The Execution of Crispin Snow

Posted on Sun Oct 4th, 2020 @ 11:59pm by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Captain Gary Taylor & Lieutenant Commander S'hib

Mission: SEASON 4: Episode 1: Know Thy Self!
Location: ISS Elysium Shuttlebay
Timeline: Current
2233 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure

IC:

After getting the name of Alicia's abuser, Gary called for his personal bodyguard and waited for S'hib to arrive. It only took a few minutes for the towering Lieutenant to arrive. "S'hib I have a job for you, one uniquely suited to your talents. Alicia was attacked, beaten and taken advantage of sexually. She has given me the name of her attacker. Crispin Snow. Find Snow, drag him back here by his ear if necessary. String him up to be quartered. But before you do that, I want him to suffer horribly, slowly. Pull his fingernails off, followed by his fingers and ears and tongue. Leave his eyes I want him to see me."

"I think I know exactly what I'll pull off..." S'hib snorted, masking his amusement at the situation he found himself with nothing more than a coy smile. He would have to thank this Snow for making Gary suffer, then remove his tongue... it was after all his Captains idea. "I'll try not to have too much fun, but I do like it when they try to run..." S'hib sniggered, his neigh like laugh filling the room as he trotted outside and slapped his well worn comm badge.

"Crispin Snow..." He snorted with pompous arrogance, slowly walking down the corridor. "Do me a favour and don't kill yourself, the Captain wants to do that for you." He grinned as he tapped his badge once more.

Snow had been preparing his escape, and he smiled to himself. He had been cutting it fine. He wasn't going to panic though. He had been in tougher spots. He zipped up the small bag of essentials he'd been packing, and slung it over one shoulder. Then he moved to the small cage where he had one of the rats he had caught on Arena Station. "You have to find me first, Lieutenant." Then he cut the transmission, and opened the small tube of superglue he had replicated. Then he glued his combadge to the rat, holding it in place for a few seconds until it bonded. He opened the panel to the jeffries tubes and threw the rat in, and climbed in after. The rat scuttled off, and he went up, heading for the next deck, and the shuttle bay.

"Stupid boy..." S'hib snorted as he rounded a corner and continued walking towards the turbolift with very little urgency, his shoulders rolling in his sockets as he warmed up for what was to come.

Snow didn't hang around, heading towards the shuttlebay whilst staying out of sight. The huge sequus was a nightmare on open ground. Snow had no intention of meeting him on any. S'hib couldn't get in the jeffries tubes. Couldn't see him, couldn't reach him, couldn't catch him. That would teach Taylor to send a farm animal to do the job of a Terran.

Taylor didn't sit around doing nothing. After S'hib had left. He ordered a strict security lockdown on the shuttlebay. Nothing in or out. That done he headed there on the off chance of meeting up with Snow before S'hib caught him first.

S'hib had hunted crew countless times before, some higher ranking than others, some smarter than others... all had wronged the Captain in some capacity, and all of them had screamed for mercy long before they were dragged in front of Taylor.

This would be no exception, S'hib thought stubbornly as he stomped into the armoury and eagerly snatched up his pulse lance, twirling it around and engaging the capacitors in the long black shaft, its weighty pulse barrel tip flaring to a gentle hum.

"Computer, give me a play by play of Crispin Snows movements..." He huffed as he left the Armoury and clicked back down the corridor for the same turbolift.

"Snow is currently in the port Jeffries tube on deck fourteen, section three..." The computer replied in its usual monotone, continuing to relay Snow's location without pause. "Now moving into section four... now moving onto deck fifteen section four..."

"Alright thats enough, Computer activate site to site transport and beam Crispin Snow to my location." He snorted as he raised his staff weapon under his arm and gripped it with his other hand, watching the small mass of something materialising infront of him.

The thing had barely finished transporting before its atoms where ripped into a fine mist by pulse shot after pulse shot, leaving the poor oversized rat twitching and convulsing in a half formed state.

__________

Snow's Jeffries tube came to an end, and he opened the hatch a crack to check his cleareance. He couldn't see anyone from up here. He moved the hatch aside and dropped down quietly.

He moved smoothly towards the front of the shuttle bay. There was small huntley type near the front, and there were ways to open the doors, he just had to get there. He kept walking, using the other shuttles to block sight lines to him as much as he could.

The shuttle bay remained relatively quiet until S'hibs walked inside, nostrils flared while glaring at a member of the deck crew who was flicking his eyes between S'hib and his weapon with growing panic, only to yell something untangible as he was shot in the chest. "Oh wait, you're not Snow..." he sighed mockingly as he stepped over the man's body, the charred crater where his ribs should be wafting a small plume of smoke around his hoof.

"But I know you're in here Snow..." S'hib yelled out, lifting the pulse lance to his chest as though it weighed nothing. "I mean, where else were you gonna go?"

Snow scowled. blasted horse. A hundred meters to the emergency released to the bay doors. Eighty meters from there to the open door of the shuttle, Archeron. Ten seconds for the explosive bolts to detonate, giving him ten seconds to get into the Archeron and seal it before the shuttle bay decompressed. It would be tight, but a noose was tighter. He slithered along the wall, pressing himself into the shadows. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a small silver ball and a pair of ear plugs. The screamer would give that hayeater a bad day, it was sonic grenade that put out frequencies that would blast S'hib's sensitive ears until his brains bled out of them.

