Seaside Retreat

Posted on Wed Feb 17th, 2021 @ 9:33am by Commander Peter Horn & Lieutenant Commander Junjie Han

2,670 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 2 - Echoes Of An Empire
Location: Coastal Structure
Timeline: Mission Day 9 - 0956 Hours

ON

"Everyone ready?" Peter asked as he deftly landed the shuttle just outside of their designated target. He didn't want to 'park' too close for fear of damaging it. "Everyone prepared for a little trip?" He offered the slightest of smiles as he looked around his tiny team, having to remind himself that he was mostly just the team leader, and the pilot, and not the security officer he used to be. Now, he was trying to keep up morale, instead of scouting the area even though old habits did die very hard.

Minka was unimpressed she had been stuck with "Vulcanoid" detail. She assumed he would be very literal and serious and so far her experience of him was that and then a twinge of counselor dotted in too. She wondered when he would utter the words, "and how do you feel about that ...."

Her short platinum white hair had a few streaks of blue in it, no doubt he would disapprove or decide there would be a reason behind it other than she just liked changing her hair. At least her chief was more easy going there even if he did hit the sugar way too much. And at least she was getting to see some possibly interesting.

"Yup," she stood up and lugged her kit with her. She hadn't known what to bring. What did you bring to potentially million year old ruins? She supposed she had the option to replicate anything missing but still she liked to be prepared. The sea air hit her as soon as the shuttle doors opened. "Smells like Horzoc bay out here," she commented.

"I do not know what that is!" Jelani Olowe stepped out of the shuttle first, her only equipment strapped to her belt. A single tricorder and a type two hand held phaser... what more could a simple girl from security need. "But it is beautiful beyond measure... and that building or whatever it is looks untouched!"

"Lets hope its not got the Horzoc bay wildlife," Minka winked at the other woman bolding setting off. "There's got to be an entrance," She muttered scanning with her tricorder. "If I was to guess I would say this way. Look it looks like an alcove of some sort further round to the side. Little bit of a walk but it makes sense to have it more inwards as who knows if the weather stays this peaceful right?"

Junjie shouldered his duffel bag of gear and was ready for the adventure of exploring these fascinating ruins. He unclipped the science tricorder from his belt and scanned the building in front of them. " About sixty meters ahead and to the left we should find an entrance way there. Shall we see what this building and planet have to offer us?" he said with a smile.

The landscape was tropical and the structure itself looked as if it had been carved from a native rock formation, the only tell tale sign that this was in fact manmade was from the tricorder scans. What looked like carved rock was infact some form of alloy that the scanning devices were not able to identify. It was still breath taking though. A rolling hill came down along the western side of the structure and formed around it until it reached the golden sands of the beach beyond with the crystal clear water lapping along the shoreline. Palm like tree's abundant in number only growing denser the futher up the hill you went until it could only be considered jungle.

"My tricorder is reading at least forty different forms of avian life in the vicinity... mammalian and reptilian number in the hundreds". Jelani gaped at her tricorder. "Its like a garden of eden!"

The ocean breeze was definitely pleasant and Peter was glad for the warmer temperature. Despite being half Human, his physiology was still Vulcan and as such he did prefer warmer climates. "Ensign Olowe take point," he ordered, "everyone else stay close." He too took out his phaser. "Let us disturb the local wildlife as little as possible. Keep an eye out for traps though."

Junjie kept close to the group as they moved forward. " this planet is indeed beautiful and that beach looks inviting, Yet anything around here could be fraught with ancient perils. Let us not forget they had a civil war here.

"A civil war..." Jelani looked at the Science Officer, interesting peeked. "I don't know much about the T'Kon so this is all very new to me!"

Junjie was surveying the area visually to see if he could spot anything of interest. " This planet was on the outskirts of the T'Kon Empire from what we can tell. And from our briefing we can surmise that from the level of destruction present, There was infighting between at least two factions." He looked directly at Jelani. " Any culture that create structures that can last six hundred thousand years after a major war, Can certainly have booby traps that can last as long. So please be very careful, I would really like to see all of us go home in one piece." He said with concern in his voice.

