Cold Station 31 (Part 2 of 3)

Posted on 23 Aug 2022 @ 6:14pm by Commander Marisa Wyatt & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Commander Scarlet Blake & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Ensign Amanda Turell & Petty Officer 2nd Class Donald Andrews & Petty Officer 3rd Class Constantin Vansen
Edited on on 23 Aug 2022 @ 6:16pm

3,970 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: Cold Station 31 - Level 1, Personnel Quarters
Timeline: MD 10, 0720 hrs

Previously, on Cold Station 31 (Part 1)...

Blake nodded to her firmly. If there was a chance that someone else was still alive in there, they'd take the safer route. "Darius, Sandoval, Turell, Shizn and Karras, you stay and start cutting this door open. The rest of you, we're going to take a quick scout ahead and see if we can find the way down to the lower decks. We'll meet back here in a few minutes," she assured, having no intention of heading down without the rest of the team.

"Sir," was Darius' simple acknowledgement. It was apparent none of them knew what they would find on the other side of the entryway. Anticipation overrode anxiety at the prospect of completing their mission as soon as possible. "I'll start at the top," he said to Turell. He thumbed his hand phaser's power setting button to adjust the beam intensity to level six, then walked up close to the door with his flashlight in his opposite hand to illuminate his workspace. "On my mark."

"I'll take this chunk." Amanda said, she changed position a little and readied her rifle willing herself to stop the slight tremble in her arm.

"I'll take the other side," Sandoval said, pulling out her phaser. She waited for Turell to get ready. "We'll start on the count of three. One. Two. Three."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Allyndra followed the other group as ordered. She was fighting her instincts every step of the way. As she scanned she noted more splatters of blood, but what disturbed her the most were the ones on the ceiling. She pointed her light upward. "I don't even want to know how those got there." She paused playing over various splatters. "Something terribly violent has occurred here. The sealed door, the smell of decaying corpses, the blood, there is something or somethings on the loose on this station commander."

"Our mission remains the same," Blake replied calmly, tempering haste with caution as she moved further down. She indulged in some glances around the bleak, cloying corridor, but kept focussed. "But let's keep vigilant for danger." Although she didn't want to jump to conclusions, the grisly smears of blood told their own story.

Vansen looked around, frowning as he took it all in. A part of him just wanted to run and get the power running, but that was him. He stopped, his light going to the ceiling, frowning at the blood up there. And it wasn't exactly a little bit of it either. "How much blood can your average species lose and still be alive? Asking for...well, just asking, really." But it was a rhetorical question, more because he wasn't sure he wanted the real answer. Which he suspected was far less than is on the walls and ceiling here, pal.

"I don't know but there's certainly a lot of it here, probably more than one person's worth" Donald replied as he walked close to the front of the group scanning with his tricorder though he doubted Constantin actually wanted an answer. "Got a Jefferies hatch at the end of this corridor Commander."

"Perfect," Blake nodded as she moved up with him to take a look, to see if it was accessible to them. "Help me check we can get this open then we'll get back to the others," she assured, keen to get back to the meeting point as soon as possible.

Constantin moved closer, shining the light on it. It felt wrong to be here. It made his skin crawl. It reminded him of the wrecks you'd find, old spaceships just floating like junk, graveyards of their crew. But he knew better to say something, because morale mattered.

