Discovering Section 49 Alpha - Part IV

Posted on Sat 2nd Feb, 2013 @ 3:05pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Commander Jasmine Collins-Keller & Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Lieutenant Samantha O'Dell & Captain Eee-eee-rie--eeee-eek Nightingale D.Sc & Lieutenant JG Xavier Lee

2,367 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/3
Location: Deck 1030 - Section 48 Alpha
Timeline: MD-02: 2055 Hours

PREVIOUSLY ON STAR TREK: PROTECTOR

He tapped the dust-covered door control to his left and waited. Over a second or two passed before the doors responded to the instruction. Slowly he moved his line of sight, the only light streaming in from the corridor. He wasn't sure how to approach what he saw next... or even believe what he was seeing.

He turned to Lieutenant Lee who was as such an angle that he probably couldn't fully see into the room yet.

"Lieutenant, this place has just become a Level 5 security and quarantine zone... Senior Staff's authorisation only. I want triple security on this deck and a squad of Marines posted outside the door with level 10 security forcefields erected around everything. Get Doctors Nyx and Nightingale down here, immediately."

Shivers went down his neck as he forced himself to turn, once again, into Section 49 Alpha

AND NOW THE CONTINUATION

ON:

The room in front of him appeared to be that of an Infirmary on initial inspection, with computer terminals and diagnostic tools scattered around. In the next couple of seconds he made out biobeds and, what looked like, stasis chambers. Then, in the few seconds after that, his brain went into overdrive... the distinct outline of bodies was clearly visible.

As he stood there, rooted to the spot, his comm-badge beeped:

=^= O'Dell to Colonel Drake: Can I see you, please sir? =^=

It took him a second or two to realise someone was trying to communicate to him... he tapped his comm badge, recognising the voice of the new Chief Intelligence Officer.

=^= You can indeed Lieutenant, report to Deck one-thousand-and-thirty, section forty-nine alpha, on the double... and brace yourself, Lieutenant =^=

He slowly turned to look at Lee, once again. "I need lights, Lieutenant."

"I'll get right on it," Lee said without glancing into the room. He wasn't too sure why, but he knew nothing good was going to be in there, nothing good at all.

It was at this point that the Chief Science and Medical Officer appeared next to Lee, joined also by Graves. O'Dell couldn't have been far behind.

He took a deep breath and, without glancing behind him, set the first step into the unknown section. To his right, a few metres from the entrance, lay banks of terminals, all with chairs at them... to his left the biobeds were laid out. Differing from a normal infirmary, whereby each biobed had its own section and observation area setup around it... 'what the hell had taken place here?'

The first biobed was empty... a red residue stained the material. On the second bed lay the body of what appeared to be a Romulan... his skin a lot more olive than usual... he was missing the lower part of his right leg and all of his right arm... something was protruding from the stump on his leg... something metallic.

He glanced around to the three senior officers still standing by the door and beckoned them in with a simple hand motion... the third bed presented a Klingon, also in a similar state of affairs... but the front part of his skull had been removed.

The smell was now starting to get to him, he could feel his gag reflex kicking in... it wasn't one of decomposing bodies, but rather of pure staleness. He raised his head to see at least fifteen more beds adorning the wall... most of them were occupied.

Paul had felt mostly useless during the hour it had taken for Lee and his crew to penetrate the field. Now, he wished it were still up. Not only did he feel Drake's horror; he felt his own. Someone had experimented on these people, with no more care for them than would have been warranted had they been slabs of meat. And the most hideous thing of all was, he could still feel them, somehow, as if what they had felt had left an imprint on the place. He shook and had to restrain himself from the urge to smash the nearest stasis chamber. He took several deep breaths and forced himself to calm.

"I have never seen anything like this--have never even dreamt it in my worst nightmares," Paul said to Drake as he looked at the bodies. "The closest I can imagine to this is the experimentation done by a physician and his wife on Earth several centuries ago, to their slaves."

O'Dell had frowned slightly when he told her to meet her down in the belly of the station, but as it seemed to be a place she was getting used to as of late she didn't argue. Samantha didn't like the brace yourself comment though, but still. She made a bee line as it were for the captains location...

Samantha was taken back by the smell of the room before she even got to it, when the captain beckoned her inward she looked around before stepping in, it was more then she was ready to take in, but her mind was starting to shift quickly. "My God..."

Nightingale arrived. "Sorry. Got lost. This area of the map is very poorly mapped and-" The translator stopped, as she hung her mouth, in shock, of the sight. "This..." She added. The Translator cut out, shortly after that. There were simply no words to translate to.

She took a fresh gulp of water, then said something, which sounded vaguely like classical music.

"Diagnostic complete. Systems restarting." Her translator noted.

"Sorry. I do not usually break down to prayer like that, and the Translator doesn't take Southern Velurian Religious prayers for the deceased very well. No one has taught it the appropriate equivalent wording, if such a concept even exists." Nightingale said, in English. "I've not seen this before. I would really prefer not to see it again. I'll start taking readings." She finished.

"Systems restarted." Her translator noted.

Taking a few more careful steps forward, Drake came to the side of one particular biobed... the attraction to it was the body lying on it; more specifically the uniform that he wore. A young officer, by all respects, donning the old style uniform of tactical/operations gold, with three gold pips on his collar. He stared at the man's face... despite his eyes being shut, something about his expression seemed totally unnatural. If Drake had remained in the fleet, this would have essentially been him... despite him being only a teenager when the Dominion War happened.

He looked down past his waist... one leg was missing from just above the knee... a cybernetic type device nestled loosely into the wound. It looked at if he was being fused not only to the bone, but also to the nerve endings as well.

"Doctor Nyx... how are were these implants being attached?" He knew the Doctor would be within earshot.

