The Tarpeans: Chapter V - The Road to Invoxum
Posted on Mon Oct 17th, 2022 @ 8:49am by Captain Samuel Woolheater
Mission:
MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: The Planet Kiro
Timeline: The Past - Over a Year Ago
4745 words - 9.5 OF Standard Post Measure
[ON: The Tarpeans: Chapter V - The Road to Invoxum]
There are places in the galaxy that will forever remain synonymous with fear, destruction and death. And it is only now that the true depth and dimension of the crimes the Tarpeans are responsible for have come to light. One such place is on the planet Kiro, bordering the Rashaan sector in Romulan fringe space.
For thirteen months, in late 2394 and into 2395, on the subcontinent of the planet Kiro, transport ships from all over Romulan space made regular runs to Kiro along unmarked transport routes. The transports would land on the surface of Kiro into an area that was isolated from the general population of Kiro. Here, in this place there once stood a monument to terror and murder. Here, this single-story office space once was the police station. Here, in this warehouse, the prisoners were herded into groups for faster processing. And here, along this cherry blossom covered path and that power plant at the end; was death. After landing and disgorging thousands of men, women and children into this clearing, the Tarpeans murdered them. A hundred races and species of “undesirables” to the Tarpean state. Families were broken up, mothers separated from their children. Husbands from their wives and families. They were marched into this room where they were murdered coldly and efficiently on a scale that is nearly incomprehensible. By adjusting and modifying a standard fission power plant, the Tarpeans turned it into a massive subspace vortex. Using technology like the quantum singularity found on Romulan military ships, the Tarpeans experimented with more efficient ways of killing people. The subspace vortex didn’t transport people anywhere. It killed them by shredding their bodies apart atom by atom until there was nothing left. And they did this with murderous speed. The Tarpeans moved whole populations throughout Romulan territory. But they were not alone. Species from all over their territory and their neighbor’s territory were included. The Tzenkethi, The Zuhl and The Graeberians all were a part of this atrocity. The Tarpeans moved people in this manner to avoid known shipping routes and to avoid the long sight of Starfleet Intelligence. The Tarpeans wanted every undesirable killed. Humans were among the most hated, especially Federation citizens. They wanted them all dead, and they wanted to keep it a secret. But they couldn’t keep killing at this scale a secret for long. Or any other people’s knowledge of what they were doing for that matter. But they could not have operated without the knowledge and consent of the Romulan Senate and the complacency and tacit approval of the Romulan Star Navy.
The victims of this monumental crime were not just Humans, Ferengi, Bajorans or Trill. They also included dissident Romulans. For by no means was every Romulan aware of what was happening or in agreement to it. Anyone, who opposed the Tarpeans lived in fear. Fear they could be arrested and sent away. And now that the Tarpeans had developed an efficient means to kill all those that opposed their radical view, they wanted to eliminate all opposition and dissidence anywhere they found it. It was an atmosphere of fear. Everyone became suspicious of everyone else. And one didn’t dare speak out. And the Romulan Praetor and the Senate remained strangely mute.
THE PLANET KIRO – RASHAAN SECTOR – ROMULAN FRINGE
In this remote spot, this lonely vale, about 450,000 persons from all walks of life, from different races and creeds, different species, the young and the old, were murdered, though we can never know exactly how many died at the hands of the Tarpeans. But, because a handful managed to escape, with the covert help of a group of Starfleet Marines, we can know what this place looked like. One such detailed account follows, and this is their story. We see how ruthless the Tarpeans had become after the loss of their leader Spornak at the Rashaan Station Outpost.
Eyewitness accounts illustrate the almost impossible to believe. The transports would land, the people would be expelled from the transport by Tarpean guards. They were then herded into a large room for processing. If anyone said they felt sick and asked to see a doctor, they were brought to the onsite medical ward. Where they were taken out back and shot at close range and out of sight. The rest of the people, they were stripped of all their clothing and any valuables they happened to carry with them. Anyone who did not comply was immediately shot. The Tarpeans were very cruel, and they shouted and pushed people along the path to the power plant and certain death. They would make then run. They would shoot the ground to make the people run to the power plant. And they ran, unaware where they were running to. Death was waiting for them. And when they got to the doors of the plant, the local Kirons, partners in this crime, would push them inside and shut the doors behind them locking them inside. No one could think, it was an absolute horror.
