Down in the Underground - Part 3

Posted on Thu Dec 17, 2015 @ 5:23pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caden Aldrex & Lieutenant Benj Amoran & Lieutenant Kivan Ta'Gas & Ensign Jessica Mayhew

1,894 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Pangaea (Wrap up)
Location: Caves of Pangea
Timeline: MD 4/1430

OLD:

Soran knew from the scream that whatever they found wasn't going to be pretty. It was a scream of gut loosening terror, of seeing the last thing you'd ever see. She was ahead of the others only by virtue of being closest to the structure to start with; the others were only a few meters back. But she reached the blinking point on the tricorder, light in hand first and saw…

Not very much.


NEW:

There wasn't any sign of Short. The comm-badge was lying on the floor of one of the underground chambers. It had two exits, the one she had come through, and the one the badge was lying next to. The ground around it was scuffed and there was a smear of blood on the solid stone piece that supported the doorway. The smear was at chest height, not enough to be a mortal wound, but enough to be a nasty cut.

There was nothing else in the room besides a rectangular stone sitting out of the line between the two doors. Strands of some calcified substance ran from it to the ceiling. Beyond the scuff marks, there was no sign of struggle.

She crouched down to pick up the comm badge, looking down the tunnel, trying to see. Something slimy and cold and slick dripped down her neck, freezing to the touch. She yelped and jumped back.

Benj rushed forwards and analyzed the substance with a medcorder. He scanned upwards towards where he imagined it was dripping from, above them in the gloom.

The readings indicated a liquid crystal, both hygroscopic and non-Newtonian, so only liquid when stress was applied to it. The chemistry analysis revealed proteoglycans, glycosaminoglycans, glycoprotein enzymes, hyaluronic acid, copper peptides, antimicrobial peptides, metal ions, and more, and reported back a conclusion. Mucus. Not dissimilar from that found in mollusks and mollusk-type creatures across the known galaxy.

"We are outside of communication range with the other away team. I suggest we fall back to the shuttle and report the latest incident. We are outnumbered and unprepared for whatever has begun attacking us," Ensign Kivan announced.

"Seconded," Benj added, looking in a sort of horrified fascination at the blob his medcorder had analyzed.

Osyr could hear the voices of the others, but wasn't sure where they were now. They weren't where he had left them because he was reaching that spot now. The portable lights were still on their stands, however, which gave him some comfort. This cavern was better lit than the one he had just left.

"They probably headed back that way," he mumbled to himself. Looking at his tricorder again he set it to scan for life signs. Yes, they had headed in the direction from which the scream had seemingly originated. They were there now, motionless.

Osyr's reptilian mouth fell open. As the scan pulses radiated to the outer ranges they revealed other life forms. Hundreds of them, closing in from the cave behind him.

For a moment he was frozen. Then he jolted himself to act. He slapped the comm badge on his chest. "O-O-Osyr to Soran! To anyone! Life forms behind me!"

Jessica jumped at the warning and slapped her badge. “Head back to the shuttle. Now!” she ordered, starting to back toward the door. She pulled out her phaser and checked the setting before shining her light around the cavern as she covered the retreat of the others.

"Belay that, Ensign," Soran spat out, scraping the mass of gloop off the back of her neck and slapping it towards the floor. "You will stay here with the doctor and Ensign Kivan for as long as our retreat is clear. I will get Osyr back here and we will all go together. I am not having an undisciplined rout because you can't hold your nerve." She drew her own phaser. "The route back is clear for now. If that starts to change, then you get clear. Not before."

Not waiting for an acknowledgement, she turned towards the direction her own tricorder was pointing in and started running.

Jessica felt the sting of the rebuke. “Yes, sir,” she murmured, watching her commanding officer head off into the darkness.

Maritza went as fast as she could through the multi-chambered structure. Osyr hadn't been that far away. He couldn’t' have gone far. "Osyr?" she called out. "Where are you? Get over here!"

Ensign Kivan was furious. Clearly they were facing a tactical disadvantage. They were losing men and had no idea what were the technological capabilities of the opposing force. A tactical retreat was appropriate; however, the commander was allowing simple bravado to blind her from the reality of the situation.

"Can't hold our nerve..." Ensign Kivan said to Jessica as the commander disappeared. "Who the hell does she think she is? Does she not realize the dire situation that we are in and how it is getting worse by the minute!" he stated.

"We never leave one of our own behind," Benj muttered angrily, quoting off the Marines even though he had never been one. That loyalty was one of their traits he admired. "She thinks she's XO of the station because she is." He set his phaser to stun and stood apart from Kivan and Jessica in disapproval, but he didn't go any further than a few steps and he kept scanning as far out as his equipment had range for, feeling very uncomfortable at the situation and the unpleasantness of it all from every aspect.

