Lingering Tendrils (Part 2 of 3)

Posted on 21 Aug 2023 @ 7:11pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Ensign Mimi & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Ensign Amanda Turell
Edited on on 21 Aug 2023 @ 7:13pm

2,910 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 3, Security Office/Brig
Timeline: MD 11, 1909 hrs

Previously, on Lingering Tendrils (Part 1)...

The doors to sickbay hissed open then shut behind Lamar as he exited the medical bay. He glanced left then right down the corridor and observed a vacant pathway to the armory and security office less than twenty meters away. That was where Ullswater was supposed to be. Putting a genial smile on his face, he slowly walked down the corridor and into the armory alcove. When he turned the corner, he suddenly came face-to-face with Ullswater again.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

She jumped, a full startled rabbit upon hearing a firework jump. Those few moments alone again in this mockery of Galileo had been enough for the anxiety to wind Ullswater up like a spring. "I-" she took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves "I didn't expect you to get here so fast."

He wanted to tell her what he'd just done but hesitated. Instead, he reached above her shoulders and input his command codes into the small armory's control console. The weapons locker's hatch clicked open and presented the two with an entire array of Type IIIC compression phaser rifles and Type II hand phasers. "I think I killed her, Ullswater... Locksley in Sickbay."

"No." She grabbed his arm and held it in a tight grip "You can feel this. This is real. I am real and you are real." She released the grip and went to arm herself, continuing to talk as she did so. Her tone was cold "She wasn't on the away team which means she was just an element of our imagination. You did nothing wrong, you escaped, just like I said."

Sofie weighed the phaser rifle in her hands, it didn't feel as heavy as it had in the last drill, or maybe it was just that she felt more ready to use it. "Doctor Locksley probably won't be the last. We just have to remember who is real."

Like a well-trained Marine, he managed to swallow his stupid feelings down into his chest then nodded to her. They were bonded now, he and Ullswater. The two of them were on their own to navigate this precipice of darkness and no one was coming to save them. He obtained a phaser rifle for himself then instinctively pulled the battery pack to check it before slapping it back into its housing. He thumbed the safety then tapped the power level selector until it reached level 8 - the kill setting. Then he helped his science colleague do the same with her weapon. And...for the first time, he looked at Ullswater and felt a connection. Not one of duty, but of personal admiration and appeal.

Ullswater's dark grey eyes looked back. She felt it too, for all the fear and the chaos that the two of them were embroiled in they were facing it with an unshakeable partnership. With Lamar at her side there was stability and strength enough to keep the fear at bay. And with that strength the two of them perhaps stood a chance of saving the away mission, to rescue their friends from nightmare. It was time to go.

The two lions prowled Galileo's corridors. Armed with phaser rifles and deadly conviction they made their way towards the brig.

There was nothing that could stop the two of them. Ullswater kept telling herself that and she was starting to believe it. The fear that had been controlling her was buried as she let the academy training take over her actions. She knew the ex-marine beside her was bringing a wealth of experience and there was nobody she could imagine in the world she'd rather have backing her up right now. This monster might be clever but it had made one grave mistake in letting the two of them get back together.

As they approached the doors to the brig Ullswater signalled a pause. This was the last moment they would have before the creature realised their plan, the last moment before everything would descend into chaos. in a hushed voice she repeated the plan that was in her head "We go in, secure the room, you take down the forcefields and I'll take down Dr Quil. Once its done, just get to engineering any way you can." She closed her eyes for a second, this was it, the point of no return "We're going to save them Lamar."

He winked and put a hand on her shoulder in a reassuring manner, then moved in front of her before kneeling down to the side of the entrance to the combined security office and brig. "We'll have to take one of them out to get to the brig. On my mark." He held up his hand in silence then counted down from three with finger gestures. Once his fist closed, he rose to a low-combat stance with his rifle raised and trained on any occupants he might encounter.

Go go go! His mind raced as he cut the pie to the first corner then swiftly turned to face the small isolated security office. His phaser rifle rose when he saw the figure of a familiar woman...another tall, brown-haired officer. Turell. "On the floor, now!" he yelled at her out of instinct. "Don't talk!"

When the door opened Amanda looked up from the desk she sat behind doing paperwork. "Chief what are you...." She started and then saw the phaser rifle he was holding. She was armed herself but being seated with her arm still in a sling she knew she stood no chance of drawing it before he shot her. "Lamar, put the rifle down, you're back on the Galileo, there's no danger here."