Cynicism, the like of which the quadrant had not seen before. Cynicism.
On the day that the Marines attempted to take control of the camp, only 70 people survived and escaped. More than 99% of those who arrived here were murdered, most within three-hours of arriving.
2nd Lieutenant Samuel Woolheater was being debriefed. He was being recorded on a holo-recording that would be sent to the Federation Security Council and Starfleet Command. Sam looked pretty beat up, dirty and bleeding from his nose and mouth. He was muddy, he looked like he had been in a fight. He said, “…there was this small area…200 by 300 meters I estimate, my tricorder…I thought it had to be broken. My tricorder registered over 100,000 bodies. Buried. Beneath our feet in the back of the power station. We later learned that this is where they buried anyone who was still alive – if you can call it that – after the subspace vortex was done. They buried them, by just using disruptors to hollow out these great…ditches. Here they dumped the corpses of those they shot earlier. Anyone who went to the doctor or didn’t run fast enough. Anyone who got out of line. I’m still….in disbelief. It’s hard to wrap my brain around the idea that such…murder. That such an enormous crime could be carried out in such a small space. It is difficult to imagine. It’s hard to think about…beyond…. comprehension.”
Someone off screen said, “Take it easy marine. You’re home now. The docs will take care of you, and we’ll get you some counseling.”
Sam thought about going to the doctor and getting shot. But he didn’t say that. He simply nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”
“The scale of the crime is…unimaginable. You did good work out there. You all did. You saved 70 people today son.”
Sam just nodded and the holo-recording was over.
This killing factory, one of three the Tarpeans built on the planet Kiro, is near a tiny hamlet whose name will remain infamous many decades from now – Invoxum.
There is the roadsign of the town written in Romulan. See it burn. Now, engulfed in flames.
How could such places like Invoxum ever come to exist?
“To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of all. Had no voice been raised against injustice, ignorance, and lust; the Inquisition yet would still be the law and guillotines decide our least disputes. The few who dare, must speak and speak again to right the wrongs of many. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
W.A. Mozart – “DON GIOVANNI” – ACT THREE – SCENE ULTIMO
The Statue of the dead Commander, in pallid white and grey, pleaded with Don Giovanni, “Take my hand! Repent!” Defiantly, the rogue defied these pleas, “No! No! NO!!!”
The Statue folds his arms upon his sword and sings, “Ah, your time is up!” The dead Commander disappears. Flames appear on all sides of the banquet hall and the ground begins to tremble under Don Giovanni’s feet.
Don Giovanni sings, “Da qual tremore insolito , sento assalir gli spiriti! Dond'escono quei vortici di foco pien d'orror? (What strange fear now assails my soul! Where do those flames of horror come from?)
Emerging from the walls, crawling out from the floor and descending from the roof a chorus of terrifying demons in wicked costume, smoldering with infernal fire with all manner of frightening appearance surround Don Giovanni. They sing with the music,
Coro di Demoni, “Tutto a tue colpe è poco! Vieni, c'è un mal peggior!” (No horror is too dreadful for you! Come, there is worse in store!)
The demonic chorus pulls at Don Giovanni, the tear at him and they tear at his flesh, and he is visibly bleeding. The demons continue to sing and tear at Don Giovanni. The floor of the banquet hall rumbles and shakes and then tears open and smoke and flame rise.
Don Giovanni sings in agony, “Chi l'anima mi lacera? Chi m'agita le viscere? Che strazio, ohimè, che smania! Che inferno, che terror!” (Who lacerates my soul? Who torments my body? What torment, oh me, what agony! What a Hell! What a terror!)
His trusted friend, Leporello, cowers near the statue of the dead General, too afraid to even move to help his master. He sings in abject fear and trembling, “Che ceffo disperato! Che gesti da dannato! Che gridi, che lamenti! Come mi fa terror!” (What a look of desperation! The gestures of the damned! What cries, what laments! How he makes me afraid!)
The demonic chorus tears Don Giovanni’s body apart until there is nothing left and feast on the bloody flesh. His soul, freed from his body appears like a ghostly mist. It is bluish white, transparent in spots but it is clearly an apparition of the man and Don Giovanni witnesses his own death. Unrepentant, with haughty pride, the flames engulf Don Giovanni and his ghostly soul, covered in the arms of the damned, is dragged into the ghastly chasm.
