Psionic Monster Hunt (Part 2)

Posted on Wed Jul 6, 2016 @ 2:00am by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caden Aldrex & Commander Caleb Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Lieutenant Liam Reynolds & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro

4,225 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Pangaea (Wrap up)
Location: Deck 884/Soran's office
Timeline: MD14 1115

[PREVIOUSLY]

"Sir, there's nothing here," Liam finally said out loud once all of them linked together came to the same agreed conclusion. "It’s an imprint. An echo. This thing is more powerful and has more intelligence that we gave it credit for. Either it’s a trap or it’s a diversion."

"Dammit," Cade muttered, looking around the empty room. "Since we're not dead I'll assume diversion." That left one other option on the list. "We need to beam down to the primary generators. Right now."

Which was when the replicator exploded, spewing out shards of components and broken glass.


[ON]

Due to her lack of telepathy, Annora was placed in charge of the contingent that remained outside in the corridor. Upon hearing the explosion from within the room, she was pretty sure things weren't going as planned.

"Crewman Zellow, call for a med team. Petty Officer Cyert, your team is with me. The rest of you continue to secure this area."

Entering the room, she took in the scene. "I have a med team on the way. What can we do to help?"

Caleb had been scanning the empty room and scowling at the ruse when he picked up the sudden energy spike in the replicator. There was barely time to yell a warning and he turned, grabbing a female security officer and shielding her with his body. He grunted as the shrapnel peppered his back, feeling the familiar pain and warm blood.

Not again… Caleb thought, remembering another time when he’d been peppered with shrapnel, his leg aching in sympathy as he pressed the junior officer against the wall with his body.

Liam winced. First of all, something exploded and several people were thrown in different directions, himself included. And then the telepathic connection they had managed to establish was lost, confusing his other senses too. He gladly accepted the Vulcan security officer’s offer of a hand back up, then spotted them.

"Chief," he said walking over. "Are you okay? Ensign?" he added, spotting that the security chief was flat out pinning her to the floor. Carefully with the Vulcan's help they tried to move the Texas man off her and into a more comfortable position as they waited for a medical team.

Cade Aldrex picked himself up off the deck with a groan. The concussive blast had left a dull roar in his ears. His uniform was partially shredded and charred. Blood flowed from a gash on the side of his head. If the shrapnel had been slightly more to the left it would have taken out his eye. "Is everyone all right?" he yelled.

"Ca… Commander," Liam said almost addressing his friend by name, not his rank. "You're bleeding. We have to get some pressure on that." Liam shrugged off the jacket part of his uniform and pressed it to his friends head. Next to him the Vulcan did the same and was applying pressure to the security chief's back. They had been lucky, just thrown back into other bodies that had shielded their fall. "It’s toying with us," Liam said, lowering its voice. Both diversion and trap, it seemed.

"Hell of a way to play," Cade said, wincing as Liam pressed the cloth to his head. "We don't have time to lick our wounds. We've got to get someone down to the generators."

"You need us down there." Liam indicated the rest of the telepaths. Only two had been injured from both explosions. "We can get linked back up together again. Here." He handed Cade his jacket. He would be okay and knew how to hold the pressure until Amia's team got there. "And you’re not going to be able to see this thing otherwise," he added.

Amia received the call for a medical team and, on discovering who was hurt, added herself to the team of four, all armed with full med kits. She took in the scene and dispatched the others to help each individual casualty, assigning herself to Caleb, having decided he was the most seriously hurt. His back was peppered with shrapnel which, although apparently not too deeply embedded, clearly needed extracting. She went straight over to him and began to scan up a map of the extent of his wounds.

“Ah’m fine,” Caleb growled, waving away the medical help. “Ah’ve been hurt worse.” He pushed himself up, wincing as the shrapnel in his back moved. “Just pull out the biggest pieces.” He helped up the officer he’d tackled.

Amia opened her mouth to protest, but it was clear that he was already preparing to move off, so she had very little time to do as he asked and remove the largest shards. She did so with a suction tool in one hand, lifting them out of his skin, and a regenerator in the other, trying to stem the bleeding and wounds as fast as she could. Before she had even a few out he was moving away, despite her protests.

