Shadows and Moonlight pt.3

Posted on Tue Sep 17th, 2024 @ 3:09pm by Captain Malcom Llwyedd & Lieutenant Jackson Smith & Lieutenant Soto Gantt

3,664 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: A Long Hard Road Ahead
Location: Dark corner of DS18
Timeline: 25 August, 2396 -1500 Hours

[ON]
The darkened corridor pressed in on Jackson as he waited, each flicker of the failing lights amplifying the tension. He'd dispatched Ensign Lun to make sure the corridor was clear as they waited for Lieutenant Gantt to show up. Every second that ticked by increased the risk of discovery. His gut churned with the certainty that they weren't the only ones hunting for the SCIF. Delay could mean running into rival factions—or worse, finding the sensitive intel already compromised.

Sidling along the wall, Gantt crept forward until he saw Jackson and then closed until he was sure Jackson had noticed him. Out of knife range. Safety first. Gantt crossed the hallway. "I'm not sure what we'll find so I packed a few things." Gantt patted the backpack hanging off a shoulder. "Just some tools I think will help."

Luns voice echoed from the shadows but nobody could see her. She skipped from sliver to sliver in the dim twilight of the war-torn inner hull. The best way for her to scout ahead was to leave her non camouflaged items behind.

"I can feel the air density shift. We aren't the only ones in these corridors. I just can't tell you where the shirt comes from exactly, without venturing too far. This level must span miles."

A shadow shifted nearby Jackson as they walked.
"If the engineer fixes these corridors I'm going to end up looking quite silly when all the lights come on," she knew that sounded like a joke but it wasn't. Her skills were a one-trick show. "If you want me to scout ahead some more, just let me know but we're safe for now."

There was a light tug at Jackson's backpack and it got lighter as Luns clothes were gone from the bag again. The next thing seen was the Ensign ticking her black shirt into her pants again and quickly pushing her feet back into her shoes.

Jackson chuckled and shook his head as Lun hastily redressed. "One of these days, I've got to teach you how to blend in without resorting to a striptease." He turned to Gantt, a playful grin on his face. "Lieutenant Sotto Gantt, meet Ensign Lun. She has a...unique skill set."

He gestured towards Lun, who was still tucking her shirt in with a sheepish grin. "Lun, this is my good friend Gantt. Unfortunately, we don't have much time for pleasantries. It sounds like we're going to have company."

Jackson's expression turned serious as he addressed Gantt again. "Based on our intel and Lun's...sensory input," he said, a touch of amusement lingering in his voice, "we believe the SCIF is behind this wall. I was hoping for a more conventional entrance, but what do you think about a little...improvisation?" He winked at Gantt, his confidence unwavering.

"A little improvisation is our default starting point," said Gantt. He didn't even blink at Jackson's description of Lun. A "unique skill set" could mean anything to his friend, and Gantt merely grinned and nodded--by now, more than happy to go along with his friend's instinct. "Ensign Lun, it's good to meet you. Now, what do you have in mind and how quiet do we need to be?"

"At this point, speed trumps stealth," Jackson declared, a steely resolve hardening his features. A cold certainty settled in his gut – the Lorcans were closing in faster than anticipated, almost as if they had inside information. A surge of anger threatened to overwhelm him, but he tamped it down, channeling the raw emotion into focused determination.

Nodding to Jackson, Gantt withdrew several micro-explosive packets. Each packet was encased in a sleek, translucent polymer housing that pulsed faintly with soft blue light, indicating the quantum singularities contained within were stable and ready for deployment. Each packet had a series of small, luminous indicators on its surface to display charge level and timer settings.

"Lun, cover that corridor," Jackson ordered, pointing down one of the branching pathways. "I'll watch this one." He handed Gantt a small, shimmering crystal. "Once you're inside, download everything onto this. The bypass codes are already embedded."

Turning to face the opposite direction, Jackson drew his phaser, the familiar weight a comforting reassurance. The air crackled with anticipation, the silence a prelude to the chaos that was about to erupt. He knew this was just the beginning.

Lun nodded and pulled her phaser out. She nestled herself near a corner that protected her from the hallway while holding her free hand out to feel the air since she couldn't see more than fifty feet away.

Gantt placed six packets in a circular pattern on the wall to ensure optimal distribution of the explosive force. Once placed, Gantt fine-tuned the timer and detonation sequence; they glowed with a brighter intensity giving Gantt precious seconds to cross the corridor before they activated.

