Lieutenant JG Ras El'Heem - Behold, the Other is here

[Ras El'Heem]

((Room 147, Deck 14, USS Khitomer – docked at DS33))

If he had said things were not going how he expected, he would be half lying. Ras didn’t believe in ghosts. It was illogical. He thought they would find an abandoned room that had been bureaucratically relegated to the annals of maintenance log hell and had never had a second look. There was the nagging feeling from the start, however, that it wasn’t that simple. The fact that a “ghost” was standing before them precipitated that half lie. A part of his brain wanted to give into the superstitions he never quite placed stock in. His eyes were fixated on the woman and a chill permeated his body. The Kressari shook it off and willed himself to grab firmly tight of the rational facts in front of them. Kiran Thal, was missing. The room was sealed. There is now a holographic (probably) projection of that ensign in front of them. And it all seems to point to errant code that was isolated to Room 147.

 

It was code. That’s all it was.

 

Richard: Hey look at this. :: He held up the tricorder, angling it so that Ras could see ::

 

Richard snapped Ras from his spiraling analysis. Ras glanced towards the tricorder for a moment but immediately returned his eyes back to Thal. Wait. What did the tricorder say? His eyes jumped back to the message on the screen.

 

‘Don’t listen to her?’

 

Ras squinted and met Richard’s gaze.

 

El’Heem: That is…some anomalous data you found…

 

As he spoke the words he looked back to the girl, not sure if his subterfuge was as convincing as he wanted it to be.

 

Richard: Sounds like a secondary program that’s running. Preventing you from executing specific programs. Maybe if we shut you down-

 

Thal: NO! :: The lights in the room flickered and Richard did wince at the shout this time :: You will not shut me down!

 

Ras swallowed nervously. The situation was precarious. He wasn’t sure of the extent of what the entity could do, and if it could actually harm them in its current state but he wasn’t going to take any chances. His elbow shot out and nudged Richard as if to say, “No more talk of shutting her down, please.”

 

Richard: Okay no turning it off and back on again to fix this. :: He held up his hands in a ‘it’s okay gesture ::

 

Thal: Thank you.

 

Charles: ::raises his right hand slowly:: There’ll be no shutting down. We want to help you, Kiran.

 

Reht: ::under his breath:: We can’t shut it down anyway.

 

He took three slow steps back without turning his back on Ensign Thal, closing the distance to Reht.

 

El’Heem: ::whispering:: I need you to get control of the code. And soon. Please.

 

The shadows in the room seemed to creep around, just out of view. Thal’s glow wasn’t constant and it flickered every so often, creating an ambience that set you on your toes. All four officers were on the door-side of the room and Thal was directly in the middle. At this point, there was a non-zero chance that the real Kiran Thal’s corpse would come crawling out from under the bed. His uneasiness was compounding.

 

Richard: :: Moving over to show Charles his tricorder :: Hey so look at this, maybe this can help!

 

Charles: What do you have, Ensign?

 

The Matthews committee conversed in a whisper and the ghost just stared at them with an empty expression.

 

Charles: ::nods:: Good work. Can I just double check your readings for a second?

 

Richard: Response

 

Charles: Can you share your readings with the Lieutenants, Ensign? Please.

 

Charles had a plan, perhaps? Ras crossed his arms and titled his head towards Richard as he approached.

 

Thal: Help me… before the other returns.

 

Charles: Kiran? I’m Charles. ::smiles:: Matthews. I’m the ranking Officer here. We want to help you, we do, but we just don’t understand.

 

Richard saddled between Ras and Reht and showed them the message the two had come up with: KEEP YOURSELF AND HER CALM. BE READY FOR ANYTHING.

 

Reht: Uh- Yep. Looks right to me.

 

El’Heem: That’s it? No more…uhhh readings?

 

Richard: Responses

 

Thal: You have no need to understand, Charles Matthews. Comprehension is not a prerequisite to cooperation.

 

Charles: You were an Officer, Kiran. You know we can’t just act. We have protocol to consider. There is a chain of comma---

 

Thal: Your protocol doesn’t help me! Please. I need to get back to the stars.

 

El’Heem: Kiran, we are going to try our best to help you. ::swallowing:: You’ve been here so long already, a few more moments of patience, please.

 

Richard: Responses

 

Charles: ::whispers:: She did say “get back”. She isn’t…

 

Charles turned his back on Kiran and address them.

 

Charles: I don’t think she is Kiran Thal at all. She’s an intruder we couldn’t shake. “Get back” to the stars" implies that she, it, is from somewhere else.

 

Something clicked for Reht and he spun back to the console and began typing frantically.

 

Reht: You’ve got it, Charlie. I think- 

 

Richard: Responses

 

El’Heem: What have you got lieutenant?

 

He leaned over the desk by his side and watched Reht work.

