Terrible Night for a Curse Pt 4

Posted on Mon Oct 12th, 2026 @ 10:04am by Captain Shran dh'Klar & Commander Samantha Howard & Lieutenant Kate Kono

2,642 words; about a 13 minute read

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

"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."


***And now the continuation***


Kuzma was the first to react to the statement, though not the only one to take it as something of note. "Curse? What does that mean exactly?"

Sypha remained quiet.

"I'm afraid I'll need an answer" Shran noted, trying to walk the line between diplomatic and tactical.

"I shouldn't have said anything" Sypha muttered, concern in her voice.

"She seems to think this entire colony is cursed by creatures, undead creatures primarily" Deanna said aloud.

Sypha looked at Deanna wide-eyed. "Are you one of them?"

Deanna scoffed. "I'm no ghost or goblin, just a Betazoid."

Shran looked at Sypha, "Rather than getting information from Deanna, how about you just tell us and we will devise a plan."

"It isn't my place to speak of it to you. But..."she said before stopping, "...maybe you should meet a few people here that would be helpful. We need to move quickly, before nightfall."

"What is so important about that?" Kuzma inquired nervously.

"You don't want to be out at night here. It is generally fatal" Sypha replied. "We need to see Trevor and Lady Anna."

Lucy was already absorbed by a circle of admirers near the bar, her laughter a bright, careless sound that pulled men in like moths to a lantern. She did not look back toward the commotion at the door. Mina and Vincent guided Kate toward the hearth, their hands firm under her trembling arms. Meltwater dripped from the ends of Kate’s short dark hair, each drop hissing faintly as it struck the hot iron of the firedogs. She watched Sam adjust the Tricorder she pulled from her pocket, its screen casting a sickly green light across her intent face. A cold dread coiled in her stomach…not just from the ice, but from the gnawing uncertainty. Had she finally encountered someone whose will could shatter her own defenses, or was this the first fissure in her mind, a handsome phantom breaching the gates of her sanity?

“What happened out there?” Vincent asked. He found a towel and began scrubbing it roughly over her scalp. Chunks of ice slid from her hair and shattered on the floorboards. The fire hissed as meltwater hit its heat.

“I’m hoping,” Kate started, her jaw clenched so tight the words came out in splinters, “that Sam will tell me I haven’t lost my mind.” A choked sound escaped her throat, something like a laugh if a laugh could be flayed alive. It was the noise a body makes when it has nothing left to hold onto.

"There was a man out there...right before it rained. He was tall, with dark hair and these eyes that just held me. The first drops were falling when he put his hands on my waist…his palms were warm even through my shirt… And he pulled me against him. I could feel his breath on my neck and I just...melted into it. I didn't care about the rain or the street or anything. Then Lucy screamed my name and I snapped out of it. I was standing there soaked through, shivering, and he'd vanished. My skin was still buzzing where he'd touched me. I'm ashamed to admit how much I wanted him to keep going. This place...the people here...there's something deeply wrong with how easily he made me want that."

Kate turned to Vincent and Mina, her wet hair plastered to her temples. The rainwater still dripping from her clothes seemed to echo the single tear tracking through down her cheek. Her slener frame shaking in obvious distress.

“I love my Boyfriend. You have to know that first,” she began, her voice tight. “What I’ve said… it’s a violation I would normally never admit to and keep to myself. But as a Starfleet officer, the situation demands full disclosure from me. This isn’t a confession.” She looked sharply to Vincent and Mina for a moemnt, “…it’s a required admission for fact finding.” She swallowed hard, her jaw trembling slightly. “If either of you ever tells him what just happened to me, I will never forgive you. The shame is already more than I can handle.”

Kate looked away from them and toward the fire while wiping her eyes.
*********

Jared watched from the shadowed eaves of the Inn’s roof, his gaze sharp enough to pick out the individual tear-tracks on the slender Asian girl’s cheeks as her mortal friends huddled around her. His attention slid next to the blue-skinned man standing close to a woman whose knowing eyes marked her as anything but defenseless. A low scoff escaped him. Humans with allies or information were always such tedious complications.