Peter led his team into what appeared to be an ancient structure, though from Peter's perspective it seemed more modern than what outside appearance led them to believe. "Take scans," he ordered his team, "and samples for the science department to study." He peered at his own tricorder, lifting his palm light. "Are you reading the same thing I am?" he then asked.

"Yup power," Minka said. "There's things running on energy in here. I'm not going to get to jerry rig up and attempt to make our tech talk to theres, which is a shame. I was looking forward to that. Still though I can try figure out why there's power and where from."

Jelani followed a short way behind the Counselor and Engineer, not wanting to get in the way of the brains but at the same time she had her tricorder running knowing full well that she could easily take readings for analysis later on.

"This seems to be a cryogenic chamber of some kind..." Walking on, Peter leaned over what appeared to be a kind of stasis pod. "And they are... occupied."

"They are seriously ugly," Minka commented standing close to look into a chamber. "Do you think these are T'Kon?"

"I do not know," the counselor replied as he studied the creature. Then he tilted his head. "Do you hear that?" he asked as suddenly the lights seem to be coming on, basking them and thousands upon thousands of the same kind of chamber they were stood beside, into bright light.

"Not creepy in the least," Minka commented.

" Let's get a universal translator working on the control panels here. We need to decipher the panel before we even touch it! I sure hope they're friendly if they wake up." Said Junjie with some concern. " But if we could communicate with them one on one we could learn quite a bit from them."

"If," Peter agreed, then stepped back as the pod nearest to them started to beep, and lights started to blink. "Looks like deciphering is unnecessary, it seems to be in the process of something. Look." He pointed at the pod, a look of concern on his face.

Minka moved forward and started trying to access the terminal. "Yeah i'm guessing this is pure T'Kon. Luckily I managed to borrow some books and programmed .... well very little in terms of characters in but ... .. woah ..."

By this time, the activity from the millennia old tec had forced Jelani to holster her scanner and ready her weapon. Something was walking across her grave at it didn't seem friendly.

The short human stepped back slowly, subconsciously to the security officer and kept her eyes on the occupant of the pod to check she hadn't hallucinated it. "Sirs that scary ugly thing is moving,"

It could feel again, faintly but it was there. The creators had finally allowed it to feel its surroundings. The black tar like dermal layer finally taking on a life of its own once more. Pulsating, Undulating. It pressed out with its mind and found something... it wasn't a creator, its mind was to weak for one of them, it did feel like prey and it was hungry. It could finally do what its creators intended it to do, eradicate, feed on the flesh of the creators enemies. Just a few more moments until it could finally tear free of this hellish prison.

"Sirs?" Minka asked again as it then decided to really move. Flinging its arms out and pressing them to the container. It started punching it, pushing. Anything. It clearly wasn't happy and its skin was taking on a darker appearance. Like a living oil was running over it. She ran a scan over its container. It was starting to destabilise whatever it was built with. "That "pod" is not going to hold it," she said darkly.

Jelani raised her weapon, increasing the stun setting to maximum, her fear taking hold but her training holding fast. "If I might suggest sir, perhaps we should find a safe place... We have no idea if this being is friendly or not!"

Its rage pouring from it like a sink left to fill with no end, radiating from it in waves that even the non telepathic entities gathered around it could feel. Pure hatred for how it had been treated, kept and discarded. Loathing at its inability to separate its feelings from its programing to serve and protect its creators, the very same people that had abandoned it.

An oily claw that was several inches long punctured the glass like material at the front of the pod, moments and it would be able to taste the sweet flesh of these pinked skinned beings... perhaps it would start by sampling the one with darker skin.

"Back!" Peter ordered, not sure what to make of what he sensed. It was uncontrolled... hunger, rage... He held his phaser out towards the pod as he urged his team back. "Keep scanning, but move back," he urged, "towards the entrance!"

The Vulcan didn't need to tell Minka twice. "That thing is definitely not friendly," she stated grabbing all her kit and retreating. "Its looking at us like we are food."

