All Dead

Posted on Fri Jun 30th, 2023 @ 6:18pm by Captain Vanora Steele (Pallas)
Edited on on Fri Jun 30th, 2023 @ 6:19pm

Mission: Just Another Day on Gladiator
Location: USS Gladiator, Chief Ops Quarters
Timeline: Backpost -- An old Gladiator nightmare from the "Phantom King" mission (2014)
3603 words - 7.2 OF Standard Post Measure

She had tried everything. Manually resetting the doors, opening the Jeffries tubes to find that the whole place was surrounded by a force field, nearly burning her fingers off trying to rewire the EPS relays to overload said force fields. She sat in the middle of the floor on a tanned skin rug. In actuality, it was more like she collapsed than sat. At first, Vanora thought it was simply the exhaustion from working herself ragged trying to find a way to escape.

But then the room began to get... fuzzy.

"Computer... why can't I breathe?" she asked in desperation.

"Environmental control defaults have been modified," the computer explained. "Life support set at minimal levels."

"I can't... breathe..." Vanora said as the spots of light in her eyes darkened, until she felt completely enveloped in total blackness.

--------

Vanora awoke again sitting in her skipper's chair. She looked around the bridge of her ship, the SS Lady of the Lake, and saw her crew snickering. "Yeah, yeah, I fell asleep. Shut your traps about it or you'll get a Captain-sized prank before you know," she grinned good-naturedly back at her staff. "S'Klath, what's our position?" she asked her helmswoman.

"On time and on course for our rendezvous point, Cap'n," S'Klath hollered back, unnecessarily loudly as usual.

"Alright. Be on guard, everyone; you never know what to expect when it comes to Ferengis..." Vanora began warning her bridge crew when, as if on cue, the ship shook violently. "Report!" she called out.

"Ferengi raiders... they've got us surrounded!" the helmswoman yelled out. The Lady of the Lake shook again. "Inertial dampeners operating at only twenty-five percent. Shields down to forty percent, warp drive is offline."

"Evasive maneuvers! Tang, get ready for a possible hostile boarding," she ordered her husband over the comm. "And be safe..."

Vanora paused. Something was off. "Something's wrong..." she wondered out loud.

"You mean besides the Ferengi stabbing us in the back and trying to steal our ship and cargo?" Tang quipped with a smile as he and a security detail stepped onto the bridge, phaser rifles at the ready.

S'Klath interrupted after the ship was rocked again. "Shields down to fifteen percent, inertial dampeners are offline!" She screeched in frustration, "I can't shake them, Cap'n! There all over us!"

Vanora had ignored her helmswoman, standing as Tang entered and staring at him. "This isn't right," she said to him. "You aren't supposed to be on the bridge when this happens. And... and I didn't wake up here."

Tang put his hand on Vanora's shoulders and stared into her eyes. "V, I need you to focus. Whatever else is preoccupying you right now, we need you to get us through this. Remember your breath, focus on it to bring you back."

The skipper complied and took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment before gritting her teeth. "Alright, let's do this. S'Klath, fly us straight toward the closest raider; get us in as close as you can. They want a knife fight, they picked the wrong captain to try it on. Tang," she called back, "take tactical, ready the photon charge launcher."

"Aye aye, captain!" Tang smiled.

His smile, however, was cut short as the ship was hit hard again. Several consoles and EPS relays on the bridge blew out, and three crew fell to the ground, including S'Klath. "Shields are gone! Hull breaches on both decks, aft and forward!" Tang called out as he ran to take over helm.

"Rerouting emergency power to force fields and sealing off breached sections," Vanora said as she furiously typed commands into her console.

"We're getting close, locking onto the raider's weap..." Tang was cut off as a dozen Ferengi and Nausicaan mercenaries materialized on the bridge. One Ferengi smiled a sharp-toothed, sinister grin as he pointed his disruptor straight at Vanora. "No!" Tang called out as he jumped to tackle Vanora right as the disruptor went off.

The pair of them landed hard on the deck, the air getting knocked out of Vanora's lungs, Tang's body heavy on top of hers. "We've got to take cover!" she yelled at Tang, rolling him off of her and scrambling to her knees and hands. It took a moment for her to realize that he wasn't getting up, he wasn't following her.

"No..." she said, as the blood drained from her face and she took her husband by the shoulders and shook him hard. "No, no, no... this isn't how it happens. You don't die here. You're not dead!" She looked over at S'Klath's dead body, and the lifeless forms of the rest of her bridge crew. "You don't die here. You're not supposed to be dead!"

