Cavan/Arvelion: "The Fever" Part 6
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“The Fever” Part Six
Lt. Cmdr. Elinor Cavan, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer
U.S.S. Galaxy
Col. For’kel Suum-Arvelion, SFMC
Commanding Officer
188TH Starfleet Marines Detachment- “The Furies”
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The security feed stayed frozen on the Zohan holding the canister, his eyes glazed over in a clear daze. Ellie scrambled to repack her rucksack. “He could not have gotten far, he is on foot.”
Fork weighed his options. He didn’t, and couldn’t trust her. Ellie was clearly compromised. That said, she was also the closest thing he had to a compass and Fork needed a direction. “Let’s go.”
As they darted through the waiting area of the medical facility, he hit his combadge. “Arvelion to all marines, all watches to be on alert for a local civilian, Doctor Zohan. Male Human, grey hair and balding. He may be trying to get off world or out of town. If found, we want him alive!” A plethora of urgent affirmative responses crackled over the line as they made their way into the black night of the Transylvanian like town, a normally bright full moon obscured by passing dense cloud cover and a ground level fog starting to rise.
The night air was a slap to the face. The settlement seemed deceptively normal at first glance. But then the details registered. A child's toy lay abandoned in the middle of the street. A ground transport was idling, its door hanging open, the driver nowhere to be seen. There was no chatter, no laughter from the open windows. It was the quiet of a held breath.
Ellie’s scanner whirred away. “I am getting residual traces, this way.” She pointed down a side street that led toward the older, stone-built section of town, away from the shuttle pad.
I see you Elinor…
The voice in her mind was a silken caress, a lover’s whisper in the dark. But the physical response was a brutal assault. The tug was pulling taut behind her naval so strongly she nearly collapsed. Her voice left her body.
Fork skidded to a halt as he heard Ellie stumble. His hand went to his phaser, perhaps an understandable reaction all things considered. “Ellie, can you hear me?!”
She did not respond. Her gaze turned inward, lashes fluttering frantically as her breathing became shallow, ragged breaths.
“Focus.” He repeated the same lesson scorched into every marine during SERE. “Focus on the sound of my voice, the cold air, the solid stone… don’t let your mind wander. Ignore every voice but your own, understand?!”
She gasped, eyes blinking to regain control. “Really going to shoot me Fork?” she struggled to mock him between strangled breaths.
“Good, let’s go.” Fork grabbed her hand and pulled her upright again, pressing specifically against the pressure point in the interior of her wrist to aid in the aforementioned focussing.
They scrambled down the side street in the general direction toward the old town. The buildings there, designed to mimic age, seemed practically alive themselves. Old style wooden shutters clattered and chattered in an increasingly whipping breeze. Creatures scurried about, field mice and rats dispersing the sinking ship that was the colony. The odd glow of lights in windows seemed to stutter before falling black like dominoes all leading to a central point.
The odd, warm glow in the scattered windows seemed to stutter, as if a massive, invisible hand were moving down the street, snuffing them out. One by one, they fell black, a wave of darkness rolling ahead of them, all leading to a central point at the end of the lane.
Its windmill sails were still, a stark silhouette against the bruised sky. It was the only structure without a single light, a mouth of pure darkness waiting to swallow them whole. The psychic pull in Ellie's gut became a sharp, insistent yank, a final, undeniable edict that she could not help but see through. The compulsion was so strong she felt as though she might die.
“Whatever this is… it is thrilled I have gotten here so quickly,” she murmured. Fork let go of her hand, shuffling Ellie behind him.
It was generally a bad idea to make your opponent happy. But there was no greater bait than happiness either. He thumbed his phaser to the maximum setting. Taking the first step across the threshold, the darkness inside the granary seemed to pulse in anticipation. The main floor was empty. The bloodstains from the two teenagers were still there, a dark, accusing smear in the faint light from the door. But the machinery was silent. The only sound was the frantic beating of Ellie's heart, a rhythm he could feel through the floorboards.
In the corner was a slumped figure. His face twisted in abject horror. Doctor Zohan had clearly served his purpose and been dispatched.
His purpose is served. A vessel, once emptied, is meant to be discarded.
