Horner, Goldsmith & Chang

Posted on Sat Sep 16th, 2023 @ 9:48am by The Narrator & Commander Ayanja Tusalo & Lieutenant Commander Aarix Teral & Ensign Sara Richards IX & Master Warrant Officer Gamze

2,756 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: World Wide Web
Location: Asteroid
Timeline: Day 4

The transporter beam illuminated the cave they had beamed into momentarily in a pulse of fading light. Angular columns, jagged walls, and loose debris littered the floor under their feet. A moment after, the light faded to nothing, plummeting them into darkness purer than any they had seen before.

Then the survival kit bag materialised, its helpful strobe signal lamp giving some erratic light to the scene. In point of fact, it was not a cave, but a compartment. Nor was it just any compartment, but a bridge of some sort. With a heavy, chunky-looking captain's seat in the middle, and supporting pillars to the rear.

And in front of Aarix, just a foot from where they beamed in, a Klingon stood in frozen combat with two very dead rock spiders. One was clamped around the stump of a leg, a jagged dagger producing from its carapace. The other was buried in his throat, though whether that killed the Klingon or the tip of his bat'leth piercing through the spider and into his own chest did it for him was anyone's guess.

He looked happy enough, in a vacuum-desiccated corpse kind of way.

"Shit! Perimeter!" Aya called out raising her Phaser toward the Klingon corpse and frozen creatures. Gamze, scans... are we alone!?" She didn't take her eye off the horrifying sculpture before her trusting the rest of the team to have her back.

Aarix wasn't sure what to expect, but a semi-preserved Klingon practically in his face was not one of them. He jumped back and raised his phaser as well, in case the Klingon decided to come back to life in some twisted zombie type of encounter.

The light from Aya's suit lamps splashed across the frozen macabre sculpture, illuminating the frozen froth of too-pink blood where the spiders and Klingon flesh met. It also illuminated another Klingon body by the view screen, this one buried under four of the rock spiders who were all similarly frozen and dead. Though these were not stabbed, their hard shells cracked open from the inside as a bright pink foam had expanded out of them. They almost looked like fun fair pop corn.

"Gamze, I could really use some expert opinion here." Aya easing her own tricorder out hoping to get some reading on just what they were looking at.

"Forgive me, Commander, but the scans are... inconclusive," Gamze reported. "There appears to be sufficient levels of biotechnological components, or a mesh of organic and inorganic compounds sufficient to conflate them to tricorder scans, as to confound the distinction between environment and potential life signs. At least I can confirm that nobody is in the immediate vicinity besides ourselves. Beyond that, however, is unknown without investigation."

"Okay, that good at least." Aya lowered her phaser but did not return the weapon to its holster. While she trusted Gamze's instruments she also.wasnt going to leave it tomchance that these things weren't still dangerous. Eying the Klingon corpses once more she looked around the space trying to get the lay of the land. " Well this is certainly no cavern, and I'm not even going to start to speculate on why we're seeing Klingons all the way out here. For now let's work on securing this room and getting any kind of life support up and running. I'd rather not have to bust out the survival kit supplies just yet if we can avoid it."

"Commander, if my scans are correct, then these arachnids hold a metaphasic composite makeup that is potentially indistinguishable from the mineral compositions which have overtaken what now appears to be a starship." Gamze turned in slow circles as she scanned high and low. "I may need to amend my previous assessment of biotechnology, at least in any known sense. There may be an unknown organic quality to the rock formations which allow these creatures to move through them as fluidly as fish through water. It is recommended we not stand near large mineral clusters until we know more."

"Great," Aya desperately wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose and sigh. Our of the frying pan and hopefully not into the fire... "Alright priorities, first off let's secure our position. We don't know how long it will be until the shuttle can come pick us up and I don't want to be surprised by those arachnids. We'll also need a way to detect them, Gamze, that's going to be your priority. Richards, Teral lets see if we can get some kind of life support and force fields in place. I'd rather not be ambushed and need to worry about our air running out."

Gamze's protuberances waggled wildly. "I will do my best, Commander, but I cannot guarantee anything."

"Aye, Commander," came Aarix's reply. He turned to Richards, seeing her frozen in place. She was relatively new out of the Academy, so he was aware that all of her experiences were nothing but simulations.

