Terrors that freeze your soul

Posted on Tue Aug 31st, 2021 @ 4:37am by Commander Lillian Carter

1,319 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 3 - Fear Is Fear Itself
Location: Cardassian space station, Briair patch
Timeline: MD 4 @ 1730Hrs

ON:

Lillian's eyes flickered open. She hurt all over, and her skin tingled. What the hell had happened?

She thought back to the last thing she could remember. The ship was under attack, lost helm, lost shields, the Captain called for all to abandon ship. The emergency transport...

It must have been a rough transport she thought to herself as she picked herself up off the floor. Wherever she was it was dark. She could make out the shapes of Cardassian architecture. She was obviously on the spacestation, On the Promenade from the looks of it.

All of a sudden the lights came on and what Lillian saw made her turn white with shock and she had to fight the urge to vomit.

She was surrounded by dead bodies. The entire crew of the Copernicus lay dead around her, their faces contorted in terror. Almost as if they had been frightened to death. The uniforms were drenched in blood.

"They're dead because of you! You killed them all!" Lillian looked around and found the Captain standing, staring at her. He was also dead, his skin ashen, his blood dripping on the floor but unlike the others, he was stood and talking to her.

"I trusted you and you let me down... You let them down. You're pathetic." He droned on in a flat monotone.


"No.... NO!" Lillian started to scream as she covered her face with her hands.


"Lieutenant!"

A worried voice pushed through the echoes of the Captains drone and two hands, one warm and soft the other harsh and metallic gently took Lillian's shoulders and guided her around so she was sitting facing out into the expanse of what looked to be a docking facility. "Lieutenant, it's Ensign Olowe... can you hear me?"

Not wanting to remove her hands from her face, Lillian nodded. She had heard the voice but her mind was still reeling from what she had seen. "I... I Killed them all..." She whispered to herself. "They're all dead because of me."

There was a bit of a snort coming from somewhere nearby, "As usual, a whiny wimp...." the voice seeming to echo all around, a voice that seemed so familiar to Olowe. "You always seem to pick the weak ones, eh tahVAHrisch?"

Jelanie Olowe couldn't get through to the Lieutenant Carter she with a little more force she pulled the Lieutenant around, forcing her to face her directly and she hoped it was forceful enough to yank her from whatever it was she was seeing.
"Lieutenant... Can you see and hear me?"

The tone of her voice cut through her nightmare and she focused on her face. Lillian was still breathing hard and her face was pale, slick with a cold sweat. She nodded, fixing her eyes on the ensign. "Yes... Yes I hear you."

"Where are we... Lieutenant, what happened? I was running for my battle station when the order to evacuate came through.... I was caught by a transporter beam and ended up here... What happened?"
Jelanie sat down next to Lillian, realising she was still in her gym gear, not having had the opportunity to change when the initial alarm had sounded.


Lillian tried to calm herself before answering. “We discovered a Cardassian space station inside the Briar Patch. It attacked us and we beamed aboard. The ship was heavily damaged. When I came round here all I saw was the crew…. All dead.”

"Goodness can't you see me, are you going to ignore me?" a familiar tall willowy blonde woman walked even nearer. PO1 Yelena Sidorov science officer "Well well still cowering on the floor. You, Carter get up off the floor, there are no Cardassians here, and you call yourself a pilot." another derisive snort.

Lillian fear and terror were being replaced with anger. She stood up, facing the science officer. "How dare you? Have you no respect for the dead?" Lillian got right in her face. "You are speaking to a bridge officer."

"I see... however you are not fit to be one. Besides I am Yelena.. you let me die, and now I am reborn. Don't you believe in the afterlife? Well guess what, there is one. And you are stuck with me... a reminder of how paltry your flight skills truly are. If your skills were a fantastic as you think they are, the Copernicus wouldn't be in the jam that it is." Yelena sneered.

Lillian was about to respond in anger but something made her pause, an alarm was sounding at the back of her mind. She frowned, shaking her head, trying desperately to collect her thoughts. "No....." she muttered "No... this is wrong. This can't be real. The universe is not so badly designed. Somethings going on here."

She turned back to Jelanie, ignoring the so-called 'spirit' of Yelena. "Do you have a tricorder on you?"

"No, I was caught by the transporter just before I could board an escape pod... All I have is my type one phaser" she held the clamshell like device before her, slightly smaller than the palm of her hand and its power indicator showing it only had half a charge left.

Lillian looked at the phaser but didn't take it. She turned back around to the image of Petty Officer Sidorov. "You're not Petty Officer Sidorov" she said, trying to remain calm. "So who are you?"

"Or what are you?" Jelani spat at the image, the shadow impersonating her friend.

"Oh, I am Yelena... Jelani. Didn't anyone check to see if I had my essence with the body? You let me die. The whole lot of you did. " She walked closer to the security officer. " You saw me ripped in half, me dying right there. You got away so easily, Jelani, only losing an arm and here I am." Yelena buried her face in her hands, quietly weeping.

Jelani was going to respond but something behind her caught her ear, a oh to familiar sound, something that pulled at the very heart of her core and chilled her through. A gentle ripple sound, low in the throat that slowly turned into a growl, viscerally forcing its way into her mind. She could feel the breath on the back of her neck making the hair on her arms stand on end before it gently place a clawed hand on her shoulder and started to pull her away. The scream that erupted from Jelanie was unexpected and set deeply in the realms of pure terror.

"We have to go, it's here, the creature from the planet... are we back on the planet, how... We have to go!"
She was on her feet and forcing her legs to work running in the first direction she saw.

Yelena laughed as she saw Jelani run, then turned her attention to Carter, "You're next, run little pilot run.. or you will face the same fate as I did on that planet." Her face shifting to that of one of the creatures, reaching out to cut Lilian.

Lillian steeled herself and faced the creature that the image of Petty Officer Sidorov had become, further reinforcing the idea that this was not who she claimed to be. "I've seen monsters far scarier than you." she sneered, trying to sound braver than she felt.

Yelena gave a simple slice towards Lillian, it hitting the upper arm, not causing any terrible injury for she was like a cat playing with its prey." I suggest you run as this is going to hurt even worse if you don't"

While she was not who she appeared to be, she could inflict damage on her Lillian realised. She ducked quickly to the left and started running after Jelani who was running on pure fear.

From the corner of her eye, Lillian spotted a turbolift entry and called out to Jelani. "Jelani! Overhere Quick!"

She headed for the turbolift doors.

END

 

RSS Feed