Something Wicked This Way Comes - Part 1
Posted on Mon Apr 27th, 2020 @ 9:36pm by Lieutenant JG Jaya Maera Garlake & Lieutenant Commander Jonah Wilson MD & Lieutenant Calderon Jarsdel & Lieutenant Commander Gwynne Emberly & Master Warrant Officer Trenton Mayhew
Edited on on Mon Jul 27th, 2020 @ 6:30pm
Mission:
S1E4: The Hills Have Eyes
Location: Overwatch Station
Timeline: MD 2
Jaya awoke with a jolt. Something was off. Her hand shot out toward Storr's side out of the bed and found it empty. Right... he went on a field mission that held a high political risk. It was not often that Jaya had to sleep without her burly husband to keep her warm. Waking up without him left a longing in her heart that would be difficult to ignore, but why would that startle her so? Deltans were renowned for their equanimity and emotional calibration. Nevertheless, she couldn't shake the feeling... not only was something off, but something was wrong.
And that was when the red alert sounded.
There were plans for this moment. Jaya's training sprung into action as the memory of Storr's voice played through her mind.
Red Alert. Commandant's Office. Bar the door. Wait. I love you, vrue.
Rather than waste time with her duty uniform, Jaya grabbed a Deltan sari and draped it around her naked form. Modesty was not an issue among her people, which meant sleep clothes were culturally unheard of, but the rest of the universe was another matter. Fortunately she had chosen a formal sari of royal blue that hung a little low due to her bared her right shoulder, but otherwise kept her covered. Dressing as she moved, Jaya managed to get her drape tied at her waist by the time she reached the door.
Outside the door, she nearly ran directly into a Marine. Normally she would feel someone's presence before running face-first into them, but she was still disoriented. The resounding klaxons of red alert did not help matters either.
"Pardon me, ma'am." It was a young, fresh-faced corporal. "I have orders--"
Jaya reached down deep and pulled herself to bear. "--to escort me to the commandant's office. Yes. Let's go."
Something was wrong. Very wrong, she could feel it in her bones and in her mind. Fear, anger, no not anger, fury and rage. The next feeling she felt keenly. Death, a lot of it, presences that were like a steady blip on her mental sonar disappearing in rapid succession. She felt her mind and heart stabbed at the violence of it.
She barely managed to catch the bulkhead next to where she was in Environmental Control. Then, the Red Alert sounded.
"Computer," Gwynne managed to croak through the pain in her head. "Report."
"What now?" Jonah demanded, out loud as the red alert klaxons began to sound. He had been working over in his mind and through regulations the issues regarding chain of command and the idiot Tau. He had been involved in multiple covert operations during his time with intelligence before getting smart and going to medicine but it seemed that once again he was tossed unwantedly back onto the dark side... and seemingly at a level even worse than before.
=/\="Mayhew to Wilson! A fire-team is converging on your location now. Seal the doors and do not let anybody inside!"
"What is going on?" Jonah demanded as he began to access the sickbay security through his computer console. He issued an emergency quarantine which only he had the authority to override and then locked his office.
=/\="We have an intruder,"=/\= Mayhew said. =/\="I'll explain more on scene. Are you alone, sir?"=/\=
"Yeah, I'm alone," he said. "When you arrive let me know and I'll release the seal on the sickbay," he said, opening a drawer in his desk and rummaging for a box. He opened it and pulled a handheld phaser... he never wanted to be caught with his scrubs down.
=/\="Copy. Mayhew out."=/\=
In the span of just a few minutes, a syncopated knocking came from the main doors to Sickbay.
=/\="Mayhew to Wilson. Open up."=/\=
Wilson still at his console unsecured the door allowing Mayhew to enter the room his phaser drawn and pointing at the entrance not sure what all to expect.
A tall Master-at-Arms with short-cropped silver fox hair entered the room with four Marines on his flank, each with their weapons trained on their zones of fire.
"Clear."
"Clear."
"Clear."
"Clear."
Only then did the Master Warrant Officer seem to relax, but even so he kept a wary eye on the entrance. He gestured toward the door with a wave of his hand. Four phaser rifles were immediately trained on it. "Trenton Mayhew, Master-at-Arms and now Acting Commandant in Colonel Garlake's absence. There was an intruder alert in the secure shuttle bay, and our armed response was neutralized. Thanks to some sort of automated lockout, the station's internal sensors are down, which means our presumed armed and extremely dangerous intruder remains at large. As the acting station commander, you are my principal. We will escort you to a more secure location within the station until the threat is neutralized or an evacuation order is given before we initiate purge protocols. Do you understand these objectives as I have stated them?"
