Deception - Madness and Fear

Posted on Sun Sep 26th, 2021 @ 11:21am by Lieutenant JG T'Sehn & Lieutenant JG Anek Tua & Lieutenant JG Osil Haistro

1,639 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 3 - Fear Is Fear Itself
Location: ???...???...???
Timeline: Mission Day 4 @ 1645 Hours

ON

T'Sehn could feel the cold claws wrapping around his emotional control and he had no way to stop it, to fight it would be futile at this stage. Instead he forced himself to remain calm, cool knowing it was an effect of whatever it was around them.
"I would suggest Lieutenants that we attempt to vacate this location!"

"And we would go where?" Osil countered. He too felt something, something extremely unsettling that tugged at the edges of his mind. Almost as if something was trying to invade his thoughts, trying to break down the mental walls he kept up. "Surely sickbay is the safest place to be?"

"What are you?" The Vulcan had turned on the apparition of Chief Sidarov, his usual cool and collected exterior showing signs of cracking and a faltering emotional control.

"I am the one that was left behind, alone, scared. Abandoned. Why didn't you come to save me. Why didn't you take me with you?" Sidarov answered. "I had to find my way to you. Do you know what it is like to watch those whom you trust just walk away as if you do not see me? I found the path I found you! What is going on in your mind! Show me!"

Sidarov once more reaching out toward everyone there.

"Hey just dial it down a notch there Yelena. There was potentially an entire army of crazy monster aliens waking up hell bent of killing everyone. They got you already and you were ripped to pieces. Its was not a situation where you could be rescued or revived unfortunately," Charlie informed her. "Talking of crazy aliens. This path of yours. Are they walking it too?"

Yelena contemplated what Charlie said, then replied, "I do not feel them." she rubbed her chin.

Osil closed his eyes for a moment, as a sense of dread washed over him. And somehow it made him feel very, very small. As if this huge dark shadow was falling over him. He shook his head, willing the feeling away as his hand tightened around the phaser he had found. "If you're dead, then you're not supposed to be here. You need to move on to whatever afterlife you believe in. And if you're a ghost with unfinished business then perhaps you should help us so you can move on," he muttered, while fighting the darkness that fell over him.

"I can't!" Yelena shouted, "You are my unfinished business! looking frustrated at this point. "What can I do..." her voice going a bit soft. Then her face twisted slightly, and looked back at those in sickbay.

Anek Tua had been completely silent, his eyes cold and lost as if the spark of life had been drained from his very body. Inside his mind he was locked in a battle he had not imagined or expected, as he fought with himself about the Symbiont. Tua had been silent since they arrived on the station. The usually chatty slug had been noticeably cold and distant, not bothering to chitter chatter about the inane or even suggest that they were incompatible. He actually found himself missing the hostility, the berating that had so commonly come from his body's passenger.

His mind processed the other people, seeing them but not really. He did not know who Yelena was - she was before his time - but the others where inside his head as if they were the traces of a dream. He felt less, like something inside was missing. The part of him who knew what to do, where to go, it was like it was all gone or was never there before. Had they realized who he was, what he was? Did they know he felt like a fraud ready to be found out at a moments notice?

T'Sehn was fighting himself and he was loosing. He wheeled around on Lieutenant Tua and with a very uncharacteristic rage he began to bellow like a man possessed, raving while clawing at his temples.

"Do something you pathetic imbecilic. You are the senior officer here", blood being drawn to his temples the more he clawed and it started to run down his cheeks and started to dapple the grey shoulders of his tunic. "If you won't do anything then I will!"

T'Sehn turned on the visage of Yelena and gripped her by the throat, squeezing tight enough that he should have been able to feel her spine but there was nothing. He squeezed tighter and tighter, a dark humourless smile twisting his features as he started to laugh a hollow vacant laugh.

“Oh hell no,” Charlie said looking at Osil and Tua. One of them needed to jump in here as the Vulcan was too powerful for her but all of them bar her seemed to be freaking out.