"But they are dead," the smiling Ferengi said, as he raised his disruptor and fired. The pain of a billion needles hit Vanora at once, and her vision blurred and then it was dark again.

----

"But I am dead," Tang's pale, bloody corpse said to Vanora as she cradled herself in a sobbing ball on the floor of her temporary quarters on the USS Bouzid. "They shot me in the back," he explained as he turned to show her the disruptor burn that had scorched the entire backside of his canvass jacket.

"I'm dead, too. You let us all die!" S'Klath yelled. "Why did you kill us all?"

"I didn't kill you. It was supposed to be a safe deal. I took all the precautions I could..." Vanora protested.

"You're lying," the baritone voice of Captain P'Trell boomed from her doorway, which had just swooshed open. "You didn't do all you could do, and you know it." The Andorian walked over and sat heavily in the armchair closest to her. "This is so typical of you. You get yourself into these unnecessarily dangerous deals, you put your crew and shipmates and everyone around you in danger, and you get them all killed. You knew the Ferengis were dangerous and untrustworthy, and you flew your whole crew into an ambush that you should've seen a mile away."

"There's no way I could've seen it! No one could've seen that coming!" Vanora cried out.

"I could have seen it coming," came a woman's voice from the shadows, with a heavy sigh. "Reckless as I am, I still could've seen it coming." The Elasian knew who it was even before she stepped into the pale light streaming in from the portholes.

"Mercia?"

----

"Mercia!" Vanora called out, as she heard the sound of struggle on the ridge above her. She was in the middle of a valley between ridges. The deal with the Ferengi had gone wrong; it had been a setup. Yet another Ferengi setup. Vanora was happy to have Mercia along as back-up, but she hadn't expected there to be this much muscle. She tried to move out from behind the crates to give Mercia some covering fire, but several disruptors shots fell around her, only barely missing her. As she backed up into cover, she saw that Mercia was struggling with a very large Nausicaan. She appeared to get the better of him when he pulled the both of them toward the ledge and over the ridge. They tumbled hard, alternately rolling, falling, and bouncing their way into the valley, ending up right next to Vanora's location.

Something was wrong. "This isn't happening. This isn't what's supposed to happen here," she whispered.

Neither the Nausicaan or Merica appeared to be moving at first, but then Mercia began to rise to her hands and knees, and Vanora breathed a sigh of relief. "Quick," Vanora said as she reached an arm out to grab Mercia, "get into cover!" Mercia nodded slightly and moved toward Vanora, looking at her with unfocused eyes, her mouth open as if she were going to reply. Then her eyes went wide all at once and she gasped, her breath cut short. Vanora held onto Mercia's arm as she collapsed back to the weed-strewn ground, almost pulling the Elasian down with her. A large machete was embedded in Mercia's back, which the Nausicaan, having risen to his feet now, pulled out bloody, with a grin, or what Vanora assumed was a grin for a Nausicaan.

She looked back down to Mercia, who was mouthing something, trying to speak. "Don't try to talk; I'll get you back to the Gladiator right away. You're going to be okay!" Vanora protested. Mercia's mouth kept moving, so Vanora leaned in to hear what she was saying.

"You killed me," the dead Mercia said with crystal clarity. "You got me killed. Just like you get everyone else killed."

Vanora screamed as the Nausicaan ran her through with his machete.

----

A console exploded and a yellow-collared lieutenant went flying backwards, hitting his head hard against another console before his limp form fell to the deck and finally stopped its movement.

"Gashon!" Captain Keval P'Trell called out in obvious anguish, before steeling his teeth and gaze and barking out more orders. "Tactical, focus fire on their propulsion systems. Romulans use singularity cores, if we can destabilize it, they'll have to abandon ship! Helm, attack pattern Epsilon!"

The ship shook again, violently. Vanora almost fell over as she knelt next to Gashon, checking his vitals. It was no use; the blast had damaged his synapses. He was dead even beyond what Sickbay could do.

"I need shields, Gashon, shields!" Keval called out before realizing what he was saying. "By Andor, Samsoe Stele, are you going to sit there frozen like an ice sculpture or are you going to get me my fraking shields!?"

Vanora jumped up and was immediately at the Ops console. "Main deflector array is heavily damaged. I'm rerouting power flow to boost the secondary array."

"Quantum torpedoes incoming!" the officer at Tactical called out.

"Got it!" Vanora cried out in victory, grinning as she successfully brought shields up to full power again.

Or so she thought. The quantum torpedoes hit the USS Bouzid will full force, almost all the consoles exploded, and the power on the Bridge went out completely for several moments, before the emergency lights flipped on. Half the bridge crew were dead, and Keval was stumbling to his feet, his head and right arm bloodied.