“Transporter Room 84,” Caleb said into his comm, moving into a transport position with the others. “We need this security detail beamed down to the primary power generators now!” he ordered.

Stand by to energize, came the reply, and a moment later the group felt the familiar tingle of a transporter lock and the world dissolved.

The medical team were left with their medkits gaping open on the floor and each of them with bloodied swabs and frustrated looks at each other as all of their casualties vanished before their eyes.

"I guess they had somewhere to be!" Amia commented, a testy tone of irony escaping her as she repacked her medkit and waited for the other medics to ready themselves to leave. When they were all sorted and ready, she issued an order of her own.

“Computer, return the medical away team from this location back to Sickbay.” Just a minute or two after the previous group had transported out, the medics were back in Sickbay to await the return of the reluctant casualties after the remainder of their mission was over.

Amia approached the young female doctor she had dispatched to deal with Cade's injury and checked with her to what extent his blow on the head had gone. Satisfied with the reassurances that he had not been badly concussed and that the medic had managed to quickly clean him up and regenerate a seal on the gash, Amia relaxed a little bit from the angst she was suffering from not having been able to prioritize her own husband to her own care. She knew her duty was to allot the most experienced doctor to the most injured casualty, but it was always hard in circumstances like this.

She was also worried about having had to let Caleb continue on without his wounds and the shrapnel causing them, being properly cleaned up and dressed, but she guessed they were in the midst of something urgent and she had to admit that, to her trained eye, no one they'd treated, albeit so briefly, had been critical or in a life-threatening condition, so she had to try to let it go until they all either came back or sent for another team in due course. It was a most uncomfortable waiting game made all the worse by not having any clue what was going on. This was how the job went some days and it did seem harsh sometimes.

****

When the transporter beam reformed, the security detail was standing outside the doors to the generator bay. Through the transparent aluminum windows the thick network of pipes, conduits, and venting systems turned the turbine hall into a jungle full of places for a predator to hide and ambush them.

Looking around the room, Annora was a bit more cautious than when outside the quarters a few minutes ago. Whoever they were chasing had set an elaborate trap for the security teams, making it appear they were in one location and rigging the replicator to explode. She was torn between taking swift action to try and nab the target before they struck again, or moving slower to avoid more booby traps. Deferring to those that had a better idea of what they were dealing with, she asked the question of the team, "Do we go for shock and awe, or slow and steady?"

"Shock and awe," Liam said flatly. "This thing’s smart and calculated. It thinks and plots. We need to take it by surprise."

****

Back in Soran's office, Cade was walking back to Ops. He touched his combadge. "Aldrex to equipment storage. Do we have any handheld baryon emitters down there?"

The confused reply came back, "Yessir? I think we have a couple. Is it important?"

"Yes, very. Break them out and get them to Commander Ryan down in the generator room on the double!"

****

"Works for me. How do we find our target?" Annora brought her rifle up to the ready position as she waited for the action plan to be finalized.

“Lieutenant?” Caleb looked at Liam. “Pair your telepaths off with security,” he said. “You’re the ones that can locate this thing. Wide beams,” Caleb told the security team, adjusting his phaser. It would lessen the damage the beam would do, but it would make it easier to hit an unseen target if they could get a sense of direction from the telepaths, much like a shotgun. And in the narrow walkways here it might be harder for the creature to evade. It also would avoid punching a hole in something vital. Once they had the thing tagged with the wide beam, they could adjust for more power or focus.

“Let’s move. Standard clearance sweep.” Caleb ignored the shrapnel in his back and stepped out with his phaser ready.

Liam nodded at the order and they started breaking off. Liam stuck with the Vulcan security officer and kept close to Lieutenant Tessaro and the Chief.

They moved further into the generator room, carefully choosing their path, moving slowly in, but there was no sign of movement.

A sound came to Caleb's ears, a familiar voice, one he hadn't heard in years. "Caleb?" the soft, feminine voice called out. "Caleb, are you there?"