“AAAAaaahhh!!” Don Giovanni screams out. His friend, Leporello, rushes to the edge of the fiery chasm and in vain offers a hand to his master’s ghostly hand. “AAAhhhhhh!!!” he stares into the maw of the abyss and screams in terror. Overcome with fear, Leporello runs screaming out of the hall. As the final chords play, everything is destroyed. The demonic chorus, their grim and vile task performed, all rush into Hell. In doing so, they tear apart the banquet hall and the structure collapses in upon itself leaving everything in ruins as the curtain falls.
The doors to the Romulan prisoner transport shuttle opened. Three Tarpean guards, in their hooded cloaks and phaser pikes stepped in inside. The inside of the prisoner shuttle should have been full. Instead, there were only four figures, their heads were down, and they were in the farthest corner. The Tarpean guard here at Invoxum said and pointed with his phaser pike, “You there. Come over here when I am talking to you.”
The four prisoners made no movement.
It was raining at Invoxum, they cast their hoods back to reveal their faces. Romulans through and through. One said, “I am speaking to you human! Look at me when I speak to you!”
The prisoners did not move.
Th guard grunted, and walked over, his phaser pike pointed at the one in the middle. “Are you brain damaged you piece of shit? Look at me! Let me see your face.
The Romulan used the end of his phaser pike to lift the head of the prisoner. 2nd Lieutenant Samuel Woolheater’s face came into view. His blue eyes and his ever present blond-bearded stubble. With the final chords and the collapse of Don Giovanni’s palace ringing in his ears, Sam looked up into the eyes of the Romulan, “Hi there!” And fired his “borrowed” Romulan disruptor. The Tarpean guard fell dead on the spot. Sam and the three other marines dispatched the other two with deadly efficiency.
The last few minutes of the shuttle journey, Sam had been playing in his mind’s eye his favorite scene from Mozart’s darkest opera. He thought it rather appropriate too. There were two fire teams here on Invoxum. They were here to do a job. Get the Starfleet Intelligence operative out and as many prisoners as they possibly could. They were here for exfiltration and extraction. And, in a way, Judgement.
“Get their cloaks! And their pikes!” Sam said as he closed the door to the prisoner shuttle. The marine pilot came into the passenger area. “All teams are on the surface LT.” Sam nodded, “Copy that.” Satisfied that they had not yet been discovered, Sam said to the pilot, “Wait as long as you can. The dampening field will hide you from their sensors. If we’re not back in twenty – you have your orders.”
The pilot nodded. Sam and the rest of his fireteam donned the hooded cloaks of the Tarpeans. Sam looked at the three marines and with a nod said, “Let’s go get our OP and get as many civvies as we can. We can’t get everybody. We all know this. Its whoever can run the fastest; they live. It’s a shitty ass, fucked up deal. Starfleet needs Pitcairn’s intel if we’re ever going to blow the lid off this shit. Today we win a battle; not the war.”
INVOXUM – PRISONER PROCESSING
Starfleet Intelligence operative Wilhelmina Pitcairn had, perhaps, fifteen minutes left to live. The Tarpeans, in their murderous, mad dash to kill humans did not realize that Pitcairn was a Starfleet Intel Operative. She was in line, and she could see the power plant. The deal was that she had to get inside. She had to be inside in order to get the scans. The Tarpean guards screamed at them and thy made them run towards the plant. In the rain that was coming down in buckets now.
Through his range binoculars, Woolheater scanned the line for the intel op. His combat tricorder had her bio beacon. He knew that she was in this group. The blip started to mov and while Samuel watched and scanned the group of prisoners running, the other three marines kept watch. “I see her. She’s on the move. Running towards the power plant.” Taking the field glasses from his eyes he said, “We have to move. Now!”
The prisoners ran towards the power plant. From out of the “police station” came four figures. Pitcairn watched as best as she could but they looked like they were Tarpean Guards. She wasn’t sure. Nobody had said anything about the rain. It made running difficult and it made seeing even more of a challenge. It must have been a shift change. These four guards were going right up to the gate. Talking with the guards at the doors.
She fell.
