No Grave But The Stars, part 4
Posted on Thu Jul 7th, 2022 @ 8:41am by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Mal Garrison
Edited on on Tue Jan 3rd, 2023 @ 6:25am
Mission:
WHAT IF?
Location: The Bassen Rift
Timeline: Another lifetime
1581 words - 3.2 OF Standard Post Measure
Previously in No Grave But the Stars
Peering down, she traced the movement of light along a curved surface, graceful and alien to the Borg Cube. "The Scimitar!" She hissed, whispering even though there was no way that their pursuers could hear them. "It's down there! The aft starboard section at least. That would have replicators!"
Mal and Zh'erim both said "No!"
Ilon, at the doorway, said "We'll need EVA suits. That thing's going to be alive with radiation."
Mal turned to Ilon, a look of betrayal on his face. "You're supposed to be on my side."
"I don't want to get murdered by the Syndicate," Ilon said pointedly. "Which will a hundred percent happen if we show up without those rifles. Things will go quicker if all four of us suit up and go over there. That bloody scout ship is on visual only in all this radiation. We could get down there, lift a replicator, and be out before they found us. Then it's just a case of running for it, hope they don't realise we've gone."
Mal sighed.
"Please!" Miraj turned puppy eyes on him. "Pretty please!"
"Ugh, fine." It was the logical thing to do anyway, Mal told himself. "Suit up."
And now the continuation
Beaming was impossible, there was just too much thaloran for the sensors to get a decent lock on anything more than five meters beyond the Stranger Tides. And getting closer to the wreck in the ship meant firing up the engines, and leaving the little hidey hole Miraj had tucked them into. And that was far too dangerous.
Mal was prepared to risk a couple of flares of repulsor-lift boots though so they kitted up, and cycled the airlock. They glided out of the Stranger Tides, fixed eyes on the shadowed hulk below their position, and pushed off, drifting down towards the large piece of flotsam from the Romulan ship.
Miraj focused on trying to stay on target. Flying in EVA wasn't so different from flying a ship, but in the dark staying in formation was harder than she thought. She didn't have the same sense of space as she did with a ship wrapped safely round her senses, and her attention get drifting to the terrible beast that surrounded them.
Her eyes were saucer wide as she took in the Cube. It was almost too dark to see anything. Nothing more than shapes in the gloom. Occasionally levels around them would be suddenly backlit by the Myriad scout ship hunting for them. Nothing lingered long enough to suggest they'd been found but showed her more than hints of the cube beyond, and she had to squash the urge to explore it hard, rejecting the desire to follow all those gaps, follow the holes further in, like burrows through a rabbit’s warren, until she’d learn it all, or as close as she could manage. Knowing a Cube would be a very dangerous liason and she ached for it.
So she didn't see the body until she collided with it.
The Borg drone was dead, frostburnt in the vacuum, the unmodded eye atrophied through effective freeze-drying. The pallid skin was waxy, the ocular unit dead, wires trailing where it had been partially knocked loose. Its arms flailed with the impact and wrapped around her. Her scream at being caught up with the dead body bounced around inside her helmet, but the thalaron radiation had turned their comms to nothing but static; no-one turned to help.
The young pilot fired her boots, a long bright streak in the dark as she tried to get away from the frightful thing, but caught with her, it was dragged along for a minute until she slapped it away. She shot past the rest of the Stranger Tides crew, heart hammering, until she was safe against the surviving chunk of the Scimitar.
Mal arrived, frowned at her, and leaned close so that the thalaron couldn't interrupt their comms. “You okay, Mij? What happened?”
“I’m fine.” The breathlessness in her tone suggested otherwise and Mal gave her a long steady look that clarely stated how much he didn’t believe her. She shrugged. “Hit a dead drone by accident.”
“Only you,” he told her fondly. “Trouble magnet.” Short blue glows announced the others arriving, and they pulled themselves inside the wreck.
They had entered at the end which had probably been amidships, judging from the number of doors along the corridor they entered. It gave off strong living quarters vibes, and as one they started heading aft, repulsor jets glowing. They worked their way further in on the corridor they had first landed in, checking rooms, occasionally finding a frozen or asphyxiated body.
