Derelict

Posted on Mon Oct 26th, 2026 @ 10:04am by Commander Jonathan Grayson & Lieutenant Commander Imik S'Niohun & Lieutenant Commander Callie Raven-Grayson & Lieutenant James Phoenix & Lieutenant Viviana Del Rio

1,963 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Creatures of the Night
Location: Derelict Ship

Viviana watched as Jon, Callie, and Imik left the bridge. She looked around and saw Phoenix. "Alright, you keep a sharp eye. I don't want any vampires or anything else creeping up on us. I'm going to try to get as much information from these corpses as I can."

"Understood" James nodded. The bridge on the derelict ship was much similar to that of a federation starship. As such, the ops and tactical consoles were positioned in such a way that he could do his work while keeping an eye on the rest of the bridge.

Meanwhile Callie was keeping firmly at Jon’s side. The whole ship gave her a creepy feeling she couldn’t really explain, it didn’t make sense as she wasn’t one for scaring easily either.

The trio made their way to Sickbay. The ship wasn't just quiet it was eerily silent and with the lights being at a diminished intensity it added to to the overall effect of creepiness.

As they entered sickbay, Imik could sense Callie's unease but so far had failed to find any grounds for it. Something on the ground in a corner caught her eye, another body. She turned to Jon, "Commander! We seem to have another corpse, but this one is almost desiccated." She stepped back as Jon arrived.

Jon moved to where Imik stood. He saw the body, bending forward to get a better look but didn't touch it. He turned to look back at Imik and Callie. "What in the world happened here?"

He tapped his combage, "Grayson to Del Rio. We found another body. It appears to have been completely drained of all bodily fluids."

Callie looked around something felt oddly off but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, she spun around as she heard what she thought was her name, but almost like it was carried on the wind. “Did anyone hear that?”

Jon was instantly alert. "Hear what Callie? I didn't hear anything. What did you hear?"

Callie looked at Jon. “It sounded like my name…” she shook it off. “Maybe I’m just getting a little wound up.”

=^=Understood Commander. On our way. =^= Viviana looked to Phoenix, "Time for a stroll." She steadied herself, put her tricorder away and pulled her phaser, making sure it was set to stun. "I really hope I don't need to use this" she mumbled softly.

James nodded but remained silent with his phaser in his hand, ready for anything. The whole place was eerie, but for some reason he didn't feel as bothered by it compared to the others. Perhaps he was becoming numb to this sort of thing? Or perhaps he was in for a rude awakening.

As they walked down the corridor Viviana considered activating her lights. She had brought along the wrist illumination in case they transported into pure darkness. While the lights on the ship were now active, they were at a low light setting, likely due to low power. She stopped to look down at her wrist to activate the lights when she got a sudden chill. She could feel the air suddenly becoming quite cold, to the point that she noticed that her breathing was now becoming visible with each exhale. She looked to Phoenix and then saw something behind him that made no sense. "Phoenix, I don't want to alarm you, but there is a translucent person behind you."

Phoenix froze in his tracks. If he wasn't terrified before he was now. He maintained his composure the best he could. He felt the chill too. He turned around and jumped slightly. He didn't think it was that close. James clutched his phaser but noticed that the being wasn't doing anything. If it wanted to kill them they'd be dead already. Right?

Viviana instinctively fired her phaser, and the phaser beam passed through the creature and hit the wall. The creature was some sort of apparition, but regardless of what it was, she had never in her life seen such a thing. She holstered her weapon and pulled out her tricorder, hoping to get some sort of data that might be useful. She was reading some sort of psychokinetic energy, but she wasn't and operations or science officer, and this sort of thing was out of her league. Whatever this ghostly figure was, it looked human, floating only a meter above the deck, and it looked terrified itself. Viviana thought back to her youth, to the nights when they'd sit around campfires listening to ghost stories. She remembered a few of them, and from her recollections, perhaps this was a specter, which would mean it was a ghost of someone who died on the ship and returned in this spectral form to warn others. "Back away from it slowly lieutenant. I don't think it will harm us. I think it is trying to warn us about something."

James had already picked up on that by the time Viviana had said so. "That's my hunch as well" he said, backing away, but keeping his eyes on the ghost. He had seen enough horror movies to know that you didn't want to turn your back on a being like this.

"I did not hear your name Commander, but I did hear the sound of a phaser being fired." Imik replied to Callie, then looked towards Jon. "I think our comrades might have encountered a problem." All set to head for the sound Imik stopped herself, Jon had ordered no one to go anywhere alone.

"We all go Imik. Now proceed." He ordered as he and Callie were on her heels and heading for the sound of the phaser fire.

