AvP:Voyager

[SeebianWurm]

Chakotay got hugged instead of that ass-kissing ensign? Did you get some brain damage between now and the last chapter you wrote?

I think there's a reason it's on Voyager; utter destruction of the bridge crew comes to mind.

[Mutant Headcrab]

I know that, but I happened to like Chakotay better than the rest of the crew. I do hope that Janeway gets hers at least.

[Rye]

Chakotay got hugged instead of that ass-kissing ensign? Did you get some brain damage between now and the last chapter you wrote?

Hey, who was expecting that though? I'm not gonna have this being utterly predictable, am I? Besides, Chakotay was more similar to the guy who got hugged in Alien, anyway.

I know that, but I happened to like Chakotay better than the rest of the crew. I do hope that Janeway gets hers at least.

We shall see.

[Shroom Man 777]

Lovely! They are all already dead!

[Rye]

-Amalgamated this post into the previous story section.-

[Elheru Aran]

Me likey... MUCH.

Question, though-- why have the Pred kill Pallra? Wouldn't Schaefer and the rest of the gang notice his absence right off?

Aside from that, it fucking rocks... Blaine's gun, especially, is seriously cool. If I were you, though, I'd make it shoot white instead of yellow... white, or Imperial-laser green...

[Rye]

Me likey... MUCH.

Question, though-- why have the Pred kill Pallra? Wouldn't Schaefer and the rest of the gang notice his absence right off?

If you watch Predator, there are parts during the assault on the guerilla camp where they go around in singles, i'm just condensing the predator flashback so I can get to the "present day" stuff quicker. Pallra was essentially Hawkins but Bajoran, and I couldn't be bothered with the dirty jokes.

Aside from that, it fucking rocks... Blaine's gun, especially, is seriously cool. If I were you, though, I'd make it shoot white instead of yellow... white, or Imperial-laser green...

I was gonna have it white originally, but then I thoguht it'd probably blind Blaine.

[Elheru Aran]

Aside from that, it fucking rocks... Blaine's gun, especially, is seriously cool. If I were you, though, I'd make it shoot white instead of yellow... white, or Imperial-laser green...

I was gonna have it white originally, but then I thoguht it'd probably blind Blaine.

Not necessarily... Blaine could possibly wear some kind of visor that could double as a target detector of some kind, as well as NVG. This could make for a good divergence from the Predator movie-- have him notice the Predator when in infrared mode, and just as he hollers and throws down on Pred, he gets the ol' plasma-caster through the chest...

If the visor won't work, green would probably be good-- think kickass visual effects. With the ROF of the Minigun, it'd be like a superlaser beam-- just pulsin' in a straight line as Blaine sweeps it all across the place...

[Mark S]

I know I dragged this corpse up from page five but I'm not sorry. I've come off a Pred-a-thon, I was reminded of this story and I wanted to read more.

Not having more? "I wouldn't wish that on a broke-dick dog."

[Junghalli]

Chakotay got hugged instead of that ass-kissing ensign? Did you get some brain damage between now and the last chapter you wrote?

It's a plot twist. We were all so sure Ensign Jones was going to get it, but then Chakotay's character shield fails him instead. I approve .
I love the way you're redoing the events of Predator in the flashbacks. Although if I was writing this I'd have made Schaefer regular army instead of Maqui, since I'm always on the lookout for the totally non-cannon Fed army that presumably must exist somewhere. The only thing is then you'd have to explain how he ended up on Voyager.
BTW, one thing that occurs to me is the outrigger-thingies on the alien ship actually do look a lot like warp nacelles.

[Crazedwraith]

Sweet just read tis entire fic and very impressed.

[Rye]

I know I dragged this corpse up from page five but I'm not sorry. I've come off a Pred-a-thon, I was reminded of this story and I wanted to read more.

Not having more? "I wouldn't wish that on a broke-dick dog."

Alright, since there's some interest in it, I'll write some more tonight. W00t.

[Rye]

Just my luck, internet's been down these past few days.

Edit: added a picture on the first page.

Anyway, the next installment:

----------------

Janeway's leg bobbed from her knee, like it was bouncing to a song that wasn't playing. Her fingers tapped the armrest of the captain's chair like a concluding drum roll. The bridge was utterly quiet if not for the chirps and beeps of the consoles as people prodded and poked at their consoles, and yet, Janeway felt uneasy. That gnawing feeling like a spider in your hair that you think you shook off but you suspect that it may remain nested and spindly on your person. So you scratch anyway, to reassure yourself it's just your mind playing tricks, and it's just your hair changing position.

"Still no word from Chakotay?" she asked the bridge crew at large.

"No. The ionised atmosphere of the planet has worsened and is hindering attempts to communicate and scrambling sensory information. It is decidedly unlikely much data would get through. It is a safe assumption that the source of the distress beacon has superior communications technology to ours," said Tuvok, analytically.

"I should've gone down there, what if something's happened to them?" said Janeway, with her fingers to her temple.

"Captain, if something has happened to them , it is clearly better that you did not go. Since in such a case, you would be the person that it happened to," said Tuvok, with blunt, almost abrasive sanity.

Ensign Harry Kim interrupted, "Captain! I'm detecting a transwarp conduit opening on mark zero point one two nine four! Captain...it's the Borg."

