The Surly Bonds

Posted on Mar 09, 2016 @ 1:48am by Lieutenant Eve Dalziel
Edited on on Mar 09, 2016 @ 1:49am

Mission: Promethean

“The Surly Bonds”
(Continued From “Interlude- Robbing Riss”)

=/\=

“The shell must break before the bird can fly.”
- Tennyson

=/\=

Location: LAVENZA II, Promethean Base
SD: 2.160301.2000
Scene: Annabelle’s Lament, Bridge

Lieutenant Dalziel had positioned herself a few feet away from Thomas Varn. She was still carefully watching the three guests as they were covered by the Major and her ‘little friend’. But ever since the winged man had appeared, Eve felt a desire to protect him, to help him make sense of the world he had been born into. She hadn’t realized the guilt she carried about not being able to help the original Varn before his death.

“We’ll be on the Phoenix soon,” she said. He’d kind of been staring forward, and even when he turned to acknowledge her attempt to comfort him, it was as though he was lost in a place miles away.

“Then what?” Thomas finally asked.

“I don’t know,” the dark-haired woman admitted. “Probably have Foster check you out, to make sure everything’s where it’s supposed to be, then we’ll work on what’s happening up here,” she said, tapping her forehead.

Varn looked around the Bridge, then back to Eve. “Maybe I shouldn’t come back… to the ship I mean.”

“That’s bullshit, Varn,” the Counsellor said, letting weariness get the better of her.

“They all look like they’ve seen a ghost.”

Eve winced. Kass hadn’t sugar-coated her feelings, but then again, that was Kass. And this *was* Thomas Varn. There had to be room for all of them on that ship. Or she’d have to knock some heads around until they saw it her way. “They’ll come around,” she urged.

The man adjusted his wings as he squirmed in his seat. “And there’s a good reason for that- they have. I shouldn’t be here.”

Eve leaned in. “What happened was not your fault. You didn’t chose to be replicated from a transporter pattern. Doctor Conniston made that decision. Just be grateful he didn’t further augment you.” Dalziel glanced at the lumpy, hunched form that barely resembled a living being at this point, and certainly didn’t resemble a human any longer.
“I guess you’re right.” The former Science Officer shuddered as he thought of the ramifications of the device that had been his unnatural salvation. “I wonder if there’s a connection between-”

“Commander!” Eve interrupted upon seeing the bloody mess of Jake and Jake enter the bridge, both almost immediately sprawling on the Lament’s carpet. The first body slid out of the second’s clumsy grasp and fell farther forward.

The Andorian snapped into action. Medical training took over deftly where away team management had sputtered. He’d resourcefully grabbed Ensign Perry’s battered medi-kit from the room they’d met Conniston in, but it wasn’t nearly enough for the extent of what he was seeing. His uninjured antenna shook when he realized *their* Jake was the more seriously injured of the two. Crichton was already in shock, pulse thready, vitals faint, and he’d lost so much blood. “Initiate power sequence, Mister BaShen. We don’t have a moment to spare.”

“What if they didn’t make the connection?” the FCO asked.

“The sooner we find out, the better. Point zero zero one.”

“I know,” the hotshot pilot said, flicking at the controls with his good arm. He took a breath and turned around. “Everyone brace yourselves. Five, four, three, two, one...”

The clunky feel as the trace of power ebbed through the structure was underwhelming. “How long before we know?”

Aerdan shook his head at Russ. “I don’t know, and they’re both out.” He was fumbling with the small regenerator with slick hands, trying to heal as much as he could of the deeply cut shoulder.
The cuts were far too clean to have been made by an animal or anything else he had seen in Conniston’s creature shop. The grisly conclusion he jumped to was both calculated and protective of the remaining crew. “Eve, get this other Jake over by the rest of them,” he said harshly, nodding his head in the direction of the captives.

“Yes, Sir.” She secured her phaser, then put the unconscious one-eyed Jake on the floor, propped up against the back wall where Kass could easily govern his response if and when he came out of it.

Then, a whoop came from the front of the bridge, courtesy of Russ BaShen. The dim forward view saw the first change in hours: a sliver of blue and white appeared in the center. “They did it. I’ll be damned.”

Aerdan Jos smiled as he continued to work feverishly on Jake. A proper Sickbay was in sight, and the safety of the ship. “Prepare to disembark at the earliest safe opportunity-”

A rumbling roar deafened everything as the bay became overwhelmed with intense shaking. A few seconds later, the entire structure heaved upward. Percussive sounds deep below ground were punctuated by the high pitched whine of metal yielding to inexplicable pressure.

The docking platform and the ship pitched violently to the left. Thomas, Russ, and the ExO held their positions, but the rest of them went sideways. Brass, being on the shorter side, had a lower center of gravity, but even he accidentally pushed Evaer into Conniston as he struggled to find balance. Regardless, they all ended up on the floor.

Eve had just drug evil Jake to his state of repose, so her tall, solid frame was upright and unfettered by anything except the unexpected movement. She plowed into Kass, knocking the pulse rifle from the shorter woman’s grasp, and they fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

Russ grunted as his injured arm took the force of him clinging to the console.

Within seconds, Brass and Evaer saw the unattended weapon and struggled to reach it before anyone else could. Kassandra pushed Eve off her none too-gently and tried to dive for it, but her foot caught in one of the flapping arms of Eve’s thermal suit and she went down hard on her hands and knees swearing viciously just short of the carry strap of her weapon. The snaggletoothed Ferengi seized the weapon and jammed the barrel of her pulse rifle into the middle of her forehead. Kassandra froze, a dour expression of extreme annoyance on her face.

