Horrible Night for a Curse Pt 3

Posted on Thu Oct 8th, 2026 @ 2:18pm by Captain Shran dh'Klar & Commander Samantha Howard & Lieutenant Kate Kono

1,868 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Creatures of the Night
Location: Planet Stoker - Vaseria

They materialized in what seemed to be the town square of Vaseria. Unlike the science station, this town was not bathed in darkness and storms at the moment. Instead, the weather was overcast and cool, like a late Autumn morning on Earth with clouds of varying grays and greens in the sky, but enough cloud break to let streams of light illuminate the town, while indicating that it was in fact day on the planet.

The town itself looked more like something out of antiquity than what one might think of for a modern Federation colony. The buildings were mostly built from stone and wood, the roads appeared to be cobblestone in a Roman style, as was the aqueduct that seemed to carry water from the mountains into the town itself, which was itself strange considering the large lake nearby. The people themselves appeared apathetic at the least regarding the arrival of the away team, as they continued to walk about and complete their daily tasks.

Shran got a very uneasy feeling about this place almost instantly. Something was out of place, more so than just him and his team. He could feel eyes on them, but they must be hiding in the shadows someplace.

"Well, this place seems like something out of Earth's past" Deanna murmured, her voice audible only to those standing there with her.

"These people don't seem to care that we are here, or they are simply not sociable" Kuzma commented. "At least the weather is a bit more pleasant here than at the station."

Shran noticed a person looking at them from the shadows. He focused on her, gathering details about the person. He wondered if they knew he was Andorian and what it meant. He took in as much information as he could as a stray beam of sunlight illuminated the shadows where the person was, allowing him to see the fair skin of a human female, her eyes blue, almost teal, her hair a ginger-blonde that was cut short in a bob style with a strand that draped over face. She was wearing clothes that seemed odd, appearing to wear a tunic and a hooded cloak. In fact, he looked around and noticed that all the people seemed to be dressed in attire that seemed as ancient as the setting they found themselves in.

Shran stepped toward the woman in the shadows, and she seemed to shake her head to indicate him to stop. When he didn't, she stepped into the light and approached him. "You are StarFleet aren't you?"

"Yes. I am Capt Shran dh'Klar of the USS Washington. You have nothing to fear from us" the Andorian replied. "Who might you be?"

The woman was silent as she moved closer to Shran. "My name is Sypha Belnades. You may call me Sypha. You will have to excuse me captain, but I am not well liked in this town. That is likely true of you and your people as well. It might be best if we get out of the open. Perhaps the tavern if you are agreeable."

Shran nodded in agreement. He looked back at the others, "Deanna, Sam, Kuzma, Granger, Potter, Weasley, with me. Kate, you and your gaggle take a cursory look around."

Kate, Mina, Lucy, and Vincent fanned out across the cobblestone square while Shran conversed with the newcomer. The town hunched in the shadow of immense, slate-grey mountains, their peaks lost in a bank of heavy cloud. A distant storm bruised the horizon, but here in the valley, the air was still and oddly muted, the only sound the scuff of their boots on worn stone.

“Ever notice how the Captain calls us a gaggle?” Lucy asked Mina and Kate. Vincent stood apart, his PaDD held up not to scan but to capture images of the strange, angular architecture. His expression was tight, preoccupied.

“It’s a term of endearment, I think,” Kate said, pulling her tricorder from her belt. Her own gaze kept drifting toward the vacant windows that stared down like sightless eyes. “I tend to always end up with a few extra people that want to beam down with me on every away mission.”

She noted how Vincent’s attention lingered on the unnatural silence, the way no birds called. If he was going to play old-school scribe, she may as well get the real work done while Mina and Lucy talked away the experience like it was some sort of subspace influencing escapade.

Kate stood apart from the others as Lucy and Mina admired the square’s eerie charm. Vincent was bent over his transcriptions, oblivious. A man in his twenties stepped from beneath the awning of an old house. He moved without sound.

“You have the look of a woman who woke not knowing where she would end up,” he said, his voice low and clear, as though meant only for her. Kate did not move; the tricorder hung at her side. “Come here a moment.” He beckoned with one gloved hand.

He wore impeccably tailored winter clothes which consisted of a dark wool coat, a silk tie, a top hat shadowing his face. His boots were polished but muted, elegant. Handsome, yes, but there was something too still in his posture, too deliberate.

A cold unease prickled through her, yet she could not look away. The first drops of rain fell. Lucy, Mina, and Vincent hurried into the tavern. Kate remained, caught between instinct and something like enchantment.