The viewscreen sparked into activity to corroborate Harry's remarks. The panorama of the inky black sky, the green swirling clouds that swam over the orb of the planet below and the unmistakable sickly pale green aperature of a transwarp incursion on realspace. The unsettling image of unchained technology emerged from the pointed green backround. A monolith, almost a religious structure to technology, a myriad of interlocked mechanical parts. The cube was composed of overlaying and interlocking plates of armour and structure, all black or metallic grey, with eels and snakes and veins of high technology wrapping around sections like technological ivy. The complex geometries of the machines was backlit by the same ill-looking green hued gas that seemed to permeate all Borg vessels.

The Borg were a warning of the possible fate of humanity and its over-reliance on technology; when it determines biological individuality is obsolete, to be erased and become extinct. The technology replaces humanity, the goals change from exploration and happiness to mere conformity and manufacture. The higher goal becomes to impose that conformity on everything that lives to achieve the greatest unity and completion.

Every time a person saw a cube in simulations, their heart would drop, and it became all to tempting to say "end simulation." In real life, that wasn't an option, you had to make peace between whatever deities you believed in and prepare to live to face a new nightmare...the war against the machines. An enormous indestructible fear factory roving through the empty coldness of space to take you and everyone you hold dear to computerised living death in the endless hive mind.

The electronically mutilated choir of the borg hive mind blanketed all hailing frequencies. The cold mantra they always chanted before warring or assimilating came through the internal speakers of the bridge, "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ship. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

"Oh hell," Janeway cursed, and then appeared to sink into her chair slightly. "Red Alert! Evasive maneuvres! Try to distract the Cube away from the planet."

Voyager accellerated towards the Borg cube and was snagged by a net-like shield drain along the ventral shields, as it started to bank to the right and away from the planet. As voyager passed one side of the cube, particle-stream broadside cannons lanced at Voyager. Voyager responded in kind, blackened phaser banks crackling and turning bright with charging energy and long phaser beams lancing out in snakes across the cube's surface. Simultaneously, the torpedo bays were emptied and lens-flared orange torpedoes slammed and exploded on the cube's epidermis, depositing a trail of damage spots. Voyager continued at speed firing rear torpedoes.

"Come on, take the bait, you bastards," Janeway growled, her eyes fixed on the rear view angle on the viewscreen. The Borg vessel hung in space like a dark city, then burst into pursuit. The Borg ship closed the distance quickly and filled the rear viewscreen so intricate details of the cube's hull could be seen. It intimidated anyone that glanced at the screen.

A light coloured green tractor beam attempted to find purchase on the left warp nacelle and the whole vessel reverberated the increased drag and material shock.

"Fire rear torpedoes at that tractor beam emitter!" Janeway ordered. The rear facing torpedo bays lit up briefly as the torpedoes came out hot. Two orange lens flares hung in space for a moment before slamming into the apex of the cone of light, exploding and temporarily disabling it.

"Keep firing rear phasers and photon torpedoes. Are there any local phenomena within warp distance?" Janeway asked. Sparks rained down from the ceiling and from consoles flashing on and off due to inconsistent power from the attacks of the cube.

"This system has a gas giant with high levels of electromagnetic activity. It may protect us against the Borg's sensors," ensign Kim replied, grasping his console as the vessel rocked from another hit.

"Do it, Tom!" Janeway ordered. Voyager's warp nacelles locked into position as they glowed and cast shadows from the shield impacts.

"Already there, captain," Tom Paris replied. The nacelles pulsed and the ship appeared to stretch out and explode in a bang of white light. The Borg went to Warp just behind them, and the vessels continued exchanging shots.

"Captain! The shields are down to 23%, I can't predict how long they're going to last in the conditions in the gas giant's atmosphere, but it won't be long," Tuvok calmly stated, grasping the rail by his console.

"I just need them to last long enough, Tuvok, reroute power from life support if you need to, I don't plan on staying in there for long," Janeway said. She sounded like she had a plan, whether that was a good sign or not remained to be confirmed.

Voyager exited warp and beelined straight for the planet's gargantuan bloated atmosphere. The vessel shook from the severe gravity well outside, the spines and structure of the vessel groaned and rasped as the nose was pulled up and Voyager's descent turned into gunning for the horizon. The ship arced across mountain ranges of orange and yellow cloud and screamed out in metal pain. Coils and wisps of greasy yellow gas dragged wistfully from the nacelles as it scratched the clouds and plunged through giagantic cumulonimbus variants, to have its shield assaulted by the electrical discharge.

The Borg cube was right behind Voyager. Its large mass and complete lack of aerodynamics took a severe toll in the planet's gravity well. Power from nonessential systems cut out in order to reinforce structural integrity, about a hundred drones were flung out of a new opening when gravity unexpectedly failed on their deck and they were explosively decompressed. Their tiny bodies had already been forgotten as they fell out into the airless sunlight. Their bodies were insignificant dots against the bright background of enormous, world-sized cloud mountain ranges. They flailed helplessly and fruitlessly against their fate, and soon after were crushed under their own weight.

