FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

File #11 - "Pieces"

"It's in the ship!?"

Captain Nicholson sat down and looked at the green eyes of the creature that sat in front of him. He had never encountered a Gallifreyan before so he was unsure at what to expect.

The Ready Room was dark, the main computer console that was on the back wall was dark, usually it would have displaying important information such as a map of the surrounding space, incoming subspace communications or anything that the commanding officer of the ship would as for.

Nicholson turned, looking out the large windows to the drifting, silent wreckage of the Norexan Class warbird that he had been powerless to save. Scattered pieces that were dark, silent...

Dead...

"Yes Captain, the lifeform reproduces itself by infecting other ships with an electromagnetic virus that subdues the native computer systems." replied Commander Tempest.

"And that is why our systems are having random malfunctions?"

"Not random Captain" replied Commander Tempest, his piercing gaze seemingly staring into Nicholson's very soul. "The virus grows out of the main computer, similar to the Iconian computer virus encountered by the Enterprise-D years ago. It works itself out of the main computer directory and assimilates the knowledge of the computer banks as it goes, learning and constructing itself into more complex pathways."

Nicholson felt somewhat uneasy at the prospect of this. The word "assimilation" was all too rule to him. His parents had paid the price because of this word.

His parents had been on the U.S.S. Lalo in 2366. The Mediterranean Class starship had been no match to the rampaging Borg Cube that was making its way into the heart of Starfleet. He had never seen his parents again and was raised by his Aunt on Earth.

Curiously, Starfleet has never discovered the wreckage of the Lalo and it was assumed that the ship had been destroyed. However, a more horrible theory began to emerge since the U.S.S. Voyager returned home in 2377. They reported encountering individuals that had been assimilated at the Battle of Wolf 359 and that Borg Cubes were capable of tractoring vessels inside them for assimilation.

Captain Nicholson had always wondered if his parents could still be alive, in a fate worse than death...

As drones...

"Can we purge this "thing" from our computer system?" asked Captain Nicholson as he sat down in his chair behind the large desk that separated them.

Commander Tempest pondered his response for a second. The captain of this vessel seemed to be somewhat inexperienced and eager to "remove" this lifeform. He wondered if this possibly could have been his first command.

"No" Tempest responded curtly. "By this stage, the lifeform has infiltrated most of the primary systems on the ship. It would be impossible to determine where "it" ends... and the computer begins."

"Mr Tempest" replied Nicholson, with some agitation in his voice. It seemed as if Tempest was acting far too casually for the gravity of the situation. "This lifeform has infiltrated my ship, threatened my crew, destroyed an allied vessel. Are you suggesting we allow it to take over the ship?"

"Not at all... sir" sneered Commander Tempest, wondering how this individual had ever been made a commanding officer. He was too used to having the captain of his ship listen to his thoughts and opinions, even when they were somewhat unusual. "The creature attacked that warbird out of an instinctive reaction, as any lifeform would to protect itself from harm. It had not yet evolved to the point of sentience and I think our best option here would be to try and communicate with it."

Captain Nicholson could not believe what he was hearing. Commander Tempest was advocating protecting this creature, after it had killed his best friend, destroyed another ship and threatened the lives of the entire crew?

"This thing killed the Chief Medical Officer of this ship!" he barked, almost unable to contain himself from shouting. "... a dear personal friend of mine and..."

"Captain!" replied Commander Tempest, standing up immediately to challenge the ignorant attitude of this officer. "That lifeform..." he barked back, correcting him. It had only been a few years since he had been called a thing because he happened to be a different species. "... did not kill your doctor! It was the lifeform on the Victorious that did that."

"Even more reason to regain control of this ship... I have people over there in danger!" he exclaimed. "Now our nurse has found a way to purge it from our systems using the same technique she used to save you..."

"What do you think the Victorious's actions will be if you threaten its offspring?" barked Commander Tempest, disgusted with what the Captain was proposing. Why was it human nature to destroy something that they did not understand?

He thought humans had moved such basic instincts. But there was something more than that. This was not about human instinct.

This was purely about fear.

He could sense Nicholson's fear. He had clearly never been in a situation like this before, nor had the experience to lead a group of people during a crisis situation like this. His response seemed to echo that of an academy cadet.

"We'll deal with that, if and when the situation arises." he said coldly and for a moment, Tempest could see yet another human emotion. This one was colder, darker and subtly terrified him, the true darkness of the human soul.

Revenge.