More often they found bodies mutilated by radiation burns from the thalaron or crushed when the ship had been torn apart, the bodies limp and broken in unnatural angles after being smashed into unyielding bulkheas. But eventually Zh’erim opened a door and found what looked like an armoury.
The weapons racks were mostly empty, but there were one or two rifles left in them. Not enough to meet what they'd promised though. A few sweeps of flashlights to the far end, and they'd found what they'd come for. Right at the back was a replicator large enough to churn out rifles. Ilon gave a whoop of joy and started figuring out how to get it out.
A few discreet screws later, he, Mal and Zh'erim were guiding it out of its housing. The whole thing was roughly two meters long, two meters high and a metre deep. In the zero gravity it glided out easily and Ilon cut the conduits free.
"Can't we just take out the memory with all the patterns or something." Zh'erim eyed the room door. It was going to be a squeeze getting it through.
"I've not got anything that can read Romulan tech." Ilon explained. "I can repower it just fine, but not decode it. Just be grateful we're in zero g and all we have to do is - "
As if waiting for the famous last words, lights came up and gravity came down.
Somehow the emergency power was on. The replicator unit went from weightless to very weighty in the hands of the three men in the space of a second, and it dropped to the floor with a clang they felt rather than heard.
"What the fuck?" Mal spat. This shouldn't be possible. "Mij, what did you do?"
"I didn't do anything." She had been floating by the door, trying to stay out of the way and the sudden return of gravity had sent her sprawling over the hall floor. On the floor, even through the EVA, she could feel the unmistakeable buzz-pulse of a structural integrity field. "The SIF is up? How?!"
Mal swore. "Romulan SIFs are sectional, remember. Someone brought a portable jenny and powered up this bit of the wreckage. We’ve got company."
Ilon looked round with a slightly panicked face. "Who?"
In answer, static crackled across their comms, someone was trying to reach out, thwarted by the levels of thalaron. It could only be the Myriad. "Let’s hope its someone we can negotiate with." Mal replied with a brightness he didn't feel.
"How are we going to get out? This thing is heavy, and we can't go without it."
"Nearest escape pod?" The Andorian asked. "Jump out there?"
Mal nodded. But they could very easily get caught lugging the blasted thing along the corridor. "Ilon and Mij take it aft. Out the nearest airlock or pod and hope they haven't found the Tides. Z and I will go forward, create a diversion."
"No!" Mij said instantly. "They'll kill you! Or worse!"
"They'll kill all of us if we stand around debating." Mal started hunting for anything that could help move the replicator, whilst Zh'erim and Ilon wrestled it onto a short end. "You get out, you get to the Tides, and then you come get us."
"But - "
Mal grabbed a discarded ablative vest and snatched it from the floor. The armour could act as a glide plate. "No buts." Zh'erim and Ilon wrestled the replicator onto the armoured vest, and it started to move much more easily. Mal crowded her out into the hall, guiding the replicator through the door so the others pushed it forward.
When they were out he turned to his baby sister, hugging her close and resting his helmet against hers. "This way we have a chance. We'll rescue you, then you rescue us right back. Mij, I promise it will be fine. Savvy?" he added with a small smile.
She gave a little half sob at his words. The days of playing at being pirates seemed eons ago now. "Savvy." She agreed with a sniff.
Zh'erim put a hand on both their shoulders, and gently pushed them apart. "Get going. Mij. You'll be picking us up in no time." He held out a pair of Romulan rifles to Mal, and the two men shared an understanding look.
Miraj looked at them both for a long moment, and then turned away, putting her shoulder to the replicator, pushing it along, staying close to Ilon, concentrating on not looking back.
To Be Continued
By Captain Samuel Woolheater on Thu Jul 7th, 2022 @ 5:44pm
Uh - oh! --- You got zinged!!! :)
The Official Peanut Gallery Review
with your hosts:
Gin Skillfully - Modar Moving Pictures Sentinel
&
Heb Hubert - Solar Powered Flashlight Films
Today's Sponsor: Ol' Doc' Washburn's Security Revealing Spray - "Just because you're a crook doesn't mean you're dirty. Clean-Up! With Doc Washburn's Spray!"