He wanted the Asian one. He needed to understand what made her pulse sing so differently from the others. But this was a town that had long forgotten how to laugh; fear had sanded down all its edges. That’s what made the redhead in the corner so offensive. While her companion trembled, this one… This vibrant redhead was working the room, drawing laughter like poison from a wound. She’d stolen his prize earlier, and now she held court among these simple men as though born to it. His canines ached with a twin hunger as he gazed angry and wanting. Jared watched her smile flash, watched her tilt her head and pull the whole room into her orbit. She would do. She would tell him everything he needed to know about the petite little killer by the fire. He knew this Asian beauty was a killer. It was the stillness in her, the way she held herself like a blade that had already been used and wiped clean. That was what drew him in. People who had killed carried a certain quiet behind their eyes, a hollowness that didn’t need to speak. This girl had it. So did the blond with the restless hands, and the Andorian whose gaze never seemed to settle on anything living.

*********

“So what’s it like up there, flying between stars? Our grandparents made that trip, but I bet it’s different now,” one of the locals said, leaning closer.

Lucy smiled, though her eyes drifted more than once toward where Sam and Mina were dealing with their shaken superior. She hadn’t joined Starfleet to babysit. She’d come to explore.

“It’s hot. Cramped,” she answered honestly. “My quarters are mine, but they’re not spacious. No window, just a screen that tells me where I am or what movie I’m watching…”

Look at me.

The voice was not her own. It slipped into her mind like silk, cool and intimate. Lucy blinked, shook her head slightly.

Come.

Her gaze lifted almost against her will, and there he was… Tall, handsome, standing just beyond the tavern’s threshold, a dark shape amongst the gray twilight by the frame. Beautiful in a way that felt ancient. His eyes didn’t blink; they held hers, pale and unnervingly still.

“I’ll be right back,” she murmured to the men, already moving.

“Don’t forget about us!” one called after her, laughter in his voice.

She barely heard. The room seemed to blur at the edges as she walked toward him, pulled forward by something deeper than curiosity. His expression was calm, but there was something underneath…a stillness like deep water, patient and hungry. No one saw her go. His eyes never released hers as they vanished out the front door and into the grey, foggy overcast.

Shran caught a visual of Kate. She looked off, and Shran couldn't have that. He looked to Sam and Deanna, "Deanna, Sam, take a look at Kate, make sure she and her gaggle are alright. If something is wrong with any of them, I need to know."

"Your people should be careful who they interact with here captain" Sypha interjected. "Not everyone that lives here is what they appear. Monsters exist, and we know that truth far too well here."

Shran looked at the woman. She kept speaking in cryptic phrases, as if she knew something but feared talking about it. "You need to be more open about whatever it is you feel you can't speak about. I don't like having critical intel kept from me, especially when it affects my people. I hope seeing these people you want me to see, this Trever and Lady Anna will allow you to speak more openly."

"It will captain" Sypha replied. "We'll see Lady Anna first. Her family governs things here."

"So, an actual official" Shran replied flatly.

"Yes and no. Lady Anna is the last of her family here. The Valerious family has been an important family here since the founding of this colony. They were an old family on Earth, a family that somehow survived the many calamities that befell Eastern Europe. With luck when we meet with her, her advisor will be present" Sypha replied.

"Why would an advisor be important?" Shran questioned.

"Helsing. His name is Helsing, and when we speak with Lady Anna, you'll understand. Then we'll see Trevor Belmont. He can be a bit acerbic or eccentric at times, but you'll likely get along well with him more than you will Lady Anna" Sypha continued. "He is possibly the only friend I have here, but he is the only one I need."

Sam made her way over to where Kate was, noting the towel in her hands and the hair still wet from her encounter before. According to the tricorder nothing had happened, according to Sam's trained eyes, something very much had. She moved next to Kate, flanking almost without being intrusive, more protective if anything.

Deanna walked beside Sam as they both approached Kate per the captain's orders. She didn't use a tricorder to scan Kate, she just tapped into the telepathic energy in the room. Kate had a strange psionic signature resonating, as if she had been exposed to a telepathic energy source of great power. She would expect to pick this up in a room full of Betazoids, but not coming from a human. "Sam, check your scans of Kate. Are you detecting any strange psionic readings?"

She approached Kate, while on your stroll, where did you go? Did you encounter anyone?"