A quantum pulse rippled across the surface of the bulkhead in growing concentric rings, causing the metal to ripple. Heat caused the air to wave for a few feet in all directions but the energy was very focused. The bulkhead shuddered, then gave way with a sharp, clean breach, revealing the room beyond.

Lun felt the currents pushing against her palm hard enough and that meant someone was down the corridor. She peaked over and looked but she couldn't see anything yet. That didn't however stop them from seeing her as a phaser blast emerged into the jet-black of her limited vision and nearly took her head off. Lun ducked behind the corner and hissed through her teeth in frustration. Lun leaned around the corner and returned fire into the black.

Her phaser beam scorched the walls, ceiling, and even set the carpet on fire in front of her beyond fifty feet. Lun kept firing. It was obvious that despite the fact her enemies were in a kill box, out in the open, and exposed, Lun couldn't see them with her eyes yet.

Lun kept firing, another beam from her phaser hit a computer wall panel, causing the black screen to shatter and spark as shards peppered the hallway and rained down with a backdrop of electrical arcs and thick black smoke. Lun fired again, and again, with no effect until finally someone got close enough.

Within that fifty foot mark, a man emerged in the black of her limited vision and it was finally as plain as day. Lun leaned out far enough to get a good shot on the man but comically, someone else behind him that Lun couldn't see, was so overzealous to shoot Lun that he fired just as only man close enough that she could see side stepped to get cover. That man side stepped so sharply that he walked right into his teams field of fire intended for Lun.

The phaser wasn't set for disintegration but it was powerful enough to push his intestines out the other side of his skin and set his internal organs on fire. His torso blazed as his soft tissue lambasted the walls in front of him in a crimson coating filled with half baked intestinal layers and the floor in front of his feet sloshed red in the direction at which everything spilled out.

Lun tried to fire behind the man as he staggered around and screamed a shriek of agony so loud that it extended Luns ability to see behind him for only that brief second. That's when Lun hit two of the men behind the advancer just before he fell he collapsed onto the floor.

"Jackson! I can't see that far down the hallway. I'm firing blind..." Lun informed. She leaned back over and kept firing into the darkness now that everything went black again. She could only see the walls and floor up to a point just past the disemboweled corpse and everything faded to black beyond the corpse where to her vision, phaser fire just emerged from nothingness. She shook her head in frustration, "I'm sorry, sir... I just can't see them until they're close enough!"

Lun kept firing blindly into that black abyss of her vision simply to maintain her boarders but that was all she could do.

Jackson whirled around, his phaser spitting bolts of energy down the same corridor Lun was defending. "We don't need to kill them," he shouted over the din, "just hold them back as long as possible!"

His shots peppered the walls, suppressing the Lorcan fire and pinning them down. A nagging doubt wormed its way into his mind – why hadn't they attempted a flanking maneuver? But there was no time to dwell on it.

With a quick glance over Lun's shoulder, Jackson unleashed another volley of phaser fire before ducking back into cover. A cold sweat prickled his skin as he surveyed the other end of the corridor. Where were the rest of them? There had to be more than the four he'd seen. The silence was ominous, a pregnant pause before the storm.

"Gantt, get that intel fast!"

Diving forward through the hole, Gantt rolled into a half-crash, half-crouch against a wall. Without the phaser fire, All Gantt could hear was the hum of plasma, the pinging of electronics, and his own internal clock ticking far too loudly. There shouldn't be this much quiet.

He tore off a nearby data panel and pried through conduits, cables, and circuits for a good data port. Using the console would be easier but if anyone came into the room they would pinpoint him immediately. Gantt shoved the cable into what could nicely be called a nonstandard issue tricorder with an enhanced processing unit and data ports. Quickly the status on the display switched to upload and he watched the stream begin.

A hail of phaser fire erupted from Jackson's weapon, forcing the remaining Lorcans to cower behind their makeshift barricades. He ducked through the hole Gantt had created, the acrid smell of ozone and scorched metal filling his nostrils.

"Lun, keep them from getting close!" he barked, his voice echoing in the cramped space.

His eyes darted across the control panels, his fingers dancing over the unfamiliar controls. Time was of the essence. Once the intel was secure, they needed to erase any trace of their presence.

Jackson's his brow furrowed in concentration. He traced the conduits with his eyes, following their path towards the gaping hole in the wall. "The self-destruct should be right here..." he muttered.

"Well, that complicates things," he said, a grim determination settling on his face.

"We could overload a phaser," Lun suggested. "Use mine if you need to. I suck with it anyway," Lun retorted with annoyance with herself.