Voyager arced out of the clouds and fired a single photon torpedo at the Borg cube that was in a grinding ascent. The gas that remained in the cube was ignited with the explosion and burned with the onboard oxygen. The cube rose like a vengeful burning lucifer, complete with flames licking at the edges. Its beam weapons were still powered and were intermittently firing at the limping Voyager. The aim was disturbed by the electromagnetic activity of the planet, so few shots actually connected, and those that did only barely singed the edges of Voyager.

As the cube reached vacuum, the fires inside were reduced to nil and the vessel's pace increased the further it got from the gravity well. A single blow from its particle beams struck just above the shuttlebay. Voyager's shields were dead, it stuck bare hull which was punched in and glowed white hot. A second beam lanced clean through the left warp nacelle, sending blue plasma and onboard gas leaking out into space. Lightning forks struck back and forth around the new charged wounds.

Onboard the bridge of Voyager, orders went unheard, the lights, viewscreen and computer went dead, consoles crashed and died. A bigger second explosion rocked the ship and shorted out systems, nobody knew what the hell was going on. Suddenly the floor bucked like a horse or one of those mechanical bulls that inhabit precious few bars in the 24th century. People were flung off their feet ship wide, over barriers in engineering, into bulkheads in corridors, and onto the floor in sickbay and turbolifts.

Anti-fire systems blew gas and plasma leaks were contained. The ship shuddered and groaned but remained intact. It sailed through space, end
over end like a child's toy thrown by an abusive parent. Moments passed in ship wide darkness. The silence on the bridge was deafening. It felt like death, an all encompassing black cloud of sensory deprivation.

"Captain?" Paris eventually called out, trying to get his bearings, suffocating in the darkness.

"Tom?" Janeway replied. "Are you ok?"

"I feel winded, but I don't think I'm injured. Tough little ship," Tom answered.

"Tough little ship," Janeway agreed.

"I'm fine too," Harry said, trying to get up on his feet.

"I...have survived...no injuries, captain," reported Tuvok.

"I'm alive, ma'am," said ensign Cheng.

The lights came back on and everyone squinted in the harsh brightness, static blared from the speakers before silencing itself and characteristic humming and bleeping noises came from the booting ship systems.

"Tuvok, status of the Borg cube?" Janeway asked, dusting herself off and returning to the captain's chair.

"Captain, I'm not picking up the Borg cube on short range sensors, there appears to be an expanding debris field directly behind us. It appears we "got lucky"," Tuvok reported with a raised cynical eyebrow.

"Makes sense. We could've hit a critical system with the gas we ignited," Janeway thought out loud. "Is there anything salvagable from the wreckage? A transwarp drive?"

"I do not believe so. If it survived the blast, it would be extremely damaged."

"How are the ship's systems?" Janeway sighed, her eyes closed.

"Life support, online, warp core, offline, impulse engines, offline, warp drive, offline, shields, offline, weapons, offline, long range sensors, offline, communications, offline, transporters, offline, main computer, coming online now, internal communications, online."

Janeway tapped on her commbadge, "Janeway to engineering," she said.

"Torres here, captain. What the hell was that?" B'Elanna responded.

"That was an exploding Borg cube, Lieutenant, what's the status of the warp core?"

"It's still offline. I can get it up in an hour, maybe two. Secondary systems, I don't know. That warp nacelle could take some time."

"Be as fast as you can, we don't know if the Borg will send reinforcements," Janeway ordered, concern clear in her voice.

"I will, captain. Torres out."

-----------

The deck of the shuttlecraft shook under Schaefer, Jones and the comatose Chakotay. Ellie whimpered at the control console in the front, seperated from her crewmates. Schaefer had an open medkit next to his legs with various hyposprays rattling around against the plastic.

"Oh my God, this couldn't get any worse! It just can't get any worse, it can't..." Jones kept repeating between sobs.

"Tim...Tim, right? Please shut up and hold this here," Schaefer ordered Ensign Jones and passed him the scanner from the medical tricorder. Jones took the scanner and brought his hand down and started to complain. "No, here," Schaefer corrected Jones' arm.

"Sorry, it's just, this was my first away mission, and I..." Jones began.

"Tim, it's critical you be quiet. I'm going to need you calm and quiet if we're going to make it through this. Okay?"

Tim nodded solemnly with a big wet mucus shifting sniff.

Schaefer's brow furrowed as he examined the tricorder's readout. It didn't make much sense, the organism that had attached itself to Chakotay had some sort of proboscis that lead deep into the commander's chest. There it appeared to be pumping some oxygen-rich solution complete with nutrients to keep Chakotay alive. The thing's biology didn't match anything on file, there din't appear to be any reproductive organs, no recognisable eyes, and some chemical in its veins that didn't correspond to any element in the tricorder's biochem reference file beyond some vague similarities with a dozen highly corrosive chemicals. The organism seemed to share some traits with carbon based life forms, and some with the few silicon based life forms the federation had catalogued. The thing could not be removed by a two-man force without seriously endangering Chakotay, and the blood chemistry made it look severely dangerous to cut away, for fear of corrosion.

"We'd be best letting the Doc look at this thing, I think, Tim," Schaefer said, leaning back and folding the tricorder away. "I've never seen anything like it. On the plus side, it looks like there's nothing infectious and airborne on it, so we can take our suits off."

"Oh my God, they're not there!" shouted Ellie in disbelief.

Schaefer and ensign Jones went silent and stared at the cockpit.