"I - I have no idea sir. I'll have to get a closer look but it appears to be the work of bio genetic nanites....but they're illegal." She shook her head as her mind filled with thoughts and memories from her time in the lab on Vulcan. She wondered silently to herself if this wasn't what she and Cara had been subjected to. She wanted to be sick but knew she couldn't. She wanted to switch into her other self and tear the place apart, destroy all the memories that lurked in the small dark corner of her mind held there in place by the remaining threads of the protective wall she'd built up years ago.

Drake nodded at the response... unsure what to say next.

It was at this point that the emergency lighting in the room was replaced with the sterile white standard Federation lighting. Xavier and Fisher had spent the last few minutes rerouting power to this section of the station, which was considerably easier now without the dampening field in place. Not only did the 'medical bay' have lights, but the display readouts and biobeds also sprung to life. "Good work," Xavier said to Fisher. "You ready to face this?"

"I'm right behind you," Matt said solemnly.

Xavier took a deep breath and went to join the other senior officers in the pits of hell. The second they entered the room, all of Xavier's senses were triggered. Sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing; all of them assaulted by the pure vulgarity of the situation. How could a place like this exist, especially on a Federation starbase? Who would do this? As Xavier walked further into the room his sixth sense was triggered. He could sense the distress of the people around him and could do since the dampening field was deactivated, but this was something else, something overwhelming and urgent. It was like all the horror and torture and dread and pain and history of this place was being played directly into his mind. Not memories or any one specific thought, just pure and utter emotions and feelings. It was like some kind of psychic whiplash, it was powerful and deadly and way too much for the young Betazoid to handle. Xavier stumbled backwards and would have fallen to the ground if it hadn't been for Fisher's quick reflexes and strong arms.

"You okay Sir?" He asked, concerned etched all over his face.

Xavier blinked several times and took a few deep breaths. As quickly as the feeling had come on it had gone, leaving Xavier feeling cold and shaky. "Um...yeah, I'm okay...I think." He looked over to Graves and caught the Counselor's eye for a brief second before refocusing on the job at hand. "What is this place?" He asked no one in particular in an uneven voice.

No one answered the question posed by the Operations Officer... no one had the answer and no one was brave enough to take an educated guess.

"You're feeling it too?" Paul asked Lee in a harsh voice. "As if everything they felt was all bottled up somehow and...preserved?"

Drake turned and looked Lee directly in the eyes and said gently and quietly, "I don't know, Lieutenant... I don't know."

Turning back to the horror before him he spoke as loudly and confidently as he could, addressing everyone. "I want this place taken apart... I want to know everything there is to know about it. Senior Staff briefing in four hours."

With that, he turned and marched out of the chamber of horrors... putting on a brave face but knowing, deep down, he needed to get out.

Samantha frowned... as she watched Drake walk out, but she understood the situation. "Doc, " She looked at Nyx, "What do ya think quarantine a supply bay and get the... cadavers out via transporter?" she looked at the doctor for a sense of reality. She was going to try and figure out where all this belonged and what the hell it was all doing here. Who the hell was responsible for hiding it here. It was going to be a long night.

"We can use the bio lab on deck 725. It's set up for medical research and virology but it wouldn't take much to convert it to what we need and it would be more isolated."

"That seems rather logical." Nightingale said, absentmindedly, forgetting to speak english, causing a melodic tone to be just barely audible beneath her translated voice. "I would recommend, however, instead of a transport, that you place them in a quarantine forcefield, and use the anti-grav. They may have something that was designed to not be picked up by the transporter-buffers." She added. "From the looks of things, though, I suspect that I am fortunate to have the smell filtered by my environmental suit."

"I...I..." Xavier started but couldn't finish. He was on the verge of bringing up his lunch. He hated feeling like this, so weak, especially in front of his peers, but nothing had prepared him for this, not his years at the academy or his few years in active service. He needed to get out and was thankful that Drake had left meaning he didn't have to stay... he couldn't stay, not here.

Xavier made for the door as fast as he could without physically running, Fisher on his heel. Once they were outside of the room he took a few deep breaths and tried to control himself, just long enough to get rid of Matt. "I need every bit of information we have on this section of the station dating back to its construction. NOW!" Xavier barked the last command so Fisher would understand the gravity of the situation without asking any questions that Xavier didn't want to think about never mind talk about. It worked, Matt rushed off leaving Xavier to work out just how his legs were supposed to work.

"It's all right, lad." Nightingale said, putting a damp hand on Xavier's shoulder. "I'll get you a diver's rebreather, so the smell will get filtered, if you like."

"Either that, or inhale it deeply for a few minutes, to deaden your nose to the smell," Paul said. He grimaced as he took his own advice, the same as he'd done on the Bretagne.

Presently Drake reached the turbolift at the end of the corridor... the doors opened and he slowly walked inside and turned around. He gave the calm instruction to take him to Ops, on Deck 12. As soon as the doors shut he collapsed against the back wall and held his head, tight. What was he doing? He wasn't fit for command... not anymore. Once upon a time... but not now. He didn't know how to handle a discovery such as this. What were the correct investigatory procedures? Who should he inform? What should he be doing? All these questions rattled around his mind like a projectile bouncing off metal surfaces.

This was going to be a long night.

OFF:

Lt. Paul Graves
Chief Counselor
SB-Protector

Lt Nyx
Chief Medical Officer
SB- Protector

Lt. Sam O'Dell
Chief Intelligence Officer
SB-Protector

Colonel Ashton Drake
Commanding Officer
SB-Protector

(Marine) Captain Nightingale
Chief Science Officer
SB-Protector

Lt. (JG) Xavier Lee
Chief of Operations
SB-Protector

 

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