Nightmare - Regaining contol

Posted on Sun Oct 3rd, 2021 @ 9:09am by Commodore Keiben Haistro & Lieutenant Commander Melanie D’BrooNi- Haistro & Commander Lillian Carter & Lieutenant Commander Junjie Han

1,369 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 3 - Fear Is Fear Itself
Location: Operations
Timeline: MD4 1715

ON:

Lillian was trying to think of the death of Jelani and focus on getting her group to Ops. They finally made it. The room was a mess.

Lillian turned to the others and took charge, trying to keep the other focused. "Right now. let's see if we can get some of the systems online so we can figure out what the hell is going on."

"And who put you in Command?" The voice came from directly behind Lillian, a familiar voice, someone who had been her friend, someone who she had watched die not less than an hour ago. Jelanie stood there, blood still oozing thickly from the wound on her throat, her voice rasp and horse. "You let me die... You all did!"

“Is she prettier than me?” zombie Mel walked in and asked the room.

Junjie fell to the floor and grasped his head and then his stomach as he winced in pain. He shouted " Please! Stop! I promise I'll do better! " His eyes widened in horror. " GODS NO!!! " with terror in his voice. " TAMASKA!!! " He screamed as he began sobbing uncontrollably. " Now truly everything has been taken from me. " Junjie looked up with confusion on his face. " What's going on? " He asked. Someone please help me! " He begged as he lay on the floor.

"This Lieutenant Carter, killer of friends..." The Jelanie apparition moved slowly, deliberately round Lillian taking in her features, her ashen and pale complexion before coming to a stop next to the decaying visage of Doctor D'BrooNi. "How could she be prettier than you!"

"Your right," Mel said joining Jelanie and circling Lillian the other way. "They are very fragile aren't they? Even the smallest fears .... no wonder we reigned superior all that time. This one pines ... don't worry you will join her in the netherworld soon."

Junjie looked up at the apparitions confused. " Wait?...What?...Reigned superior? Just what are you? "

"What about this one!" The Jelanie form started to circle around Teach. "Strong, tall.... very handsome in a bearish kind of way... He's trying to fight us!" she chuckled a girlish laugh, musical in its sound but with a deep rooted sense of danger.
A single finger started to play with his beard, or so it appeared to him. IN truth she was an apparition, a conjured entity so she wasn't actually playing with his beard even though his neural impulses were telling him otherwise. "You won't last much longer will you handsome man!"

Teach rolled his eyes. Oh laddies I'm in trouble now, The hags find me handsome. " He sneered at them in contempt. " That demoness she bitch of an ex wife of mine is a thousand time scarier then any of you. What is this? The amateur hour for the halloween club? Gods you look pathetic!! At least get some decent make up or at least a better budget for next year! Go away, you bother me.." As he turned his back to them, and nodded towards Junjie. " Unlike that one over there, I ain't got nothing to lose. "

Lillian was now ignoring the apparitions of the dead crew members and concentrating on restoring internal communications in the station. “Look just ignore them. They’re not real anyway”. She called out as she focused on the task at hand. After a moment there was a burst of static followed by a beep and an odd Cardassian computer voice reported: “communication systems online.”

Lillian immediately pressed the comm button “This is Lieutenant Carter in Operations. If anyone can hear me listen carefully. The station is somehow manifesting our fears. Just ignore them. They aren’t real. Captain if you can hear me, please respond!”

The reply came almost immediately. "Lieutenant, am I glad to hear your voice... It goes beyond just manifesting. There is a telepathic component to it. I'm fighting it as best I can but I'm afraid unless you have a telepath with you, you are on your own to weather the effects".

"Great.... Just great...." Lillian muttered to herself. "Acknowledged Captain. I'll try and restore as many systems as I can from here."

"Can you try and get the Station to release the consoles in the main Computer... We are here and will try and delete the AI from the system.... Also, see if you can find the location of any T'Kon devise that is hooked directly into the station's mainframe!" almost clipping what she was saying with the speed at which his response came back.

Lillian scanned the consol nearest to her "I'm not detecting anything connected to the computer from here. The station's security codes seem to be standard Cardassian codes from about 3 years ago. I'll try and disable the security system."

Teach's rather potent raging at him, made Damyan wake up from his nightmare to look at his sisters. He rose from the ground and went next to his little sister and touched her arm. "Its just a nightmare sis, Big sis is here and alive."

Petty officer Agapov went over towards Lillian, "Do you want some help?"

“They think they can ignore us adorable. Maybe we should proceed to phase two,” zombie Mel said so casually.

Junjie took a tricorder reading of the zombies. He felt his anger welling up. " They are just holograms! Someone made a stupid sadistic program and left it running."

Teach grinned." A program eh? I've got a cure for that. I can either delete them from the computer or just rip out the main holographic projector unit and replace it with on of ours and they'll be gone permanently. I like the sound of that lads, lets make sure these ugly hags aren't around to annoy us."

Well, could one of you please turn them off?" Lillian asked still trying to fix systems and disable the security routine. "Holograms or not, they are really creeping me out!"

“Hags.... They really are cute,” Zombie Mel laughed musically. “We are meant to creep you out. Just doing our job. They think deleting us will solve their problems. Every species, always the same.”

Teach went to the nearby console and began to work, he was able to disable the audio to the holograms and after a minute he was able to turn off the emitters as well. " Well at least we won't have to see or hear them now, not in here anyhow. "

Junjie went to the station next to where Teach was working and started to try to track the program down in the system. " Hmm... Those pesky things are in several places in the system and something seems to be blocking the location, it's going to take a bit of time to ferret out. " He looked about the room and then back to the console. " Time is something we have plenty of on our hands at the moment. "

Yelena appeared opening her mouth to say something, "You think that will stop me-" her mouth is still moving but no sound. She frowns at this.

Agapov who had been checking up on her younger sister looked up towards the Zombie and the wordless Yelena. "Looks like the cat got your tongue." giving a laugh.

"Not for too long." the voice coming over the intercom. "I am not that easily gotten rid of. This has happened before and will happen again." the image giving an enigmatic smile while her disembodied voice laughed from the intercom.

For a second the lights, what few were active in Ops dimmed, enveloping them in darkness but just as quickly the lighting returned but this time to a standard level and the pulsing floor to ceiling tubes ignited as if the station had returned to normal operation. More than that the ghosts of Jelanie and Doctor D'BrooNi were both gone, if the echoes of their taunts still rang in the ears of those gathered.

Lillian let out a sigh of relief and for the first time in a long while, managed a smile. "Good job." Though something that she had heard bothered her.... Happened before... It Will happen again... What exactly did that mean?

She turned to Agapov. "Let see if we can get main power back online."

END

 

RSS Feed