Sara was a bit shocked by everything, and jumped when a gentle hand touched her shoulder. It was Aarix and thankfully not one of those spider things. "R-right, life support..." she squeaked. Sparing another glance at the very dead Klingon, she looked around the "cave" in an attempt to seem like she knew what she was doing instead of being scared out of her mind. Relocating to something that resembled a console, she tapped on the very worn display.

Aarix was about to ask if she was alright when she wandered off to a console, and decided he would ask later. Life support took priority. Doing the same, Aarix attempted to revive a console. "We're going to have to get power to these systems if we want life support, let alone protection," he reported, more to Sara and himself than to anyone else.

The moment Aarix touched the controls a dull red glow began to illuminate the screens. Flickering Klingon characters in what must have been some sort of startup routine began to appear on the screen, followed by a slowly growing hiss as pressure began to return to the space. Much like the Klingon's legendary hardiness when it came to physical trauma, their computer and infrastructure had enough backups and redundancies to keep going even after death. None of the overhead lights turned on, but the wane glow from the screens did at least provide some meagre illumination.

"I am detecting molecular transference among the rock formations," Gamze said. "Curious. In the way that amperage consists of electron flow, I am seeing protons flow in a similar way. Perhaps that is --"

Before she could finish, a creature several magnitutudes smaller than the two rock spiders entangled among the Klingon corpse lunged out of a mineral cluster through the air straight for Aarix at the console.

Sara, who was several meters away from Aarix, felt an uncomfortable shiver go up her spine and gasped. Her senses were tingling at the foreign sensation that suddenly occupied the room. It was vaguely familiar, like a hollowness in her gut, but she couldn't quite put a name to it. All she knew was that it was behind her. Whipping around, she saw two of the spider things flying toward Aarix.

Aarix was glad that the console still had power, but then a thump on his visor made him jump. His view was replaced by the underside of a spider, and a similar thump on top of his helmet indicated another presence. He started to move to swat them off, but noticed that they were trying to scamper to his arms, which were near the console. Deciding to let them crawl, he watched the spiders crawl down his arms and onto the console, where they started digging into the metal like the larger one did to their drill.

Aya had been a moment from firing on the spiders as they crawled over Aarix's arms, their unnerving movements sending a shiver up her spine. They didn't seem to be for used on the away team for the moment, quickly passing over the Lieutenant and heading for the console itself. The similarities to reports of how Borg drones ignored threats sending another quick shiver as her eyes darted around the room looking for more, her Phaser still leveled on those at the console. "So much for securing our position." She said more to herself than the rest of the team.

"Good news! I believe we may be able to track their movements now," Gamze said. "It appears they are drawn to junctions within the power grid. That could make any terminal, console, or other tap in the power grid a potential strike point."

The resident half-Betazoid watched the spiders happily crawl around on the console, her dark eyes wide with a mix of surprise and fear. Her breath caught in her throat, and her hands started to tremble. The hollow sensation was still coming from the spider, using her heightened fear to choke her. Grasping the nearby console, she held on as if she was going to get sucked into space and focused on taking some deep breaths, which sounded more like gasps in her suit.

Hearing some panting breath through the suit comms, Aarix turned to see Sara looking like she was about to faint. "Hey," he said, rushing over to her. "What's wrong?"

It took a moment for Sara to be able to speak. "H-hunger," she stammered. Seeing Aarix's confused expression, she clarified, "I-I can sense them. There's a feeling of hunger coming from them."

"If we have inserted ourselves into the food chain, then it becomes imperative we make an exit most expeditiously," said Gamze.

"...em...s...Daedalus." The survival kit's side lit up as a crackly, but still audible voice reached out from the small subspace receiver within. "Away Team this is the Daedalus, please respond."

Gamze patched the receiver through to her vocalizer. It allowed direct communication for herself as well as those near her. "Daedalus, this is Specialist Gamze. We are currently located within what appears to be a derelict Klingon vessel which has been overtaken by a biological culture of mineral composition inhabited by apex predators. We require immediate emergency extraction." Looking at Aya, she added, "My apologies, Commander, for taking the liberty."

"It's fine Chief." Aya replied, still very much focusing on the spiders as they breached the casing around the console's display.

"Daedalus this is Tusalo, agreed with Gamze, we need immediate extraction. The creatures are distracted for now but I don't want to bet on things staying that way for long..."