The glass shattered and the creature, for lack of a better term, seemed to flex slightly, stretching its arms through the opening. It slowly pulled its form through until it landed on the cold floor with a gentle thump. Arching its back, continuing to test each part of its body when suddenly something was calling, the creators. Something had triggered a security device and it was still wired telepathically to the central mainframe of its creators systems. It had to head down, below the water.

It let rip of terrible scream, tearing right through to the core of every person present and in an instant it was gone, like a shadow being chased by the suns beams.

"That was both cool and gross," Minka commented. "And definitely not friendly. I wonder where its gone?" She wondered if they were going to be ordered to follow. She hoped not. She really hoped the Vulcan was going to be smart enough to get them out of there in case any more decided to come to life.

"Out, out!" Peter urged as he hoarded his tiny team towards the exit, all the while glancing over his shoulder as more of the pods seemed to come to life. There was this strange pull he felt, a telepathic presence somewhere which he couldn't place. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. "We need to get out of here, right now!"

"Yes Sir," Minka said with no hesitation heading for the exit. If another did get out she could try hit it with her kit she supposed. Weirdly though the further they got from them the less the rest seemed to be coming alive.

Jelani was feeling cold, looking at her hand, it was shaking as he legs propelled her forward... 'Wait... Where is my other hand!'
Her pace started to slow as the confusion settled in until she finally came to a stop, her left hand dropping to her side as the realization of what had happened dawned on her. The stump that was left, pouring blood staining the gold sleeve of her uniform. It had all happened so fast, the speed it had moved at, almost directly towards her as it went, her arm had been pulled as she had started to run but now the pain started to creep into her consciousness.
"Commander!" she stumbled, clutching just below her wrist that was no longer there, sticky and warm blood coating her remaining hand.

Sensing her fear, Peter urged the rest to keep moving as he skidded to a halt and turned to help the woman. How had he not noticed she'd been injured? he chided himself as he quickly changed the setting on his phaser. "This will burn," he warned as he fired the close range stun setting at the bleeding limb, in the hope of cauterizing it. He then ripped a good portion form his tunic, and wrapped it quickly and very tightly around the stump, just a little above where the hand had been severed.

"Hold on, I will carry you," he said as he scooped her up in his arms. "Someone call for a medical emergency!" he called ahead.

Junjie Tapped his combadge. " Copernicus! Medical emergency! Transport away team directly to sickbay!" Junjie set his phaser for wide beam heavy stun and fired as he await the familiar tingling of the transport beam.

But the familiar hum and haze of the transporter did not come, instead a simple hiss was all that could be heard from the communicators.

Peter uttered a very uncharacteristic expletive as the comms went dead. "We are not safe here," he urged, "we need to get outside as fast as we can." He held the injured woman close to his chest until they finally reached the door. "Can you hold on?" he asked her, "I can numb your pain, if you wish..." It was a simple telepathic trick which he'd applied on a great many occasions.

Jelani was fading, blackness tugging at the corners of her eyes, threatening to overwhelm her, she couldn't even feel pain she knew she should be feeling from her arm. Instead she forced her legs to work and started moving towards the entrance. She was not going to be the reason that others died while waiting for help to arrive.

And Peter wasn't about to let an injured officer push herself beyond her limits. He caught up, scooped her up into his arms again and followed the rest towards the entrance. "Rest," he told her, "I have you. We will watch over you." He looked up. "We will head back to our shuttle and try to reach the ship from there," he ordered, "does anyone here have advanced medical training?"

Junjie nodded his head. " Sorry I only took the basic medical course to help out in an emergency if needed. I do agree however that we need to get back to the shuttlecraft quickly! Might I suggest that a few of us do a wide angle heavy stun burst about every thirty meters to keep that thing at bay while we retreat to safety?"

"No medical training here but I think I want to for future," Minka said looking at the poor woman and trying not to heave at the blood everywhere and her panic.

Peter eased the injured woman into the shuttle then turned to look back at the structure they had hurriedly left. "We need to leave," he said, his expression changing to one of concern. "There are more creatures waking up and escaping their confinement."

END

 

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