Something Wicked This Way Comes - Part 2
Posted on Wed May 13th, 2020 @ 6:22pm 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 @ 2:31pm
3,408 words; about a 17 minute read
Mission:
S1E4: The Hills Have Eyes
Location: Overwatch Station
Timeline: MD 2
"Neither of the fire teams from squads 4 or 5 are responding..." Mayhew said to Jonah. "Though Fire Team Charlie just called in the target as down. Seems like we've got recovery efforts to initiate." He heaved a sigh of relief for one problem, then tensed up again for an entirely new one. "We need to sweep the station to ensure its integrity and assess casualties, damages, and other vulnerabilities. How many med officers are at the ready? Might need to initiate those hideous Borg drones since Ferrofax is on his period or whatever his malfunction is this time."
"I'm the only one in sickbay at the moment," Jonah said. "So ready? None really. Perhaps we could emergency transport some of them into the sickbay. I can also seal it up again like when you found me if we need to return back here."
Deck Six. He followed the signage through the level stoically, hyper aware of sound and conscious that he was a solitary 'Marine' seeking a wider threat. He hadn't been subtle with the battles so far, nowhere near as covert as he'd like. An officer would have protection by now, but with luck they thought he was down and out. That advantage wouldn't last long. He could sense them, sentient souls, up ahead, and Jumik slowed down. Into his stolen comm, he gave a harsh whisper as if he were afraid to be overheard. "Second target!" He said, and picked a deck at random. "Deck 4! Using the tubes. Closing in."
Comm chatter filled the channel. "All units converge on Jefferies tubes leading to Deck 4!
With more confidence in his step now, Jumik strode ever closer to Sickbay, pausing as he drew near enough to be able to hear voices. If there were any. He pushed his senses outward, checking for life signs and numbers thereof.
Only one mind stood out to him, though that mind was conversing with at least one other shielded one. That meant at least four Marines were with him inside Sickbay. And then the door opened with two Marines taking a knee to face opposite directions. One of them sighted Jumik.
"Oorah," he said, lowering his rifle. "Where's the rest of your fire-team?"
Internally, Jumik grinned. Outwardly, his expression was more morose as he drew nearer, shook his head sadly and lazily raised his rifle. The shots fired were his answer to the Marine's question, no clever comeback or sneaky phrase this time. Simple, clean deaths for these two. Close in, unfriendly fire.
"Shots fired!" one of the two Marines from the doorway called out.
Mayhew, mere meters inside of Sickbay, shouted orders. "Fall back! Defensive positions!"
"I'm sealing the door," he yelled, but as the marines moved into the way he stopped. "Step back from the door!"
The Marines flanked either side of the door and prepared their anti-breaching tactics.
Those damn psi-helmets prevented him using the easy road to victory here, though it was too temping not to reach out to that unshielded brain. Jumik let a tendril of intended potential fear slip towards the stranger's (Jonah) mind, a simple test spike of primal threat in the form of a literally blinding headache. Meanwhile, he dragged the closest downed Marine away from the door, raising him up then to use his body as a human shield. With a weapon in each hand, his arms hooked under the fallen man's own, Jumik walked. Together, they approached the doorway, and as he reached that threshold, Jumik aimed low, intending to hit legs and ankles.
Though his shots aimed true, the riflemen did not go down so easily. Marines didn't need their legs to return fire. One of them propped his half-burned body against a bio-bed to cover Mayhew while he pulled the other wounded behind cover.
"Stay with me, Marine!" the Master-at-Arms ordered the dying Marine. "Doc, help him!"
But the man breathed his last before Jonah could administer any help. The phaser rifle of the Marine laying down suppressive fire also turned eerily quiet. Mayhew jumped up just in time to stare face to face with the intruder who had decimated his Unit.
"Damn. And here I thought you were just a pretty boy." The Master-at-Arms gestured with his head for Jonah to bid a tactical retreat as he pulled out his combat knife. "Pretty good with a phaser, I'll give you that. Bet you're a little girl with a blade though."
Hopefully Jonah would take the hint and get the frak out of there. Mayhew didn't like his odds against the man who had single-handedly gotten this far, but he knew his duty. Evacuate command personnel, then purge the station. Neither of those objectives required him. "Go on," he said, nodding toward the fallen Marine's boot knife. "Pick it up."
