Stop, Children, What's That Sound?
Posted on Sun Nov 4th, 2018 @ 12:52pm by Captain Mrazak & Lieutenant Commander BaoJun Qiao & Ferrofax
Edited on on Sat Mar 30th, 2019 @ 5:27pm
5,351 words; about a 27 minute read
Mission:
S1E2: Half Past Dead
Location: New Far Florence colony
Timeline: MD 2
Amidst a cold and isolated building near the colony's center appeared five pillars of blue energy. The scrambled matter quickly sorted into humanoid shapes before the energy dissipated. Three blue unis, a yellow, and a green showcased Starfleet's first official presence on the surface of New Far Florence. The public square was small but adequate for pedestrian traffic. Fitting, since the colony likely utilized air transport for just about anything they needed. Bits of trash were tossed about by a light breeze, standing out as the only movement anywhere. Not even the make-shift lampposts so much as flickered, though the afternoon sun foreshadowed the coming of dusk on that side of the planet.
"Ferrofax," Mrazak said into his combadge. "Maintain a transporter lock on us at all times. I want us beamed back to the ship at the first sign of trouble."
=/\="Acknowledged. Though given every EM band on the spectrum is quiet, that should not be a problem.=/\=
"That's what concerns me," Mrazak said. "This world should be thriving."
Turning to the others, Mrazak quickly barked out some orders. "Marine, go secure the perimeter. Lieutenant Qiao, look for a terminal and see what you can find. Lieutenant Odette, find a power junction panel and make sure the lights aren't going out on us anytime soon. Lieutenant McKay, you're with me."
"Yes Sir," Dak said, raising the barrel of his rifle and eyeing the seemingly empty windows and streets. Even the rustle of the wind through the street seemed muted, dead. What a day to be a member of Starfleet's Misguided Children.
Ciara moved away in the direction of the nearest power junction.
"Moving," Nevada hummed, taking this a little too nonchalantly, Her field kit clanking as she moved alongside Mrazak.
Bao nodded to the psychotic pointy eared one as he moved off to look through the seemingly abandoned colony, conversing with his familiar as he began moving. ‘Not that this is probably necessary, but use the Eye Protocol,” he instructed. Rather than respond, his muse filtered an affirmative text message across his entopics as all his wireless interfaces were closed tighter than Admiral Janeway’s legs when Q was visiting. It made work slower since he could not remotely query information that way, but it was definitely safer when dealing with potential extinction threats. Calling back the colony layout, he directed himself towards what ought to be the colony’s operations building, housing its infrastructure. Given design, he figured it was most likely to have machinery still operable, even if it was amongst the newest buildings, only having recently become separate from the administration building.
It took him the better part of 10 minutes to make it that far. Surprisingly, the power in the building still appeared to be on and the door opened without any ceremony or problem. That was, disconcerting, but pushing things further, once he entered, was the tomb-like silence of the building. Advanced as the Federation and Lagash were, they still hadn’t managed total silence from their infrastructure. Disconcerting was quickly ceding ground to “abso-fucking-lutely terrifying” but he was pretty sure that verged into unprofessional. Then again, since no one was around to hear it besides himself, we truthfully was a bit terrified at the unmitigated hubris of poking at eldritch horrors.
Mrazak pointed as he walked to a large tarpaulin overshadowing a confined temporary shelter with a quarantine warning on it. "I want to know what's in there." He stopped short of the shelter, leaving several paces distance, as he assessed his tricorder. "Looks like there's nothing," he said, "though the quarantine's integrity failed days ago." He looked up with a furrowed brow ridging his face. Whatever had been in there was loose. "Doctor, give me readings."
"Background gamma Radiation is slightly above Normal, but curiously...I'm not detecting any Of the Cosmic Microwave background," Nevada said as she hung back, her gazed focused on her tricorder. "So...I guess...that's a thing."
Before Mrazak could long consider her readings, his thoughts were interrupted by a chirp from his combadge.
=/\="Dak to survey team. I'm getting this feeling me my gut that this planet ain't right. I have a heavy duty air hauler over on the north side, it's engine cowling is still warm like the operator got out for a coffee break. I'm-SHIT!=/\= he barked, the sound of a high powered phaser blast echoing in the distance. His panting breath returned. =/\=In pursuit, heading towards the Colonial Admin building! Home in on my combadge!=/\=
Bao was starting to work a terminal when his commbadge chirped. He only heard a few garbled words, however, before it started spitting static. That did not bode well. Before he could really react, however, he registered a subtle change in the building. Tensing, he began to make a break for the door as he caught site of a shape moving through the machinery. He cursed fluently under his breathe as he made a break for moving faster, fiddling less than gracefully with the phaser he’d decided to bring along on this mission just in case. He tried his commbadge. “Qiao here,” he said. “Anyone reading?”