"Well, I'm sure that will look lovely on our tombstones as our remains our jettisoned into space after a touching eulogy from Captain t'Vaurek," Ens. Kivan replied. "Our best course of action would be rallying our minimal supplies and resources in a stronger location. If we were to be attacked here, we'd have no knowledge of the terrain or any viable avenues of escape," the engineer said pragmatically.

Still in the other cavern, Osyr continued forward. His head was still down in his tricorder. "On my way to you," he said to Maritza over the open channel. From the corner of his eye Osyr noticed the sentinel statue for the first time, standing motionless. Had that been there before?

The sentinel swiveled its head this way at that, as if listening. It gave the Saurian a scare. "They have arrived," the sentinel said. Then with one of its four faces it looked directly at Osyr. "Rusalka have mercy on you."

Osyr never saw what killed him as it fell from the cavern ceiling, consuming him with hundreds of mandibles and poison-filled stingers. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought of the phaser in his hand. It was already too late. He screamed.

The scream morphed into a sanguinary gurgling sound. Then silence.

Maritza reached the side cavern in time to see an amorphous black shadow spill from the roof. With just their flashlights, she didn't see the details. Osyr screamed, and then the shadow collapsed down to the floor. For a second, Osyr's defleshed skeleton held itself upright, before it collapsed into a loose pile of bones.

For a moment she just stared. Then she turned and ran. She pelted back to the others as fast as she could go, boots slipping on the slick rock. Reaching them, she called out, "Run! Everyone back to the ship. Now!"

Osyr had mentioned life forms. If something was following them, she did not want to end up like the poor ensign. She gave the doctor a shove to get him going. "Move!"

Benj stumbled as the shove propelled him into motion, but as his forward foot hit the floor he was springing into a run and he didn't slow down or look back. He'd never run so fast in his life, but in fact, as he was running for his life, it was appropriate to find a sprinter within himself, hitherto undiscovered.

Ensign Kivan didn't wait for any explanation or follow-up orders. He pivoted and took off running in the opposite direction. It was moments like these that he could appreciate his Bajoran genetics that allowed him to perform more oxygen-demanding activities such as sprinting at fierce speeds when necessary. He fell forward slightly as the path he was taken inclined sharply. Kivan continued to climb the rocky surface and made his way towards the opening where the shuttle was located.

Pausing only long enough to be sure the others were well on their way, Jessica studied the darkness. She thought she saw movement and fired her phaser. There was a gurgling scream of pain from the shadow she hit and the young security officer didn’t stay to see its effect as she turned and sprinted after the others.

Maritza didn't turn to look, only paused long enough for Jessica to catch up, watching the engineer get to the shuttle, the doctor half way between him and them. The sound behind them was a hiss, a whisper, now, but definitely moving. "Keep going, don't stop."

They ran, pounding across the cave, not looking back. Soft whistling noises could be heard, and something pattered on to the rocky cave behind them, but nothing more happened. Then there was more hissing, and a line of liquid landed alongside them. It sizzled and smoked where it touched the limestone.

"Faster!" Soran yelled as she sprinted over the last fifty meters to the narrowed tunnel between the cave with the structure and the one they had landed in.

Falling out of the cave entrance, Amoran scrambled to his feet and panting for breath, kept running as instructed. He looked around and counted the fleeing colleagues he could see, making sure they were all here this time. They all headed for the shuttle blindly, their muscles screaming out, their lungs heaving in the drier air up here, and none of them with enough breath or time to talk to one another before they got back to it.

As they reached the shuttle, Jessica heard that hiss again. She jigged to the side, pushing Lieutenant Commander Soran to the side and into the shuttle. The line of acid took the young blonde security officer in the shoulder and she screamed in agony as she tumbled inside. Her phaser scattered to the floor of the shuttle as she slammed her hand on the control panel to close the door before falling to her knees in pain, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Soran collapsed on the floor next to her, breathing hard. "Get us out of here, Mr. Kivan!"

Ensign Kivan rushed back onto the shuttle and jumped over the pilot's chair and entered his access code to the shuttle. Although it took less than half a second for the vessel to recognize his user input and come online, it still felt like an eternity. Finally, the vessel registered the multiple signatures in the shuttle as Starfleet Officers and awaited further input. Kivan's fingers glided across the panel as he sealed the shuttle and activated the lift-off functions.

::OFF::


A JP between

Lt. Cmdr. Maritza Soran
Chief Strategic Operations Officer/2XO

Lt. Amoran Benj
Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Ens. Kivan Ta'Gas
Assistant Chief Engineer

Ens. Osyr
Geosciences
(NPC Bert)

The Sentinel
(NPC Bert & Louise)

Ens. Jessican Mayhew
Security Officer
NPC Caleb Ryan

 

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