"Gantt!" Jackson's urgent cry was swallowed by a deafening roar as a massive explosion tore through the far wall of the SCIF. Chunks of metal shrieked through the air, one jagged shard slicing into Jackson's side, the force of the blast lifting him off his feet and slamming him against a console.

Through the haze of smoke and pain, he saw two more Lorcans burst through the newly formed breach, their phasers spitting deadly energy beams.

"Lun, get in here! Save Gantt!" Jackson gasped, his voice barely audible over the chaos. He struggled to his feet, ignoring the searing pain in his side, his instincts screaming at him to protect his friend.

Time seemed to slow as he drew his phaser and a knife, the familiar weight a comfort in his hand. He braced himself, prepared to face the onslaught of enemy fire, his mind racing to find a way to turn the tide of this unexpected battle.

Lun ran in the moment Jackson gave her an order without hesitation and grabbed onto the first Lorcan she could get her hands on. She swung him in the direction he was traveling to increase his momentum so and then used both her hands for grappling over the top of his head. The eyes were always a great grappling point and it allowed her to dig her fingers into the ocular sockets with a sickening pop. From there, she knelt straight down to the floor using the Lorcan's body as a pivot. This protected her from phaser fire as she got low as she yanked the Lorcan's head down over her knee. From there, she used the bladed side of her hand to slam into the Lorcan's throat. She repeated it until she saw the collapse of its wind pipe.

Gantt blinked. He found it odd that his brain focused on that particular movement. Maybe it was the only sanity in the room. A moment ago he had unplugged the modified tricorder and stood up. Now he was kneeling, and his head rang with echoes of an explosion, renewed phaser fire, the repeated sounds of flesh smashing against flesh.

A red alert appeared on the tricorder's screen. Gantt slowly pressed it to read the report but it smeared under his finger. When had he knelt down? He remembered hearing Jackson calling his name and looked around. If anyone could make sense of this mess it was him.

Lun crawled over as the Lorcan behind her wheezed for air that it couldn't take in anymore until it suffocated to death. Too afraid to use her phaser, she decided just to use the lab console as both a shield and a weapon as she pushed herself up underneath the desk and stood up with a run. The next Lorcan turned too late to see a desk riding at him and slamming him into a railing in the SCIF. Lun straightened her legs and allowed the desk to roll over the Lorcan and hit the ground at a lower level toward the center of the room. It didn't kill the Lorcan but it stunned him long enough to allowed Lun to kick downward into his leg and send his joint the opposite direction as he tumbled over with a sickening shriek of pain. Lun grabbed the Lorcan's Gun and slung it over his neck before kicking him under the railing until the sling went taught.

Avoiding phaser fire from the other Lorcan's, she ducked under another desk as phaser beams blasted through the material nearly hitting her. She moved the desk along the room as her personal shield as she ran toward the next Lorcan nearby and she just kept running with the desk until it met up with the Lorcan. She pulled her knife and sent it under his armpit, followed by reaching for the Lorcan's hair to bring him down to the ground under the desk with her. From there, she worked on him; taking the blade out of his thoracic artery, and sending it up in between his legs. She felt the pop as its femoral artery separated and retracted into his thigh and groin.

Lun did the damage and ran off again as the Lorcan stood back up and scrambled for his weapon before stumbling and falling backwards once again, this time, very dead.

"Jackson! Are you okay?!" Lun yelled as she ducked behind another desk. The phaser fire was like rain and she was too far away to be of any more help. "I can't get to the others!"

The dull ache in Gantt's head became a sharp pain that helped clarify the need to escape. Gantt swayed to his feet, clutching the tricorder like a lifeline, and spied a large hole in the wall. As he stumbled towards it phaser blasts scattered past him and Gantt dove for cover, causing his head to spin with pain. He could feel blood coursing down his cheek now.

He threw a box of circuits towards the hole, followed by a chunk of metal, a blasted chair, another box of unknown contents, and his backpack. As suspected, they stopped firing at flying debris. Gantt blinked twice, rolled out of cover, held his breath, and fired twice before the two plasma charges in the backpack exploded. The pain of the plasma shock was exquisite, like the shards from a bottle of fine wine cutting through every tendon at once and then coming back for seconds. He just hoped Jackson and Lun were outside the blast range.

Jackson gritted his teeth against the pain radiating from his side, but the adrenaline surging through him fueled his rage. As Lun erupted into the room, a whirlwind of violence and fury, Jackson leveled his phaser towards the breach she'd entered through.