The static was hardly unsurprising, all things considered, but it didn’t help. He was alone in territory he had to presume was hostile. This was so, so not covered in nerdy brainiac school. He made a mental note, if he survived this, to bribe the nearest marine with whatever favours necessary to cover not-dying for scientists too stupid to stay out of trouble 101. In the meantime the best he could do was keep moving and try to stay alert. Ideally, he’d want to leave the colony entirely and try to get out of range of whatever interference there was or create some other form of being noticeable, but he could at least hope that someone else from Theta was still active. That in mind, what every Lagashi knew was the most secure place was always the center of administration. He’d go there.
Nevada clutched her tricorder tightly. "Why did I let you talk me into this mission!" She grumbled as she crouched behind Mrazak. Her left hand started to drift toward her phaser while her eyes darted around the immediate area.
"Oh, no you don't!" Mrazak scolded her with an accusing finger. "I still remember your little number with the ambassador back on Bynaus. If you want to pull that thing out, then you go first."
"I'll just keep it holstered then," Nevada scoffed at him.
Rather than respond, Mrazak reached out to the Phantom. "Ferrofax," he said through the open channel, "scan the surface and tell me what the blazes he's going on about!"
=/\= "Surface clutter from the colony buildings is making a high-resolution scan impossible from his distance. I'm detecting Specialists Dak's combadge heading towards the Colony Administration Building. My attempts to access the CAB's internal security systems have so far been less than successful. One thing I am sure of though is there are no humanoid thermal signatures within the colony settlement. At least out in the open, either way." =/\= Ferrofax stated from Mrzark's combadge, a blur of heavy static beginning to lace the AI's words towards the end.
Mrazak sighed heavily. Hopefully his man on the ground had better luck. "Lieutenant Qiao, where are you now? Did you locate and access a terminal? Belay that. Converge on Dak's position and brief us there."
"Acknowledged, sir. I will make my way to the colony administration building in approximately 5 minutes," came the level reply, delivered in perfect English.
Garbled interference swallowed up what Mrazak presumed was Ciara's response. "Lieutenant Odette, your message didn't come through. Meet up with Lieutenant Qiao on your way to the administration building."
"Took you guys long enough," Dak said as he stood to one side of the door to the Colonial Admin Building.
Unlike the prefab buildings that boasted numerous stories, this structure was squat and bunker-like. The sides were clearly duranium hull plates and pitted ports at the corners showed its spaceship roots. Standard fringe colony set up: land an armoured hab module as a seed and grow out. Keep said seed around to act as the colony hub and shelter until suitable alternative infrastructure could be created. Dak nodded into the darkness beyond the main hatch/entrance.
"I was half a block to the south checking the perimeter when they blue rag thing jumped up from behind a stalled air car and made a break for the CAB. Humanoid, covered in rags. Fast like a son of a bitch," he grunted. "I'm getting static feedback on the tricorder and targeting computer in the rifle. Com's aren't much better."
Bao came running up, mildly winded. "Thank the Jade Emperor. My commbadge has been down for ages. What is going on? Despite my tricorder reading clear, turns out I was not alone in the machinery building."
Looking around, Mrazak realized that Ciara hadn't made an appearance. He didn't like it one bit. "Mrazak to Odette--what's your status?"
More static.
"Ferrofax, beam Odette directly to the Infirmary under level 10 quarantine force fields and have the EMH check her over." Mrazak looked at the rest of his team. "We all stay together now. Marine, take point and lead us through the front door. Everyone else follow closely."
"Haaaaave the EEEEEEMH check her over!"
The screeching static-filled voice of Commander Mrazak screeched the words from Dak's combadge along with a savage burbling roar of background noise. Dak slapped a hand on his combadge to silence it, and then looked at the away team leader.
"Must be comm's feedback. I don't think Ferrofax is in our services call area right now," he raised the pulse rifle, socketing the stock into his shoulder as he sighted down its length. "But a CAB is a disaster bunker for a colony. Water, air, power, and long range comm's. My folks always said I ever got in a scrap, find a CAB to ride it out in."