Caleb stopped, surprised. “Mika?” It was a voice he heard often…in his dreams.

"Caleb, what have you done to our daughter?"

Caleb scowled. His wife was dead, damn it! “Shut up,” he growled. “Ya leave Zandy outta this.” Looking to Liam, he said, “It’s here. Ah can hear it.” He tapped his temple. “Ya got anythin’?”

Liam looked concerned. "It’s not communicating with us, but we can sense it. It’s getting bigger this way. We are homing in on it. Chief, are you okay? It’s the lifeform, not someone you know talking to you. It’s toying with you. Ignore it. Stay with us," he said calmly. The chief was confused and upset. This thing really was doing a number on them.

“It doesn’t make the ghosts any less real,” Caleb muttered to Liam as they proceeded down the narrow aisle, Mika’s voice pleading with him to save her, blaming him for killing her, for changing their daughter. He shook his head, trying to ignore the voice.

Next to him the Vulcan projected in his head. They were trying to see it or put it into a picture. So far a black swirling mass, but slowly it was forming into something visual, something hideous. But what?

"Hey, Jarhead!" said a voice from behind Annora, an impossible voice. Hans Creighton had died at Gamma Hydra hundreds of years before. "Gonna leave these ones behind as well?"

While she knew in the back of her mind he was long since gone, Annora still turned around when she heard the voice. It had been a search and rescue mission gone badly, and his team was the one to pay the sacrifice.

"Gunny, we did everything we could, you have to believe me! We couldn't get to you, there was just no way. The whole thing was an ambush."

There was a mixture of anger and sadness in her voice as she pleaded with the unseen ghost from her past.

Liam knew from previous experience of a telepathic attack that the creature was targeting them. Somehow it was able to pull out and use memories of people against them. He stopped and gently put a hand on Tessaro's shoulder hoping the touch would draw her out of the sudden reverie.

"Lieutenant, there's only us here. This is the entity psionically attacking you." He wished there was a way they could project some shields around the non-telepaths, but it was taking all their energy to triangulate and block out the creature attacking them.

Feeling the reassuring hand on her shoulder Annora took in her surroundings, including the other people. The scenery didn't match with the images of Gamma Hydra that were playing in her head. She closed her eyes tightly for a good thirty seconds, trying to reconcile the dueling sensory inputs.

When she opened them again, the security officer brushed away a few tears before returning to the group with a determined look on her face, having channeled the sadness into anger towards the creature.

"I'm alright now. I know where and when I am."

Beside them the Vulcan said, "Sir, it is down there, and I believe we may be able to flank it if we can get two of the other teams here and here." He held up his padd and showed Commander Ryan the schematics. "Also there is a faint Trill presence in this little side alcove here.”

"Ten to one that's our missing second officer," Liam said.

"Let's do this, sir! For Gunnery Sgt. Hans Creighton, and all the others whose memories this creature has preyed upon."

While the memory was still present, Annora was doing everything she could to ignore the accusations. While there was some basis to them, it would have to be dealt with another time.

Liam nodded, having no clue who Gunnery Sgt Hans Creighton was. The Vulcan had already communicated with the other teams, so this was now an action to trap the creature by pushing it into the net. They were, however, closest to Maritza, so they had to get to her too. He was still wondering on how they could give it an image that the non-telepath’s could cope with when the creature decided it was his turn to hear voices from the past.

"Butting in on this one too, Liam? You couldn't keep Haku safe. What makes you think you can do any better with this one? You just made it angry in the first place. She'd still be in her office chewing you out if you hadn't tried to be a counsellor. You're useless for that. You should know better. After me."

Liam gasped as an image of his half-brother materialized in front of him. He steadied his shoulders and reinforced his internal shields. "You’re just a memory. A trick," he told the entity. "And she will be back chewing me out as soon as we get to her."

"We are close to Soran," he concluded, forcibly walking through the mental image of Declan.