The Lorcans, emboldened by the commotion, surged forward, their weapons trained on him. Jackson fired instinctively, the phaser beam catching the first Lorcan squarely in the chest, sending him sprawling backward. The remaining three poured through the opening, their phaser fire a symphony of destruction. A bolt found its mark on Jackson's shoulder, spinning him to the ground. He rolled behind a console, the metallic surface cold against his burning skin.

Disoriented and outnumbered, Jackson's mind raced. He needed a plan, and fast. But before he could formulate one, a blur of motion caught his eye. Gantt's backpack sailed through the air, followed by a volley of phaser fire, then a blinding explosion. Instinctively, Jackson shielded his face as the shockwave washed over him.

When the smoke cleared, he saw the Lorcans strewn across the room, their bodies still and silent. A wave of relief washed over him, quickly replaced by concern as he turned to Gantt.

"Great job, Gantt!" he exclaimed, a triumphant grin spreading across his face. But the grin quickly faded as he saw the blood oozing from a gash on Gantt's head and shoulder.

"Lun! I need help. Grab Gantt!" he yelled, his voice laced with urgency. He knelt beside his fallen friend, his own pain forgotten as he assessed the damage.

Lun limped over to Gantt as she realized that she wasn't wounded by an enemy but by the desk itself. During her fight, she must have rammed her right leg into the desk and it dug deeply into her leg and into the muscle. Black fluid dripped down her pants as she helped Gantt up.

"The red stuff's supposed to stay on the inside, you know?" Lun whispered playfully through her sharp teeth as she grinned at him. "Come on..." Lun limped with Gantt over to Jackson. "Accomplished mission or not, I think we're spent," Lun observed. as she panted and offered to help Jackson as well with her other free arm. "Were you able to get anything or were you just tied up with the shooting gallery?" Lun asked Gantt.

"Red stuff inside? Interesting idea." Gantt coughed into his sleeve, leaning on Lun like an old friend. He held up a smudged tricorder. "Oh yes, I got something. Don't have any idea what it is but it's here. Thanks for the help, Lun."

Then, grinning at Jackson, he held out the device. "Fun times, as always. You picked a good companion to come with you. I didn't get a great look from where I was but you two put some fear into those Lorcans."

Jackson returned Gantt's grin, the tension of the moment easing slightly. "She is pretty good, but you," he clapped Gantt on the shoulder, wincing slightly at the contact with his own injury, "that was some quick thinking." His gaze swept over the devastation caused by the explosion, a grim reminder of the danger they had faced.

"Time for you two to get looked at." Jackson grabbed the tricorder from Gantt, his voice taking on a more authoritative tone.

He dug his comm badge from a pocket, tapped it, and barked into it, "=^= Two to emergency transport directly to medical bay =^=" He tossed the badge to Lun.

"Hold onto that, I need to talk with someone," he instructed, his voice cold and clipped just as the transporter beam shimmered, whisking Gantt and the injured Lun away. His face hardened, the playful gleam in his eyes extinguished, replaced by a glacial resolve.

With his allies safely transported, Jackson turned to survey the wreckage of the SCIF. His eyes narrowed, scanning the debris-strewn room until they settled on a concealed panel. He pressed it, revealing a hidden medical kit. With a grunt of pain, he began to tend to his wounds, cleaning and bandaging the gash in his side and the phaser burn on his shoulder. The bleeding slowed, but the pain remained a dull throb, a reminder of the betrayal he was about to avenge.

His eyes fell upon a lone Lorcan, still clinging to life amidst the carnage. A surge of fury welled up within him, the darkness threatening to break free from its cage. He knelt beside the creature, his hand finding the shard of metal embedded in its chest.

With a slow, deliberate twist, he increased the pressure, eliciting a pained shriek from the Lorcan. "Good," Jackson hissed, "now that I have your attention." He leaned harder on the shrapnel, his voice a chilling whisper. "Your time is limited, but you can go peacefully or painfully. Tell me who gave you our location, and I won't hurt you anymore."

The Lorcan hesitated, its eyes wide with fear. Jackson pressed harder, the creature's agony escalating. Finally, in a desperate gasp, the Lorcan blurted out, "It was Gorlab!"

Jackson released the pressure, a grim satisfaction settling on his face. He had his confirmation.

With a final glance at the dying Lorcan, Jackson turned and strode purposefully towards the exit. He left the ruined SCIF behind, the echo of his footsteps a silent promise of retribution. Gorlab's betrayal would not go unanswered.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Jackson Smith
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298


Lieutenant Soto Gantt
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298


Ensign Lun
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

 

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