Allyndra just held her tricorder. Every instinct within her was screaming. "Don't go in there. It is too enclosed, too dark! Danger!" She knew that she would have to tell Blake that perhaps she should return to the other group. She was starting to pant in her anxiety.

~~~

Back at the sealed door, the combined team of Turell, Darius and Sandoval finished cutting through the welds with their phasers. The conn officer holstered his weapon then motioned for the others to stand back and provide cover while he opened the small entrance. He worked his fingers in-between the crevice they'd created then started to pull with all of his body weight. The door jerked and slid open with a series of inconsistent hisses until it was fully ajar. "Anyone inside, we're Starfleet personnel from USS Galileo," he announced. "Identify yourselves."

No reply could be heard. The inside of the room was pitch black and it was difficult to discern the entirety of its layout.

As soon as Darius had the door opened enough Amanda stepped through rifle raised, her light sweeping the small central room and her targeter scanning for anything it could pick up after a few seconds she called "Clear, looks like a habitation block."

Sandoval went in with her flashlight in one hand and her tricorder in the other. The stench of decay was stronger in here. There was no sign of a body, only blood spatters. "This looks like a berthing quarter." She shone her light at several doorways. "Those should be sleeping quarters." The recreational tables in the middle didn't need explanation.

Lamar moved into the room after the two officers and shined his flashlight across the premises. He flinched at the initial stench which instantly permeated his nostrils. It was dead quiet aside from the away team's soft footsteps on the deck plating. Not another sound could be heard, until...

"...Richard...wake up...." The faintest of whispers manifested.

"Did you hear that?" Amanda asked Marisa as she swung her rifle in the direction she thought the sound came from, her targeter painted two signals. "Got something, one faint lifesign." she checked her targeter wondering how it hadn't picked them up on her first sweep.

"Yes, I hear it," Marisa replied. Her Vulcan hearing allowed her to tell where the sound was coming from. "Back there," she said, indicating one of the sleeping rooms. "Phasers at the ready. No idea what we'll find." She glanced down at her tricorder. "The readings are...odd. Keep your eyes and ears open."

She carefully approached the sound, listening intently. "In here." She checked to be sure the others were ready, then slowly opened the door, ready to react if anything came at them.

Lamar formed up on Turell and followed the science chief's lead. He, too, had heard what resembled a faint voice. But within the darkness of the room - despite their flashlights and tricorders - he didn't trust any of his instinctive reactions. "I'll take point," he whispered to Sandoval with a tap on her shoulder. Keeping their senior officer safe was his first priority.

Marisa nodded and let him go first. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like what they would find and was happy to act as backup.

Conn officer Darius and Security officer Turell moved into the small berthing chamber. The chief warrant officer held his hand phaser at the ready with his wrists crossed and his other hand shining a small flashlight. The beam of light swept the room then momentarily crossed a humanoid figure. At least, that's what he thought at first glance. Lamar re-trained his illumination to one of the walls' baseboards then swallowed a dry lump.

A single Human was identified sitting on the floor with its back propped up against the wall. Its long and disheveled hair revealed them to presumably be female, but further examination of her facial features was difficult. Dried blood coated her cheekbones, nose and mouth. Where her eyes were supposed to be, only two deep and dark cavities now existed. Small tendrils of severed optical nerves dangled from her sockets as if her eyeballs had been forcibly extracted.

"...Richard...they're here..." the woman whispered.

Lamar moved his flashlight down from her head to her torso, then turned his gaze away out of disgust. "Commander..."

The Human woman held a head in her hands and softly stroked its blood-stained hair. It clearly belonged to someone, but it'd been severed from the lower neck down and was now nothing more than a remnant of a corpse. "...Who's there...?!" the woman spoke up in a raspy voice.

Marisa had to close her eyes for a moment. The sight of the woman was abhorrent. Then she tapped her commbadge. "Sandoval to Blake. We opened the door... Whatever happened here..." She swallowed. "You need to see this."

"On our way," Blake replied quickly, already back en route to the others, but indicated to the rest of her team to quicken their step.

Blake had her phaser and torch lifted as she and her team moved into the room with the rancid air. She slowed as she saw the clustered group, her gaze falling on the horrific image they were fixed on. Her mouth went dry and her breath came shorter. "I am Commander Blake of the USS Galileo, we're here to help, our Doctor is going to come closer to take a look at you..." she motioned to Allyndra, but kept her weapon level all the same. "Can you tell us who you are? What happened?"

Sandoval stepped aside as soon as she heard Blake and her team arrive. She was happy to let the commander take charge. There was no logic to what was going on and it made no sense scientifically. They needed more information and she hoped the doctor could provide it.

"...Commander...Blake..." The woman's breaths were short, swift and pained. "...You shouldn't have come here..." Her head and hollow eye sockets looked upwards to face the Starfleet team. "...Leave...." she wheezed, "...Now....!!"

Allyndra had been glad not to have to go into the Jefferies tube. As she moved past everyone else to attend to the woman she ignored the head held in the woman's hands. "Calm, stay calm, we will help you." She tried to put on her most calm voice and added a little musical lilt to it to try to make it sound more calming. "Can you say what happened if not too traumatic?" Allyndra knew that based on what she had seen so far that this might be one of the few survivors and possibly the only one.

