Dangerous Discoveries

Posted on Thu Oct 30th, 2025 @ 8:25am by Lieutenant Aidan O'Connor & Commander Samantha Howard & Lieutenant Inara Senn & Lieutenant JG James Phoenix

2,333 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Wild Wild West
Location: Planet

"What have you found?" Aidan questioned as he took a look at the console.

"A starchart" she began. "There's another set of coordinates in red on it, like it's been marked as danger or of interest. It could be the spatial anomaly."

"Download all of this data to your tricorder. We'll let you take a better look at it and reference things back on the ship as soon as the doc gives us the clearance" Aidan noted.

"Copy that" she said before downloading as much as she could.

Aidan walked over to a nearby console, "Look at this. Someone has reactivated the bloody defensive net. No wonder I haven't heard from anyone. Best take that offline. Think I am going to take everything offline for the time being. I think we need to get things in line with those on the bridge. I'd also like to get you back to the Washington, give you a chance to look over that data."

********

Sam dropped and rolled, losing her tricorder but managing to keep hold of her phaser. She made a visual sweep of the bridge but could see nothing, not even a specter or a shadowing to indicate where the being was. They were sitting ducks. The doors of the bridge snapped closed with a hiss as though by a magician's hand.

"We're not here to hurt you. We just wanted to help any survivors of the crash" she said loudly, not even knowing if the creature would or could hear her.

Phoenix had to think fast. The Doc was under fire and the being that was after her was cloaked. If only he had a hand-held version of a tachyon beam. He'd have to let the being reveal itself. Then he had an idea. He started scanning the room as Sam had, in order to take the heat off of Sam. He readied his phaser and concealed half his body against the wall, and behind a console, so he had cover while still keeping the ability to fire.

The being detected the new energy source and paused. Two delicious morsels now, and a whole raft of them for the main course. It was so hungry, so depleted after so many years without sustenance. He moved towards Pheonix and fired, just close enough to expose his position. It was going to have a little fun with these two before digesting them one kilojoule at a time.

Inara entered the bridge. "Oh, this is not good. I'm getting a bucket load of its thoughts." She noted. "Guess what guys, maybe we should beam up and go home. My telepathy is picking it up, and it's playing with its food, namely us. Why the hell don't we ever mind our own business?!?!?!"

The being turned and saw Inara. It looked at her intently and its eyes flashed, allowing them to be seen for a split second before it fired, the blast glancing Inara, seemingly blasting a hole in her, notably her left hip which was suddenly mostly nonexistent as she fell to the ground. The sound of a blade being unsheathed could be heard as the creature slowly stalked towards the now injured Inara.

Inara screamed on the ground and gritted her teeth. "Oh son of a. Phasers out. Drop that thing!!!!!" She dropped and held onto her right side hard to stop the bleeding.

"Not on my watch" Sam shouted as she rose from her crouched position and fired at the last location she had seen the creature. She made a beeline for Inara, one hand on her weapon, the other opening her medkit. Things were about to go south very quickly; she could feel it.

Phoenix had his phaser in one hand, and his tricorder in the other. He activated his tricorder once more in hope of his plan working. "Second time's the charm" he muttered as he aimed with his finger on the trigger in the last direction he saw the creature, in hopes of getting the being to reveal its location the second it fired on him.

Inara grabbed Sam's phaser as she was working on her and then put the thing on maximum kill. She opened fire on it.

The phaser blasts were as if Inara was firing wildly. The blasts were hitting everything around the bridge of the ship, sparks flying as consoles began to explode from the discharges. Suddenly, the creature screamed incoherently as it became visible. It was massive, at least 7 ft. tall, muscular, humanoid, yet with reptilian qualities. It looked like some sort of fantastical hunter, with some sort of turret weapon in its shoulder and a set of long serrated swords in its hands. It had a crude sort of armor on which covered its chest, with strange bracers and gauntlets and a helmet that looked more like a mask than a helmet itself. Its left shoulder showed a wound, a fluorescent neon green dripping. Another blast from the phaser Inara was firing seemed to strike the creature in the chest, but with no effect.

"Howard to Washington, emergency beam out" Sam slapped her com badge only to have it chirrup and do nothing. The shielding must be up again, the same thing that stopped them communicating before was back in place. "James, can you drop the shields again?" She shouted as weapons fire lanced across the bridge. The assault on the creature only served to piss it off further and it glowed for an instant before unleashing a fury of energy on the team.

The door to the bridge opened once again, just as the power seemed to go offline. A lanky security officer and a somewhat heavyset engineer stood at the entrance. "What seems to be going on here?" asked the engineer.

An energy blast screamed towards the security officer, piercing his chest. He fell to the floor dead and the engineer stood there, looking shocked. A second energy blast dropped him as well. With only the emergency lighting active, the bridge became a suddenly eerie place to be.

Sam's comm badge suddenly rang out, =^=Doc, sorry to leave you in the dark. One of you up there activated that defensive field again, so I shut down everything. Hope it isn't causing you a problem. =^= Aidan's message was clear, albeit a bit clueless of the situation on the bridge.

The creature screamed as the new voice echoed through the bridge, cranky that its defenses had been breached. This was how it had hunted its previous prey, isolated them, trapped them and cut off their communications, using their own defenses against them.

"Kinda busy here, we have an energy creature attacking us. We can't track it but it sure can track us" Sam replied as she worked on Inara's wound. "We have two down, repeat 2 down" she needed to get to a point where she could leave one patient and move to the next.