"I said don't talk!" With severe eyes, he closed the distance to the security officer and rounded her administrative table where he now had a clear view of the weapon she possessed. "Throw that down and get on the floor, face down and hands out in front!" Darius snapped a quick view behind him to observe how his companion was doing. "Ullswater, you're up, kill that Betazoid!"

"That's not going to happen, I was on the cold station mission with you, I saw the same horrors you did, i nearly broke my arm again fighting them off." Amanda said, she desperately wanted to alert the bridge but he'd probably shoot her before the first word got out of her mouth, the longer she kept him her the sooner someone might notice he was gone. "You got hurt really bad and need help."

He moved closer to her, pulling back his rifle in a CQB stance to avoid the woman-creature from grabbing it. "I said shut up and get on the ground!" he yelled again at high volume. "Ullswater! We don't have a lot of time here..."

"Where are they?" The fear was creeping back in to Ullswater's voice. Her frantic eyes searched the cells but she couldn't see her target anywhere in here. She tried to think but in the heat of the moment her thoughts couldn't find any of the traction they needed. They needed to stabilise the situation, get themselves some breathing room. "Do what he says Turell." she shouted over her shoulder "You're one of us, you don't have to get hurt here."

Further down in the brig Mimi's ears twitched and the loud voices quickly woke her up from a nap, something was happening, there were too many raised voices. She stepped closer to the forcefield and tried to look towards the central area. "Sofie? what are you doing in here?" She asked when she saw the woman looking quite frantic with a phaser in her hand.

Knowing that the previously sleeping figure from one of the cells, something that looked a lot like Mimi, was probably not real Ullswater tried to push the voice out of her head. Something about it was gnawing at her though, why were the rest of the cells empty and where were the scientists? Ullswater leaned in towards the Mimi lookalike and in a hushed voice asked "Why are you in the brig Mimi?"

"Did you not hear? I got into a fight with one of the Klingons, someone killed him that night, they think I did it." Mimi replied. She could smell Ensign Turell was still there and Chief Lamar, something didn't feel right. "What is going on? why are you running around with a phaser?"

This was a nightmare, none of this was going to make sense. Ullswater had to keep reminding herself of that, the logic of this space wasn't the same as that of the normal world. She scrunched up her eyes in a moment of thought before the clarity returned and her face turned to stone. "Darius, I've found Dr Quil, she was disguised as Mimi. This is the cell I need access to."

Copy, Lamar thought to himself. He circled around to the side of Turell then barked new instructions. "Open that cell!" He pointed with his free hand to where the false projection of Ensign Mimi was. This simulation of the cold station's Galileo was more complex than he'd imagined. But he had to remain tough and fortify his mindset. He and the science officer had a difficult job to perform, but one which would soon return them back to the real Galileo. The entity from the other side was testing them.

Amanda shook her head. "I'm not going to open the cell, you need to stand down and let me contact the Captain, she may be an asshole but she'll clear everything up for you."

"Dr Quil? I am me Sofie, remember the beach party we had on the holodeck on Regula one?" Mimi said trying to think of something that only Sofie would know about her that would convince her that whoever this Dr Quil was, it wasn't her in some sort of disguise. "Remember I said me and John finally had sex, well he proposed to me last week, when we get back to the station we are going to get married."

Mimi's words shook Ullswater, for a split second she stood there in shock. In that moment she wanted to be wrong, she wanted this to be the real Galileo, she wanted this to be the real Mimi and she wanted to give her all the congratulations and hugs in the world. But none of this was real. She wiped her brow with her forearm and the sleeve came away soggy with sweat. The heat was unbearable and the walls were closing in. This is a nightmare.

"Don't use my memories like that, don't pretend that you are her. She's my dear friend and I love her..." Ullswater's voice was all fear and desperation tinged with anger "One day John is going to ask Mimi to marry him, when she tells me I'll give her a hug and congratulate her. The two of them will have a beautiful ceremony, it will be the happiest day of their lives. But you? You'll be dead, you'll have died here today for all the suffering you have caused and all the lives you have taken." She pulled the phaser ready to end the scientist's existence and called over to the other two "Turell, Darius. We need to do this now."

In the near distance Lamar could hear talking. Way too much talking for a simple kill job. Infiltrate, clean, exfil, he remembered from his many past years in Starfleet's Marine Corps. "I'm coming," he called over his shoulder before backing away from Turell while still facing her with his weapon trained. He managed several glances behind him as he back-peddled from the security office into the adjacent brig alcove.