 

Reht: There’s been something bothering me about the code I fixed, like why was it broken in the first place. ::taping still:: You see, Starfleet likes their security measures and one of them is how we write our code. This ::gestures to the screen:: was written strangely, which is what kept it from going live for so long. ::looks at Richard:: And then you mentioned a power drain. 

 

Ras watched the console fly through command lines and took it all in, trying to process what the Trill was getting at.

 

Richard / Charles: Responses

 

Reht: Well, I can’t know everything that quickly. Give me a moment. Do either of you dabble in Computers?

 

El’Heem: Richard’s the computer whizz but I do indeed…dabble.

 

Richard / Charles: Responses

 

Reht: Okay. To put it simply, it looks like the poor Ensign was using some advanced coding to personalize her quarters, but there is another element here that looks as if it was written not just by someone else, but by someone who was not trained by the fleet. It’s sloppy. ::looking over his shoulder to the apparition:: No offense. ::back at the screen:: When I fixed the code I made the two compatible, so the foreign code is using Thal’s code to piggyback into our systems.

 

He was right, the parsing was all wrong and looked jerry rigged. Bits and pieces of legit code comingled with gibberish and unknown commands.

 

Richard / Charles: Responses

 

El’Heem: Can you tell what the original code was trying to accomplish?

 

Reht: No- Well, that I don’t know. 

 

Richard / Charles: Responses

 

El’Heem: Good thinking Richard. Reht, can you try to walk back the original corrupted code and step into each line to try and find out what it was intended to do without executing it?

 

The room suddenly got frosty cold, and his breath sparkled in a puff next to the group of officers. There was an electric intensity in the air that made Ras slowly turn to face the entity. A low thrum began in the walls. It wasn’t mechanical like the ship sounds one was used to. It was wet like in a breath clogged throat. The overhead lights spasmed bright white, bordering on overloading and then a shift. The room was bathed in a blood red ultraviolet hue that strobed in time with the thrum. Glimpses of things that could not possibly be there infected his vision. Grotesque creatures of which no description could be mustered. The smooth panels of the bulkhead walls began to blister, then weep a dark viscous ooze that pooled at the base of the walls. It glistened like oil but reeked of spoiled meat and hot metal. That smell hit Ras like a truck. Putrid and electric. Then a wave of pressure overcame them. His hands went to his head and squeezed in an attempt to alleviate the vice that was crushing it.

 

Kiran’s image began to stutter even more violently than it had before. It stretched and teared in a corrupted manner that drew images of hellish torture as her limbs snapped backwards abruptly. Her face contorted into an elongated rictus of sheer cosmic grief. A sound came from her mouth that was not a scream, or static, for that matter, but the wet gulp of something crawling through a birth canal lined with teeth. Shadows darted in patterns behind her that defied geometry, flitting just outside his vision. The pain in his head was immense and he fought back the urge to vomit. Ras couldn’t even take the time to check on his comrades, it was all happening so fast. Then the pressure released, and he gasped for air only for it to be replaced by a feeling so intense it threatened to consume him. It wasn’t dread, it was grief so ancient and deep it felt like drowning in someone else’s dream. The frost in the air grew as tendrils of vapor curled from their mouths to the ceiling where the lights shattered one by one. Thal froze, malice etched into her visage. Her voice doubled, then tripled, and reverberated in voices that were not hers. One childlike and mocking, another trilly and insectile, another in a language no Human, Trill, or Kressari throat could shape.

 

Thal?: The Other is here.

 

The three voices were harmonious and her eyes filled with a black smoke.

 

Thal?: And it remembers you.

 

From the vents above, a slick chittering began, as if thousands of mandibles scraped along unseen piping that echoed down the shafts like a death rattle. Ras turned to speak but the words caught in his throat. Every sound he tried to make came out backwards. Syllables fell in on themselves as if language itself was unraveling. Richard’s tricorder and the console in front of Reht sparked and the screens flickered to static then displayed a single word.

 

Ḅ̵͙̈́̿ë̷̳́h̵̡̥͐o̶̼̿l̶̦̥̋d̶̖͓̽́

 

Thal lifted from the floor, her neck hanging limp and her arms outstretched like a marionette held by invisible strings. The ooze at their feet began to ripple into concentric circles. Something pressed from beneath the plating causing it to bulge. Just as it seemed it would crack under the pressure from below.

 

It stopped.

 

And everything went silent.

 

The lights returned to normal, and Kiran was nowhere to be seen. The door behind them hissed open and Ras whipped around to see who or what would enter.

 

Michaels: Hello there. :: to the unfamiliar man:: I am your neighbor, Lera Michaels. I am in room 148. Welcome to ... Khitomer.:: beat:: I do not wish to interrupt your all-male celebration, but... dare I ask ... what you are doing?

 

Ras stared at the ensign, eyes wide and then looked at each of the other men in the room. Each was recoiled on themselves in shock.

 

El’Heem: Nothing.

 

Richard / Reht / Charles: Response

 

TAGS/TBC

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Lieutenant JG Ras El’Heem

Science Officer

USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)

K240106RE3