living tissue and metal pieces. The body teetered for a moment before it crashed to the floor, the captain falling on top of him. Like ripples in a pond, every one of the beings seemed to hesitate, like a hitch in their step before they moved forward again.
"Open fire!" he ordered, catching movement out of the corner of his eye. "Cori, no! Get back!"
"The Captain...!!" Cori had already moved forward, freezing when she heard Sean. Not taking her eyes off the advancing creatures, she fired on another one advancing on Tate.
"I said NO! Life signs?" Firing on one advancing on his friend, Sean grabbed Cori by the harness and yanked her the rest of the way.
Looking down, Cori did a double take. "Oh fuck... there's over 100.. 150....over 200 life signs on the grid!" she called out, eyes roving across the crowd in front of her. "Sarge, the captain...!!"
Luke wanted to shoot the creature holding Starkova but to do so would be to hit the captain as well. Switching to stun, he fired only to realise that the blast was immediately deflected by some form of personal shielding. "They've got shields!" He barked at the others as Starkova's captor turned on his heels as if unperturbed by Sean's efforts to fire and continued back down the corridor, going the way he came. Disappearing with the captain.
Mac could see others advancing towards them and she raised her weapon to fire when the blast was rendered inert by the force field spring up around the enemy. "They're all protected by shields!" She shouted.
"Nemi, we're cut off!! We need that ride NOW.. FUCK..." Sean wasn't even sure what happened, just that suddenly one of those bastards was in his peripheral vision. With a yell, Sean jammed the butt of his rifle in the closest alien face, just as he heard that snap crackle in the air that signalled transportation. Shoving the body away from him, he was firing on the approaching swarm even as his body began to disappear.
*******
"Got 'em!" Slamming her hand down on the appropriate buttons, Erika didn't bat an eye when the med team came through. " Four transponders, on their way, Captain!"
"Four?" Cal demanded angrily. Four was not good enough when five had beamed over to that ship. Shooting a glance at his best friend, Cal saw Zak's eyes to be as black as coals.
His expression unreadable.
*******
On the platform, over the disks, four sparkles of light suddenly appeared and in the blink of an eye, the team was there, so fast that Sean's last shot impacted against the wall behind the transporter booth. Barely registering the hit behind her (having been on the Potemkin during the Xindi War), Erika hailed the bridge. "Four of 'em sir!"
"Who's missing?" Cal demanded, not certain he wanted the answer. It was a foregone conclusion.
Luke let out a heavy sigh. "Captain Starkova Sir," he said looking at Sean and the others. "They took her."
Erika frowned at her console, jabbing at points on it. After the fourth time, she growled in frustration. "I can't get a lock on Starkova, Captain. The readings are... off."
"Off?" Cori appeared beside Luke, shooting him a worried glance. "What do you mean off? Like... dead?"
"Cori..." Stepping forward, Sean exchanged a look with Luke and put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't Cori me..." Turning to look at Sean, she frowned. "Off like dead or off as in there's still a chance we can find her?"
She had a point. Sean's mouth sealed into a tight line as he looked over at the Lieutenant, who was bent over her console again.
"Off," Erika replied, not at all concerned about the show of concern from the Sharks. "Off as in one second it's there, the next it's not."
"Where's my patient?" The doors had swished open and Carys strode in, using every inch of stride her long legs could give her. "Who else is hurt?"
Heaving a sigh, just like his brother had, Sean answered. "They took her, ma'am...the creatures did and..." He gave Mack and Cori and Luke a once over. "We're alright."
Mack wasn't so sure, Sean was shell shocked, Cori was angry and Luke, Luke was miles away.
"They injected her..." she volunteered a second later. "If they injected her with something…" she raised her eyes to both Dr. Nallon and Luke, " could that explain the off readings?"
"I don't know," Luke spoke up, still a bit dazed. "The console she was standing over activated the minute she was close enough to get into its sensor range. I'm sure it scanned her, trying to determine if she was compatible or something. As soon as it was done, one of them woke up."
"And... stabbed her immediately... no quarter, no nothing," Cori spit out, No, no... Not Tate... please not one of theirs. "There was no time to do anything," she told Carys, glancing at Luke and double-taking back to him when she realized he was so quiet.
Moving up onto the platform, despite their assurances, Carys was scanning each one of them as her med team stood by. Stopping in front of Cori, she squeezed the younger woman's arm in support. This was one who refused to quit, refused to quit others as well and Carys knew that was where the anger was coming from. Cori, as most everyone, medical people especially it seemed, hated...abhorred and loathed not having a chance to do anything.
*******
"On the bridge of the Nemesis, the sudden return to life on the ship ended as quickly as it began and once again everything was dormant inside the craft. Just as silent and lifeless as it had been when they first encountered it, the cube like ship returned to its hibernation again.
"What's going on over there?" Cal asked, not understanding why the ship wouldn't be attacking.
Zak was at a console shaking his head "I don't know," he met Cal's gaze tautly. "I'm not detecting life signs and other than some low resonance energy readings, there's nothing."
This was more than just the salvage of a derelict ship. This has not become a situation where one of his crew had been abducted. What was equally maddening was there was no antagonist to direct his anger, just this ship and its puzzling innards and zombified crew.
Cal said shortly. "Sergeant Randolph, I want a briefing with you and your team in the conference room in five minutes."
Yes sir," Sean replied. "Doctor?"
Nodding, Carys stepped back. "You are free to go," she said, turning back to her team. "Keep the OR prepped and keep that crash cart in here."
"Alright, you heard the man. Let's get to the bridge," he ordered, in that voice that was designed to get his team moving. Something beyond stunned was on his brother's face, and he just wasn't this quiet. Usually, Sean was the quiet one. Pushing past his brother, he squeezed Luke's arm. "Let's go," he repeated, green eyes catching Luke's: Stay with me, Bro. I need you.
"Yeah," Luke nodded, trying to process all he had seen. A collective mind, working singularly to repair the ship. Composed of many different races unified only by the cybernetics machinery implanted through them. Why had they injected Starkova? He knew the answer to that as the memory of what he had seen after surfaced in his mind. He bit down what he saw, hated the fact that his intellect was jumping to conclusions that outpaced his experience.
"Doctor," Cal's voice came through the communicators. "I want you there too."
*****