"Who's not there, Ellie?" Schaefer asked, removing his transparent helmet.

"Voyager, they're not where they're supposed to be! They've left us!"

"Oh my God, this can't get any worse, it can't..." began Jones.

"Shut up, Jones, you're not helping! Ellie, if they're not there, they probably had a good reason. Check long distance scanners. Do it now."

Ellie's fevered trembling fingers danced across the LCARS panels and the screens identified Voyager.

"They're over by the gas giant, on the other side of the system," she said, smiling through a sigh and tears. "They look pretty beat up, plotting in a course now."

"That's great Ellie, good job," Schaefer said and leaned against the bulkhead with a sigh. His skin was shiny with sweat from the suit and pressure. He purposefully avoided looking at the pink pulsating arachnid creature on the unmoving Chakotay. He leaned his head towards the cockpit, "You can lower the forcefield now, by the way. Tim, you go to navigation while I keep an eye on our new friend here."

Ellie lowered the forcefield and Jones did as he was told. He staggered as he stood up and made his way to the console, glad to be occupied with something. Schaefer removed the medical tricorder again and monitored Chakotay as the shuttlecraft swam through the black inky omnipresent sky to the wayward Voyager.

The pock-marked rotating vessel came into view, turning softly through the big black. Shadows silently stretched and contorted on the silvery surface in the sunlight. The design of the front of the ship always reminded Schaefer of an upturned teaspoon, and right now it looked like a giant thrown spoon, spinning in slow motion.

"Hailing them. Voyager, this is shuttlecraft 1 requesting a status report, come in Voyager," Ellie said from her console. "Come in Voyager, are you there?"

"What happened here?" asked ensign Jones, wide eyed.

"I'm picking up debris all over the place. Too much to be from Voyager. Sensors show it's probably..oh God," Ellie started.

"Probably what?" asked Schaefer in a dangerous tone.

"Probably... Borg, sir. I think it's the remnants of a cube, going by mass."

"Borg? Oh God, oh God..." began Jones, gripping his thighs with sweaty palms.

Schaefer blinked Jones out of existence for the time being, "Ellie, are there any survivors?"

"No Borg survivors, but Voyager's life signs appear to be normal, but most of their systems are down."

"Set a course, Jones, align us with Voyager so we can get on board," Schaefer ordered, "and pull yourself together!"

"Yes, yessir, pulling myself together...just that the Borg, they," he started.

"We all know what the Borg do, ensign, but the only ones around here are dead and outside, we've got more pressing matters. If we help Voyager, we can get the hell out of here before more Borg arrive."

"Yes sir, sorry," said Jones, wiping his forehead and assaulting the computer screen.

"Don't worry about it," said Schaefer, dismissing his own feelings of frustration and anxiety.

The shuttlecraft aligned itself with Voyager's stern, making it look like the shipa were still and the sky was rotating. The shuttle crept forward over the hull and stopped at the shuttlebay door. It was shut solid, the deflector dish and window lighting on the shuttle's approach all looked similarly dead and unpowered.

"It's not responding to command codes," Ellie explained, then returned to her console. Ellie programmed the computer to do something and the shuttle locked itself to Voyager's hull like a magnet, and she sighed.

"Any ideas?" Schaefer asked.

-------------

The cardassian force had been utterly decimated by superior tactics, application of technology, expertise and speed. Noxious fumes and debris smouldered in the dirt of the insect infested jungle. The insects had come for the dead, and there were a fair few to go around. small rivers of dark, rich cardassian blood rolled in little splash patterns and dried into sticky lines in the dust. Wind blew over the immobile dead, all lying down, slumped over or sat against walls like ragdolls, with empty white eyes looking at nothing. Everything was scorched and burned with weapons fire or secondary heat sources, all fragmented and shattered and smoking.

Knee deep in the dead and burnt debris. Smelled like one of Schaefer's missions, alright.

But this was different. Pallra was missing, and something just didn't seem right about the whole operation since they'd arrived here. Call it intuition, call it superstition or anxiety, but there was something off about all of it. It wasn't your average warzone, as contradictory as such a concept may sound. The cardassian forces had seemed too distracted, and too few, like someone else was keeping them busy elsewhere when the attack started. The warzone was what Schaefers were bred for, according to his father. It was their domain. But something else was there. Interfering. Changing the rules. An uncharted variable. Something completely unknown and unprepared for.

When Schaefer thought about that, he felt something he'd not felt in a long time. He felt fear. Like a twinge in your stomach or a grotesque wraith silently stroking the hairs on your neck as you back away rom a murder scene.

Schaefer checked in again with his team mates, radio silence was pointless now. Now Pallra was gone. Blipped off the radar.

Blaine walked between the burning buildings, the light bouncing off his red raw skin and shiny blood. He scanned the panorama, looking out for anything resembling an enemy or his missing team mates. The sliced leaves of the bushes at the treeline caught his eye. They were shaking like someone had just disturbed them in an effort to escape.

Blaine tapped his communicator and said in a hushed tone, "Schaef, I think I just saw someone in the eastern treeline, I'm pursuing now."

Blaine pushed through the bushes and found a path that the cardassians had likely been using, going by the footprint. He slowly and stealthily rounded an enormous redwood-like tree, with discs of fungi growing out of it. He cradled old painless and awaited the attempt at an ambush.