The reception area they walked into was a utilitarian space that was slowly being colonised by a PR department. Bare bulkheads were partly covered in laminated posters depicting various colony job functions and their importance to making a better world. All of them seemed to be underpinned by a corporate logo: Ingram Nanoscale Solutions. At the back of the reception area was a helpful collection of signs for Housing Assignments, Utilities, Colonial Administration, Land Registry, and Federation Marshal's Office. As they stepped in, Dak made a quick turn on the ball of his heel, and came to a stop, whistling as he looked at the wall they'd just passed through.
It was littered with scorch marks, ranging from old hand phaser's that were little more than laser pointers, to at least comparable blast damage to the cannon the Marine was carrying.
"That is what my daddy would call a murder box," Dak said. "'cept there ain't no bodies."
Mrazak scowled at the situation. "Signs of weapons discharge. No bodies. Not even the runner you saw earlier. Odette is unaccounted for. And our comms are down, which can only mean our transporter locks are likely compromised as well." Scanning the 'murder box' once more, Mrazak came to a decision. "Change of plans. We're going to hunker down until we can reestablish communications with the Phantom and get out of here. In the meantime, we can still figure out where everybody went."
"Colony central will be at the heart of the building, right next to the 60 gigawatt subspace transmitter array on the roof. That things designed to punch a real time vid link to the nearest wherever. Should be able to reach orbit no sweat," Dak said, nudging one of the blast holes of the door with a boot. He looked over his shoulder. "What? I grew up on a Fringe colony like this. I remember having my 5th birthday in the function room. Best half hour of my life before I fell in with you lot."
"Ferrofax beam Oddette-...Ferrofax beam Oddette-...Ferrofax beam-beam-beam-beam."
Dak took his combadge off his armoured vest and pocketed it in a pouch.
"I dislike whatever FM radio station we're picking up," the Specialist grumbled. Taking his big rifle, with its glowing torch beam, he led the way deeper into the complex. More signs of hastily made and rapidly destroyed barricades could be seen. More blast damage pocked the walls, but its intensity and accuracy seemed to be falling off the deeper they got into the warren of corridors. Almost as if the number of weapons firing at whatever was breaking in was dropping off one by one. Outside the control centre, a sign proclaimed the one year anniversary of the founding of New Far Florence. The christening of a new fountain in 'Landers Square' was billed as the main attraction.
A heavy blast door rested across the corridor, an overhead sign stated 'Colonial Control' was beyond.
"First door we've found in this place," Dak said. "Anyone fancy trying to jimmy the lock?"
Mrazak stepped forward. "Allow me." The odds of any Clock Makers being restrained behind the blast doors were positively minimal in his estimation. If anything, he ran the risk of exposing any potential survivors to whatever hazard they were hiding from, but that was a risk he was willing to take. Restoring communication with the Phantom trumped anything else at this point. "Looks to be a heavy duty maglock system with auto-resetting security measures to prevent tampering." Mrazak grinned. "Fortunately I have the key."
Dak nodded, stepped aside and made a gallant little wave with his rifle.
Reaching down into his boot, Mrazak retrieved a rolled cloth. "I may have to upgrade your security clearance just for watching this," he said to Dak. There was a small computer chit within the cloth bundle that Mrazak affixed to the maglock's socket. Mrazak scrolled through the keylogger algorithm until the maglock acknowledged the master reset command. The maglock clicked in release and then let out a hiss as the doors parted, breaking the airtight seal. "After you, Marine."
Dak made to turn into the door, only to snap back as a flurry of phaser bolts came out of the door way and slagged the far wall of the corridor.
"STAY BACK!" a reedy voice screamed from the control centre, as a second volley of shots underlined the still glowing holes. "I'LL SHOOT YOU 'FORE YOU TAKE ME!!!"
Dak didn't take a moment before kicking into action. He unbuckled a device from his equipment harness, depressed a button on it side, and then tossed it into the control centre at foot level. A second later a ghostly after-image of a flash flowed out of the room like fog, and Dak rolled around the corner barking orders with the aid of his armour's voice amplification system.
Who knew The Destroyer Of Worlds And All Things dressed in Starfleet Marine green?
The control centre for the colony was a circular room with a depressed centre enclosed with workstations. Overhead displays would normally show off various data sets and views, complimenting the large map table in the centre. What existed now was the same room and layout, but littered with half-empty crates of supplies, water, bedding and other sundries. The monitors had all been smashed to pieces, and the map table was littered with wrappers from a half dozen MRE style meal packs.
And bent over the table, being read the riot act in Marine-ese, was a man covered in blue rags. The rags were the remains of a wall weather poncho shredded along the hem. He was gangly, tall with hollow cheeks and a wild look in his eyes not helped by the Marine issue daze grenade: all the effects of a concussion without the long-term neural trauma.