Down in the mud she went. Tripped and fallen. The other prisoners, scared beyond belief could not, they dared not stop to help her. Pitcairn knew enough that she would probably be shot now. She was exhausted and she started to cry. Her mission had been a failure. No one would ever know what the Tarpeans were doing out here on Kiro. No one would ever know, and Starfleet would do nothing until it had the proof it needed. It was easier – just to wait to be shot.
A Tarpean guard from the front gate came running over. This was it. This was death.
A strong arm pulled her to her feet, “You…. damn you! Just shoot me now!”
Sam’s voice said, “Not today. On your feet! You have a job to do – its almost over. Come on!”
She looked at him, his voice sounded human. His Federation standard, he had a Pacifican accent. Sam swung her around like he was yelling at her, other Tarpeans were showing an interest in what was going on here. When he swung her around, the light hit his face. His scruffy, blond beard, his face. He was human. Sam said, “Woolheater. SFMC. We’re getting you out. Just as soon as you complete your mission!”
He put her on her feet, pulled her by the arm and put her back in line and told her to run for her life. The Tarpeans lowered their phaser pikes thinking that the incident was over. The marine cover still held.
MEANWHILE
The second team had dispatched the control tower. There would ne no interference from the ground. However, the Tarpeans had small fighters airborne that kept watch over Invoxum. And the prisoner transports had no shields nor weapons. The second team was ready and the tower was neutralized. High above, in orbit, the Hale and her shuttles would be all the air support they would have.
THE POWER PLANT
The prisoners, this group of them anyway, ran inside the power plant. As Pitcairn ran past one of the other marines, a combat tricorder was secreted to Wilhelmina. She opened it and began her scans. The local Kirons wanted to close the doors. There were roughly three-hundred persons here in this death trap. From all races, all creeds and all species. Although, humans made up the vast majority. Sam and his three marines, without speaking did the best they could to stop the Kiron’s from locking the doors and activating the subspace vortex. But they could not keep silent for much longer.
Pitcairn worked as fast as she could, other people noticed her combat tricorder, and there was nothing she could do to stop the hope, the panicked hope of a rescue. She tried her best to keep the tricorder as close to her as possible until the scan was done. She told her fellow prisoners, “Stay close to me. We’re getting out of here!”
The subspace vortex was being generated by a modified quantum singularity. That was the power source. A series of fission amplifiers from the plant itself contained the energy by constantly recycling it through the system. A massive grid, like a giant spiderweb all around them, contained the vortex relative to the amount of power dumped into the system. It smelled of death. Burnet body parts lay all around and the corpses of people who had been torn apart lay in heaps.
Eight Tarpean guards now suspected something wasn’t right. They started approaching the doors and were yelling in Romulan. The game was almost over. Sam had a Kiron against the door with his phaser pike. He watched Pitcairn. She turned to look at Sam and nodded. That was the signal, the scan was complete. That combat tricorder was the intel operative were now the two most important targets on the entire planet.
The rain was steady, Sam didn’t hear the Tarpean guard who was now standing behind him. The hood was pulled back from Sam’s head. Game over. “BOO!” Sam said as he shed the cloak and hood and revealed his SFMC combat uniform and gear – never did it look so good to the prisoners. The marines now all shed their cloaks and fought.
A phaser firefight erupted. Sam ran the butt end of the phaser pike into the guts of the Tarpean and then he impaled the Kiron on the sharp end of the phaser pike. The damn thing shorted out and fizzled out, “That’s shoddy workmanship right there!” he said.
He pulled out two hand phasers and started shooting as he dove for cover. People, the prisoners, ran back out of the doors and back down the path. It was chaos. The plan all went to shit. Nobody had a clear shot anymore and Sam had lost sight of Pitcairn.
The control tower, the security area where the Tarpeans commanded the camp exploded. It lit up the night sky and, on its heels, Sam could hear the whine of shuttlecraft engines. He ran into the power plant and called for the Intel operative. After a moment, she appeared, “I disabled the mechanism!” Sam looked at her, “What? How?”
“I disabled the containment field. We are going to want to be very far away, very soon!” she said. Sam almost did a facepalm, “What?! That’s not a part of the plan!” He grabbed her hand and shooting their way out, they ran towards the prisoner processing area, back along the path and towards where the shuttles had landed. Sam looked at his chronometer, 19 minutes. “Shit!” he said. They had one-minute to get across the landing area or the shuttles would leave.
