Star Trek: Starbase 777

Here the paths finally diverged again, reuniting the party from opposite halves of the outpost. The doors were glued open, but it was far too dark to properly see inside..

"Now this is something familiar..." he uttered, looking around. A science hub, from the looks and feel of it... "Be very cautious, everyone. This is... this might be where it all began."

He squinted into the darkness, hoping to make out any recognizable shapes, but to no avail. Instead, he continued on behind the others, trying his hardest to keep quiet as they moved.

“The highest stage of the infection..” She muttered, also trying to squint inside, but failing. It was simply too dark. She crept along with everyone else, willing herself not to make a sound.

"I wonder if there's more reports on the parasite here. I'd like to read them." Iki followed the group closely, ready to stay alert while not being in anyone's way.

Were there voices drawing closer?..

He was about to respond in kind about the reports, when his ears caught the sound of voices. Saren lifted his hand with his palm extended upwards, hoping that this will grab everyone's attention, and then pointed towards the sound. His other hand reached for the phaser...

His ears swivelled within the suit’s helmet, watching Saren’s movement and turning his head toward the voices. Was that…?

T'Evoryn quickly swiveled around to the sound, her rifle still firmly in her grasp as she stood her ground, though her eyes began to look around for anything in the surrounding area that could be used as a weapon. If little else, she could use the phaser rifle as a makeshift 'bat'.

7

She saw the commander come closer, she felt his hand on her upper arm and it was more than clear it was not appreciated there. She made a point of freeing herself, but did follow Timi. She knew what came next, she did not mind the countless reprimands, she never seemed to see eye to eye with most higher-ups, but she did think this was still not the time nor place. Still, it was not her decision. “Yes, sir. And mind the glass.” She showed him her loot, a few pieces, medium in size, carefully held in one hand. Last thing she needed was for him to accidentally damage his suit even more.

"Ah, look—" Sai pointed out the signals where he'd been scanning. None of them gross meat flesh! "I think it's the other team!"

"Nurse!" The Insectoid called as he spotted his M'Rish. They approached with their rifle lowered. "I am glad to see you are not dead." They looked down to their own weapon. "We have encountered immortal flesh creatures." They told him.

He breathed out a sigh of relief. Everyone seemed to be present, at the very least...

His ears flicked towards the sound of their voice, and before he could stop himself, he flung himself towards his friend, wrapping his arms around their EV suit. “I’m so happy to see you—“ Words rushed out of his mouth like a waterfall, “There was so much viscera everywhere, we heard creepy voices—“

At being shrugged off decisively, Timi signed a curt apology. He nodded at the glass she was holding, making a note to at least commend her for her thinking. At they walked into the lab, he looked up at the other people there, before getting back to his task. He needed to not get side-tracked. "I would simply like to suggest you mind your tone when it comes to your senior officers." Timi's facial expressions were deliberately muted, so as to be more professional and to seem less like he was actually taking out his anger on her. Still, it was clear he was displeased, for a multitude of reasons. "I normally appreciate input, and I am not averse to criticism, or orders being questioned when appropriate. I am, however, averse to being made out to be unreasonable for questioning my fellow officers' actions after I gave mostly everyone extremely clear intel. Is that clear?" Not to even mention he ended up getting hurt, which he would like to gloss over, actually.

"I tried shooting them." Shears told M'Rish, standing stiffly as the Caitian hugged him. "It was not successful." They tried to ignore the shame they felt over their trigger happy reaction.

"Not a big fan of bad guys that don't go down when you shoot them, although I can handle myself hand-to-hand if needed." She said as she entered through into the new room with the rest of them. "Hopefully between the group of us we can still handle ourselves, but I think we should pick up the pace. I don't want to be here much longer than we need to be, especially if we have such dangerous threats about."

Walking into the next area, Xuan was relieved to see the officers from the other team. They gave a polite bow in greeting to the ACSO and M'Rish, the two people they found themself up next to first. To the others in the room they waved a hand, still feeling like they were in a gundam or something with how cartoonishly big their limbs felt. The EV suit wasn't that big, but they were always hypersensitive to wearing any new type of outfit.

“We’ll— it’ll be something. They have to be weak to something.” He realized how they had gone still, and slowly unwrapped his arms from their torso. “It’s good to… see that you didn’t get digested.”

"If they can't be killed, that means we'll need a strategy other than violence." Apollo breathed a sigh of relief. He saw everyone entering and could feel a wave of relief from everyone. "Good to see everyone okay. Anybody hurt?" He asked Team B's lieutenant commanders.

"I am uninjured," Xuan responded plainly. "Yes, I was also worried for you guys when I heard the transmission reply from Lietuenant Saren about the flesh zombies," Xuan told M'Rish. "Not digested, as far as I can tell."

“There is a possibility of a concussion, with Lieutenant Commander Kestrel.” Sterling told him.

“Yeah, all of us are alright.” He nodded towards Xuan, “Are you— um— I’m glad we all made it out.”