Dak kicked the 2320 model phaser pistol the surviving colonist had been using and looked over his shoulder. The survivor merely alternated between sobbing and moaning.
"He's calm now Sir, but I don't suggest letting him up," Dak said.
"Then don't," Mrazak said pointedly. Turning to Nevada, his voice softened by a tick. "Doctor, give me readings. Is he mutated or otherwise injured?
Nevada looked up from her tricorder. "Human, no mutations, But damn...Some one should give him a sandwich," she said with a rather blunt tone in her voice. "Neurological chemicals are all over the place, but not unusual for someone who's gone through extreme trauma recently, and...oh?" she paused and grinned. "He's rocking the RCX 32 Vaccine, I helped develop that back in the day, helps fight off weaponized viruses," She beamed proudly. "That means he's one of ours."
"Splendid," Mrazak said. "Get what information you can from him. We need to know what happened here."
Leaving Nevada and Dak to assess the survivor, Mrazak stepped aside to have a private word with Bao. "Earlier you mentioned your combadge went down, yet you managed to give us a clear ETA. How did you manage that with a malfunctioning combadge? Was it through the terminal I sent you to find?"
Bao looked at the Vulcan with a slightly horrified expression. "I did not contact you," he said in a confused tone. "My combadge ceased to function at the same time Specialist Dak first began firing. I gambled on coming here instead of heading into the surrounding area to attempt to get clear. I made the reasoned assumption that it was unlikely I could make it far enough, even armed, to restore communication."
Mrazak's scowl deepened even further as he fought to suppress his panic. "We need to get that comms array up and working. Come with me." He led the Lagash back to the dark corridor. "Lieutenant Qiao and I are heading to the roof," Mrazak told the others, pointedly putting Bao's name first as the canary in the coal mine. "Get what you can out of the survivor and await further orders."
After a few steps forward, he gestured for Bao to go first toward the roof access lift.
Bao moved into the lift. He strongly doubted they would accomplish much with that, but if the point eared nutjob wanted to try, well, it counted as better than doing noting.
"Now you gonna play nice with the other kids, or do I have to keep bending your arm like this?" Dak asked. A whimper of acknowledgement followed with a shaky nod. The Marine nodded, and gently unbent the survivor's arm and helped him to sit on the map table. He squinted, as though trying to make them out.
"I...do not know you," he said slowly, as though coming to a great and profound conclusion.
"But you recognise this?" Dak asked, holding up the combadge he'd stowed away. The ragged man nodded slowly, eyeing the others. "You ever wear one of these?"
"Course I did! Standard issue had to wear it. No choice, no avenue for free thought. Had to wear them. Help you stay in contact with your ship and crew mates. Helped you avoid accidents," he nervously ran a hand back and forth through his hair, like he was trying to massage information out of it. "I had an accident. I was in the engineering temple, with the brass walls, and the crystals surrounded by burning golden light. And I...I saw these glyphs. They were like circles, so I touched them. And then there were ones like lines, and so I had to touch them too. And then the triangles..."
He seemed to lose his train of thought, his head turning to look over his shoulder.
"Doc, pardon me for saying so but this fella doesn't seem to be flying at full impulse," Dak mused quietly. "Guys either a medical discharge from the fleet, or he's off the missing scout ship-"
"Traveller," the man said, swinging his feet back and forth in the air. "Petty Officer 2nd Class Kevin Barnes, Plasma Manifold Tech. 337832Kappa. I'm still in service you know? They never let you go when they've got their hooks in."
Barne's voice took on a babbling tone, as tears rolled down his face.
"I don't remember here..." he moaned, pushing a balled up fist hard against his lips. "I don't remember...something."
"We have no idea what we'll find up there," Mrazak said to Bao. The lift lurched against an insufficient power draw. "Be ready for anything." The doors swiftly parted, as they had only risen a few stories. Light shone from the torch-mount on Mrazak's tricorder to illuminate the exterior rooftop which had already been bathed in dusk. The passing sweeps from the torchlight revealed a ghastly scene of...
Nothing. Absolutely nothing but dwindling twilight.