==============================================================
Heb: Hello again postage fans! I'm your host today, Heb Hubert together with my cohort, Gin Skillfully. And I'm excited because this week we have a real treat and it's my turn to bring it to the Peanut Gallery. Today's review is for the stunningly crafted solo post, "No Grave But The Stars - Part 4". Now, I don't know about you, Gin, but when I was a kid I'd spend all week mowing lawns, giving dogs bathsm weeding and yard work and even running my own paper route so I could earn my own money to spend it on whatever caught my eye. And I remember the excitement and the anticipation as a brand new, unread post would arrive in my inbox. Well folks, "No Grave But The Stars - Part 4" brings back those days when the "ding" from the email box meant something good. Ensign Miraj Derani together with Mal Garrison, Zh'erim and Ilon find themselves aboard the "Stranger Tides" and hiding from some rather nasty bad guys who would like nothing better than to eliminate Miraj and her crew. In some of the best scenes of space flight, the Ensign has hidden the Stranger Tides inside an old, dead, creepy, found it on eBay, Borg Cube. The opportunity is too big to pass up and our heroes open Chapter Four here as they board another trapped Romulan ship, the Scimitar. They manage to find a Romulan style replicator and just as they are about to make off with the find, someone turns on the auxillary power and the replicator goes crashing to the floor. With no time to spare, Mal convinces Miraj tht she needs to get back to the Stranger Tides and get the ship ready for a hurried and dangerous departure. The replicator is entrusted to Miraj and Ilon while Mal and Zh'erim go off to see who it is they are dealing with. There the post ends in another cliffhanger that has everyone on the edge of their seats waiting for how this story will resolve and just what danger are our heroes in? But, like in so many of these posts from this author, the real treat is in the atention to details and the craft of writing itself. I hav a clip here from "No Grave But The Stars - Part 4" - take a look:
They glided out of the Stranger Tides, fixed eyes on the shadowed hulk below their position, and pushed off, drifting down towards the large piece of flotsam from the Romulan ship. Miraj focused on trying to stay on target. Flying in EVA wasn't so different from flying a ship, but in the dark staying in formation was harder than she thought. She didn't have the same sense of space as she did with a ship wrapped safely round her senses, and her attention get drifting to the terrible beast that surrounded them. Her eyes were saucer wide as she took in the Cube. It was almost too dark to see anything. Nothing more than shapes in the gloom. Occasionally levels around them would be suddenly backlit by the Myriad scout ship hunting for them. Nothing lingered long enough to suggest they'd been found but showed her more than hints of the cube beyond, and she had to squash the urge to explore it hard, rejecting the desire to follow all those gaps, follow the holes further in, like burrows through a rabbit’s warren, until she’d learn it all, or as close as she could manage. Knowing a Cube would be a very dangerous liason and she ached for it.
So she didn't see the body until she collided with it.
The Borg drone was dead, frostburnt in the vacuum, the unmodded eye atrophied through effective freeze-drying. The pallid skin was waxy, the ocular unit dead, wires trailing where it had been partially knocked loose. Its arms flailed with the impact and wrapped around her. Her scream at being caught up with the dead body bounced around inside her helmet, but the thalaron radiation had turned their comms to nothing but static; no-one turned to help.
Heb: Wow. One really gets a sense of what it is like to be along for the ride. And that is so characteristic for this author as we have seen in previous posts. People often get impatient and often ask me why these posts are far apart, sometimes weeks or months apart, and I always tell them that high quality stuff is going to take time. Good, Fast or Cheap - choose any two. In this post, we get Good, Better and Great. Good storyline, Better character development with every post and Great writing that has the artistic creativity woven inside. An excellent post and worth the wait. How about you, Gin, what did you think?
Gin: I give it a thumbs up - for definitlely for the way the author has set the scene. No doubt, this scene is beautifully shot. The alien ships, the dark and creepy Borg Cube and t too good to pass it up Scimitar. I give it a thumbs up for the character - OK - we care about these characters and are invested in them. It's a little unclear in the relationship between Mal Garrison and is Miraj Derani his sister? His girlfriend or his baby-sitter? I'm not quite sure.
Heb: Baby sitter? The girl is 21 years old and Mal is 29. Did we see the same post here Gin?
