Cave Terrors (Part 4 of 8)

Posted on 07 Aug 2014 @ 3:31pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Scarlet Blake & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Commander Norvi Stace & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Commander Luke Wyatt & Ensign Louis duChampe & Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D. & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Petty Officer Lyras Ueda

2,964 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: Lyshan III - Uridium Mine, Central Matrix Station, Section LV881-LV900
Timeline: MD 07 - 1010 hrs

Previously, on Cave Terrors (Part 3)...

Stace moved her to the terminal closest to her and with her gloved hand wiped away the sediment that encrusted the screen. The flashing lights notified her immediately that the console's power supply was fluctuating but she tried to access it anyway. "I hate Cardassian design," she muttered as she haplessly tapped at the controls. After a few heart sinking beeps, she stepped away from it. "No access to the mainframe network from that one. It's just a local directory of work assignments."

Scarlet moved to look over her shoulder, nodding in agreement at the information she was flicking through. "Take a copy just in case, but then move on to another one," she nodded, moving to look over another shoulder.

"Aye, sir," Stace replied, a little more congenially than she would normally.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Seating himself at another computer console, Andreus Kohl placed his sensor package down on the interface controls. He touched the LCARS contacts on his equipment to prepare for data retrieval and recording. If anyone looked closely, they would have noticed him tapping in the same sequence three times in a row. His thoughts had drifted from what he was working on, and he was keeping his hands busy. Rather, his thoughts were narrowing down on the fatigue in his legs, but not just fatigue, but pain. It had been a considerable amount of time since walking had caused him so much pain.

Kohl attempted to activate his chosen console, but it wouldn't respond. The sensors on his equipment told him it was damaged. Using his equipment further, he set about bypassing the interface to access the data directly using his sensor package.

Louis sat at a computer console, he pressed a few buttons and said, "Tilvu Cardassu."

With that the station lit up. Louis turned his head and said,"Here we go, Sir I have access to the root directory of the compound."

Louis found an odd log file in a place where it should not of been. It was an audio log. He pressed play and what came out of the speakers would be chilling.

"My name is Hector Nolar, I am just a miner here. I don't know how long it will be till it gets me. But whoever finds this recording, We have been preyed upon, it hungers. So when Mel and I fled to here we decided to get to a place where it couldn't get us, throw up a shield. Even if we starve to death it won't get us. Whoever finds this message,leave while you can.. Just get out of here." The audio log cut out. There were two more logs. Louis looked around for any reactions.

"Well that is just dandy," Amynta said dryly, frowning as she looked around. "Just what we needed. It was such a good idea going down here..." she arched and eyebrow and looked around, frowning.

Louis pipped in with, "There are two more entries, anybody want to hear them or should we take the time to go back to the ship and torp this place from orbit?"

Amynta frowned as she considered it before shaking her head. "We're here, we might as well hear it all and compile the information. Hopefully we can piece together what went down here," she said and moved to Louis' side. "Although backup plan of blowing this out of the sky sounds good to me."

Louis pushed play on the enxt entry of the audio log, this voice was female. "Hello Computer, My name is Natasha Prym and I am the last one alive now. I am not sure how this ..thing.. came to be. Our Cardassian chef Brun, told us that we were digging too deep, he mentioned something about a beast, Well the entire day shift laughed at his stories. I thought it was just a myth too. When Supervisor Tremel got killed I assumed control of the compound, We tried to fight it at several junctions. It seems to be able to move through the rock like a Horta. It also seems to only need to eat once a week. I took the distress becon into a containment zone, I ordered Hector to record a goodbye letter home, and this is my turn now. The creature seems to enjoy toying with us. Because of the Kelisite deposits here sensor echos are abound. We have little in the way of food and water, the enviormental shield seems to protect us but I am not sure how long the power will last. Please if somebody finds this please contact my sister back home, Tell Amanda that I am sorry I won't be making it home for her birthday.."

The womans voice started to break into sobs. That is where the log cut out. Louis looked over at Amynta. "One last recording sir. You sure you want me to play it?"

Amynta looked around, to gauge the reactions of the people before taking a breath. She met Louis' eyes and gave a nod. "Play it," she said her mind extrapolating what information had been revealed so far.