"I think we're clear," Mrazak said in relief. "Let's do this. Depending on the status of the comms system, we may be able to initiate a direct uplink to the Phantom and let Ferrofax parse through the records for us." The comms relay connected to the power junction through a vertical panel column just below the massive raised comms dish which towered over the rest of the rooftop. "Fortunately in my past life in Starfleet, I was a comms specialist, so we should--"
When Mrazak and Bao rounded the panel column, he was cut off by a garish sight. They had found Lieutenant Odette, yet she knelt crestfallen below the power junction. Her face was frozen in pre-rictus agony, her eyes locked onto her twitching arms. Her hands were gone, subsumed by an ebony essence that appeared both crystalline and fungal in nature which slowly but inevitably crept up her limbs. At the delayed rate of expansion, she would nonetheless become one with the power junction before the night was through.
"Odette?" Mrazak said cautiously as he stepped back. "Can you hear me?"
Ciara whimpered, though there was no indication whether she heard Mrazak.
The Lagashi gave a horrified look to the scene before him, mind blanking, skipping, and resetting before he pushed the Vulcan back. "Nanotechnology deployed in swarms. Stay clear," he managed to get out as he started up his own tricorder scanning the crystalline structure from as far away as he could physically manage, and clearly not nearly as far as he'd like to be. "The restructuring is proceeding at the subatomic level through the use of femtotechnology dissassemblers. The elemental composition is being changed atom by atom. The technology level implied is on the scale of at least the Dyson Sphere builders, if not greater." he added. He paused for a moment, his brain resetting as the implication registered. "Commander, as we are, this is irreversible."
"Oh, child..." The typical gruff exterior usually portrayed by Mrazak flashed with a momentary crack. There were horrors, and then there were Clock Makers. His eyes were seized by the Ops Specialist's favorite phaser rifle carried over from a past Security assignment. Hesitantly, methodically, he picked it up, though he poked at it with the toe of his shoe first. Deeming it safe enough, he pointed the end of it at the crystalline infestation that was merging Ciara with the power junction.
Eyes closed and head turned to one side, Mrazak fired. "... I'm sorry."
The explosion wasn't nearly what could have been. Nor was the debris. In fact, the shattering effect of the ebony latticework was more of an implosion. Ciara was nonetheless flown clear, though perhaps more from her own jerking bodily motions than any concussive force. From the elbows downward, her arms were effectively amputated, though the glazed expression in her eyes and the clammy pallor of skin did not promise much by way of coherence.
"Help her," Mrazak ordered Bao. "I'll deal get the comms array back online."
The Lagashi looked at the Vulcan as if he had grown an extra head at that. He began scanning to see what he could do, though he was not sure what that might be, seeing as he was an ethnologist not a doctor. He grumbled, "Do I look like a doctor?"
Mrazak turned to assess the remnant of the vertical panel column, he made an astounding discovery. The power junction was not a column at all, but was embedded in the rooftop with less than half a meter's protrusion. That meant the entire pillar had been a Clock Maker construct, a brilliantly designed trap to ensnare an ambitious technician who would inevitably locate the power junction in attempts to repair it. Ciara had never stood a chance.
Fortunately, though, it seemed that the artificial pillar atop the power junction had been obstructing the power transfer system. With it imploded and largely diminished save for minuscule fragments that dotted the area like singe marks, the emergency lights flickered briefly before the primary lighting returned, which bathed the entire rooftop in harsh white pseudo-daylight.
"At least something was easy," Mrazak mused aloud. With power restored, they should be able to operate the comms array from the central colony control room below. With that accomplished, they could restore contact with the Phantom and complete their mission far away from this terrible place.
It wasn't until his eyes adjusted that he saw it. The rooftop was moving. Or, rather, more like it rolled. At first it was the safety railing along the edges. Then it was the grate on the air exchange. A wave oscillated to and fro, a black fold that folded matter around like a mouse under a bedsheet. Mraza gasped in astonishment. It was searching.
"Lieutenant Qiao..." Mrazak said breathlessly. "RUN!"
=/\="I wouldn't do that. Run, and the roof will eat you.=/\=
It was Bao's voice, and it wasn't Bao's voice. It spoke without him moving his lips, and it issued from the combadge on Mrazak's chest. The roof was settling down again, reverting to a solid imitation of immaterial matter. The tiger hiding in amongst the atoms and molecules had stopped shuffling through the grass, but its eyes were still wide and hungry. But the voice that wasn't Bao's kept talking calmly, rationally.
=/\=I think its time we talk. We need to discuss. We need to arrange. There needs to be an order to this exchange, to this negotiation. And I don't think we can do that from up here. Your blood pressures a mess, hormones are soaring, and right now all you can think about is the mouse that got caught in the trap. Huh, that was an idiom. Doesn't seem so hard when you say it out loud. Language constructs can be tricky without an expert system riding herd.=/\=
Mrazak gulped, but fought for extra time. Time to think, plan, improvise, whatever it took. "And just with whom are we speaking?"