"Well that clears that up," Jonah said, "I don't suppose you brought a rifle along for the good ole' doctor, did you?" he asked, as he rounded the desk keeping his phaser at the ready as the group began making their way back toward the door.
Mayhew arched an eyebrow. "Negative. Hippocratic Oath and all."
It felt good to move. Even if it was within the confined spaces of Jeffries tubes, on his hands and knees in an unknown station. He was more free than he had been in a long while, and no one was chasing right behind him. Not yet anyway.
Besides the numbered GNDN references and occasional deck markings on hatches and pipes, there was no way for Jumik to know which would be the most advantageous place to exit. He mentally reached out, but that was no real help. While there were people on the edges of his conscious reach they offered no easy answers.
Carried along deep within himself, Cal circled the morality drain for the hundredth time or more in this ongoing mental sentence. Deaths were literally on his hands, more and more of them, and those faces ghosted in his mind’s eye, while their final sounds rang in his ears.
Deck Seven. Jumik dropped down a short ladder, popped open the hatch door and emerged into a wider, more open space. He sought a deck listing, checked any obvious named sections and attempted to orientate himself. He snarled at the painful howl of the red alert, and once again scanned outwards for signs of life.
The environmental systems spread out before him, for the moment unmonitored. It would seem all the technicians had fled somewhere secure once the red alert sounded. Prominently displayed between the various environmental subcontrols such as temperature, humidity, and lighting was an oversize computer tower labeled Main Life Support.
No one guarded this precious resource, not a soul was in range of any sense Jumik possessed or had stolen from Cal. He stood there and enjoyed the moment as long as he dared, just simply luxuriated in it, basked in the wondrous glory of his apparent fortune. It was a goddamned beautiful accident and they deserved it, he considered. Served them right for dragging him all the way out to - wherever the fuck this was.
He could mess with the temperature, set to bake or freeze. He could play with the air mixture and cause untold medical drama. But that was the sort of danger that a tech-minded individual might unleash upon the world. There was something far more zen about a physical hands on to these little gifts from the universe, Jumik considered. And death should be hands on.
With a stoic pause to savour the surrounding silence, he took his spare phaser rifle and began to bash its stock into the computer tower. He wasn't sure where the best place to aim was for maximum effect, so he targeted anything that looked more delicate than the rest. Displays. Control panels...
"Target identified!"
As busy as Jumik had been ripping into the Main Life Support system, he had not heard the fire-team storm the room. How had they snuck up on him?
"Engaging hostile!"
Combat helmets. They emited a local psionic inhibitor field that protected their primitive little brains. And with no further warning, they opened fire.
It was automatic, an unconscious reaching out of mental fingers that sought the easy, swift way out of this danger. But that stretch across the space found no solace in mental torture, that invisible hand bumped up against an equally unseen wall. Bugger.
That nanosecond of reaction preceded an immediate ducking of his entire body downward. Shots barely missed him, but Jumik didn’t waste any time in studying how close the Marines could aim. He bounced upwards, feet behind him to impact back against the tower and gift him forward momentum. Straight forward, Cal’s lean muscular frame now a ballistic missile that floored the first trooper.
Jumik flipped sideways, falling into old street survival mode as he twisted left. He jinked down and right, a phaser bolt skimming his shoulder and burning both fabric and flesh. A grunt. A sneer. A tightly executed backflip that put his feet first into the second Marine’s face and neck.
Two down. He disappeared momentarily behind the nearest systems tower, firing a few shots of his own as cover while he sussed out the position of any other immediate threats.
"Backup!" one of the Marines screamed into his headset. "We need backup to EV control now!"
Jumik exhaled. Backup bad. Granted he'd happily exterminate a few more troopers without losing any sleep, but he had no idea how many were coming. This was a large station after all since he was on the tenth level. Better to save his strength and see who else he could find to manipulate. Marines with psi protection on their puny little skulls were no fun, and he wasn't exactly phaser proof.
Hooking the downed Marine's boot with the stock of his rifle, Jumik dragged him close enough to remove his comm. Didn't hurt to have an inside line to their chatter.