The woman's half-intact eyelids slowly blinked over her vacant ocular sockets. Her arms started to tremble and her fingers tightened within the corpse's hair. "...Once you see them..." Her facial expressions morphed into a semblance of pure terror. "...I won't go back!"

Vansen frowned at her words, looking around before he let out a breath from where he stood, a little bit back so not to be in the way of the doctor. "We won't make you," he said, quickly, the fear in her face sparking something in him. As if this place hadn't already reminded him of death, her fear was something that you could almost taste. "Alright? We're here to help. Let us help you."

Her breath quickened and her face turned to visible panic. "You can't help me! ...None of you!" Desperation laced her voice. It was the sound of futility. She reached back behind her body with one hand, and, in the dark, procured a concealed metallic object.

Darius caught a glimpse of the woman's movement and observed a small glinting blade in her hand of some variety. "She's got a knife!" he called out with warning to the group, quickly training his hand phaser on her. But before he could act, she plunged the weapon deep into own neck then horizontally sliced her trachea open.

Warm blood sprayed from her neck and burst across the faces and chests of those closest to the woman. Her hand relaxed then fell from the blade, leaving it embedded in her throat. The sound of gargled, bubbling breathing ensued for many seconds while she quickly bled out with a red cascade dousing the front of her torso.

Blake stared, frozen in shock for a long moment, the woman's blood staining her jacket, spattered on her pale skin. She finally managed to get some air back into her lungs, an overwhelming sense of failure choking her. She swore under her breath, taking a moment to regain herself. She pulled her jacket off, using it to scrub the blood off of her skin before carefully moving her commbadge over to the under top and dropping the jacket limply to the ground.

"Shit!" Lamar said, his arms going up to his head where he closed his eyes and contemplated what he'd just witnessed. Shit. She didn't need to die like that. Alone and without hope by her own hand. Few things unnerved the veteran Marine officer except for the unknown. And this, was that epitome.

Vansen stared, his breath caught in his throat. He looked at the others, with confusion, before back at the now dead body. He shook his head, slowly, frowning. He couldn't understand it, couldn't comprehend it.

Allyndra had caught the movement but did not know what the woman was reaching for. She leaned in closer to try to get readings and help get the object. The sight of the knife caused her to fall back to a sitting spot and hold out an arm defensively. She thought the woman was coming after her but it was not the case. The blood sprayed across her face and uniform. Involuntarily she licked at it tasting the acrid taste of epinephrine in the blood.

Amanda had gone back to watch the corridor after the rest of the team arrived and she'd decided the woman wasn't a threat, when she heard the woman had a knife she looked back briefly to see if there was going to be a ruckus.

Just outside the door Ullswater was doing her best not to throw up. The tension of it all and the smells of blood had unwanted memories pushing their way into the forefront of her mind but as she had been poking her head round the door to watch the situation unfold it had all become much to real. She wanted to run, to hide, to do anything other than stand here. She glanced to Amanda next to her but the security officer seemed well put together. Ullswater tried to swallow down whatever was coming up and maybe emulate the woman next to her.

Blake was about to ask for a team member to search for any clues of who she was, but closed her mouth before the words came out. If it had to be done, she'd do it herself. She knelt down, trying to avoid the pooling blood, reaching out to search the woman for any signs of who she might be. She finally pulled an ID card out of her pocket, shining her light on it. "Starfleet," she said quietly, shaking her head.

"What did she mean by once you see them, commander?"

"I don't know," Blake replied honestly with a slight shake of her head. And she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She turned the card over, trying to make it out but struggling. She scanned it with her tricorder, the profile of the woman popping up on the display. "Lara Roberts...junior researcher..." she shook her head with a note of bitterness, glancing around. Her fear of the bad omens that had heralded this mission were proving to be justified. And it made her feel sick to her stomach.

Vansen looked at Blake before he looked around. "What in the universe could make someone like that kill themselves?" he asked aloud, trying to see anything that could give him a hint. The walls stared back at him, enclosed, protecting against the elements but also trapping them.

"Do we have any information about him yet?" Blake asked with a frown as she cast her light on the severed head. Bringing it back to the facts, what they actually knew, grounding the situation, however surreal, back to reality.

Vansen walked over and crouched down to start scanning the head. He frowned, shaking his head. "Human male, DNA on database. Matches Doctor Alexandre Dubois, Federation scientist whose speciality was theoretical physics." He stopped and stood, slowly, watching the head. "Unable to determine the cause of dead, although you could argue that decapitation was it. Depends on the rest of him."

Blake nodded, letting out a sharp breath as she looked around, casting her light to the gloom which had taken on an even more foreboding heaviness. "Warraquim, have you found anything that might give us an indication of how things have gone so wrong here?"