"Vanora... what... what happened?" He looked at her with grief, horror, disappointment, anger... every emotion of pain and anguish Vanora could imagine were held in his eyes.

"No!" Vanora yelled out. "I succeeded, just in time, I brought shields back up! I saved the ship! This isn't what happened!"

"My crew. My bridge staff... you got them all killed," Keval coughed out as he fell to his knees. "You..." he reached an accusatory hand out toward her right as another quantum torpedo tore through the hull of the bridge, and he was sucked up into the vacuum of space. Vanora held onto her station as long as she could, the atmosphere pulled out from around her, the oxygen quickly disappearing, her lungs emptying, and finally, she could hold on no longer, feeling herself pulled into space as she passed out...

----

"Why did you kill me?" Keval asked her. His skin was whitish blue, pale and strangely preserved as they floated in empty space. But his eyes still had the same look and would not stop staring at her. "Why did you get us all killed? Why do you always get everyone killed?"

"Everyone you've ever cared about and loved," Tang said. "You've gotten us all killed."

"She's dangerous," Mercia added. "She's done it before and she'll do it again."

"Murderer," S'Klath whispered. It was eerie; her helmswoman only spoke loudly. "Murderer."

"You've done it before," another deep voice added, "and you'll do it again. You'll get us all killed."

"No." Tears began to flow from Vanora's eyes, the beads of water separating away from her face and floating away into the void. "Not you too."

----

"Boys," Vanora said, "there's no reason to ruin a perfectly good evening by getting yourself all bloody noses and broken bones."

She grinned viciously as one of the drunk creep's friends called her a bitch. He was going to get it now. She deflected his attempt to grab onto her with a quick Judo move, put her hand into his pocket to activate his switchblade, and stepped back while the man sustained a major injury in his most sensitive area. Sexual predators get what they deserve, she thought to herself as the other thugs made more threats.

The boomer bar was getting loud now as onlookers of the fight yelled and egged the combatants on, while the bouncers stood back and waited for the fight to wind down enough for them to step in. One thug finally got up the courage to attack her, and she tripped him, causing him to fly into Khelev, making the Andorian spill his drink.

Khelev made short work of the thug by knocking him out and smashing him through a table. Khelev smiled and began to make a quip to the fallen thug, when his two friends, who had apparently circled the bar while the drunk creep distracted Vanora, came up from behind Khelev. Khelev growled out in anger as one knife plunged deep into his back, and he turned quickly to dispose of his attackers. He didn't get far, however, before the other drove a long knife straight into the front of his throat. Khelev managed to knock the two thugs' heads together, and they collapsed onto the ground unconscious, but Khelev followed them, falling to his knees as he grasped at the blade in his throat.

"Khelev!" Vanora called out, catching his head before it hit the floor. She cradled his head and neck on her lap, the blue blood pouring out of the wound soaking her pants and covering her hands. He was making gurgling noises.

"This isn't what happens... why is this happening?" she cried, her tears streaming down her cheeks and mixing with Khelev's blood.

"Because," Khelev gasped in a raspy voice as the color faded from his face. "Because you killed me. Just like you'll always get people around you killed."

----

"Khelev," she said as she shook the Andorian's lifeless body. "Khelev! Don't leave me."

"How can I not?" a ghostly image of Khelev asked her as it walked up next to her and the corpse. "I'm dead now. The dead always have to leave."

"I... I can't," Vanora sobbed.

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you were so reckless. Before you got me killed," he replied.

"She'd never have thought of that," Keval's ghost sighed as he carried another corpse into the bar, slung over his shoulder like a gab of grain. He unceremoniously dropped the body next to Khelev's, and Vanora scrambled backwards in terror at the disfigured, asphyxiated corpse of Captain P'Trell. "She can't think of anything except her own adrenaline addiction. That's why she keeps killing everyone around her."

"It's been that way since she killed me," Tang explained, his voice coming from behind Vanora. She turned just in time to see Tang's ghost dropping his own cadaver, burnt horribly all over by disruptor fire, almost on top of her, as she only just managed to dodge the body. "You killed me. You killed me and then you abandoned me. You didn't even try to find my body, did you? You just left me to rot in space."

"NO!" Vanora screamed. She stumbled to her feet and tried to run for the door, but S'Klath's ghost blocked the way and threw her dead self at Vanora, the weight throwing her back on the floor. The woman cried out in pain as her head hit the dirty floor, wet with blood and waste, hard.