Louis played the third recording, "This is Brun reporting, The idiot humans have locked themselves up from the alien that seems to be attacking. I was a Chef here, Now I am the only person left. I know what this thing is, or at least I have a better idea. When this mining venture first started this planetoid had a rather heavy crust, The real life teemed underneath the surface. It behaves like an old warrior demon from my culture's past. Feeding off blood and bone. I tried to warn everybody that this "demon of dark and deep" was real, but nobody would listen to old Brun, Brun who fought in two wars, old Brun who grew edible fungus. They laughed at me in life, now I can hear them cry from the grave. I keep the beast at bay by using the blood of the fallen miners, Been keeping most of the corpses in the kitchen freezer. After all... no power, no replicators.... *AUDIBLE CREEK* Wait.. whats that! Its YOU!" The audio abruptly cut out.

Besides Louis, Oren listened to the recording silently, his arms crossed awkwardly over his chest because of the bulky suit. "Demon?" he asked skeptically, mulling it over for a few moments before continuing. "Maybe he means Galor?" he thought out loud. "He was known for using dark magic and was fierce in battle. He is said to have been able to slice through his enemies like the wind. Galor wasn't originally a demon, though. He used to be a god in Cardassian culture, but then when everything began to fall apart in Cardassia, the government corrupted his image and destroyed religious building and killed religious leaders. It makes sense that, generations later, he's thought of as a demon." He shrugged. "And it would make sense for the Cardassians in the mine to think of this...whatever it is as Galor.

"Considering the fact that he hasn't been worshiped in any shape or form in hundreds of years and the fact that miners are naturally superstitious, it makes sense for them to jump to the conclusion that this is Galor coming back with a vengeance," Oren theorized. "Unfortunately, I can't really see how this helps us finding out what this thing really is," Oren said with a frown, looking over the dead bodies.

"Maybe they did dig too deep and a subterranean non-corporeal lifeform was disturbed by the mining."

Scarlet shook her head with a frown, letting out a long breath. "I'm with you up to a point, but Cardassians aren't a superstitious people. They pushed religion out of their culture a long time ago; they don't believe in religion, they don't believe in gods...so I can't see them believing in a demon any more than a god. Not without some major, major mind games going on down here to make them believe it. Something happened to them down here to make them believe something was after them."

Delainey nodded. "Agreed. Perception would affect the meaning given to the experience, but not the entire report of the experience itself. I wasn't sure before we weren't dealing with a mass case of people feeding into each other's psychosis, but now I know that's not what this is. They were fearful, but theirir behavior is too rational otherwise."

Luke eyes Louis from across the room the new security officer had immediately got into his good book. Knocking his head to the side he stepped somewhat away from the group inviting him over.

"Stand guard at the door take Ueda with you, nothing comes in this room" Luke whispered quietly not wanting to add any uneasiness to his own. "And if you see anything that would resemble a 'demon' I order you to shoot first. I don't want to end up like these miners and on my head be it if we could have acted but held our triggers" he tilted his head to the direction of the door.

Oren listened to Blake with a perplexed look. "That's literally what I just said when I mentioned the non-corporeal lifeform being disturbed," he told her, unable to keep his mouth shut.

"I mean, clearly" He motioned to the dead bodies, "something murdered them. And it sure as hell wasn't Galor." Despite considering himself to be a spiritual man, Oren was a scientist first.

Amynta looked at Oren with surprise, arching an eyebrow. "Don't you get uppity with the XO," she told him, the warning clear in her voice. She'd take a lot of crap and listen to it, but during an away team none of the senior staff should have to deal with attitude problems as well. "These people weren't murdered by anything except their own fear. Regardless what brought it on."

Scarlet nodded to Amynta, motioning to the bodies in the corner of the room. "Agreed, those people weren't murdered...they were scared enough of what was out there to let themselves die hiding in here. Idris, I take your point and theory, I'm just questioning the part about adding miners being superstitious with cardassian dislike in Galor to add up to them believing whatever is out there is Galor. I think we're missing a part of the equation. Cardassian's aren't superstitious in nature, I think they'd need a lot more than an ancesteral memory to jump to that conclusion. After our first trip down into the mines, all sorts of phenomena was happening to us. If you're right and they do believe it to be Galor....I think a lot had happened to them in that time for them to draw that conclusion...." she looked around the group, frowning. "What I mean is, would you believe that some presence was a specific deity or demon without some kind of direct insinuation from it? Perhaps even some kind of direct communication? If that's the case, if this thing did somehow communicate with them, these people are the closest thing we have to offer an explanation as to what is happening down here. Copy all logs and keep digging, maybe we'll find the missing link in the equation...."