"Elevated stress hormones, willingness to kill oneself, and indications that there are obviously very grisly deaths well something I would say we probably don't want to run into. From the little information given with the curious phrase: 'Once you see them', combined with missing eyes and the sealed door well we might be dealing with some sort of creatures." Allyndra got up and looked at her blood-splashed uniform at moment. "Again speculation commander but I would guess something got out of the labs that shouldn't have. Look, supposedly sickbay is on this level and while power is of the essence, that means going past that lab level. I would say that logs in sickbay along with possible emergency power is our best indication might be to head there and see if I can access anything."

Blake sighed inwardly as she glanced to the door that had been carved open by the team. She supposed it had been too much to hope that the tricorder might have been able to spell out what had caused such an extreme reaction. "We're literally stumbling around in the dark, we could be walking past or over anything like this. And those logs are useless unless we can get the power back on..." she glanced to the time. "Let's get back on task. We head down to get the power back on, it's our best chance of getting the full picture. Then you can head to Sickbay."

"Yes Commander," Vansen said, nodding before he looked around for a moment. It made sense. Get the power back on. It made sense to him, the plan. The plan did mean going further down into this creepy place, but he pushed it aside.

Blake gave a firm nod as she lifted her weapon, making no move to retrieve her stained jacket that she'd discarded in the pool of blood. "We all go together; once we've got power on we can split into teams. Let's go," she led the way out, her torch casting an eerie glow as she kept her weapon lifted and ready. She led them quickly back towards the hatch they'd managed to get open, not wanting to hang around in the dark any longer than necessary. She directed her light into the tube, taking a good look around before making a move to get closer to it. Inwardly, she sighed. She didn't want to get into the death tunnel. "Semper Fi..." she muttered as she carefully climbed into the gaping mouth of the dark tunnel. "Turell, bring up the rear..."

Allyndra did not want to move. An enclosed space like that she knew every instinct would be screaming. A shot might help, but if something happened she could not afford not to have a reaction. "I'll take second to last." Allyndra blurted out. She was panting slightly."I don't do well in very enclosed spaces."

Amanda groaned ever so slightly, tail end Charlie was not where she wanted to be, she wanted to be at the front where she should be ready to take anything that threatened the team head on with extreme prejudice but she waited anyway.

FUBAR. That's what Darius was muttering in his head as he exited the residential room with the woman who'd decapitated herself. He pushed the memories of the sight from his thoughts - for now - and returned to the mission at hand and the new orders coming from the team leader. With Turell on rear guard with the doctor, he moved forward to take point alongside the XO. He watched her descend down into the Jefferies tube then followed closely behind her.

Vansen followed as well, with the odd ease of a man used to Jeffries tubes, knowing how to move. He kept his eyes ahead, the tricorder in his hand with the familiar lights. On the lookout for anything interesting.

Slinging her rifle, Amanda clambered into the Jefferies tube after the rest of the team.

The light was erratic at best as Blake gripped the ladder and started to carefully descend into the depths of the station. With the torch strapped to her wrist, the narrow beam of light danced around with how she moved, creating a flickering effect that didn't let her focus on anything for more than a moment before the light was somewhere else. As each step took her further down into the darkness, she tried to shake the feeling of descending into a crypt.

"Hopefully we will find a more open space than we have gotten to so far." Allyndra quipped as she followed the rest. She ached to fly.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Blake's foot hit the deck of the third, lowest level. She lifted her weapon as soon as she was out in the corridor, looking around as she moved just enough forward to allow room for the rest to join her. She had no intention of letting anyone get separated, not in this pitch black. She shivered with the cold, watching her breath as she tried to see ahead, peering into the dark.

The conn officer was the next one out after the XO. He stifled a shiver from the noticeable temperature change then slid into formation next to Blake. His weapon and wrist-mounted flashlight scanned the corridor in front of them, revealing no visible bodies or signs of life that he could see. Environmental ice was crystallizing along the lower sections of the walls. "...Clear..." Lamar reported in a whispering voice.

Allyndra slipped out into the darkness and cold of the level. "Just great, if it was not something confined, now it is cold." She thought to herself. Akkadians were not endothermic creatures. She figured she should be fine as long as they kept moving, but anything prolonged would become problematic.

Slipping out of the tube Donald quickly joined the formation adding his light to penetrate the darkness. "Ooh that's a bit nippy." He remarked.

Vansen looked around as he came out, frowning as he looked around. His eyes went to Donald and he made a face, but the cold didn't bother him that much yet.

Finally reaching the bottom Amanda crawled out of the tube, she felt the chill but it wasn't bothering her as much as the small ache that was forming in her shoulder. "Last man." She called out letting Blake know everyone was out and ready to move on.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo-A

PO3 Constantin Vansen
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

Ensign Amanda Turell
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[Pnpc Mimi]

PO2 Donald Andrews
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

CMDR Allyndra illm Warraquim
Second and Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

LCDR Marisa Sandoval
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

ENS Sofie Ullswater
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

RSS Feed