"Come on in, you fuckers, come on in... Ol' Painless is waitin'," he said under his breath. His eyes had narrowed into slits, his spirit was cold and mood rattlesnake mean.

A small mammal moved out of the rustling leaves and went on its way. Blaine snorted and turned back towards the camp. He felt something wet hit his neck and began to turn back. He didn't turn fast enough to notice the pod of blue-white energy that was released from up in the trees straight for him. It struck right between his shoulder blades and exploded just before his ribcage, sending out blue vapour trails like a firework through his ribs in all directions, along with unfolding clouds of red mist. His torso was cleanly cored out with the extreme heat of the weapon, flash burning flesh, blood, bone and organs into boiling gas in a faction of a second. The extreme hydrostatic shock killed him before his body hit the ground. There he lay, on the floor, slumped over and sliding downwards, insides all brutally cauterised and forced explosively outwards.

Friya was following Blaine's large bootprints through the grassy undergrowth, along the muddy path. His profile was low, eyes wide and senses acute the smallest sounds, his rifle at his shoulder. His ears detected a sound that resembled an electrified whip crack and the sound of the air cooking and being pushed apart adn distorted by a projectile, then a secondary messy wet crack and the sound of someone stumbling in the forest.

"No. No!" he said, his eyes watering with hate and the white hot snarl of vengeance. Somehow he already knew what he was going to find, on some level, he knew there were certain sounds for certain things; the sound of your dog getting run over, the sound of your friend getting shot, the sound of an incoming artillery shell. He circled the tree with his rifle drawn.

There was nobody there, except Blaine's doubled-over corpse, with a cruelly cored torso. He stood there and panicked momentarily, shifting back and forth on his feet. Who the hell could've done this? Cardassian disruptors never left a mess like this, and no way could some Cardassian foot soldiers got the drop on Blaine without him getting a shot off. No way in hell.

Friya's head snapped from side to side, trying to find the culprit, there was naught but the jungle, just the bushes, vines, bugs and trees. Then he saw them, eyes that flashed, up in the trees. Staring right at him.

He dropped his rifle and yanked Ol' Painless from Blaine's grasp. The end of the barrels burst into burning air and the forest was torn asunder by the devastating sublight hail of particles. The recoil making the aim shift all over and soon the location of the eyes was lost behind burning plant matter, smoke and vapour.

Friya let go of the trigger to stop for a moment to see if he'd hit anyone. Nothing, not a goddamned thing. After dropping the dead weight of Ol' Painless, he tapped his communicator and ducked behind the enormous tree. "Major! Major! Something's killed Blaine! It might be coming for me next...I..." he went silent and picked up his rifle again, breathing heavily, "...I reckon I can take him, sir."

"We're on our way, sergeant. Sit tight," came Schaefer's reply.

Friya said nothing, and tried to get his breathing under control. He lifted up his rifle to his shoulder and looked down the sight. He edged around the enormous tree, little by little, expecting to be shot at any moment. His foot snagged on a root and he looked down to free his foot. He noticed his arm was glowing red in 3 spots, making a small triangle just by his elbow. He looked up for the source, and was blinded slightly by the red glare of something high above. He raised his rifle in slow motion, but it was too late. That sound he'd heard only moments earlier cracked out above him and a blip of blue/white energy penetrated his forehead and travelled out the rear of his cranium, dragging blood and brain with it. His bald head cracked cleanly in half and his body fell to the ground in a limp heap.

The remainder of Schaefer's team gathered by the treeline, their rifles by their shoulders, scanning the bush for Cardassian movement.

"Blaine and Friya have just dropped off the radar, we move, all at once, 5 meter spread, to their last coordinates, rush whoever's there before they have time to react. Go!" Schaefer ordered, and they began to creep quickly but silently through the foliage.

They found the enormous redwood and slowly circled it, covering one another from possible attack. On the far side of it, in the colossal roots, remained Old Painless and a modified rifle, splattered with blood and brain, in a circle of rich, sticky, dark soil.

"Where the hell are the bodies?" asked Schaefer quietly, "and why didn't they take their guns?"

Vigo was crouched over the weapons, his impressive frame like a caveman by a fire. His line of sight panned up. "Major! The bodies, they're up there," he pointed upwards into the tree's branches.

There they hung, upside down and headless, swinging from the branches high above. Their still warm syrup-like red juices continued to drip down onto their weapons.

"I can't believe Blaine and Friya walked into an ambush. Not their style," Schaefer said, the disbelief all too clear in his tone.

"I don't believe they did, major," Vigo said, standing up and readying his rifle. "I can't find a single goddamned track in or out of here, just like before. There's no cardassian I've ever seen that can climb trees and pull two guys like Blaine and Friya with him. You couldn't pull them up there, major."

"What the hell is going on, Vigo?" Schaefer asked, whitefaced.

"I think it's a judgment of the prophets, major. We're all gonna die."

"Bullshit! That's bullshit!" shouted Dilan, anger and fear mixed in his face as he prodded and pointed at Vigo. "There must be at least a 2 man team pulling a psych-job on us! The prophets, out here! Hah. Bullshit, complete bullshit, man."