Death surrounded him with its muted chill, and Jumik revelled in those last breath moments as he regarded these last two with a canted head and a grim frown. A knife fight?
"A pretty-boy or a little girl?" Jumik returned, his question twisted with amusement as he dropped his expired Marine shield and readjusted his weight upon booted feet. Pain signals drifted loudly into play - his shoulder, his left leg - but he ignored them. These would be Cal's problems not his, when they made it through this gauntlet of a station arrival.
He needed someone alive. To escape. But in this moment, there was a battle to be fought for the lives of these two men before him. The Master-at-Arms and the command officer.
Jumik let the phaser rifle in his right hand briefly skim across both survivors. To Jonah he sent the notion that the man was paralysed, unable to move, hit by some confusing ailment that prevented him twitching even a finger on his hand. To Mayhew, he nodded, hitched the rifle over his shoulder on the strap and beckoned him forward. In Jumik's hand, a combat knife, pulled from his last target and ready to taste blood.
"You couldn't save them," Jumik taunted, then nudged his head towards Mayhew. "Think your life can save his?"
"This isn't about saving lives," Mayhew countered, testing his opponent's reflexes with a quick slice well outside his reach. "Maybe you don't understand a Marine's duty. We end lives." He moved in a half circle to put himself perpendicular to Jonah. If Jumik made a move toward the man, Mayhew would cut him down inside three steps. Otherwise, Jumik would be forced to focus exclusively on him. "I'd think a shit-eater like you would understand, but maybe--" Mayhew darted in, knife out for a high jab to the throat. Expecting the upraised arm that came next, Mayhew dropped his knife into his waiting alternate hand and slashed the man under the arm.
While the knife tore clothing and skin, the blade's path was ultimately blocked by the body armor Jumik still wore. Mayhew grunted in frustration at the maneuver ending in only a flesh wound. He finished his thought. "--you're more of a shit-for-brains."
The Master-at-Arms backed off to a safer distance and repositioned himself in a defensive stance.
"Recent experience," Jumik threw back as he kept outside of that first lunge. "Says I end them faster." He twisted Cal's face into a condemning sneer as he observed Mayhew's motions, the nuances of his steps and the intent to protect and distract his combatant from the officer present. Fair play. Good little trooper. Challenge accepted.
His main focus now on Mayhew, Jumik maintained a peripheral working knowledge of the other living human in the room. He grinned at the insult, but that confidence distracted him momentarily from that secondary move and the underarm slash. A guttural sound of pain announced the Marine's successful hit, but Jumik channelled that rush of a minor damage report out of his immediate attention.
"Don't speak well for your defences then," he threw back, shaking out Cal's arm as if to negate the wound as he watched Mayhew step back to reevaluate a new strike. "If a shit-eating, shit for brains can get this far through those useless morons to the real idiots." A harsh laugh followed and Jumik smiled. "You train the easy kills out there, you dumb fuck?"
His turn to move in closer then, a swift forward motion to Mayhew's good side, inviting a retalatory strike to the inbound blade as Jumik dropped his right shoulder and aimed crotch-low. His left hand followed with a slight delay, spun upwards with a second, smaller blade that dropped from sleeve to palm then curved outward with defiant and direct intent to slash the Master-at-Arms' throat.
Expecting the feint, Mayhew deflected the low blow with his knife, but had his guard hand ready for the real attack. His hand caught Cal/Jumik's by the wrist. With a deadlock grip, Mayhew drove the thrust of the smaller knife into his opponent's lead wrist. Jumik let out a howl of pain before clamping down the pain response. The maneuver left his opponent's hands nearly together. Leveraging the advantage, Mayhew shoved his knife clear through both wrists and into the nearby bio-bed, effectively disarming and restraining the man in one blow.
"Now who's the dumb fuck?" Mayhew grunted with a triumphant sneer.
It was evident from the expression of pure unhappiness and fury on the other man’s face, that the primary inhabitant both hated the question and disagreed with the sentiment. Jumik couldn’t, however, deny that Mayhew had a valid point. Rookie mistakes had been made, in allowing overconfidence to rule the show, in underestimating the opponent and the price had now been paid.
This, however, was a payment that Jumik intended to recoup instantly. Pinned he might be, but the man who had bested him remained close, gloating his perceived victory when he ought to be still on guard. Pinned, Jumik might be, defenceless he was not.