“I think we have differing opinions on many things,” Ellie said, pulling her phaser rifle from her shoulder. Holding the grip so tight that her knuckles turned shades of pink, green and white all at once.
The creature emerged from the shadows. Its lipless mouth curled into a smile, that caused Ellie’s insides to recoil. Clad once more in the finest of velvets, a stark contrast to how it had looked prior— the creature looked nearly… human. Gaunt, but still. “Such fire. It will make the yielding all the sweeter,” it purred.
Fork did not wait for a monologue before squeezing the trigger. The high-powered beam of energy, capable of vaporizing a charging Klingon, launched across the room and struck the creature square in the chest. It staggered back a single step, a wisp of smoke rising from its coat. It looked down at the scorch mark, then back at Fork, its smile merely widening.
“It seems Colonel, that you brought a gun to a knife fight and it is…” the creature paused, dusting the debris from his coat. “Laughably inadequate. A valiant effort. To be applauded. However, it's ludicrous..”
In the space of a blink, it vanished from its spot and reappeared directly in front of Fork, moving with a speed that defied physics. Its hand shot out, gripping the barrel of the phaser rifle. There was a screech of tortured metal and circuitry as the weapon was crushed into a useless lump of slag in its grasp.
“And it seems to be your turn…” the creature moved peculiarly. Its shoulders rolled in a loose, disjointed rhythm, its hips swiveling with a jittery, hypnotic arrogance. It was a motion that belonged on a different kind of stage, fueled by something other than malice. (Author’s note; when I say peculiar I’m thinking Mick Jagger in that gawd awful dancing in the streets video. Where those boys only had cocaine and a dream. A thank you. See footnote. )
It leaned in close enough to Fork that Ellie was not sure if it was going to kiss him or kill him before it spoke. “To die.”
The words lingered for a hair’s breath. Fork was frozen, a statue before the predator’s coked-out, jittery beat. Ellie’s mind, a tangled web of human instinct and then there was the touch of Vulcan, did not scramble. It fought. Her human half screamed to run, to shut down.
Use what it expects. She let her legs carry her forward, not in a blind sprint, but in a performance. The sound of her boots was a deliberate drumbeat. She let the rifle shake. There was nothing as unexpected as a frightened ‘Vulcan’.
The sound of boots striking the floor was a drum beat that caught the creature’s ears. He turned to see Ellie, her rifle shaking in her hands as she tried aiming it, and a feral smile crossed its lips. My dear, such valor… you truly are remarkable. I will enjoy you for all eternity…
The hum pressed against her mind—a possessive, clouding force. It was like a psychic oil spill, slick and suffocating. She felt the seductive pull, the human part of her terrifyingly susceptible. It would be so easy. She let the feeling wash over her, but did not let it take root. She focused on the creature’s arrogance. She could see Fork, punching, clawing, kicking the object of her supernatural fascination, arms and legs and hands flopping about, the whole fight fading into the background as the creature locked its eyes squarely on hers. Ellie’s quivering became more pronounced under the weight of the creature’s intense glare.
With all his might Fork punched the creature in its face and gripped for its eyes. Only then, and only briefly, did the creature become aware of the puny distraction still in its grasp. Tanking the hit and without a second thought the impossibly strong monster lifted the fully armored marine above its head and hurled Fork at a speed that would have caused severe injury or death but for the armor and his ability to brace before impact. Oak barrels shattered, spilling out their grain. Duranium machinery and tritanium building spars bangled and clanked and groaned from stress while maple planks cracked. The dazed Stagnorian dropped like a rag doll onto the granary’s floor.
As the creature’s will pressed down, commanding her to her knees, commanding her hands to her collar, Ellie complied. She was the perfect picture of submission. She let it feel its victory. Its guard was lowering.
Its eyes glazed with lustful reverie.
“Yeeeessss… my pet” the word slithered out from the creature’s mouth as it cupped her chin. Victory was at hand.