"There's something else on this moon, major, something hunting and killing us, like a big game hunter. And it ain't no man. It's just like the old stories, in the hottest years on Bajor, the tall demons came, nothing could imprison them, they just came and hunted the men," Vigo said, gripping his religious necklace like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

"Vigo! Enough. We're all agreed we have to get off this goddamned moon, let's get to the rendezvous site and get the hell away from here, okay?" Vigo?" Schaefer said, but Vigo had turned his back and was looking into the trees.

"You go on major. I've a score to settle," he said, and threw his rifle to one side. Schaefer gripped Vigo's shoulder and tried to talk to him. Vigo gave him an icy primal glance and Schaefer gave up and nodded, thinking about the lives of the other men.

Schaefer, Dilan, Lotha and Poncho moved off into the forest, aiming for the rendezvous point. Time passed and the plants Schaefer's team had disturbed had stopped swaying.

Vigo tore off his vest, and kept staring at the shimmer that was slowly moving down a distant tree towards him. His expression was a solid frozen image of icy defiance. His eyes wide and wild, the perspiration sliding off his shiny skin, giving greasy highlights to his cheekbones and nose. He snapped off his religious necklace and wrapped it around his right hand, like a kind of holy knuckle duster. He gripped the machete handle at his waist, unbuttoned the sheath, and let the blade out, white silver, sprayed with camouflage. It cut the air as he drew it up in front of him like man's earliest bipedal ancestors must've done with the first weapons. He took the tip of the blade, and aimed it inwards, and it bit into his chest. He continued his self mutilation by dragging the tip down his flesh in a long, ritualised cut. He held the blade aloft, and staring straight at the uncovering monster, let out a primal scream of hatred and defiance.

Vigo's second, more ghastly scream as he was gutted alive resounded across the forest and reached Schaefer's team. They all briefly stopped, contemplating what must've just happened. Then they silently turned and continued on through the leaves and trees.

"Come on, we must be only 10 minutes away from the shuttle, keep moving!" ordered Schaefer.

[Crazedwraith]

Kickass. 1st Post. Now to acutally read it...


EDIT: Well your sure steaming through the Pred stuff, I don't remember Dillan featuring in your satory before though...

[Rye]

Kickass. 1st Post. Now to acutally read it...


EDIT: Well your sure steaming through the Pred stuff, I don't remember Dillan featuring in your satory before though...

Yeah, the pred story is just a backstory of the main character's relationship with the preds. This way I ca nset it up so both species turn up at the same time, with a few twists and turns along the way. The main story's supposed to be spent in the present with the flashback only lasting it to about half way.So yeah, I'm getting the pred stuff out the way for the most part.

As for Dilan [Dillon in the film, obviously] yeah, I almost forgot him in previous sections, (:lol:) but gave his character another name, so I reedited the earlier chapters this morning so they have him in instead of the other guy. Hopefully now he's started talking more, him and Schaef will have the whole "expendeble" dialogue.

Anyway, I enjoyed my first space battle scene and the description of the Borg. There's a few references to my favourite band in there, if you're a fan, you should've spotted them.

Still to come: the alien birthing sequence, Schaefer's team's last stand and escape, First Contact, what will be the fate of ensign Timothy Jones? Hahaha, and more.

[darthdavid]

Your story kicks ass.

[Rye]

This is merely a bump so it's easier to find when I post a new chapter later tonight or possibly tomorrow morning, and to stir up interest again.

Consider it a publicity stunt .

[Crazedwraith]

Bastard. Now I'll balance out your stunt with a shameless plug:

All of you read my ST: SHadowplay! Right now!

[Rye]

IT FINALLY HAPPENED! I wrote some more!

-----

Uneasiness hung like a dangerous buzzing insect in the stuffy air of the cramped shuttle, the atmosphere thick with guilt and fear. Outside; in the freezing vacuum of space, the rotating sky outside invited nausea for anyone that looked at it.

“Sir, I think I have an idea,” Ensign Jones mumbled. His wide eyes were transfixed on the pulsating pale sacs of the arachnid wrapped around Commander Chakotay’s face. “I think one of us should go outside. Walk up Voyager’s hull to that damage spot and climb in. Then they could get in a Jeffries’ tube, and get to the shuttle bay. Once they’re there, they open it by manually switching power relays to the door mechanism, and get help.”

Schaefer looked at the Ensign, surprised. “That’s actually a pretty good plan. I’m going to have to go, aren’t I?”

“Yes, sir. You’re the only person that would have the security overrides to do something like that,” Jones said, his face a shiny mixture of pity and relief.

Schaefer groaned and replaced his suit’s helmet. He jabbed at the controls on his arm, the bleeps and lights interrupted by the telltale hiss of it being hermetically sealed. All the lights shone green, indicating an intact suit. He felt a buzzing above his epidermis as he approached the shuttle’s door. Quickly, his suit started to heat up, in order to protect him from the vacuum conditions outside.

He gave the thumbs-up signal and a force field blinked into life behind him, followed by the sounds of depressurization. The vertical door slowly fell away from him till it stopped on the hull of Voyager.

Schaefer stepped out onto the rotating ship and heard the magnetic soles of his suit adhere to the surface, He felt his bodily fluids being dragged downwards and backwards, yanked to the sides of his veins and bladders and guts as it felt the change between the artificial gravity of the shuttle and the centrifugal rotation force of Voyager’s spinning carcass.