Pulling against that buried pain, unconcerned with the additional damage he might cause, Jumik launched forward and immediately upwards in a non-verbal attack. Once he had owned sharp pointed teeth, and while now he did not, his move was made with pure damage in mind regardless. He sank Cal’s teeth swiftly and brutally into the vulnerable neck before him, he shook his head to emphasize that motion and deepen the damage. And as he wrenched backwards, pulled by the knife forcing his attachment to the biobed, he tore skin, flesh, blood and a section of Mayhew’s larynx along with him.
Mayhew's eyes shot wide in shock and surprise. His hands went to his opened throat, futilely attempting to hold back the gush of blood that seeped through his fingers. The word "help" silently formed across his lips, but without the necessary organ to speak the plea literally went unvoiced.
"Fuck," Jonah said, as he ran toward the Master-at-Arms, dropping to his knees in front of him. He was amazed this man was still alive. "I need a medkit... like four of them," he yelled, to nobody in particular. "Computer activate the EMH!" he commanded.
Gwynne, after not managing to get any kind of response from Doctor Wilson or the Marine Security team, made for the Armory. She needed to arm herself, as this intruder who was mowing through the local forces could and likely would start mowing through whoever else was left, herself included. It was time to fall back on the old tradecraft when in enemy territory. So along with a weapon, Emberly procured a signal masker. A nifty little thing that could make one disappear off sensors, technical or biological, depending on how you set it.
She'd been thrilled to realize Theta was in possession of some. The betazoid opted for the biological disappearance. Whoever this intruder was, their presence was ferocious, possibly strong in psionic abilities too. They would not be looking at sensor readouts, not from what she could feel.
Maybe this could work to her advantage, maybe she could help the Marines stop this monster. Or she could at least try to help someone and evacuate them. First thing was first. Doctor Wilson's last known location was Sickbay, so that was her destination.
Deck 6 became more littered with dead bodies the closer one got to Sickaby. Jaya didn't bother checking for survivors--her empathy could feel the emptiness inside their fleshly husks, which made checking vitals a waste of precious time. Hurried as she was, she didn't feel the other mind until they were face to face in the corridor.
"Hi," she said, not recognizing Gwynne's face but recognizing her telepathic acumen. "I'm Jaya. My guard gave me the all clear, but you must feel the same disturbance I do. What now?"
Gwynne hadn't so much felt Jaya as she heard careful, tentative steps behind her. The ginger turned to the bald woman, her neck, where she'd attached the masker bleeding and stinging slightly. "I'm Gwynne." She said. "The fucker seems to be either stuck or stalling in Sickbay for some reason. Someone in there is heavily injured, their presence is fading."
Then she turned to look over at Jaya. "What's the best compound mixture to knock an overpowered individual out? We can storm Sickbay, but he'll likely just rip us as he ripped all the others. Surely you've felt death on a rampage?"
"I... I might be able to do better," Jaya said. Her memories recollected back to an encounter even more horrid to her than the one taking place in Sickbay. She never wanted to do such a thing ever again, but her own empathic senses confirmed what Gwynne said: someone was dying, and it felt Trenton Mayhew. "Can you distract him? Scramble his thoughts? I just need to get close enough to touch him. With luck, I can override his nervous system and render him catatonic."
Gwynne wasn't a fan of the plan, but alas, there wasn't a better idea she could think of. Deltans were known for their disempowering abilities, sure, but as a fellow psionic race, surely they hated doing mental assaults such as she was suggesting. Then again, needs must and all. They would both have to deal with the psychic fallout later.
"I have an idea, I'll try to give you as much time as I can." The betazoid finally nodded. "Ready?"
While the psionic duo made plans outside, Mayhew did his best to cling to life while Jumik taunted him and Jonah.
He had them now, of that Jumik was unerringly sure. One was about to die, the other was a mere human puppet, an easy route into the command structure and his free ticket off this station. Blissfully unaware of any threat to his person, he tugged at the knife buried in the bio bed with both bloody hands and indulged himself a little in some verbal abuse.
“Any last words, you stupid monkey?” Jumik asked Mayhew, his tone condescending and amused. “Huh? What was that?” He leant his head back towards the dying Marine as if straining to hear words beyond the flow of red blood from that bitten throat. “Oh, I thought you had a duty? To end lives, wasn’t it?”