Listening to Blake's instructions and theory, Oren just decided it was better to keep his mouth shut. If they were going to discuss semantics, then he didn't see what the point was. To him, something boxing you in and starving you out was the same as killing you directly, but he clearly needed to adjust his approach. He'd forgotten how direct you needed to be with soldiers and, for a short moment, wondered how long it would take him to learn to spell everything out to his new crewmembers instead of assuming they knew what was going on in his thought process. Not to mention getting used to there being a chain of command and rank.

The silence from the diplomatic officer up until this point had only been attributed to the fact that there was absolutely nothing for him to say up until this point. That, and some of the computerized logs were more interesting than the debate going on around him. "Ma'am, if I may." Lyras nodded toward the logs themselves. "Regardless of whether the workers here were hiding or not, there is stock in the fact that they seem to all think that there is a being of some nature. We may be missing something, but at least we have a good start." There had to be some silver lining in this, and that was what Lyras resolved to think before marching off with the duChampe, concerned for the sanity of their acting chief of security and wondering why he would put a diplomat at any security point at all. Perhaps it was the overarching 'support' department talking. Yes, that was a reasonable enough thought for Lyras.

Louis listened quietly, He then tapped at a few keys, "Sirs I am picking up power in varried points of the mining complex itself. One thing is the freezer in the kitchen there is still power there. With permission I would like to check it out, Particularly if this Brun character is still alive."

"If we have a chance after dealing with this, absolutely," Scarlet nodded, but didn't look up from an old screen she was trying to sweet talk into working for her. "I want to make sure we haven't missed anything here first. If this thing did communicate with the people down here, and there's a record of how it did and what it might have communicated, it's the first significant step forward we've had so far in this entire investigation.

Dea stumbled upon a recording only it was one form a miner that had been elsewhere in the mine but it also referenced this Galor. It sent chills up her spine. Searching for other relevant data. Ensuring to capture what she could so they had a some sort of record to take back to Galileo. For now Dea would keep looking until they further orders were issued.

"Oh, hey, I, uh," Kohl blurted out, from his seat at a computer console. He had started talking before he knew what he wanted to say. He was still operating the LCARS controls on his equipment, which wasn't helping him to focus on the message he was trying to communicate. Kohl went on, "I think I found another-- There's a something in the buffer of the communications node in here... It's not a log per se; sounds more like a surveillance feed, or a communications channel left open by mistake..."

Without further babbling, Kohl touched a contact on his equipment firmly, and the crackle of static heralded the beginning of another recording. The feminine voice that had identified itself earlier as Natasha Prym demanded, "What did he say?" In response, the voice of Hector Nolar replied, "I didn't hear."

As if she didn't hear Hector, the recording of Prym asked again, "What did Melkin say to me?" Sounding increasingly frustrated, Hector said, "There were no words. There were no words coming from its mouth." Prym's voice sputtered in frustration, and she said, "No words? Melkin grabbed me by the hair, and he called me an urchin. I couldn't understand the rest, most of it wouldn't translate, but I'm certain he called me an urchin. I want to slap him for touching me, but I want to kill him for forgetting my name. How could he forget my name?"

His own anger and confusion rising in his timbre, Hector said, "Grab you? The rock face didn't grab you. That's absurd! But, really, what's absurd? How can a rock face become a rock face?"

But Prym wasn't listening to Hector. In the recording, she said, "His voice didn't sound like his own. Even you used to tease him for the soprano of his voice, and you sound like a screeching girl half the time. But when Melkin killed Jalnon, and when he came at me, he spoke in a voice not his own. His voice sounded like oil burning, then."

"Rock face. Face of rock," said Hector, his tone growing lyrical and circular. "How did the rock change it's shape, change it's face? The side of the cave didn't call you an urchin; it didn't speak. The rock looked just like Melkin, but Melkin with a helmet, and it ate Maria. Why didn't you try to save Maria?"

Prym's recorded voice was laced with acid, when she said, "I should have saved Maria. I should have. You're right. Saved her from whatever hell of a thing was motivating that fluid rock, and speaking through Melkin. Maria would have been more helpful than--" And the recording ended.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CDRE Lirha Saalm
Mission Advisor
USS Galileo

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

LT Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

LT Andreus Kohl
Asst. Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

LT Delainey Carlisle
Counselor
USS Galileo

LT Amynta Markos
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

LTJG Luke Wyatt
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

ENS Louis duChampe
Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

Oren Idris Ph.D.
Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Galileo

SWO Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Blake]

PO1 Lyras Ueda
Diplomatic Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Kita]

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