"She's not worth it, you know," Declan insisted. "You should just turn around and leave before it gets difficult. Cut her off. You’re good at cutting people off."

"I do not cut people off," Liam said; his voice rose despite himself. He fought to regain calm again. This is what this thing wanted. To confuse, upset, and divide them. It knew they were coming for it.

"Go home, Caleb," Mika urged Caleb, her eyes large and dark and pleading. "Zandy needs you. You've locked her in with a whore and a murderer. What will happen to her if you die?"

“What are ya talking about, Mika?” Caleb asked. “Zandy’s fine…” His hands shook as he turned a corner, spotting Maritza cowering in an alcove. He raised his phaser rifle at her.

“Liam, ya got anythin’?” Caleb asked, sweat standing out on his forehead.

Soran was showing no response to Caleb's actions, or even any sign that she was aware anyone was there.

"Caleb, no!" Mika shouted. "Think of Zandy. Think of the other hosts Naquiis has had. She'll have those voices in her head, without you to give her strength to stay herself. A killer. A prostitute. Our little girl will fade away. Save Zandy, not that useless piece of shit."

"She's in there," Liam said, coming to his senses at the sight of the security chief raising a phaser rifle at the Trill women. "That's not going to help, Chief," he said in a low voice, gently pushing the Cajun man’s arm down again.

"Commander," he said, approaching Soran as the Vulcan stepped in, ready to relieve the chief of that rifle if necessary. "You need to come with us now." Around them they could sense the other teams coming closer together as they trapped this entity.

Maritza didn't respond, just stayed crouched in the alcove, unmoving.

Liam stepped up to her and started pulling her up, threading her arm over his shoulder to support her weight. "Commander, we have to get up away from here."

The blow came from out of nowhere. Cold claws sank into Liam's mind, and then an unseen force snatched him back from the unresponsive Trill and smacked him against a set of power conduits opposite the alcove.

Caleb was still struggling with the entity in his mind. “Zandy…” he murmured. “Mika, Ah don’t know what ta do… She won’t talk ta me…”

And then Liam was thrown dozens of meters, snapping Caleb out of his inner turmoil. The rifle snapped up to his shoulder and he fired, the broad beam of the phaser filling the entire alcove and blasting into Maritza Soran. She just collapsed sideways out of the crouch to slump against the wall. She didn't make a sound, didn't react.

"Right, that's it," Liam said groggily. He could feel some sticky blood running down his cheek from the side of his head. He had had enough of this thing throwing him around. He communicated to all the telepaths and they all forced a psi attack right back at it. In their heads they heard it scream.

"So you can be hurt," Liam announced angrily.

In response, Caleb was picked up, slammed hard against the ceiling, and dropped to the floor.

“Ugh…” Caleb grunted, his rifle skittering over the deck. He thought maybe a rib had cracked. At least he had something that hurt more than the glass and plastic shards in his posterior, though!

Mika stood over him. "Oh Caleb. You keep making the wrong decisions."

“Ah never wanted ta make these decisions!” Caleb yelled at her. “Ya shouldn’t have died!” he sobbed angrily, reaching for his rifle. “Ah don’t know if Ah can do this alone!”

"And that’s your problem, Caleb. You're still only thinking of yourself. You couldn't let me go, so you ruined your daughter’s life. She was a child, Caleb. You selfish bastard!"

“No! You wanted me to save Naqiis! Those were your dyin’ words!” Caleb said. “It was the only way!” He knew this wasn’t really Mika, but the demons in his soul were too powerful.

Liam stifled at the change of feeling the entity was now throwing out. He looked at the Vulcan, who nodded and confirmed in their link the same conclusion. "Chief, you need to snap out of this now. This thing’s about to pounce. It's stirring up all these emotions, ready to feed."

He looked at the Trill woman and it all made sense. "She's been your food source for a while now, hasn't she. That's why you attacked me in her office. I got close to sussing you out."

"That’s so you," Declan told Liam. "Always figuring out long after the damage is done. A coward and a failure."