There was a grunt and a suppression of pain as that knife pulled free, a temporary reprieve as Jumik dragged the hilt of the blade upwards and out of Cal’s wrists. He looked for a means to heal himself, while his focus remained on the only minds he could sense.
Up till that point, Jumik had only went up against warriors of inferior psionic acumen. Perhaps if he had encountered any other telepaths, he might have felt the subtle fingers reaching toward him before it was too late.
Emberly waited until the last possible moment to remove the blocker from her neck, Jaya would open the door and Gwynne would release the distraction. The betazoid only hoped she'd be able to re-collect herself to assist afterwards.
Three, two, one...
The door opened, Gwynne ripped off the mental blocker and projected.
FLASHBACK:
A young copper haired Ensign in a very cluttered room. An older Vulcan man opposite her. Semi-darkness filled the room. The girl sat hunched over, arms encircling her knees, rocking back and forth anxiously. She was feeling everything and anything around her. The fear, the pain, the chaos from beyond the little room they were hidden in.
Smoke, fire, men and women screaming.
She and her Vulcan superior officer had crashed on the mining asteroid in the Toloth system which was contested territory at the time between the Dominion and the Federation. The miners had given the two officers refuge against the onslaught of ever increasing inspections the Dominion troops kept performing. It was just before one such inspection that the pair's shuttle crashed on the surface of the asteroid. Setting the self destruct, the two took refuge with the miners and sent off a distress call.
The Dominion troops, a mix of Cardassians and Jem'Hadar, lead by a Vorta didn't take kindly to lying. Young and inexperienced, the girl had then no real concept of mental and emotional shielding. First came the fear mixed with hate. Disgust soon followed. Those she could hold off with little issue. Paralyzing fear coupled with sharp, jagged spikes of pain came next, sorrow, anger. The sound of disruptor fire followed by a crippling absence of presence. It only meant one thing. Death.
Emotions, screams the sheer horror of the situation rushed at the young woman from the other room. She began to shake and twitch, trying to keep it all out, to keep it all from causing her pain. To keep her from making a sound that could give them away to the enemy.
She tried desperately to focus, to segregate herself to an island of no emotion. The onslaught was too much. Her hands brushed against her head in a vain, desperate attempt to drive it all out of herself.
END FLASHBACK
If he hadn't been so cocksure of himself and his path so far hadn't been relatively easy, Jumik might have sensed the warning signs before the mental tornado hit. As it was, Gwynne's projection sand-blasted the Lethean with a cornucopia of emotions he had no intention of ever feeling.
Fear.
Disgust.
Sorrow.
There were glimpses of the why, the where and the who, a girl, a man, a small room. Screams and smoke and scents that caught in Cal's nose even as Jumik placed wounded hands against his borrowed skull.
Hate.
That was a warm friend by comparison to the others, but it brought with it screams that rattled his psyche and disturbed his sense of strong calm. Together, that heady, potent mix of unwanted emotions, driven into his unsuspecting mind sideways pushed Jumik's thinking in too many different directions all at the same time. It shoved him metaphorically and mentally upside down and backwards for just long enough to give someone an opening. He grumbled and growled as he made sense of the messy mixture and sought to reach his straight path once more.
The wake of the psionic burst nearly made Jaya stumble, but she kept her feet beneath her. Lives depended on her swift action. Precious seconds ticked by like hours as her intense concentration made her movements feel like slow motion. Reaching with her outstretched hand, Jaya prepared her nervous system with a burst of her own. The ends her fingers tingled with the static charge of her empathic intent. On a standard humanoid, it would render them catatonic. On a telepath with the unquantifiable psychic potential she felt raging with the bloodied Betazoid, Jaya had no idea what to expect. Hopefully they would all live through this.
At last, her fingers made purchase against his forearm. She dug her fingers into him as hard as she could, initializing the tactile connection that her last ditch effort would require. The blowback from the man, if you could call him that, was immediate. His thoughts were beginning to reorganize, which meant his counterstroke was imminent. Jaya drew her free hand back, and with every ounce of resolute conviction she could muster, she slapped her hand across Jumik's face. The clap of her palm's impact against his skull barely scratched the surface of the empathic bombardment. Her last thought before fading to black was how it felt not unlike one ship ramming another.
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