As Phoenix made his way slowly to her side, Viviana studied the readings from her tricorder and looked at the specter. It remained in place for another moment, then turned and disappeared through a bulkhead. "Six months..."Viviana started to say, "I've been aboard the Washington for six months, and this is becoming commonplace. I'm starting to think we are serving aboard a ship destined to encounter every strange thing the universe has to offer."

"It's always the capital ships" James said, deadpan. He reminisced all of the stories from the Enterprise crew when he served there during his cadet cruise.

As the three Officers arrived, Imik instinctively drew her weapon. But even though she wasn't an empath something stopped her firing, her eye's darted around to ensure this wasn't a hologram. With all this dust being stirred up any beam would be visible, she found none. "Commander, I am not one to champion an afterlife. But at this time I can not find any other answer to what we are seeing, perhaps you do?"

Jon still had his phaser out as he looked about. "Right now Imik I am open to any theories, hunches or explanations." he glanced at Callie, "You sensing anything Callie?"

Callie shook her head. “With the exception of all of us I’m not sensing anyone else here.” She gave him a wide eyed look.

Jon continued to look around. "Something damn peculiar going on here. Everyone stay alert."

Looking around, Imik now turned towards Jon. "Commander, I have a suggestion. But it may sound ridiculous, I am not sure you will want to hear it or if it will assist us at this time."

"Imik, right now I'll listen to any suggestion you or anyone else wants to offer. So, on that note. what's your suggestion?" Jon prompted.

"Neither Commander Raven-Grayson or myself have picked up any activity other than ourselves, but this vessel has just produced what some are saying is a spirit of the deceased. What if they are not deceased but in an alternate dimension which at this time is interacting with our own? In fact this whole vessel could in reality be either entering or receding to one or other of those realities?" Imik stood looking at her fellow crewmates, what she had just expounded sounded outrageous but for her it fitted what she had witnessed.

"And what is your recommendation?" Jon asked.

Imik looked at where the figure had disappeared, "Find a way of communicating, there may be others who want to communicate we just have to find them. But I would also recommend caution, as we have no idea which way this vessel is slipping. We do not want to get trapped ourselves."

“As much as I hate to suggest it, I could open myself up to one of these spirits, that way they could communicate with us that way?” Callie offered.

"Let's work on finding a way to communicate with them without offering anyone up." Jon replied looking at Callie. "We are so not doing that."

“We may have little choice, but I’m not serving myself up on a platter just yet.” Callie grinned.

"Darn right you aren't and just remember that." Jon answered crisply.

Viviana shook her head. "Este barco está maldito. Ha estado en el infierno. No deberíamos tentar a la suerte." She looked to Jon, "Not to be the one jumping away from logic and reason, but this isn't a rift from another reality, nor some sort of hologram. It was a genuine specter. I can't believe I'm saying that, but we need to leave this place. Specters warn of impending danger, bound to where they died, genuinely in a violent matter. Nothing we have seen says anyone here died peacefully."

James looked to Viviana and then to Jon. "I agree with the doc. As much as I'd like to investigate, I believe we should listen to the warning and leave" he almost made an analogy towards horror movies, but it probably would not have helped all that much.

"What about you Callie? Heard from Imik, James and Viviana and their recommendation to leave. What do you say?" Jon questioned her.

“To be honest I’m not sure” Callie added. “What if they want to communicate, and we just walk out on them? It could force these spirits into desperate measures to get a message across.”

"A valid point." Jon agreed. "We'll stay for a while longer. Perhaps we can figure out what happened here and prevent it from ever happening again."

"If we are staying, I want to take a look at what you found in the sickbay" Viviana noted. She was still apprehensive about remaining aboard this derelict, but she would do her duty despite her fears.

"I'll tag along, but I'm not completely sure we should all split up again" he turned to Jon, looking for his response. "Conversely, I am concerned that staying together is any less risky than splitting up" James replied with his security analysis of the situation at hand.

Jon considered the statement. "For now, we'll stay together. Safety in numbers. Let's get back to Sickbay so Viviana can examine the body we found."

Callie nodded. “I’ll keep my senses alert, just incase anything should decide to show up again. Not that I sensed anything from it before.”

Imik simply nodded at what was said, she had her opinions, but others had opposite ones which seemed to override hers. Looking around at the ship she considered her own next step if things got worse, if these Federation types continued to plough this path, she would react as an Ojnas. "Remaining together may in fact draw these spirits towards us, as our weapons do not have any effect on them how do we defend ourselves?"

"Spirits...does that mean you all saw one as well?" Viviana questioned.

Jon shook his head, "Sorry Doc, we haven't seen any spirits at least not yet." He replied as the group headed back to the ship's medical bay.


TBC

 

RSS Feed