Suddenly, all the higher goals that humanity, Starfleet and even the Federation meant nothing if one man could still be motivated by such darker impulses. Humans often exclaimed that they had eliminated all conflict, war, disease and poverty but despite all their achievements, they could still be manipulated by their feelings and such basic, hurtful emotions.

Nicholson pushed the small array of buttons on his desk, signaling to the security outside the door that barged their way into the room.

"Take Commander Tempest to quarters. He is to be held their until further notice..." sneered Nicholson, looking back out at the wreckage of the Serpentarius. He would put a stop this thing right now... before it could hurt anyone else.

"Wh- Captain!?" exclaimed Tempest as two officers grabbed his arm and led him out the despite his loud and verbal protests.

The door swooshed shut and suddenly Captain Nicholson was alone. He would not have anymore deaths on his conscience today...

He was determined to make sure of it.

To him it was not about revenge, it was about protecting his crew and ensuring that his people did not die in vain. All nobel goals that had been warped to mask his real purpose.

He would make it pay...

---

Zant crawled through the cold metal jefferies tubes on the Victorious. He suddenly felt a curious pang of hunger from his belly and wished that he had really had the opportunity to take his lunch break somewhat earlier than usual today.

Doctor Braveheart was ahead of him but he was unsure where the Doctor was leading him to as they seemed to be heading deeper into the bowls of the ship.

"W-Where are we going?" asked the Andorian nervously.

"Deck Ten" grunted the Doctor as he jumped down of the jefferies tube and the darkened junction before reaching for a manual override for the hatch to the junction below.

"Why?" asked Zant in confusion.

"Do you always talk so much?" snapped the Doctor sarcastically, trying to the pull the heavy hatch apart before Zant got out of the jefferies tube and came to his aid.

"Well... sometimes people say it's my worst feature" replied Zant, trying to give him a half cocked smile.

Doctor Braveheart sighed and looked at him. It had been months since he'd seen somebody so optimistic and it was kind of refreshing. It reminded him that there was some life out there in the vast experience of the universe that was not trying to kill him or take over his body.

Braveheart gave him a smile back, realising that he made have been too hard on the ensign and trying to apologise for it in his own way. "Well keep doing it..." he chuckled. "It's comforting."

Zant beamed a smile like he had just been given his own ship and grabbed hold of the other side of the lever as they both pulled and the hatch grinded open.

Doctor Braveheart quickly jumped down into an identical junction and began to work on the door on the far side of that room.

"So why deck 10?" asked Zant as he jumped down, passing the phaser rifle to Doctor Braveheart as he spoke.

"We set up a localised dampening field on that deck that masks our lifesigns from Victorious." he said prompting Zant to look somewhat confused as the door grinded open as if it was being pulled from the other side.

"We?"

A woman was standing in the doorway, she was a tall Andorian with an imposing face and long white hair. Zant was intrigued immediately by her, it was always nice to see another one of his people.

"Whose this?" asked the woman, her antenna twitching suspiciously.

"This is supposed to be the caverly" mocked Doctor Braveheart as they both stepped out onto the deck. "I guess it actually worked..."

Zant was completely confused by this exchange between the Doctor and the Andorian woman but it was pretty clear that they knew each other in some capacity.

"Let me guess... Starfleet sent us an ensign to the rescue?" chuckled the Andorian female as she lowered the phaser rifle that was firmly nestled in her hand. Her uniform was as scuffed and grubby as the doctor himself.

"Yeah" chuckled Doctor Braveheart, signalling Zant to follow them as they walked down the dimly lit hallway. "He likes to talk a lot too..."

"Great" remarked the Andorian, rolling her eyes.

"Ensign Zant, U.S.S. Warrior" interjected Zant immediately. He felt that he ought to say something instead of just following on behind them quietly.

The Andorian female turned around instantly to look at him. She was an imposing presence, taller then he was but that was not uncommon for Andorian females to have a very aggressive stature and an equally aggressive personality.

"Captain Kathy Granger" replied the female. "And I don't really have an assignment..." she looked somewhat saddened when she said that. "Not anymore".

Ensign Zant was going to ask why that was but this time he read her perfectly and decided that it was in his best interests not to.

The group turned a corner and walked into a room that appeared to what was a diplomatic lounge on the Victorious. The Excelsior Class had been designed with many of these rooms to hold diplomatic functions but it appeared that this one had been adapted to serve as some sort of makeshift sickbay.

There was a distinct slow murmuring of voices and a myriad of different people in the room as Zant entered it and he looked around. He counted about five to ten people all either on small stretchers that replaced the tables and chairs normally in this room or standing up and performing various duties. The dampening field must have prevented the Warrior from detecting them.