"You didn't try to protect us. You didn't care about us," Mercia's ghost added as she came into Vanora's field of vision. "Now I'm dead. Now we're all dead. You killed us." Vanora watched as the ghost dropped Mercia's body on her face, the corpse of her friend seeming to fall impossibly slowly, growing closer and closer over several long minutes, before finally crushing her face, and knocking her back into unconsciousness.

----

"It's okay. Vanora, it's okay, you're safe."

The first thing she felt was her body. Every square centimeter of her hurt, and she was pretty sure several of her bones were broken from the throbbing of them. It was a strain for her to open her eyes; one of them had been bloodied badly and seemed nearly swollen shut. When she finally opened them, the brightness of the lights were so painful that she quickly squeezed them shut again. A mistake, as it caused the swollen eye to hurt even more, and made her second attempt at opening her eyes even more painful.

"What happened?" she said, the words almost unintelligible, her voice scratchy and weak as they escaped her parched and battered throat.

"You don't remember?" Khelev said as he smiled down at her. "We were under attack. It was those terrorists again. You were on the Bridge when they boarded, you must have gotten hit pretty hard in the head, but I heard from Crewman Jerrish that you kicked the crap out of a bunch of them before they took you down."

"I... I don't remember. Khelev." She reached her hand out and took his large hand in hers. It was warm and comforting. She felt safe. "You're alive," she smiled.

"Of course I'm alive."

"I had... I must have been having a nightmare. It was terrible. I thought I had lost you."

"It's okay. You're safe now. I'm not leaving you."

Something was wrong. Vanora felt suddenly sick to her stomach. There was something wrong with Khelev's voice, he didn't sound like himself. He sounded like...

"I'm always going to be with you, V," Tang smiled as he squeezed her hand. "I'll always be right here next to you."

"You're.... I saw you die..." Vanora muttered as she felt her consciousness fading again.

"When did you see me die, V?" Tang asked. "You must have been having a nightmare. You never saw me die..."

The words echoed in her head as the darkness reenveloped her.

----

Vanora felt it all slipping away. She couldn't tell what was real or imaginary anymore. She didn't know if she was awake or asleep, if she was on the Lady of the Lake, the Bouzid, the Gladiator, an isolated moon, or some no-name boomer bar on a no-name planet.

She didn't even know if she was alive or dead. She had seriously begun to wonder whether this was the afterlife that the Elasian priests were always trying to scare the children about.

All she could trust was her senses. That had always been true. But now she couldn't even trust those. Not as she found herself back on the bridge of the SS Lady of the Lake. Not as she saw Tang walk onto the bridge again, smiling again. Not as she realized what was about to happen next. Something that had never happened, at least not the way it was happening now.

She winced and shivered in pain as she watched it all happen again, the events that never happened, the people who she knew and cared about killed. Because of her.

She froze as she watched herself killing them all again.

----

The senior officer's quarters on the USS Gladiator that had been assigned to the Chief of Operations were quite spacious, and well-decorated. Vanora had taken a lot of care in making the place feel like familiar, while also trying to distinguish it from both her hastily assigned civilian quarters on the Bouzid and her old captain's quarters on the SS Lady of the Lake. She had intended for it to be her home for a long time, or as long as it took for her to continue the march of her career toward four pips. Toward being the captain of her own ship again, this time a ship powerful enough to protect its crew, and to let her protect others in well.

The furnishings reflected Vanora's intentions to settle in. Both Elasian and Human rugs covered the floors and walls, a mix of woven cloth, tanned leather, and incredibly plush animal furs, all colorful and intricately patterned. Mementos from her years as a trader, souvenirs from her travels and gifts from friendly acquaintances lined all surfaces: the window sills, the tables, the bookshelves, even the spaces around the replicator. Candles placed along the walls and near sitting areas bathed the rooms in flickering warmth. On the walls themselves, she had mounted the ceremonial weapons of her people, the spear, sword, and scepter of the Augusta, the signs of her womanhood and the only pieces of her homeworld that she had kept with her since she left home at age sixteen. It was a comforting space, a warm space.

Or it had been, when Vanora had last left it to start her shift on the Bridge. The feeling of it now was completely different. Now it looked as though it had been both ransacked and purposely defaced by some sadistic pirate. All the tapestries and carpets were torn, the irreplaceable memorabilia broken and strewn across the room, the weapons hanging precariously from the wall or embedded deep into furniture. Smoke rose from where candles had been lit and then knocked over, singing and burning the room erratically.

And in the middle of it all, hidden behind an overturned and torn sofa, a woman wept.

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