Slowly making her way over to where Sara and Aarix stood, she grasped the drag handle on the Ensigns suit and started pulling the engineer away from the console. "let's give them some room. Hopefully as long as that console has power they'll ignore us. Richards..." Aya glanced at the Ensign. " Try and access the console remotely." Aya would have loved to know why Klingons were here in the first place but the safety of the team took priority.

A slight but involuntary whimper came from Sara's comms when she jumped at the sensation of being pulled backwards. Her breath caught in her throat when her movement caught the attention of the spiders on the console, and it felt like forever before they turned back to their current meal. Breathe. Her mind was racing, her thoughts surely loud as hell to the other Betazoid on the team. "Y-yes... C-commander..." Once she was far enough away from the spider-infested console, she closed her eyes to try and focus.

Aarix didn't know how to help. He backed up as Aya pulled Sara backwards and now looked at the Ensign with concern clear in his expression. It looked like she was trying to calm herself down. Were the spiders that loud, or was she overwhelmed? Glancing to the Commander, he looked her over for any signs of similar distress, not seeing anything obvious. "It seems they are attracted to whatever gives off the highest energy. Our suits give off relatively minimal energy compared to a console, which is good for us. As long as something else is producing more energy than our suits, we might not be as at-risk as it seems. I certainly wouldn't stay here longer than we need to be, however."

"We may need to find a way to enhance our combadge signals in order for our rescuers to get a transporter lock," Gamze suggested. "If we are amplifying local energy sources to shield us from predators, then the same could mask our life signs."

"If we do that we might attract more bugs, but then we'd also get out of here!" one of the crewmen said, using a light pole from the survival kit to beat back one of the spiders which had got caught under one of the hardened Klingon consoles.

"Yes," Gamze conceded. "It would need to be timed for when we know the ship has an active lock."

"Crewman see if you can find a way out of this room, we may want to get far away from here." Aya ordered, pulling up her arm and looking over the display. "Gamze monitor power outputs of my communications, I'm going to try and contact the ship. If the power output exceeds the console dampen the power of my suit."

Leveling her phaser at the closest spider, Aya activated the comm. "Daedalus this is Tusalo, Daedalus come in?"

"Commander, the signal from your combadge pulsed at nearly equivalent to the passive energy output from the console," Gamze said. "A bigger data packet from your combadge would surely present a tantalizing target. Perhaps if the engineers synced every local console together into a low-level network, your combadge could patch through them in a tightbeam that can punch through interference without a surge that would draw a predator straight to you."

A low-level hum began to play in the air, as though the winds of change were quite literally singing through the wreck's air vents. One of the Operations techs, hunched over a console, began to glow with the soft transformative light of molecular disassembly as a transporter beam snagged at them. The light flickered, expanded, going from a soft glow to a harsher radiance...and then it and the tech were gone.

"..-lus to away team, we're punching through to you now." Maddox's voice warbled from the combadge. "Suggest you stand against the fore of the bridge section, as it's furthest away from the phaser beams end point. Oh by the way, we're using a low power phaser beam to create a charged pattern stream for the transporter. Bandwidths a little tight, but its working so far."

As if on cue a few of the consoles at the back of the bridge flickered off, the liquid crystal's in their displays beginning to discolour and warp as something rather energetic began to heat them from behind.

"Daedalus we read you. Coms protocol Sierra." Aya replied indicating the need for short informational bursts. In this case to keep being eaten alive. Hopefully they would hear her and they wouldn't need to try and work on networking consoles while the spiders were starting to gather and Daedalus was slowly cutting a hole the size of a shuttle into the ships bridge. "ETA on beam out?"

Two more of the rock spiders burrowed up and out of a air vent, renting metal as sightless gazes ravaged open space of the bridge seeking prey. One doze at the supply cache, whipcord limbs wrapping around it and crushing it in savage fury. The second one hesitated, three limbs hooked to the vent as it scanned its surroundings.

It open maw of irregular teeth settled on Aya for a moment, and the transporter beam energised a second before it lunged at her. The rest of the away team vanished in the same wave of disassembling energy, leaving the rock spiders to ponder the new found emotion of loss. Loss of food. Loss of the instinctional release of what little pleasure the hunt gave to them. But this emotional damage was short lived, as the back wall of the Bird of Prey's bridge melted under the assault, and the Daedalus's phaser array introduced a couple of tens of thousands of watts of phased energy.

Sufficed to say they did not appreciate the shock heating of their bodies and surroundings to a fair percentage of the surface of the local sun.

TAG=All

 

RSS Feed