There were large windows at the rear of room from which he could see the Warrior in the distance and what looked like the wreckage of another vessel that was too far away to make out.

A huge creature, similar to Muraco but appeared to share common traits with a species of Tigris from Earth walked forward as soon as they arrived. Zant had never set eyes on this species before.

"Captain..." he started, his eyes narrowing in on Zant as he talked. He was way bigger then Zant and could have easily snapped his neck if he wanted to. "Lieutenant Lovejoy died from his injuries. I'm sorry."

"Dammit!" exclaimed Kathy, who looked visibly distressed. She put her phaser rifle down at what used to be the bar but was currently being used as some makeshift operating table. "I knew I should have sent more people..."

"A larger team would have been detected..." replied the creature with a low booming voice. "Eh... Who is that?" he pointed, looking over at Zant who was nervously feeling somewhat uncomfortable at being singled out.

""He's from another Federation Starship" replied Doctor Braveheart. "So at least we know that part of the plan worked."

"Excuse me... what plan?" asked Zant, almost in a total state of confusion. He knew he was speaking out of turn to senior officers but he did not particularly care at this moment.

Captain Granger immediately turned to him, taking a deep breath as it fell to her to explain it to him. She had been through a lot in these past months and did not feel like rehashing it all.

"As the doctor has told you..." she started. "When the creature took over the Victorious, we were lost in the Triangulum Galaxy".

Zant nodded, he recalled everything that the doctor had told him about how the Republic and several other ships were pulled into theTriangulum Galaxy after the implosion of the New Alexandria singularity.

"...With our fleet gone, mostly destroyed by the creature and no real hope on the horizon. Myself and Captain Frostmane decided to attempt to use the Ketteract Drive on this ship to attempt to return to the Alpha Quadrant..."

Zant looked over to the doctor and then the new officer of an alien species that he had never met before.

"Captain Frostmane, despite his advanced years, was able to distract the creature long enough for us to set up the dampening field here and get a team to Engineering in order to use the Ketteract Drive. However the creature discovered our motives and killed Captain Frostmane and had several of the crew members attack the team that were working on the drive... when we completed the jump, we were unsure where we were."

Zant nodded in acknowledgement. It was a lot of information to process but he had to find a way of relaying this back to the Warrior and letting them know that there were survivors over here.

"Their ship may be having the same problem?" growled the huge, bulging creature.

"What do you mean Yama?" asked the Doctor as he looked up surprised.

"A Romulan ship decloaked about thirty minutes and that ship destroyed it. Similar to what the Victorious did to the rest of the fleet."

Both Kathy and Keiran looked notably shocked and Ensign Zant was still trying to process the information he had been given. Was the Warrior now in the same danger? Was his crew?

"I need to get a message out to my ship..." he said immediately.

"Hold on!" replied Yama, looking down at the nervous Andorian with a somewhat stoic stare. Zant could just make out some kind of bladed weapon fastened to his belt, possibly something used by his species that he had been allowed to carry on this ship. "Any communication is going to be detected by Victorious."

"Yes..." replied Kathy, trying to wrestle control of the situation back to her. She was unaccustomed to dealing with the impulsive nature of her own people, having spent twenty years away from Andoria. "We tried it when we first got here and Lieutenant McCain is still in a coma from the discharge!"

"How is he?" asked Doctor Braveheart, the concern evident in his voice.

"He's stable but Lieutenant Storm only had extension courses so he'd be grateful if you looked at him" replied Captain Granger. "We've already lost Ensign Sharpshire and I don't want to lose anymore people."

Doctor Braveheart looked deeply saddened by this information. "Eddy is dead!?" he asked, a small softer sound coming from his throat. "But I managed to secure the medical supplies we needed from sickbay."

Captain Granger knew that she needed to keep going, keep trying to encourage her crew and give them hope in such a desperate situation. "I'm sorry Doc" she said, putting a comforting blue hand on Doctor Braveheart's shoulder. "I knew you served with him a long time..."

"Yeah... well..." replied the Doctor. "I've lost a lot of old friends recently". He immediately scuttled over without saying a word and crossed the room to treat a black haired human that was lying unconscious on one of the stretchers.

There were a few seconds of awkward silence and Ensign Zant really felt like he should have been offering this people prospect of a rescue, not dooming them further.

"Captain?" he asked, after a few seconds. "How can we get in contact with the Warrior and warn them?"

"Don't worry about that" smirked Kathy, keeping her eyes solely on Doctor Braveheart, working at the far end of the room. "We have a plan."