“She’s dead. Whatever she is she’s already dead and you can’t twist her neck and kill her again. And Yelena quit wigging everyone out. You might be dead but part of yous in there. I know it. This ain’t you. So ALL of you fight this.”

Yelena gasped, her hand going to her throat stepping back as if she felt T'Sehn's hands gripping her there. "Wait, this is impossible! How!" a rather confused expression on her face.

T'Sehn was lost to a blood rage as his true Vulcan nature of centuries past bubbled to the surface. He lashed out, swung his fists, kicked the whole time a primal rage erupting from his voice in the form of a cry so laced with these emotions he seemed closer to a feral being than the cool headed Vulcan anyone would have expected to see. He was lost to his own insanity and he was seeing what this thing impersonating Yelena wanted him to see.

Charlie ran a tricorder over the Vulcan. “Yelena seriously whatever your doing it’s like he’s entering into some crazy Pon farr and I’m going to tell you in no uncertain circumstances right now as I’m the only live corporal female here I am not losing my virginity that way nor my new uncle so quit it. We will figure this out but calmer heads need to prevail.

Why are neither of you doing anything?” She demanded of the other two.

Osil shook his head. "What can we do kid," he murmured darkly, "I can hardly fight him... he's obviously nuts. And the hologram thinks she's real, but she isn't... I sense absolutely nothing from her. And why do you think I can do anything at all? You wish Kei was here, don't you? Kei will fix it all.... the successful big brother."

“Really … really big brother issues,” she levelled at him in disbelief. “Boy do I have to do everything. Im a yeoman and 14 ….” She groused grabbing the phaser out of Osils hands and promptly stunning the Vulcan.

“If you don’t snap out of it your next, I’m not scared of Keiben and you,” she turned on the Trill, “The symbiont doesn’t define your actions in life. It just experiences them with you. So man up.”

Osil didn't seem quite aware his weapon was snatched from him, though he did see T'Sehn go down in a heap. "I'm scared of Keiben, you've no idea how mean he can be!"

It was easier said than done. The symbiont was meant to share a life, that was true, but the duty of a host was to protect the symbiont no matter the cost. Even more important were protecting the newborns, the next generation of Trill from those harms that may come to them. Failing to protect any symbiont was a cardinal sin among his people, an unforgivable one at that. If Tua were dead inside of him then he might as well be dead too, and would be soon enough.

"I failed them. I failed them all."

Charlie rolled her eyes. She was getting nowhere here. The Vulcan had to be knocked out. The other two were succumbing to something and she didn't seem to be. So she raised the phaser and stunned the other two.

"Well," she turned to Yelena, "Keibens likely going to have words with me for that. So why are you not affecting me like you are them? I'm not scared of you. I'm not going to bend to your will. So why not level with me and tell me what's going on? Cause I will keep stunning these macho specimens of manliness to keep them safe."

Yelena's eyes seemed to change, as if her 'mind' cleared. "I don't want to affect you Charlie, I can't, I refuse to, she is occupied right now. And poor Jelani! I killed her!" Yelena gasped out. "Never mind, I have to stop her. The guardian of this place. She's... She's... lost her mind. She has been here alone, for quite sometime." Yelena looked towards the door. "I will not do anything more not to her!" she shouted. "Charlie I've got to go stop her, I have to fight her. I can't let her hurt anyone anymore. I got downloaded into her from T'Kon." Yelena turned towards Osil and Anek. "Maybe I can help them." kneeling down by Anek and Osil. "Fight you two, fight!" touching their temples with her fingers. Concentrating "I don't know if that will take things down a notch but, we've got to go Keibens is nearing the central computer core."

“We? You and me we?” Charlie asked. “Your not affecting me and none of you crazy lot are hurting my new father. So I better come along. These three can come round. Between the 3 of them they can get to sick bay. I mean I've not got the strength to lug them all anyway. Lead on.”

END

 

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