REP: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile (OCC - TNG era) 32 - The Defiant, [PG] 4/5
Stephen Ratliff
Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPH...@hotmail.com)
Series: ST-OM, OCC - TNG era [32/56?]
Rating:[PG]
Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where.
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek. I claim Original Characters
and Situations for me.
Part: 4/5
Sylvia looked at Paxton. He had hurt himself when the ship tumbled. "If it
weren't for bad luck would you have any luck at all?"
"Ow! Let's get back to the runabout!" Paxton said.
"We don't have enough of the data..." Sylvia said dubiously.
"To hell with the data, let's go!" Paxton said.
"All right, " She helped him to his feet "Let's get out of here." They
began to stumble towards the runabout.
-*-
"The interphase is collapsing. Whatever that was destabilized it."
Crystara said.
"You two take these men back to the runabout. I'm going after Birdy's
team." Baker said. He started to move towards the door.
Crystara reached out and stopped him. "I'm sorry, Sir. You don't have
enough time." She said quietly.
Baker grimaced. It was a command decision, but he never anticipated having
to make it. He had to choose between leaving some of his people behind, and
failing his mission. He looked at Jefferson and Mann. Mann was still
standing at attention, crying openly, now. Jefferson was still laughing
derisively. He caught Baker's eye. "Welcome to hell." He said and then broke
down into more laughter.
Baker flipped open his communicator and yelled into it. "This is Baker,
Deep Space Ten! Get back to the runabout!" He keyed it to repeat the
message, and set it down on a console.
"Okay, let's get the hell out of here."
-*-
Birdy smacked a raving man in the head with his tool kit. It was heavy
kit, the man went right down. Burke was fighting desperately but Mileu was
the real terror in the corridor. There were five raving men in the corridor.
Mileu danced through them in quick succession. With the exception of the one
the Birdy cold cocked, she disabled all of them in short order, saving the
one that was attacking Burke for last.
Burke stared at her. "I'm glad you're on our side!"
Mileu bowed from the waist. "D'omo Arigato. If you and Birdy hadn't
distracted the ones you did it wouldn't have been nearly as easy."
They turned to corner into a riot. The corridor was filled with
struggling, dying people. Birdy remembered the scene. He had come through
the aftermath.
"Not that way." He said. "This way."
They turned down another corridor.
-*-
Schuler and Paxton limped around the corner to find a Borg standing in the
corridor. "Aaiiieee!" Schuler screamed despite herself.
The Borg turned to see her.
Paxton said "Turn and walk away."
Schuler turned and began lugging the crippled Security Officer up the
corridor as fast as she could go.
"Wait!" Paxton grunted. "The (ugh!) Borg don't (ahh) react to...(Argh!)"
Schuler hurried up the corridor and turned the corner as fast she could
go. She could swear that Paxton had just dropped about one hundred pounds of
weight.
The confused Borg called after them "Wait! I don't understand..." But they
were too far away to hear it.
-*-
Jefferson had stopped laughing and Mann was moving with a purpose, now.
They were climbing from deck to deck towards the very top of the Defiant
where the runabout was docked.
A hatch slid open and a long, ropy black tentacle snaked out and started
feeling around the corridor. Tandala squeaked and scuttled away. Crystara
recoiled but backed away scanning.
"It is some sort of subspace life form." Crystara said. "It does not exist
entirely in our time space continuum."
"It'll eat you up, though!" Jefferson said. "It'll swallow you right
down!"
Dr. Smith shook her head. "Are we hallucinating? Is this real or has the
interphase affected our minds?"
"Is there a difference?" Tandala asked.
"We're not going to get out of here, Are we?" Mann asked, hopelessly.
Falling into habit, Baker said "We're going to make it." With a sincere
and completely unjustified sense of self confidence.
-*-
Birdy, Burke and Mileu ducked into the emergency sickbay. Burke and Birdy
both grabbed the emergency door actuator and with a hydraulic hiss, the door
slid shut, closing out the reptilian horror behind them.
Mileu began to look around quickly.
"My god, what was that?" Burke asked.
"Looked like about thirty feet of Komodo dragon to me." Birdy said.
"Where did it come from? I don't understand!" Burke cried.
"You didn't have any komodo dragons on the Defiant?" Birdy asked.
"No."
"Hmmm. That's bad."
Mileu found what she was looking for. She picked up a phaser from a dead
man's hand and check it for charge.
"Wasn't there an order about no phaser use, Ensign?" Birdy asked.
Mileu replied. "I don't think I can fight off that big lizard with a
baton, Chief." She came to attention. "If you insist, Sir, I will."
"No, that's all right. I guess the anomaly is destabilizing anyway." Birdy
said.
"It's getting worse." Burke said. She began to search around the sickbay.
She picked up a medical smock to cover for her damaged uniform. "I don't
remember it getting that weird."
"Just what do you remember?" Birdy asked.
Burke stopped and thought about it for a long while. "I don't want to
remember." She said quietly.
"I don't think we're going to be able to get back to runabout." Mileu
said.