“Don’t be a hero, Hew-mon. I don’t think you can get this weapon from me before I can fire a round.” Brass said, grinning his snaggle-toothed smile at her. She growled, and raised her hands slowly, sitting back on her heels. “You. Clear out that locker, tie her up and put her in it.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Kassandra muttered under her breath as she eyed the aforementioned locker. Eve looked apologetically at her as she did what Brass said, Kassandra gave her a wry grimace, and pat her on the shoulder. Eve was about to follow Brass’ directions, when suddenly Conniston launched into a coughing fit, which became choking as more rusty and muddy mucus streamed from his nose and mouth. “Ahhh…” He was straining to speak but what once had been a voice was now a guttural growl, drowning in phlegm. He crumpled to the ground writhing like he was being electrocuted.

“Brass, shoot him! Now!” Evaer pleaded.

Despite his earlier bravado, the Ferengi trembled as he tried to aim the weapon at Conniston’s remnants. He already looked to be at death’s door, so Brass thought a low power burst would be enough to put the man out of his misery.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. The shot hit his right flank and Conniston’s skin ‘popped’ like a swollen pimple, flecks of blood and pus spattering everything within a five foot radius. The Ferengi wretched as the body on the floor continued to move.

The Bolian uttered some unrecognizable cursing under his breath.

A crackling noise that sounded like either twigs snapping or small bones breaking could be heard emanating from the mad scientist, causing Evaer to stare in horrified disgust.

Saul Conniston was molting. His skin was like a dried out sausage casing, splitting and separating from the raw flesh beneath. The new skin was greenish and scaly, like a lizard and a pterodactyl had been whirled together in the Promethean device and injected into Conniston’s veins.

He rose slowly, the discarded tissue sloughing away until the creature pushed aside a misshapen and slimy outer face with only a touch of his claws, which were now larger than his entire hand had been before. Somehow, the genetic fusion had not only sublimated what little humanity that was left, it had created new mass, new bulk.

Even with the gross shell that had been left behind in a heap on the floor, one would be hard pressed to know that this being was once human. The torso was clad in a mix of scales and oily, dark feathers. Hands and feet were much larger than Terran standard and resembled the claws of a shellfish combined with a rhino’s horn.

The gray-green bird-reptile-thing hissed and moved his forked tongue. It sounded like faint clicking.

The Ferengi and the Bolian stopped as though time had stopped, their faces drifting from surprise, to shock, to abject terror as the reality of what was happening sunk in.

Evaer moved abruptly to the left, disgusted at seeing that Brass was now frozen with fear. Unfortunately, Conniston’s final creation was decidedly predatory and nimble. He caught the Bolian’s shoulder with a sinking grasp, shredding the blue flesh with his claws, at the same time biting at his neck with pointed teeth.

Evaer made a shrieking noise, in what appeared to be his noisy death rattle. Slabs of meat hung roughly from his shoulder, pieces of bone peeking out from underneath. Then, his mouth gaped open involuntarily, rivulets of azure blood running down and staining his clothing. His eyes stared, unblinking, like a sehlat caught in the headlights. The being shook him like a ragdoll, then flung him to the floor to feed.

Russ BaShen had turned around, craning his neck a little to see what all the ruckus was about, but he just as quickly reacted, flipping switches and making adjustments at his station to level the ship again. The bay doors were cooperating, but at an agonizingly slow rate. It took him a moment to realize the most pressing danger now was the one that was occupying the cabin with them.

Across the room, Eve righted herself and used her leverage to help the Major to her feet.

Kass saw her moment and took it, running headlong into the Ferengi and knocking him down. She swiftly grabbed the pulse rifle near the middle, swung it, and clocked the pilot with the butt end of the weapon before he had a chance to do anything but offer a look that was a silent cry for mercy and an end to all of this. “Time to die, you sumbitch,” she muttered as she levelled a sinister look at the prey hovered over Evaer’s body. She cranked up the power as high as she dared and began barraging him with with shots to the head, still crouched over the man she had just commandeered the weapon from.

Eve joined Kass with phaser fire within seconds. The beast howled with woe at the interruption of his dinner. The outer layers of his skin were much more keratinized that they had been before his transformation, and the shots appeared more as burn marks than actual destruction. And it was just pissing him off. He stood in anguish, letting loose a feral cry.

But, he wasn’t invincible. He just couldn’t be. “Jugular!” Eve yelled.

The Cardassian woman aimed through a tight squint, targeting the point she was referring to, and Kass followed. What was left of Conniston moved and twitched violently, but began to stagger as the ladies shifted their shots accordingly to trace his neck.

Finally, the pressure built up enough to overload the tissue, and his neck exploded, sending a mist of blood droplets and green fluid outward as he fell to his knees and then to the floor with a hard thud.

“Damn,” Kassandra said. Eve nodded grimly, wiping biologic particulate from her forehead with the back of her sleeve.

“Mister BaShen?” Commander Jos said in a strained tone as he continued to work on Crichton’s injuries.

“Getting us the hell out of here, sir.” Russ firmly throttled the pirate craft at the steepest angle he dared while still flying smoothly. Slowly, without excitement but with utmost anticipation, the Annabelle’s Lament cleared the confines of the base and headed into the bitter, starry night.

They were free.


***
A Joint Post by

Susan Ledbetter
Lieutenant Eve Dalziel
Cns

and

Alix Fowler
Major Kassandra Thytos
MCO