She sighed. It was not uncommon but it was tiresome to take part in this dance again and again. “Like glass not covered by the viscera, sir.” Though, as she had said, she did not agree that shooting was completely ineffective, and they had received orders from the CTO to shoot. In retrospect… she had actually disobeyed two commanders. Great. “Though if I may add..” And she would, since she was already fucking up her image, she might help the others. “We were under the orders of Lt. Cdr. tr’Hara, our current senior, to shoot. Your observation did not annul his orders, so do not be too hard on the other officers who shoot, specially Lt. Cdr. Vallance, who was protecting another officer, sir.”

"My observation should have annulled his order, or at least caused him to reissue. You cannot rely on orders from on high in these situations, either. Everyone has to think for themselves." Timi took a deep breath, letting it go slowly and silently. This was a junior officer, and one who wasn't as inundated with Intelligence's affinity for redundancies and contingencies as he was. Patience. "I will speak with Commander tr'Hara... later," he simply signed, forcing his facial muscles to relax. Now was not the time to get worked up. He planted his rifle on the ground for a moment so he could lean on it. "As for thinking for yourself, good job, Lieutenant," he signed one-handedly, waving vaguely at the glass in her hands. "Next time do that, with approximately thirty percent less attitude towards your superiors. You might even get complimented first." Unclear how tongue-in-cheek that was intended to be. Anyone who actually knew Timi would be able to say "very much so", but that wasn't Marze, obviously.

Kairos was waiting patiently for the discussion to end on the sideline, though as soon as Timi would look around, the android would pipe up: "While things are quiet, should I try to see if mending your suit is possible?.."

Five, also carrying some glass to follow Marze's example, took the chance to scoot up to her side. "What did you want to do with these again?.. I'm not too good with this sort of thing," he admitted sheepishly, "but I'm happy to help."

Zhi'rev was looking around, very nervous, but who wouldn't be nervous in this situation? No, he was waiting for orders, and hopefully a strong enough weapon... he had a theory to test after all!

Timi nodded at Kairos, moving to the side to let the android take a look at him while the rest figured out what to do next. His head hurt, he wasn't going to be making tactical decisions when everyone could do that together now.

”Understood, sir.” With nothing else to add she turned to Five. “We improvise. The other ensign said something about melding with the heat of the phasers.” She started to explain, putting down her riffle and the three pieces on the ground as she kneeled. “Thought of something similar, if we manage to heat the glass enough.” She then took her pistol, and started to heat up the material on one end so it could be attached to the bigger weapon. In the end, if successful, Marze would have created something akin to a bayonet. “Shooting doesn’t kill, but it seems that if aimed right you can disorientate them enough to get a good slash, maybe cut out a head…” She looked over to Five to see if he seemed to understand so far. “With your pieces, we can make enough for a good defense team.” (edited)

"Commander, are you still hurt?" Xuan signed to the intelligence officer. They were actually quiet adept at sign language as they had spent their entire childhood mute. They knew both Standard and Rihannsu sign language.

He nodded to Timi, before taking a good look at what they were dealing with there. Any chance at some sort of repair, here?..

"I think I collected enough for everyone?.." Five lowered her pieces very carefully, watching Marze so she could begin to mimic her movements. "I don't think shooting does anything at all, really.. I'm pretty sure the only reason the Ensign and Commander were able to drive back those things was because they targeted the human inside — and even then, Commander Vallance was only able to do it because the eye socket was exposed. We should consider shooting to be completely non-viable in this scenario..." She smiled faintly, shrugging. "But what do I know? I'm not a tactical officer."

"No, I think you are right. I think the only way to really do something is to sever the head from the rest of the body? But I'm also not a tactical officer. Can I have one of your wears?" Zhi'rev mused as he approached Five carefully, small smile on his own face to try and keep morale up.

No hope of repair, unfortunately. All they could do now was hope they could find a cure.

2

”Maybe it doesn’t… In any case, with the glass blades we might finally destroy them. These riffles...” She held one now with the glass attached closer for inspection. “…Won’t be useless anymore.” Her smile was predatory. Time to finally fight back, as it seemed.

1

"The flesh covering the crew seems to completely dissipate any heat from the phaser, even on its highest setting. It can split apart the flesh slightly, but it just seems to enrage the flesh and cause it to get more aggressive. We had to drop the ceiling on it just to stop it moving. Blades would be recommended if you've had positive experiences with it." She nodded in approval at Marze's little creation. "And keeping them at arms length like that, seems like our best bet."

"But what of the crewman being controlled?" Apollo asked. He could see the crew’s the logic, but if there was any sentience in the husks, he would refuse to extinguish it.

"I think it's kinder to put them out of their misery," Saith said quietly, fidgeting with his rifle.