With a metallic crunch, the sickbay door started to give. The Komodo
dragon began to dig its prey out of their convenient lair.
Birdy thought about it. They were on deck nineteen, and the runabout was
docked at a hatch above deck one. That was nineteen floors of riots, komodo
dragons and whatever else might be out there to get through.
"I am open to suggestions, at this point." Birdy said.
-*-
Paxton and Schuler limped down a corridor, lost. They had run in a panic
away from the Borg.
They turned a corner to find a woman with a brown colored uniform. She had
ridges on her nose and a complicated earring on her left ear. He pointed the
business end of a delicate weapon at them.
"[Identify yourselves!]" She said. Neither Paxton nor Schuler could
understand her. They raised their hands slowly to slow no hostile intent.
"I guess no one told her about the no phasers rule." Paxton said.
"Some time to be disarmed." Schuler complained.
"[Well, I guess you two aren't mad like the rest of these poor people.]"
The crew of her ship had all ready evacuated half a dozen raving maniacs
from the strange derelict. The explosion seemed to indicate that the anomaly
that held the ship was changing. It was time to go.
Taking Paxton under his other arm, the woman said "[My ship is this way!
Come on!]"
Schuler didn't stop ask questions the stranger seemed to be willing to
help, and that's all that mattered. Briefly Schuler remembered the dramatic
presentation showed to all first year cadets. A flat screen production of
something called "The Twilight Zone" the episode called "To Serve Man".
"Shut up." She growled to herself. Now was not the time.
-*-
The translucent figure floated in air above the deck. It was man in space
suit from the Defiant. He was short and muscular with brown hair and hazel
eyes. He reached out beseechingly but none of the team could touch him.
"He's a spirit that can't find his way out." Tandala said.
"Lieutenant, I don't want to sound intolerant or anything but we need a
strategy for getting the hell out of here, not magic mumbo-jumbo." Baker
said.
"With all due respect, Sir. We're stuck on a ship caught halfway between
reality and unreality. We've rescued fifty year old castaways who haven't
aged a day, and we're looking at a transparent man float immaterially over
the deck. Which world view is better adapted to deal with this?" Tandala
said snappily.
Baker thought about it for a moment. They were trapped and things seemed
to be getting worse. There was nothing wrong with the 24th century
scientific mindset. One of it's primary tenants is that honesty must be the
ruling condition. Baker could not honestly say that Tandala's spiritual
mumbo-jumbo were any worse than running away from monsters at random.
"I'm game, Lieutenant. If you have any ideas then magic away. It's better
than we're doing right now." Baker said.
Tandala looked at him, shocked. "Are you serious?"
Jefferson snorted. Mann said "You're authorizing magic spells?"
Crystara simply started her tricorder recording.
Baker said "I can't say you're wrong, Tandala. Your description of the
Dreamtime is very similar to this place. My mind is open enough and
desperate enough to give it a shot."
Tandala shot him a sideways look. "I guess getting dressed down by Birdy
was better for you than I thought."
"It's only been one day. Let's give it some time." He said.
"To make it through the Dreamtime, you have to follow my instructions
explicitly. If you deviate you may wander in this place until another shaman
comes through to rescue you." Tandala began to take off her uniform.
"I don't believe that you're going to try magic spells to get us out of
here!" Mann said.
"Ensign! That will be enough!" Baker yelled. "Do you have a better idea?"
Mann looked stubborn and unhappy.
"Do you?" Baker asked. "No? Then my decision is made. We'll follow
Tandala's advice. What do we do, Lieutenant?"
"We must eliminate as many of the obstructions and distractions caused by
the material world as possible. That means clothes and everything. We will
sing the basic songs and do the basic dances so that you can keep up. It'll
take a while and your soul must be as quiet and pure as you can make it."
She finished stripping and recovered her medicine bag and her talismans. The
small woman's brown body was slim and covered with tattoos that symbolized
her shamanistic status. She assumed a cross legged position on the deck and
began to slowly chant in a high pitched voice.
The man in the space suit faded away. Baker began to strip out of his
uniform and join Tandala on the deck.
The rest of the team began to strip.
-*-
Some sort of gray goo filled the corridor. Paxton, Schuler and the alien
woman had to detour around. "Is it me, or is this getting worse?" Schuler
asked.
"Keep going." Paxton grunted. His ankle had been getting worse and worse.
"[We'll have to go up a level and then down.]" The woman said.
They made it to a ladder and the woman pointed the way up it. She began to
climb away from them.
"Argh." Paxton commented.
"That's the way we want to go, anyway, isn't it?" Schuler asked. She
helped him to the ladder and he began to painfully climb after the alien
woman.
-*-
A ball of light, heat and energy floated down the corridor. Occasionally
bolts of lighting would shoot out of it and play over details of the ship.
"It's some sort of plasma." Birdy said, scanning it with his tricorder. "I
don't know how it's being contained or directed."
"That cuts off our last avenue of escape." Mileu said darkly.
"I can't stay here, I can't!" Burke yelled. it seemed as though she was
barely holding on to herself.
Birdy thought it over carefully. "I have another idea."
-*-