Her mind was not a shielded fortress. It was a trap. As the creature leaned into its triumph, Ellie did not fight its will with force. Instead, her human chaos injected a psychic virus. She reflected its own arrogance back, but twisted it, poisoned it with the one thing it could not comprehend: sacrificial defiance. She showed it not her fear, but the image of Fork getting back up. She showed it not her submission, but her hand, in reality, moving not to her collar—- but to the photon grenade in her hand. “Kiss kiss.” she whispered
A high-pitched whine encapsulated the moment. A brief bolt of fear coursed through it, interrupting its telepathic bond, as its eyes fixated on the metallic orb of a standard issue photon grenade slipped into its velvet pocket pocket.
It barely got a roar off, and couldn’t quite grab the object before it detonated. The comparatively massive anti-matter fueled explosion hit the creature with a force it never previously experienced, clean off its feet, through the barrels, the machinery, the truss and wooden frame of the granary, and into the courtyard outside before it finally came to a stop. Its ears rang like bells. The world was slow… heavy… groggily it struggled to regain its senses, and only then did it realize it lost its link to Ellie.
Fork grabbed a splintered oak shard next to him and, as best as anyone in his condition could, stumbled his way towards the dark creature. Ellie picked up her rifle in the panicked haze of someone rudely awoken from the deepest sleep. They walked through the newly created hole in the granary’s wall. The air was still, cold, bone-chilling in the way a temperature below the dew point with high humidity could. Outside was an assemblage numbering the entire colony. They were enthralled, silent, surrendered to the dark lord.
“You…” the creature growled, forcing itself to its knees. “You shall not…!”
It stuck its fingers out in an accusing point, and silent command. The constables of the town stepped forward, hands out, racing towards the Colonel, but not nearly fast enough to prevent the inevitable. With Ellie providing cover, Fork lifted the spear-like splintered plank to drive it into the barrelled chest of the creature.
“COLONEL, DO NOT…!” the heavens themselves commanded.
But impaled the dark prince was. The creature’s life force exhaled through its purpled lips, robbing it of a voice even as it mouthed the words ‘defeat me’. What seemed like lightning flashed as the creature was slain, a clap of deafening thunder cut through the silent night. It reached up, its fantastic strength quickly dissipating. A dark plume of gray smoke rose from the husk as it, much like the previous time, disintegrated into a pile of charred, body-shaped dust.
“Perhaps we should use a shop-vac this time?” Ellie muttered.
The once still air suddenly became quite breezy. The hum of thrusters, a shuttle-like craft, echoed from above. At first Fork assumed it was one of his hoppers, but the brilliant streak of a spotlight put paid to that idea. He looked up, squinting at the blinding flash to try and identify the shuttle. Red, circular warp propeller… an obviously Vulcan aesthetic. The shuttle landed, a gangplank extended, and a cloaked trio of monk-like figures descended from the airlock.
“That was the product of forty-four years of research and a hundred billion credits of effort that you destroyed with a plank.” The once booming voice spoke with the quiet condemnation and seething anger that could only be manifested by a pissed off Vulcan. “You have destroyed the collective work of a hundred lifetimes.”
“Oh, your subject tried to murder us… multiple times I might add,” Ellie said, more pissed off than anything. “The subject was hostile. It was a direct and immediate threat to colonial security. The response was appropriate.”
The lead Vulcan lowered his hood. He had salt and pepper hair, but the classically stoic face of a Vulcan seemingly free from wrinkles as he regarded the doctor. “Simple logic Doctor Cavan. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You may refer to me as Doctor Turalk, and your interference with this work is not appreciated.”
“My duty,” Ellie sighed heavily, brushing off the dirt from her uniform. “Is to preserve life, not to protect some rampantly out of control creature experiment that decides to kill everyone. That is the only logic that is applicable here.”
“What you refer to by the term ‘creature’ was a member of a transdimensional species that occasionally pass into our dimension on this world. Their species can transfer memories, and katras, between themselves and other sentient beings of any kind. They have superior immunological systems and physical robustness. They defy the process of aging. Understanding their physiology completely would have allowed us to save billions of lives in the Federation. It would have allowed us to potentially ‘cure’ mortality.” Turalk regarded her with the begrudging respect owed a woman of science. “We have only begun unlocking its potential. Immunotherapies, genetic enhancement and therapy… our work with this creature allowed us to cure a plague on Coridian IV last year, and their pheromones assisted us in developing several promising lines of anesthetic and sexual dysfunction treatments.”