"Anyone still clinging to the idea of shooting them should go and do so in the observatory, and see if they finally succeed," he didn't mean to get annoyed, he really didn't, but with the damage to Timi's suit, and the now very real risk posed for his fellow Intel officer, the android began to genuinely feel ticked off. "As for the crewmen, they are long gone. The thing that I brought down was pleading for death. Probably echoing the last sane and sapient thing that officer had ever said before, well... dying. Save that empathy for the still living, will you?" How much time did they have before the inevitable? While Kairos promised Timi to neutralize him if needed - the two men doing so in a joking matter, yet nevertheless - and would do so unwaveringly, he... still didn't want to do that. The android let out a frustrated hum, one akin more to a machine than a man, before gesturing to Timi, "Nothing I can do."

“If we— um— with protocol, we should be humane with it.” M’Rish attempted to pipe up, but his voice wavered a bit, “But if they’re actively causing harm, they need to be dealt with, no risk can be knowingly posed to starfleet officers.”

The away team's combadges pulsed with a message...

3

His brows furrowed: "Did... someone here send a distress signal?"

"If your badge chirps one more time I'm gonna go crazy," Saith whispered jokingly to Saren, but shook his head. "Maybe they're just checking in?"

“Not to my knowledge.” His head shot up, “Can we request badge numbers?”

Xuan raised their eyebrows and listened to the message. "Maybe.... Yes, maybe confirm who it is?"

"I can ask, if nobody else really minds," Zhi'rev offered, almost instinctively. He might be a diplomat and not a comms officer but he would do his best.

"Yes, that is okay," please don't be some weird meat mimicry bullshit. Please don't be some weird meat mimicry bullshit.

"Their voice isn't slurring, or stuttering," Sai noted, watching Zhi'rev with a quiet sort of curiosity. "Sounds normal to me.."

Having been holding his breath, he let out a long exhale in relief. Any more spooky imitations of the crew and he thought he’d never trust anyone again.

"We have a badge number! And as the Ensign said, they don't sound stuttery or slurred. I think this is just because we haven't sent back any updates." Zhi'rev said with a nod before he readied himself to speak more on the matter at hand to the one who had contacted them.

"Are we in a position to return crewmembers or request further tools?" Shears asked Zhi'rev.

The engineer had been extremely relieved to have the voices not be more meat possessed ex-officers. It was the other group! Her eyes scanned all of them, counting the faces, they seemed well enough, which made her let go of the breath she held before. Tension came back with the contact attempt, but it turns out it was apparently legit! And she spotted some junior making… glass and riffle hybrid bayonets? Honestly, inventive! And she would definitely not ask for one and stay behind any able fighter that did once they finally got into the Dark Meat Lab of Doom. She eventually drifted towards Kairos. She was glad he was okay. “Hey roommate, good thing we finally found your group.” She was still smiling, despite it all.

"There was a distress signal sent... I told them not to believe any distress signals that don't have a badge number attached." He said after he spoke into the comm badge again. He could only hope that the warning was heeded.

Seeing Garcia - alive and moving and definitely not infected - made him deflate a little bit, his tail venting his feelings in a half-hearted swish. "Good to see you unaffected, too," he nodded, with a light lilt, even if right now he wasn't feeling all too good about everything going on. "But we don't have much time, I'm afraid - the sooner we leave, the better. Let's do our best, yeah?"

"Agreed, the longer we stay here, the higher chance of us becoming like the rest of the crew," Xuan agreed with the intelligence officer and looked around at the other away team members.

”My best will be done, getting out of the way of combat…” She shrugged a bit. “I can work systems, but you’d be wasting a blade on me.”

“Same here, um— I can help with patching people up and medical stuff, just… don’t give me fighting orders, please.” He nodded, stepping back.

He eyed the hand-made weapons, something clearly bothering him, before finally Saren spoke up: "Stabbing someone in the back of the head - just above their neck, at an angle like this - can provide a quick death. Given the length of this glass, it should also disable the brain." (edited)

Ellie had dragged behind the group a bit. Popping out of the vent, basically intending to keep an eye on everyone's flank. Deeming it was safe though, she wormed out easily, landing on her feet and looking around. She noticed a piece of rebar bent out, taking it she armed herself with it. She didn't really know any pole arts, but she felt like a long prong would probably serve as a decent weapon, combined with a glass knife, which she tied to the end with a hair tie she had in one of her pockets, she had herself a makeshift spear. It was a bit crooked, which the women stomped out, but it should be fine. "That would be efficient yes, but painless, unlikely, there's a margin of error that, if failed will only result in a more painful decline. If you are to strike, do it slowly, do not aggravate or accelerate attacks." *Ellie explained, she knew a million ways each species could be killed, so the Golem knew this tradition well. The problem is, and something she left out, is if the angle of striking is incorrect. Should the angle be off there is a high likelihood that (TW for death and violence) the larynx will collapse and the individual will be incapable of breathing until asphyxiation.

The sound of sticky, shambling footsteps grew closer. Better move.

Not much time left, then. "Everyone move, come on," he urged, ultimately herding people towards the #labs.