Gin: It's a little unclear OK? Could she have been adopted? We don't know.
Heb: I think it's crystal clear that they don't look anything like brother and sister. Maybe you should get your eyes checked Gin?
Gin: I just think they could spell it out a little better and leave like - no doubt in my mind. Moving on - OK - moving on. Thumbs down for not revealing the bad guys. I mean, its OK to build suspense but couldn't we have gotten just a little bit more information about just who it is that switched the power back on? Look - ok - for all we know. The Borg Cube was simply out of gas and the space version of Triple-A showed up and refuled their tank?
Heb: (shakes his head) C'mon! The author is building suspense. Giving us a reason to look forward to the next post.
Gin: Giving us a reason? Ensign Derani is a cover model here. OK? Steppd off the runway and into a post - what more reason do we need? I'll tell you what's missing here.
Heb: Oh this'll be good.
Gin: For all we know - ok - for all we know the Borg simply didn't pay the power bill. Forgot about it; it slipped their mind and the right-hand thought the left-hand had it covered and poof - y'know - the Queen shows up or something and pays the power bill and gets that cube going again.
Heb: There was a floating, dead, Borg drone, the Miraj ran into, Gin. It's pretty clear that the cube is a derelict. How many Borg Cubes do you know that carry a Romulan ship inside them?
Gin: I don't know - maybe the Borg Cube was being a good neighbor that day. Y'know, helped out another ship that was down on its luck? OK? Aliens helping out other aliens. It could happen Heb. Not everyone is as jaded as you.
Heb: Who's talking about being jaded? I'm not jaded. I enjoyed the post. And, by the way, have you seen some of the comments about this post in the Disco? People. Love. It.
Gin: My response to that is that I think they could have given us a little bit more as far as who the bad guys are. OK? I've said all I'm going to say on that part. The other beef I have with this post is...
Heb: Oh? But there's more? Really.
Gin: Yes, there's more. You know the Peanut Gallery has a thing called standards, Heb, and one day you'll get that lesson in the mail from your "How To Be A Post Critic" correspondence course. What are you up to now? If I may ask? Probably lesson what...two? Maybe two-and-a-half?
Heb: I'm not even going to dignifiy that with a straight answer.
Gin: My other observation is that yes the scenes are gorgeous, the cast is gorgeous OK. Big rack on Miraj and Ilon looks like a honey. Mal and Zh'erim smokin' hot for the folks who dig guys out there. But where are the regular, looking people. OK? The not-so-hot. The kind of people waiting for a bus, or at the laundry mat? Or at the store buying Terlit paper and candles? OK? These kinds of posts set the beauty standard so high that the rest of us feel like, y'know, the Hunchback of Norte Dame, or...the guy shopping inside a Radio Shack.
Heb: It's a flight of fancy Gin! This is not a documentary here. Werner Hearthrob is not going to suddenly start narrating it and a guy from the local car wash is going to come in. The author carefully crafted the story and these characters are the specific, well-thought out, chosen types of characters that she wanted for this scene. This is not a cattle-call for an Arby's commercial, Gin.
Gin: Those are my observations. Those are my reviews for what is otherwise are stunningly good post. OK? I don't dip a pickle into chocolate sauce and say here's your ice-cream sundae.
Heb: Where do you get these ideas? Pickles and chocolate sauce? (grimmaces) Well, OK, then let's put a number on it and see where we stand. On the Nice Ass Post rating scale where 1 is straight to the 'Lorum Ipsum" recycle bin and a 5 is excellence in postage, what rating did you give "No Grave But The Stars - Part IV" on the NAP scale?
Gin: I give it 4 stars. Despite my concerns, my observations, I still give it 4 stars because of the creativity and the attention to detail in the opening scenes. If we had some bad guys in the scene and not tucked away for 'next time' then I think we'd be in the 5 territory.
Heb: Even though we disagree on many points, we do agree on the NAP. I also give this post a NAP rating of a solid and well earned 4 stars. A real treat to read, really imagnative. I'm really looking for more from this author and future installments of the "No Grave But The Stars - Part IV".
Gin: That's all the commentary we have from the Peanut Gallery today. I'm Gin Skillfully.
Heb: And I'm Heb Hubert
All: Looking forward to the next post!