He paused to let the weight of his seemingly ‘logical’ argument settle in the air.
“To survive, the organism required both physical and metaphysical nourishment. It feeds in part on neural energy through telepathic bonds, and you have witnessed the unfortunately brutal nature of its physical consumption methods. Hence the need for the colony.”
“You…” For’kel growled like a wounded animal, clutching his side as he forced himself to his feet. “You knew…”
“The colonists here were a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.” Turalk turned his eyes back to Ellie, looking for understanding the wounded neanderthal of a Marine was unlikely to offer. “Imagine an immune system that could counter any known pathogen. Imagine super soldiers so far beyond compare that the practice of war itself is discarded. The ability to save a life’s essence by transferring it to a new body… the incalculable benefits to society by having a Surak or Socrates or Spock survive in perpetuity and made even greater by the wisdom and experiences of millenia. The continuity of consciousness…”
“You are a monster.” Fork sneered as he reached for a phaser.
Turalk replied derisively. “Your view is simplistic and your criticisms illogical, and I would not make the situation any worse than you already have, Colonel.” The Vulcan produced a protective forcefield with the wave of a hand. “What you believe is irrelevant. You terminated the subject, along with any hope of further unlocking its secrets. A crime of unprecedented scale against generations yet to come.” Turalk turned his attention back to Ellie. “If you only knew what was required to have you brought here…”
Ellie let out a small scoff, not allowing a sense of humanity to be shown. Playing a Vulcan like she had seen played out so many times before. Her grandmother would be proud. “You are incorrect, Doctor, and your logic is flawed. You were sacrificing an entire civilization for the benefit of research, that is not science. That is exploitation. A grotesque overreach of power.”
“Your mind is truly fascinating, Doctor Cavan. Your neural patterns were among a very select few compatible with the organism. Capable of co-existence.” Turalk tilted his head, inviting her to draw the inescapable conclusion. “Your knowledge, its powers… you have no idea what you have denied yourself. How many more lives could you save, how much suffering could you alleviate, were you able to heal with a thought, or sedate with a breath?”
“That forcefield…” Fork murmured. “Borg technology?”
The self-assured Doctor Turalk ‘almost’ grinned. “A prototype, the finest available. One of our potential offerings for personal defense…”
As Turalk droned on about the many wondrous technologies his agency had been able to extract from the collective following Sector 001, Fork winced through the pain to place a Dk’tagh in Ellie’s hand, his voice low enough that she could barely hear it over the self-important soliloquy of the bad guy.
“Arm’s broken. Knife’s balanced. Aim and throw.”
Without looking down Ellie’s fingers closed around the hilt, he was not lying about the balance. The weight felt familiar in her hand. She let out a slow exhale as she let the knife fly out of her hand in one swift motion. It landed on target with a sickening skntph in the Vulcan Doctor’s neck, right above his collar. Rust green blood swelled around the wound.
“Seems your prototype did not account for exceedingly long talking and decided to refresh itself,” Ellie said cooly. Turalk’s eyes widened in pure unmitigated shock, his hands reaching up to brush the hilt before he fell to the floor in one fluid movement. Ellie let out a low grumble. “Logic my ass.”
Turalk’s comrades moved too slowly to protect him. Wide eyes and breathless gasping was all Turalk had to offer as he fell back, reaching out for help. The two nameless goons grabbed their boss and carried him back to the ship. Sensors detected the approach of Marine hoppers… it was time to go.
“Good throw.” Fork mused. Before he could speak again the spellbound crowds suddenly became more animated, started moving independently. A low rumble of conversation and confusion about how they all got where they were… it was a suitable chorus to walk away to. “Let’s go home.”
Ellie caught the stubborn Colonel and helped steady him as they turned to walk out. With a simple one-sentence order they left the arriving marines to escort the crowd back to their respective homes. It was going to be a walk, and Ellie’s thoughts raced with all she had to do yet. “How the fuck am I going to write ‘this’ field report?”
The question might have been to no one in particular, but Fork, trying to avoid laughing, offered a response anyway. “You’ll manage. It gets easier every time. Damnit… I’m going to have to listen to Arel complain about losing another dagger.”
“You’ll manage.”
<Fin...?>