He swayed and doddered on the spot and tried to regain his equilibrium. He made the fatal mistake of looking at the sky and doubled over, clenching his eyelids shut and holding the liquid in his stomach down. It surged up and fell back down his throat several times, accompanied by small belches of stomach gas.

“Look at the hull,” he said in a mantra. “Just focus on the hull,” he repeated over and over, using his hand to blot out the spinning sky from his field of view. He plodded along the surface, attempting to ignore the mixing and dancing shadows.

He reached the jagged metal petals of the ruptured hull. Carbon scoring scratched out in all directions and coagulated on the burnt shards that remained in the wound on the side of the ship. Schaefer slowly and clumsily knelt down and reached inside for some structural wire. He grasped it in one hand, and jabbed at the magnetic sole control on his wrist with his other. The magnets under his feet cut out and he quickly through himself inside the wound of the ship.

Nausea addled his brain as the artificial gravity of the ship pulled him in a queer parabola and slammed him to the floor. He lay there, dizzy and groggy, and clawed at the bulkhead desperately in the dark in order to try and stabilise himself. The computer voice in his suit told him a tear had been detected and that he was losing pressure, and continued to make warning sounds.

His heart pounded loudly in his chest, and his breath got more hurried and ineffectual. It would not be long now before the decompression would suck the very air out of his chest and throat and make him asphyxiate in his suit. Maddened by this, he gritted his teeth and walked over to the Jeffries’ tube door. He stood to the side of it and jabbed in a combination on its emergency red-lit keypad.

The solid metal door flew open violently with the air behind it pushing to get out. It clanged all but silently on the bulkhead next to it and Schaefer hauled his now aching body into the tube itself. Once inside, his arm yanked the door shut and he heard the hiss of the seal.

He removed his helmet, his breathing resounding in the dark tube. Infernal sanguine lights flashed down the length of the tube, giving everything a hellish hue. With a few fresh lungfuls of air, he felt clearer and healthier and proceeded through the cramped bowels of the ship.

He reached the solid metal door halfway through the tube that prevented depressurizations in emergencies much like the one he’d just caused. He jabbed at the high contrast keys of the door and it ascended into the ceiling. Schaefer passed the door and it closed behind him like a trap. The end of the tube yielded another door with birghtly lit keys. Schaefer repeated the unlock code and the door yawned open to the darkened corridor by the shuttlebay.

Schaefer approached the sliding doors that guarded the shuttlebay, they remained solid and cold; unresponsive to opening codes. He typed in a security override and a heavy clunk from inside the door signified it was at least unlocked. Schaefer opened a panel at the side of the door and evacuated two emergency magnetic discs from their housing.

He placed them on the door's surface and sealed them in place. With immense effort, he forced the doors apart just enough to fit through. The rollers in the door complained in protest, and then went quiet. Schaefer slipped through the small gap and sprinted across the Shuttle bay to the control console. The schematics were drawn on the screen and he saw what data crystals would have to be exchanged to open the door.

He gingerly removed the front panel of the console and examined the order of data crystals. Schaefer's hand felt clumsy and useless in the small console, so he removed his glove and shook free any moisture that had settled in the grooves of his hand. The internal lights of the console illuminated him in the contrasting darkness. The shuttlebay was desolate, ghostly, even. It could've been an ancient wilderness on Earth, the only light from the fire, technology, illuminating the ancient man.

Touching the piss-yellow crystal made everything explode around him; the ambient lights rose in intensity, and the walls growled briefly with a rising hum.

A ship wide update from the computer announced, “Power restored. Warp core at 68% efficiency.”

Schaefer laughed out loud and replaced the console cover. He padded the comm-badge on his chest and contacted the captain, “Captain, the Commander’s been attacked, get power to sickbay as soon as possible.”

“You were attacked!? By what?” Captain Janeway asked, audibly concerned. Her mind was focused on one word: Borg.

“I don’t know, captain. Some sort of parasite…it’s wrapped round his face, I have to go help move him now, Schaefer out,” he tapped his comm badge off and started walking towards the landing shuttlecraft.

Schaefer and Jones jogged, jostling Chakotay and the alien passenger on the stretcher with each step. The thing’s tentacle-like tail flexed and constrained slightly around Chakotay’s sweaty neck.

------------------------------

Schaefer, Dilan, Lotha and Poncho had been running in panicked silence for an unknown amount of time through scenery that all started to look the same. Death loomed from every deep shadow, the contorted features of trees like gargoyles, reminding them of their imminent mortality. Vines and vegetation hung in the air along with countless ignored, potentially lethal insects.

Schaefer skidded to a halt at a break in the foliage. Before him, a vast carbon-rich black crevasse yawned before him. Following the barren edges down, deep in the shadow, a stream was roaring and churning. A grey river, full of sediments fizzed and foamed like digestive juice. A narrow ledge led to the East, marked in the sky by a looming black moon. It looked pretty precarious, as Schaefer had noted in the initial planning of the mission. It looked even more precarious now, like it could barely sustain the four of them, in single file.

Schaefer started along the creaking, cracking ledge, then paused, one idea cut through the psychic chatter with crystal clarity.

“This would be the perfect place for an ambush,” he said.

