The Safe House

Posted on Mon Dec 14th, 2015 @ 1:02am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Captain Elijah Michaels & Lieutenant Ishan Satele & Johnathen Wade

Mission: If I told you...
Location: Hangar bay

"Contact!' called a Marine from the Western door.

Bertrand ran over to the position where the Marines had placed some crates across the door as a cover against hostile fire.

That's the military mind for you, he though bitterly, Always expect someone will be shooting at you and give them an easy place to target.

In the corridor were two figures. A woman in intelligence grey and a badly injured man in mustard yellow. She was half dragging the man who was clutching a bandage on his face. Blood had stained his uniform and it looked like on of his legs was hanging useless at his side.

"Help me, please!" The woman called when she saw the Marine and Security officers.

"Wait, it's not an attack, look," Satele said, pointing at the two people, "they look injured."

Jack pulled out a medical kit the moment he heard the word injured. "Get them over here, I ain't no Doc but I've patched up plenty after a good bar fight"

Bertrand moved quickly past the baricade signalling another Security officer with him. When they reached the couple the other officer helped the injured man while Bertrand watched the retreat.

"Lt Cuprum, USS Victory," he said by way of introduction to the woman as they were moving back to the Barricade.

"Lt Soonded, Starfleet intelligence," the lady answered, "and this is Ensign Ghonadai."

They reached the baricade and the Marines moved in behind them to secure their retreat. The man was placed on a stretcher and Wade began scanning and closing the open wounds.

"What happened?" Bertrand asked the woman.

"We aren't sure. We were in the replimat when one of the science staff ran in and started clawing at another crewman. He simply tore out his..." The woman stopped and swallowed never finishing the image in her mind. "We fired on him, but it didn't stop them. Ghonadai fired a kill shot, but he... the scientist... he just got up again. Then the dead guy... he... he got up... no throat.. he... he..."

Bertrand could feel the darkness and confusion swallowing the woman's ability to talk and think. Somewhere under there was anger that was rapidly surfacing as well.

"Shhh," he said. "You are all safe now. We'll patch you up and get you back to our ship. Where is the one who attacked you now?"

"Ghonadai fired a disintegrate shot at the both of them. Then we ran. We heard more phaser fire, and screams. We thought, if we could make it to the shuttle bay, we might get off but..."

She looked around at the bay which was empty, save for the three runabouts from the Victory, "Where are all the shuttles?"

Satele shook her head, "I'm not sure. we've only just arrived""

"Movement!" called the Marines again.

Bertrand moved back to the barricade. This time there were three figures moving down the corridor. It had to be said that they were lurching, and one had its neck at a decidedly unhealthy angle.

"What the..." Bertrand began.

Wade was working on the injured man. For some reason the Dermal re-generator was not helping close the lesions to the mans face. Suddenly he convulsed and started to froth at the mouth, his eyes rolling.

"Shit!" Jack jumped back once the mouth started to froth. He may know his way around a med kit but a doctor he was not.

The woman next to Satele backed up to the door of the Runabout, looking at her colleague aghast, "Oh, gods. That is how it started with the others.

Pulling out her phaser, Satele held it out and pointed it at the man, "so, if stun doesn't work, should we just jump straight to level 10?"

The woman shook her head, "You... you can't. It... grn."

She winced and clutched her stomach. The man on the ground suddenly opened his mouth and roared. In answer the people in the hall gave a roar and began running at the barricade.

"Stay where you are!" Bertrand ordered the advancing group as more appeared at the end of the corridor. "State your name, rank and position before proceeding!"

The people kept running at the barricade.

Moving to help the woman beside her, Satele wondered if she was being effected by whatever was causing it, "Hey, are you alright? What's wrong?"

The woman looked at her with fear in her eyes. Her mouth moved but no sound came out.

"Stay back or we will be forced to open fire!" Bertrand bellowed. It had no affect on the charging crowd. "Fire to stun!"

Marine pulse phaser weaponry called out, as well as standard phasers belonging to the Security team. They hit their targets but had no effect. The crowd was at the barricade now but did not slow down, the front line simply hurled themselves over it and onto the Officers holding the line.

Sergeant H'rothkin, the Andorian Marine used the butt of his Compression Rifle to hold them back. "Aim for the heads, keep them back." He barked as he looked at the Marines and Security Staff.

At the same moment Ghonadai rolled up off the ground and made to rush Wade.

The bartender quickly reached out and crabbed the nearest solid object he could to swing at the rushing Ghonadai. Luckily the object turned out to be a heavy tool box and the swift blow too the head was enough dent the skull causing him too collapse.

After the newly made zombie had fallen Jack quickly ran too the replicator. He didn't even bother talking too the computer, reverting to manual controls.

In front of Satele, Soonded began to scream, but it was turning into a roar like Ghonadai had made before.

turning her phaser on Soonded, Satele was unsure what to do, "Um.....orders?! Now!"

A noise rang out, muffled but still quite audible, and then Soonded fell to the ground, a new hole in her head. "You want an order, Shoot too kill, but no disintegration" Exclaimed Jack, not the least bit panicky about the situation.

Outside the runabout, things were not going so well. Initially the Marines had been able to stem the flow, easily taking down the first few people with some Close Combat training. The trouble is, their opponents didn't stay down and had reinforcements.

Four marines and a security guard were now half buried in people struggling to get free. The others at the back couldn't fire into the melee.

Bertrand, using his bionic arm to force a gap managed to get himself and one other Marine out of the pile.

"Fall back!" he ordered.

"To where," a security ensign called back.

There were only two options. Retreat to a runabout and be trapped, or make for the corridor the other team had gone down and try to regroup. Either way, the landing bay was lost.

"The Runabout. We can use it to get out of here. If we leave it here I don't think it'll be operational when we get back" Satele said, confident she could get them out of here easily enough

Jack was still at the replicator, and what he was replicating should not be possible for just a bar tender. He was having the machine replicate ammunition for what appeared too be a projectile hand gun. "Close the inner doors, clamp down the ship, then open the air lock. Space the lot of them. Then when we are pressurized let me back out, then you lot head back too the ship and bring reinforcements. Have everyone equip with either flame based or projectile weapons. I am going to find Smith and have a little chat."

He looked at Bertrand, "When you get back I will explain everything I know. But for now here is this, anyone bitten or exposed too bodily fluids is already dead."

Bertrand narrowed his eyes, "I've fought the Borg; I know the drill, but your plan has a minor flaw."

He pointed to the shuttle bay command room on the second level, "We can't set up a remote link, which means someone is going to have to manually open the bay doors and let our runabout out. While they are doing that, someone will need to watch their back."

"We need to stabilize the wounded Sir, then dispatch reinforcements from Victory with better Firepower." Sergeant H'rothkin said as he checked his Weapon. "With the way they swarmed our position it can't be long before they get window us."

"What are they? Is it like some sort of virus?" Satele asked

"H'rothkin, Satele, get to the runabout with anyone who can still do so. Wade and I will get that door open for you and you can get back to the ship for reinforcements," Bertrand ordered. He took the weapon from Wade and gave it a cursory glance to see how it worked, "You better replicate another for yourself. Then we can BOTH have a little chat with Lt Smith."