“I have never beheld a woman of your likeness,” he said, his voice a low hum that seemed to vibrate through the rain. Kate watched him step into the downpour, a shadow refusing to remain where she would not follow. She felt the pull between them, a thread of dark silk tightening in the air.

He lifted a hand, and his fingers traced the curve of her cheek, brushing away the rain like an offering. His touch was cool, deliberate. “I have read of Eastern women,” he murmured, his eyes holding hers as though reading some forgotten text written in her soul. “But you… you are a vintage sealed before my time. To taste would be to end the mystery. And what is eternity without mystery to savor?”

She looked up into his smile, gentle and ancient as moonlit stone. The drizzle clung to his lashes like fine silver dust. He did not blink. “To simply behold you,” he whispered, “is a pleasure that outlasts thirst.”

His touch was not an invitation but a fact of her reality, a force that bypassed permission. Kate did not yield to the gentle pressure that urged her closer, yet his hands continued their slow inventory of her petite form. One palm encircled her waist, then slid upward along the line of her spine as she stared into the glacial blue of his eyes. His face was carved from marble and moonlight, beautiful enough to still the breath in her lungs. She tasted rain on her parted lips as his other hand traced the small mound of her breast, the column of her throat, the angle of her jaw. A trance held her motionless, wrapped in a silence so deep it felt like another world.

“I wish to show you wonders,” he murmured, his voice a low thrum that vibrated in the space between them. “And pleasures reserved for those who possess eternity. You are like no other I have encountered. You are everything rare and exquisite. From what distant star did you wander to find me here?”

A warmth uncoiled deep within her, slow and syrupy and inevitable. Kate closed her eyes, let her head tilt back into the cradle of his palm as his fingers stroked the sensitive skin beneath her ear.

“LIEUTENANT!”

The rain didn’t fall…it attacked. A cold, shrieking deluge forced itself into her mouth as she stumbled backward, the world reduced to a thrashing curtain of water. The man who had been holding her was gone. Vanished. Her gasp choked on rainwater. Her tricorder lay half-sunk in the churned mud. Through the violent downpour, three pale faces watched from the tavern window. Lucy, Mina, Vincent gazed on as their expressions seemed frozen somewhere between alarm and disbelief.

Kate couldn’t breathe. The roar wasn’t just rain; it was the sound of something breaking. She snatched the tricorder from the mud, its casing slick and heavy, and spun wildly, searching the empty path. Nothing. Only the thrashing dark and the hammering cold.

“What the hell are you doing out there?” Lucy’s voice cut through the storm, sharp with fear.

Kate swallowed thickly, one hand pressed hard against her sternum as if holding her heart in place, the other shoving the tricorder into her pocket. Drenched and shaking, she fled toward the tavern’s shaky shelter, one thought screaming louder than the rain: real or not real?

Rainwater dripped from her coat onto the tavern’s worn floorboards. Her mind flew to Ben. A flush of heat spread across her cheeks, a secret shame blooming in her chest where only she could feel it. The barkeep wiped a glass, oblivious; the couple by the fire laughed softly, unaware. But she knew. Her breath came fast and shallow, a trapped bird beating against her ribs; terror, yes, but also a raw, unwelcome thrill. What had she just done? Why had she felt what she felt? She was loyal! How did she let this happen to herself? She nearly cried; ashamed and thankful that her away team kept her from what had almost happened to her and yet — they didn’t even know!

"Kate, are you feeling alright?" Sam asked gently, retrieving her tricorder from her pocket with practiced eased. "What happened out there?"

Kate swallowed hard, the motion a painful convulsion in her throat as Sam’s fingers brushed against her hip to retrieve the scanner. A silent war tore through her: one desperate faction of her mind praying the device would reveal someone was actually there in the storm with her, some external proof that what happened was not her failure; the other, more terrified faction praying it would show nothing at all. Control was not a preference for her; it was a fundamental law of her existence, written in phaser burns, broken necks, plasma-traps, mortal blades through the torsos of men and the silent voids where hostile ships used to be above the galaxy's outer limits. To have that violated—to have been held, inventoried, and unmade by a stranger’s touch without so much as a raised hand in her own defense was an outcome more horrifying than madness. Madness, at least, was a broken tool. This was a broken self. She waited with concern as Sam read the data from her own scanner.

As the rain continued to fall outside, Shran approached the group with Sypha. "Rain. Thought it was too cold for rain."

"It is more like a sleet" Deanna noted. "I would anticipate snow in short order."

"The weather is the least of the concerns" Sypha said cryptically. "It will soon be night, and it is a terrible night for a curse."


TBC

 

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