Dilan looked at Schaefer, panned to the tiny ledge, then panned to the bottleneck they had just passed through. He scratched his slick forehead with his dirt ridden hand and looked back at Schaefer.

“Let’s do it. I’m sick of running from whoever this is,” he said.

Poncho patted down his pockets methodically and looked up at Schaefer, eyes wide and white, contrasted against the remaining camouflage paint.

“I haven’t got any explosives left, sir,” he said.

“None of us have,” Lotha stated flatly.” We used them all up in the raid, I counted. Those of us that survived, anyway.”

Schaefer nodded and looked at the display of his weapon, and seemingly through it, deep in thought.

“I’ve got it,” he said, lifting his gaze to his men. “We overload one of our rifles, set it on a proximity fuse. Wire it up to a tricorder, stick a sensor cloak on it, they won’t know it’s there. We shut the sensor cloak off by remote, boom! Lotha, your rifle is the strongest, get to it.”

Lotha nodded and started reassembling his rifle into a bomb, the lethal energy inside looping and building up. He flipped out his dull grey tricorder and started to interface it with the mutilated rifle.

“I dunno man,” Dilan said, “That’s not going to be a lot of power, if it works.”

“Give Lotha your last spare weapon batteries!” Schaefer ordered, and handed his own over.

The men grudgingly overcame their instincts and handed the last of their ammo over. Lotha incorporated them into his machine, one by one, under a fat green leaf at the edge of the forest. He connected his circular sensor cloak, whose limited battery life was now rejuvenated by the weapon’s power source.

They then ran for cover behind two sturdy boulders partially obscuring the escape ledge, around 5 meters from the exit of the jungle. Schaefer passed his pistol to Lotha with a smile of gratitude, and then silently took up a firing position. There they sat, in complete silence, listening to the sounds of the jungle. Insects buzzed by their heads and they didn’t stir. All of them had sweat highlights shining on their skin.

The alien silently climbed down from the last tree before the edge of the jungle. None of Schaefer’s teem spotted it, its visual stealth bending light around it almost seamlessly. It stalked silently out of the wilderness towards the plants and bomb. Vegetation was much more sparse, and a drier, dusty mud covered the ground before the rocky outcrop and cliffs.

Poncho was staring at the bomb area, sweltering under the heat and pressure. The dust on the mud was moving, seemingly of its own accord, into a compressed footprint. Another one plotted in front of it. Poncho squinted, and spotted a moving heat shimmer. Suddenly, he understood how this thing could hunt them so efficiently in the heat of the jungle, the perfect camouflage.

“Blow it,” Poncho uttered beneath his breath, staying completely still.

Lotha turned his head and whispered, “What?”

The sudden movement had made him visible to the alien, through the interference caused by the sensor cloak. The alien reacted instantly; with one swift movement, it had shifted its weight and shot some kind of small harpoon spear. It cleanly punctured Lotha’s neck by the jugular vein and propelled his body clean over the edge of the canyon like a rag doll, yanked by the spear. The remote disappeared into the abyss with him.

The remainder of Schaefer’s team opened fire blindly, only Poncho knowing where the creature was. Poncho blasted at the shimmer, the disruptor’s effect spreading all over the surface of the invisible predator. The predator recoiled, but was resilient against the energy weapon. Its optical stealth began to short out as a bright blue bolt leapt forth from its shoulder.

Schaefer blasted the bomb, and briefly, his world was illuminated in blinding blue-white and yellow light. The extreme turbulence of the two explosions knocked him off his feet.

He couldn’t see anything, his nerves were ablaze with fire, all screaming out for attention, like a grenade going off in his mouth. He reached out for purchase, found it, then felt his hips yank around, almost pulling him over the edge of the canyon and yank the arms out of his sockets. He tried to blink the sparks from his eyes and slowly a bizarrely hued world came into focus.

Dilan was above him, shouting and reaching down with his bloodied arm. It probably wasn’t his blood. Schaefer couldn’t tell what Dilan was saying, but he wanted to live. He reached for Dilan’s arm with all the might he had left.

Another blinding flash of blue-white light hit Dilan’s ribs and exploded in his centre of mass. Dilan’s insides expelled forcefully through fractured ribs in a thick red vapour shockwave. Schaefer was thrown clear of the canyon wall, holding Dilan’s useless meaty arm, cauterised at the shoulder closest to the weapon blast.

Schaefer tumbled in the gusty air of the canyon, the grey rushing waters beneath getting closer as gravity pulled him down. He briefly caught a glimpse of their attacker, a monster, to be sure. A death mask, snakehead, implements of destruction over its armour. Fluorescent green blood. It propelled itself off the wall to follow him. It was death and it wanted him.

Blood, Schaefer thought. If it bleeds, we can –

Schaefer smashed forcefully into the water and lost consciousness. Moments later, a secondary weight hit the surface as Schaefer’s limp body rolled towards a series of waterfalls.

[Perseid]

First post

Looking good, especially with the flashbacks coming to an end. I'm looking forward to the Voyager crew getting slaughtered by either the Aliens or the Preds. Keep 'em coming

[darthdavid]

More good stuff.

[Crazedwraith]

Nice to see the advancement of the pred stuff. Pity its only the B plot i rather prefer it...