He crouched down, and set the timer, then gave it a sharp shove, sending it rolling across the vast shuttle bay. Five seconds later, it went off, and delivered a blaring screech cycling at twenty to forty thousand hertz at a hundred and fifty decibels. Snow smiled to himself, and started moving down towards the emergency release.

The sound waves propagated around the shuttle bay, echoing and amplifying as S'hib roared in pain. His pulse lance clattering to the floor as he gripped his head and fell to his knees. "Snow!" He cried out in frustration as the screeching blasted his ears, the pain was unbearable, but failure would be far worse he thought as he threw his hands to the deck.

Seconds later he roared again, bringing his arms up and over with cupped hands until they cracked down atop his own ears, then again and then one final time, leaving blood pouring out either side of his head as he stood, the low drone of a far away bell submerged in blood being all he could hear.

"I'm done playing! you're dead!" He neighed loudly, scooping the lance up with his left hoof and tossing it up into the air, too enraged to care about the blood profusely pouring from his ruptured eardrums as he opened fire indiscriminately in Snow's general direction.

The wild shooting ricocheted off the bussard collectors of a parked shuttle, and caught Snow in the shoulder. Most of its energy was spent by its trip through the shuttle, but it was still enough to burn a hole through his muscles, severing his tendons. He howled in pain before he could stop himself from giving away his position. Swearing under his breath he started running as best he could with a useless arm.

As he did S'hib came barreling around the shuttle, crashing into a tool station as he struggled to maintain his balance before firing another volley, the blasts tearing into the wall ahead of him with a shower of sparks and plasma that immediately began billowing thick acrid smoke.

A glob of plasma hit Snow in the side of the face, missing his eye by a whisper. He screamed as it burnt his skin, stumbled and fell. He scrambled back from the towering sequus. He didn't have to out run him long. And he wouldn't be able to get speed up with all the shuttles around. It was a forlorn hope, but he was out of nasty tricks. He pulled out his disruptor. Stopping to shoot would be a desperate act revealing his position. he'd save it for himself if he couldn't get away.

S'hib trailed the man around the shuttle he had been so desperately trying to reach, unable to hear the alarms that had now started to blare alongside the sonic device as the fire crept up the wall. "I can't hear you so don't bother begging..." He sneered, leaning on the shuttle as he clicked slowly around, pulse lance pointed at Snow.

Snow shot at him, disruptor squarely targetting Shib's broad chest.

A flash of green was all he saw as he pivoted, letting the disruptor eat into his thick muscular arm while firing back with the lance across his chest, its bright violet pulse striking Snow's disruptor pistol, tearing it and his hand apart.

Snow screamed again, and pressed the cauterised stump of his wrist to his chest. He was done for. "I have a message for Taylor," he said. "Go fetch your groom, pony boy."

"Then by all means deliver it." A voice from the shadows spoke as a figure emerged, slowly becoming visible as it walked into the light, coming alongside S'hib. Captain Gary Taylor faced Snow, his face an unreadable mask. His phaser however was pointed directly at Snow.

Snow's smiled. The smile of one who knew the end was here and had made his peace. "I hope you like your horns, Taylor. But getting you those was a perk. I'm just here to warn you to not get cocky. Renshaw has at least one assassin here for you. If you get the Alternate Elysium home, don't get too ambitious or they'll kill Connor in his cradle, and make you watch before they slit your throat."

Gary listened as Snow delivered his message. His anger growing with every word Snow uttered. "You dare to threaten me? My son?! You aren't worthy to lick my boots. You're a dreg, a leech. Some sort of bug that hides in the shadows, afraid to come into the light. You latch onto others to get you to where you are because you have no talent, no abilities. Now your going to be squashed, burned away into nothingness. Burn in whatever hell you believe in."

"I'll save you a seat," Snow gave him another lopsided, crooked smile. He couldn't feel one arm, and his other blared agony into him with every breath. But he had few regrets. He'd done what he had come to do. "Alicia is one of my few regrets, but I never put a finger on her she didn't beg me for until the very end. All I had to offer her was a life without you. That's all it took to separate her from you. Its all it takes anyone on your ship. Think about that when you lie in your bed alone tonight."

"Even now facing death you lie." Gary spat at Snow. "Alicia has told me how you lied to her, how you filled her head with empty promises of love. You know, she told me she wants to see you die. That's how little she cares for you. So don't lecture me." His finger tightened on the phaser but he didn't fire not yet. "Renshaw? He just like you, a coward sending others to do his dirty work. Let him send his assassin. I will deal with him like I have all others before him. he will be crushed, set aside and forgotten. Just like you Snow."

Snow shrugged. "I never lied to her. Not once. Have you finished yapping? Shall we get this sorry charade over with?"

S'hib by now had slumped down against the shuttle, his left arm limp at his side, exposed bone blackened and cracked. "You humanoids talk too much..." He snorted weakly before raising his staff beside Gary's leg and firing, hitting Snow in the chest with a hitch pitched thump.

He knew the Captain would be enraged by this, already sensing him turning to berate him with harsh words that he wouldn't be able to hear with his ears full of thickened and drying blood.

Gary turned on his personal bodyguard "S'hib!" He screamed "What have you done? You robbed the crew a chance of seeing Snow's execution." He stopped when he realized S'hib couldn't hear him and in a rare show of compassion put his hand on S'hib's shoulder. He looked in S'hib's eyes. "You did well S'hib." He said as he called for a doctor to look at his bodyguard.

[OFF]