"Here, press on that." She ordered Inara, having cauterized the worst of the injury it was still seeping blood. She darted for the two downed men near the door, exposing herself to the energy being's wrath to try and save more lives.

"Shields down" Phoenix reported late before noticing the creature get angrier when Aidan's voice came over the comms. "Doc, I think we need to remain quiet to gain an edge" he called out, while keeping his phaser maintained on the last known of the creature. He had an inkling on what he could do.

Sam nodded as she made it to the two fallen officers, one was very clearly dead-on closer inspection, the second she ditched the tricorder in an effort to minimize her vulnerability and went for an old-fashioned physical assessment. She felt for a pulse, conducted a pain stimulus, and checked for pupil dilation. Her phaser was in its holster as she worked with her hands, ascertaining at the second patient was alive, but would not be for very long. His pulse was thready and weak. There wasn't much she could do with the limited supplies she had.

"James...I need a diversion to beam him and Inara out"

Aidan considered what he heard. He considered everything and then got a crazy idea. =^=I got an idea doc. You might want to take cover. =^= Aidan activated the gravimetric drive and began working on the console. He looked over at Ash, "I hope you got all the information you needed. This is going to overload pretty much everything. And that is the nicest thing it is going to do." He looked around, "Everyone stand clear and brace yourselves!"

The consoles in the engineering area began to creak and spark as everyone was suddenly pinned down as immense gravimetric pressure was placed on everything. On the bridge, the remaining functioning consoles began to do the same thing as they sparked, and everyone was being pinned down by the gravimetric pressure. The creature seemed particularly pained as it became visible and looked as if electricity was pulsing around it.

Sam was flattened by the gravimetric pressure, pressed half into a console and half onto the floor. Beneath her the console overloaded and exploded, sending white hot metal flying, following the same series as every other console on the bridge. She winced and gritted her teeth against the pressure to keep from passing out, eyeballing the creature as it seemed rooted to the spot and extremely mad.

It was becoming visible that something was bombarding the creature. Whatever it was, it was causing massive problems for the creature. The creature began to glow, white fracture lines forming as the electrical streams flowed over it. As the consoles on the bridge ceased their exploding, the creature itself exploded like a porcelain doll under too much pressure.

The gravimetric stress on everyone slowly eased until everything was back to normal, though the pieces of the creature remained visible and seemingly charged with energy. Aidan sprinted to the bridge and entered, "Um, did it work?"

Inara pushed herself up and stumbled over to the remains. She smashed a large piece. "Burn in hell you sonofabitch,."

James picked himself up off of the ground. "Not a happy landing" he quipped.

Aidan looked around, noting that the consoles were in shambles, and so was Inara. He went over and helped Sam up. "Hope you are alright doc. Apologies if my solution to your problem caused any issues for you lot. Didn't feel good back in the engineering section, but I just figured, considering how this ship functions, sending a gravimetric overload would be the thing to do, since all the excess gravimetric energy, particularly the excess gravitons would bombard the largest energy sink on the ship." He looked over at the remains of the creature and chuckled, "I didn't think it would do that though. Bloody hell."

"How about we head back to the ship, pool our tricorder data, get my ass patched up, and figure out how we're going to deal with this FUBAR situation?" Inara noted. "I have a hole right through me, it hurts like hell, and the worst part, I'm gonna be stuck in the damned sickbay again."

Aidan chuckled. "Suppose that is up to the doc. I'm all for it though. I can have my engineers do a damage assessment in the interim, figure out what the best option is at this point. I'm thinking we tractor this ship back into orbit, then have a tug take it to a base of further study. That was going to happen before, no reason to think that is going to change."

"Same here" Phoenix added. "We may be able to run a better tactical analysis from the Washington, though I doubt we'll find much more than we've already discovered. I think we should also keep an eye on this ship if we tractor it, that way we can ensure no more of these energy beings pop up out of nowhere."

Ash had entered the bridge shortly after Aidan, but stood next to James quietly, seeing as he and the rest of the team were intact. "When I was down in the computer core, I found a star chart of the anomaly the Doc found. I can get a better idea of where it is from the astrometrics and stellar cartography labs" she spoke up. "I may be able to cross reference some of the things we found here with some of my intelligence contacts if needed."

"I don't think we have to worry about any more of these energy creatures. If they were on the ship, they met the same fate at this one" Aidan replied.

"I think we're more or less in one piece" Sam commented back on the bridge, declaring the two officers dead and organizing Inara to be beamed back to sickbay. She was a bit sore and sorry for herself but well enough to continue their assignment. After giving everyone on the bridge the once over she beamed up those who were injured and set about trying to get her head around the rapidly changing situation.

"Ash, Aiden, what have you two found? Apart from energy monsters trying to eat us?"

Aidan got very serious. "That's just it doc, I can't really tell you much. I can tell you that this ship runs on gravimetric power, which you have seen firsthand now, and that all of its systems are at least a century ahead of anything we have, and that the energy creature or creatures don't take well to excessive gravimetric energy, especially being bombarded by millions of gravitons, but beyond that, not much. I do think the best option at this point is for us to have the Washington tractor this ship back into orbit. My engineering teams can continue to work on it still, but it will minimize the danger of encountering anything else from here on the surface. This ship definitely isn't native to this world, no need to leave it here to contaminate things."


TBC

 

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