Darius finally swung his eyes off Turell then faced the brig cell and its forcefield. "Stand back. Let's end this." He aimed his rifle at the cell's control panel then pulled the trigger. A single white-hot orange bolt of high-powered phased energy erupted from the tip of his weapon then impacted the small LCARS panel. A large explosion ensued, sending remnants of the console and the surrounding bulkhead flying in a conical shrapnel pattern. The brig cell's forcefield suddenly fizzled then collapsed, and within seconds the vessel's internal ship-wide security alert siren sounded after detecting weapons fire.

After Darius turned away Amanda slowly took her arm out of the sling, she was sensing the moment would come soon where she could and would probably be forced to draw and shoot both of her fellow crewmates.

When the forcefield dropped Mimi tensed up, her body wasn't ready to go into action but she couldn't just stand around and have Sofie shoot her but penned in to a small cell there wasn't much she could do.

On Earth, some ten thousand years ago, the humans that lived on that world first began to domesticate cats. Archaeological evidence and evolutionary speculation suggest that these first wildcats gravitated towards the human settlements as the emerging agricultural developments led to an increase in rodent populations around humans. Through millennia of natural evolution and then breeding these animals turned into a creature that lived symbiotically with humans. From humans they received food and shelter and in return they offered protection from rodents. Most importantly the Earth cats developed features to make them appear more and more adorable to the humans, to the point that the mere sight of one of these animals could trigger the protective and maternal instincts of the humans.

Ullswater was thinking about this as she cursed the quirk of convergent evolution that had led the Nekomi to have many of these same characteristics. It's the perfect disguise, this is exactly the sort of thing Quil would have thought of. As she looked down the length of her phaser to the shape of her friend all those protective instincts were telling her not to do what she was about to. They made her pause.

It was a pause just long enough for the fear to creep back in. The room began to boil, the air in Sofie's throat felt like it was on fire and the pain in her hands came back as horrible as ever. She couldn't hold on to the rifle, it clattered to the ground and the vision of the flayed man surrounded in flames came back to her. She'd been stupid to think she could ever have beaten the Cold Station. In the face of such monstrosities there was nothing any of them could have done. She let out a whimper as she stumbled back a few paces from the cell, her eyes scrunched shut in pain.

Lamar's dark eyes snapped from the projection of the security officer to the sound of Ullswater's rifle hitting the deck and her pained emotional mumbling. "Shit!" he exclaimed again "Ullswater!" His only friend suddenly looked feeble, lost and controlled by the cold station and the telepathic doctor disguised as the ensign. She'd gotten too close - waited too long to pull the trigger. He wouldn't make that same mistake. He turned his body away from Turell then squared his feet and aimed his phaser rifle at the center of Ensign Mimi's chest. "...F--k you..." he whispered as the tip of his finger pulled the trigger to its break point with skilled precision.

Seeing Sofie drop her phaser rifle Amanda took a deep breath, her hand slowly moving closer to the Type II at her waist. She knew it was already set to medium stun, the most optimum take down shot on any average humanoid. As Darius turned away from her to take aim at Mimi she quickly pulled the weapon from its holster, willed her right arm to not tremble and took aim at Darius' back. After a moments pause to ensure her aim she pressed the firing stud.

The phaser burst from Turell's weapon slammed into the back of Lamar's broad shoulders just as his finger pulled the trigger. His body absorbed the entirety of the stun which froze and paralyzed his neutral cortex. His index finger clamped down further on the trigger, sending another blistering orange phaser rifle bolt toward the Nekomi. It missed high, however, streaking just above the felinoid woman's hairline before it impacted the wall behind her and exploded, sending debris and shrapnel across the brig cell. Lamar Darius' eyes closed as he fell face-down onto the deck, his body and mind stunned and temporarily unconscious.

Ullswater was barley able to register the fall of her comrade through the pain and suffocating heat. But she did register it. They were defeated, as good as dead, but deep down in the animal part of the ensign's brain a switch flicked. That last burst of adrenalin before life ends. There were no thoughts, just action, as she leaped forward in one last feeble effort to grab on to Dr Quil. Hands clawing, tears in her eyes, hope at it's end.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

Ensign Sofie Ullswater
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

Ensign Mimi
Deputy Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

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

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

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