"Hey, Declan, which of us is in a mental institute on Earth and which of us is moving to chop down an alien monster and save the day right now?" Liam said. "I'm the only one of our family spent time with you after what you did and I still support your recovery now. I'm the coward! I've not been hiding inside a Trill women and now using other people's faces to taunt people."

“Ahm doin’ mah best, Mika,” Caleb said, using his rifle to help him stand, despite the protests of his back, leg, and ribs. “How do we stop this, Lieutenant?” he demanded of Liam. “Do Ah have ta put Soran down?” There was a whine as he dialed up his phaser power.

Soran didn't react, still unconscious from the earlier blast. To their right the Vulcan security man, Cyet, stiffened suddenly. Then his body shook, an all over quivering that last a second or two, and then he dropped to the ground, and Caleb's rifle was ripped from his grasp and thrown thirty meters down the walkway.

Liam decided on something sensible. Touching his comm. badge he told Ops to beam all weapons out from where they were. The only way they were killing this thing was by the telepaths psi attacking it in force. If the entity got control of the phasers it could start shooting at them.

Cade must have been with them as they did exactly as he asked. "Chief, I need you to hang on just a little longer and look after Soran. Do not take her out." He held his finger up and tried to convey that fact as seriously as possible. "If you attack her, it will keep attacking you."

“Then get her outta mah head,” Caleb growled at Liam.

He projected to Cyet, who was now getting back to his feet. He thought for the briefest of moments he felt annoyance off the Vulcan, but he covered it up just as fast as they fell into step and walked down that corridor. In their link, all the other telepaths were making sure they were doing the same, blocking all other exits as they cornered it into the intersection. Everyone was throwing out every type of psi attack on this thing possible keeping it busy.

There was a howl of rage and shock and fear that piled down the telepaths' link like a physical force that left them gasping. Then Liam felt something cold, like ice spikes had been driven into his brain, and pain exploded inside his head, and it became impossible to think. He could feel wetness at his nose and ears, and when he touched his upper lip with his fingers, they came away covered in blood.

Liam buckled for a moment, held up by the Cyet. "Give it everything we have got. We have him. Now." The part-Betazed ran a finger up and wiped the blood away from his nose and shrugged. He almost got away without having to go to sickbay. If they had not all been linked that would have been much, much worse. He might not even be here.

"Security to Ops. Switch on force fields I459, 4621, and 4633," the Vulcan said calmly. "And flood the areas contained within them with the radiation."

"Fields live in three... two... one..." came back the reply. "Fields live.”

The sensation of cold inside Liam's brain abruptly vanished.

Liam slumped and found himself nose diving the floor. It was gone though. His mind was his again. He groaned as his Vulcan comrade rolled him over. "I believe we have vanquished the entity," he informed him. "And we should get you to a medic."

"I concur. It’s not trying to rip up my brain any more, it’s just gone." Liam nodded, holding his hands to his throbbing forehead. "I think that was a last ditch attack. Panic on its part. But you need to get Soran to a medic first." He held off uttering the words and to a counselor, but Noelle's team really did have their work cut out for them, he was sure.

Caleb strode out of the intersection now, carrying Soran’s body. There were radiation burns on her skin. “She needs a medic now,” Caleb said, limping under her weight, his leg threatening to give out.

Liam nodded. She wasn't the only one. He hoped he wouldn't get the doctor who insisted he stay overnight again. The Vulcan had the sense to hit his combadge. "Sickbay. Party of five to beam directly."

“Computer, this is Telamon. Lock onto Lieutenant Reynolds' transmission and beam them direct to Quarantine One while we check they're not bringing back anything we wouldn't want to make our extra guest.” Amia had been waiting anxiously for their return. She knew they had gone into this hurt and was ready to face all kinds of fall out now they would undoubtedly be worse.

FIN

A JP Between:

Lt. Cmdr. Caleb Ryan
Chief of Security

Commander Amia Telamon
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant JG Annora Tessaro
Assistant Chief Security Officer

Lieutenant Liam Reynolds
CDO, DS5

Cmdr. Caden Aldrex
XO

 

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