=/\="You're speaking to a program patched together from a mosaic of copied speech centre neural imprints. I have the voice of Lieutenant BaoJun Qiao because, unlike the majority of the sample population we have encountered in your space, he has extensive subcutaneous neural implants. It's allowed for a more detailed rendering of how your consciousnesses work. Most transcriptions we make are full of errors, broken data, but that can't be helped. Also, it was highly likely that you would find a familiar voice soothing. I am an Interface between you, and the collective processing amalgam you call the Clockmakers. Good choice in name by the way, not as poetic as The Silence, or The Shrouders, but I think we would appreciate the mechanical precision implied." =/\=
From around the roof patches of railing and tile began to grow spikey and ill-defined, darkening to the colour of treacle and then pitch as crystal growths grew. It wasn't everywhere, but it was most places, scattered like landmines for the unwary. Then it snapped back into hiding, looking as innocent as the rest.
=/\="You are following a pattern we have observed for a very long time. You are the Investigators, the ones sent to find out what happens in the place where nothing returns. We have seen your subset before, some come with fleets of ships and fire, some are like you and arrive quietly like hunters on the savannah. We find it efficient to give you leave to return uncontested to the core of the socio-political group. In this, we will provide a bargain. There are, as it stands in this local spatial volume, seventy stars unclaimed by carbon-based life that cross the threshold of sentience. They are stars that are unsuitable for life, or harbour no worlds suitable for same. Leave us now, and leave those seventy worlds, and we will exist side by side in peace until a time where expansion of the design is required. This is expected to be accomplished in 6544650 hours, at which point we can revisit the topic of population resettlement. If you find these terms agreeable, you can depart. If you do not find these terms agreeable..."=/\=
The spiked growths of crystal returned, stretching out wicked points into the air.
=/\="Conflict wastes resources. We would prefer not to waste yours."=/\=
"So, roughly 750 years," Bao commented eyeing the roof. "Lao Tzu suggests argument about these terms is not advisable at this time," he added.
"You've taken so many of ours," Mrazak said. "We demand a live sample. One of yours. Safe containment. It is only fair." His voice cracked in a falsetto at the end.
=/\="Fair..."=/\=
The voice and the roof seemed to grow still, mulling over what was said. Slowly the crystalline growths receded back into their hiding places, the roof returning to normal.
=/\="The amalgam has come to a concordance. A sterile sample of Clock Maker matter will be provided to you. In return, you will be allowed to return to your ship, and leave us in peace. We have much to do."=/\=
That was as good as things were likely to get. Mrazak slung Ciara's rifle over his shoulder and then grasped her under what was left of her left arm. "Grab the other," he ordered Bao as he tried to ignore the squish of her stub near his ear. "And then we get back to the control room."
Stumbling back into the room from the corridor where the lift had dumped them off, Mrazak did not wait for a situation report before calling out. "Nobody move! Clock Makers everywhere! For the love of all that is good, do not touch anything! As soon as we reboot the comms system, we'll have Ferrofax--" And then his eyes registered the scene before him.
Dak had taken a step back away from Barnes, his rifle up and pointed squarely at the survivors chest. Slowly the rag covered man turned around, his eyes big and full of unshed tears as he held up his hands. From the palms scabs of Clockmaker matter could be seen flexing and shifting under the skin.
"I remember now," Barnes said with a tremble to his voice...and then he shattered. He fell inward like a sand castle before the tide, the grains of black crystal falling through the grating of the control rooms floor under a single large shard remained. A film of grey ash could be seen covering, unlike the glossy active matter they had seen.
Everybody in the room looked at one another, completely horrified. Mrazak shrugged an unconscious Ciara off his shoulder and let Bao lay her on the ground. "I think we're done here." He made it to the communications control console in four long strides and pushed the flashing button that would reboot the system. Not waiting for a connection confirmation, Mrazak tapped his combadge. "Away Team 1 to Phantom. Four and a half to beam up. Get us out of here!"
"...next away mission to hell I want KP duty," Dak said, rifle still pointed at the deck.
At the last moment, Mrazak snatched up an emptied dry box -- the kind that once helped emergency rations, med supplies, or some such, which offered an airtight seal -- and scooped up the black shard that had been Barnes. Still was Barnes? Maybe both? Before Mrazak could determine which, they energized.
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