Sam withdrew her tricorder and calibrated it for a sensitive detection scan for psionic energy. The scan took a moment but came back with an abnormally high reading. "You were right, high levels of psionic energy. She probably feels fine but its definitely there, she's been compromised."

Deanna once again looked to Kate, "Think Kate, did you see or speak with anyone?"

Kate stood dripping by the fire, her clothes clinging cold and heavy. She turned to face Deanna, Shran and Sam. Vincent and Mina paused their conversation, their expressions shifting to quiet alarm as Kate began to speak. Her voice was light, almost teasing, but it trembled just enough to betray the fear beneath.

“There was a man out there….”

She studied the dark puddle forming at her boots, avoiding their eyes. Sam had already said the scanner showed nothing. “His hands were on me,” she said, the words coming out low and rushed. “Everywhere. And I just stood there. I couldn’t move. Then Lucy shouted my name.” She finally looked up, her gaze hollow. “It was like waking up from a dream. You know me, Captain. You know what happens to people who touch me without permission. But this man… he wasn’t a man. It was like something else had a hold of me.”

"She will be fine, for now. She has been selected" Sypha stated flatly.

Shran looked at Sypha, "Selected for what?"

"I am sure the man would say it is a gift, but we view it as a curse. I warned you captain, it is a terrible night for a curse. Many of them exist here. We must go. Nightfall comes quickly here, and when it does, it is not safe" Sypha replied.

"Sam, give Kate a thorough look over. Look for all things possible, no matter how insignificant or out of the norm it might be. If you have to take her back up to the ship, do so. I want answers" Shran stated firmly. "Deanna, you and Kuzma come with me. Grab our security trio, put everyone at yellow alert."

Sam nodded and placed a hand on Kate's shoulder. "Why don't we step over here and take a seat so I can run some more scans" she nodded to a quieter corner further from the door and the assembled people.

Kate moved away from the fire’s warmth to stand beside Sam; a tremor ran through her as the cold bit into her skin. Sam passed the humming barrel of the tricorder slowly over Kate’s arm, her expression focused and gentle. Kate met her eyes and managed a thin smile, grateful for the familiar steadiness of her friend’s presence.

“Still beats getting shot by an arrow by a bunch of monkeys,” Kate said, her voice low. “At least this time it’s a weirdo in a top hat trying to feel me up instead of kill me.” She remembered the chaos of that first mission, the fear and the foreign sky, and how much simpler this moment felt, even here in the dim and drafty room.

“Any of you seen Lucy?” Mina’s voice was low, tight with a tension that hadn’t been there moments before.

Kate’s dark eyes swept the shadowed room, scanning corners the weak overhead lights didn’t reach. A cold knot tightened in her stomach. Losing track of her team was a mistake she never made. Not here. Not after what had just happened. Her training reasserted itself like a reflex, pushing back the violation still humming under her skin. She could feel Sam’s presence behind her, the low whir of the scanner a fragile thread of normalcy.

Her thumb found the comm badge on her chest. One tap. Silence. “Kono to West…”

Another tap, harder this time. “Kono to Washington. What’s Ensign West’s location relative to mine?”

Hathaway’s voice crackled through, too calm. “Hey Kate. I’m showing her right out the front door to the structure you’re in.”

The front door. Exactly where she shouldn’t be...

“Thanks.” Kate’s finger left the badge. She met Mina’s waiting gaze and gave a single, sharp nod. “Go get her.”

Mina followed to where Kate said the new Intelligence Officer would be. She opened the front door and let out a sharp cry as she pushed it open. The fading twilight cast long shadows across the wooden floorboards, illuminating a dark, glistening puddle. Beside it lay Lucy's uniform in a heap, every piece from her jacket to her undergarments arranged as though she had simply melted out of them. The golden comm badge sat atop the pile like a grave marker. Kate watched, frozen, as Mina return to the cabin with Lucy’s clothing in her arms, the fabric stained and heavy and brought it all back into the tavern's dim light.

The few patrons that were still there this close to nightfall had gone quiet. They showed no concern for their lost comrade, only a shared instinct to leave as though the incident were a signal that this place was no longer safe after dark. Kate watched them with cold disbelief, how they treated a potential death not as a tragedy but as a timer counting down to their own needs to be somewhere else.


TBC

 

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