=/\="We have an intruder. I'll explain more on scene. Are you alone, sir?"=/\=
=/\="Yeah, I'm alone. When you arrive let me know and I'll release the seal on the sickbay."=/\=
=/\="Copy. Mayhew out."=/\=
In his stolen armour and gear, he might temporarily pass for one of the station's personnel without using any mental trickery. Onwards and upwards it was then, he decided. After firing a good few shots into whatever control panels he could reach from here, Jumik ducked back away from the resulting shower of sparks and the current Marine threat.
There should be another entry point to the Jefferies tubes around here somewhere... Ah... there it was. Up or down? He mentally flipped a coin and started to climb the first ladder he came across.
Deck 6, proclaimed the signage as Jumik took a moment to look out through the space between the ventilation grating. No immediate visible threat, but definitely signs of life, nagging little signs of movement on his internal radar, minds moving around inside skulls. He stepped out into the corridor and checked for a deck listing. He couldn't help but wonder which 'sir' was all alone, but he did know where. Sickbay. And he had a vocal key to unlock that door. Ho. Ho. Ho.
A phaser shot ricocheted off Jumik's back, gouging his stolen armor and slamming him against the wall. The sound of more boots came up around him.
"Target down," called out a Marine into his comm. "Repeat, target is engaged and down!"
"Uuuufff," gasped Cal as Jumik cursed internally. Psi helmets. Fucking psi helmets. Down, yes. Out, no. But it sounded like a lot of attentive souls were waiting for him to turn around. He moved, slowly, right hand still holding the phaser rifle, though he didn't attempt to aim it in anger.
"Drop the weapon!" called out the Marine who had shot him.
Cal dropped the rifle and let it clatter to the ground. He regarded the gathered Marines with a look of pure confusion, held his hands up, flat palms outward and spoke, his voice sounding lost. "Where am I?" Cal asked.
"Moving to apprehend," said one of the Marines. He moved forward with a stun-stick in hand. There was no intention of taking Cal in while conscious.
Fuck. Jumik had at least bought a few seconds of waking time with that move, and he knew now that they didn't want to kill him. Not yet anyway. He waited until the last second, when the Marine was close enough to grab, laid a hand on his extended weapon, then pushed the stun-stick back against the gap between armour and armpit. Jumik aimed to keep the Marine upright before him as a human shield by taking hold of the non-conductive handle on the back of the man's amoured vest.
"Oh shit!" the Marine shouted as he wrestled with Cal/Jumik "He's going for my weapon! He's...he's got my weapon!"
Jumik didn't waste any time in firing. He kept the stun-stick jabbed into the Marine's armpit and, with the guy's weapon still on his sling over his own shoulder, Jumik fired repeatedly into the other three, aiming for anywhere that would put them down on the ground. He wanted at least one of them alive, but wounded was okay.
The other five Marines dropped in the hail of phaser fire, though at least one began crawling out of the line of fire. Two lay motionless where they fell.
He grinned. Moving forward then, still with his human protection, Jumik gave the two motionless Marines a final shot to the head just to be sure. He removed the psi-helmet from the crawler and from his shield and toyed with their minds. Rallied them to his cause instead of the station's. Persuaded them to see him as their leader. Ordered them to remove the clear threat of their once-allies.
The Marines began grabbing their heads and screaming as if in pain. When they looked at each other, they aimed their weapons and fired. All the remaining Marines flew back in the not-so-friendly fire. Not quite what Jumik had intended, but acceptable nonetheless.
Oops, he thought, as he surveyed the carnage, checked for any survivors and picked up a couple of spare rifles from the bodies. Was there anyone left alive that he might use, or was this search for sickbay a solo mission? Either way their pain was a deliciously pleasant tonic for Jumik, and a slow torturous burn for the soul held prisoner in the body he was currently using. Cal had learned the hard way that there was no pushing back at that internal cage, but still he tried and for the millionth time in the last couple of years.
Everyone's dead, Dave. Jumik locked Cal down with a swift mental shove, grabbed a spare phaser rifle and changed out his body armour for a fresh set. "Target secured," he said into the Marine's comm on his stolen gear, mimicking the voice he had heard previously. Then he set about locating Sickbay. Someone important was there, and someone important would be useful to have on his side.