The Tarpeans did not abandon their posts. They were fighting the marines for every inch. And the Tarpeans were turning their weapons onto the prisoners. Shooting them down in cold blood. The four marines and Pitcairn the Intel operative were trapped. Their escape cut off and the Tarpeans were taking pot shots at them.
Sam called for an emergency beam out, but the COMM went unanswered. It was going to be a fight to the death. Wilhelmina protected the combat tricorder, and Sam and the other marines surrounded her from all sides facing outward to protect her and the information she carried. The Tarpeans stormed their position and hand to hand combat broke out.
Before a second wave of Tarpeans could reach them, the prisoner transport shuttle, doors opened, hovered between them and the oncoming Tarpean wave.
“GET ON!” was the command. Sam turned to the prisoners who were also trapped. “COME ON! RUUUNN!”
And no one needed encouraging. A mass of 75 or 80 persons, almost everyone that was left, they all got on board and so did three Tarpeans. They also managed to get inside as the shuttle lifted away, all the time under fire from small arms and no shields. Pitcairn, worked the combat tricorder. Fearing the worst, she locked onto the data signal from the Hale and started to transfer the data she had collected. Then, she picked up a chain of handcuffs and using them like Nunchuka – she went to work on the attacking Tarpeans.
As the shuttle banked to port, one could fall to their death, the door to the shuttle was still wide open. Woolheater had enough. The shuttle, banked hard to port again, trying to get out of range and high enough to evade any fighters. The Tarpean guard grabbed and held onto a beam. He used a rappelling cable to latch onto the vertical beam. As the shuttle banked, Woolheater leapt for the open door and caught an overheard parallel bar. With the momentum still in his body, he landed his booted feet into the chest and midsection of the Tarpean. The guard lost his grip and as he fell out of the shuttle, the rappelling cable cinctured around him link a link sausage and he was cut in two. Both halves fell away to the ground.
The shuttle levelled out and another marine cut away the cable and the shuttle door was closed.
“Little help up here guys? If you’re done fooling around back there?” The pilot called for help. Another Tarpean had made into the pilot as was trying to take control of the craft. Wilhelmina took the shot and the Tarpean was stunned and fell away.
“That felt…really good” she said. “And now we have a witness” she beamed. The rest of the rescued, breathed a slight sigh of relief.
“We’ve been hit! No way we’re making it into orbit!” the pilot called. Back into the passenger holding area. Sam, a bloody nose and lip, mud covered half of his face grinned. He got up and, gave the Intel OP a friendly hand on her shoulder and entered the flight deck.
“Ewww! You’re bleeding all over!” the pilot said.
“Sorry! Can you set us down somewhere?” Sam asked.
“Oh?! YA THINK?!” she yelled at him, “NO! I have a hole in the starboard engine. And thanks to the mission going to shit, we can’t make orbit or maintain cabin pressure. You may have noticed that we’re kinda full and we have holes all over the spaceframe.
“What’s your plan marine? You always have a plan” the pilot said.
Sam said, “If you can’t land us safely, somewhere, then we’re all fucked. Get on the COMM?”
The pilot shook her head, “COMMs are fried, so is life support”
At that moment, from out of a viewport behind them, the powerplant exploded. The containment field on the quantum singularity finally collapsed. It looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off. First sucking everything within 500 meters in, crushing it to the size of a pinhead and then rapidly exploding outward after the singularity collapsed.
This threw a shockwave out 360 degrees and it was coming for the escaping prisoner transport.
“Brace for impact!” the pilot called. Th wave hit them, and it felt like they had been shot out of the sky. The power systems failed, alarms were beeping, and they were spinning out of control. Sam held on. He reached for the hand of Wilhelmina Pitcairn. She said, “The data! It’s been uploaded! Starfleet. They know!” she said. “They KNOW!” she said with satisfaction. The mission, the data had survived. Sam tried to process that this is how he would die. In a shuttle crash on a shitty moon far from home.
When suddenly, they spin came to a stop and the shuttle was enveloped in a tractor beam. As the shuttle cam about and the main view windows lit up with light. They looked out to see the Hale. The ship was in a tractor beam and the Hale had caught them. Sam, and everybody, sighed in relief.
USS HALE – BRIDGE
Captain Hammond sat in the center chair and seeing the Romulan prisoner shuttle mostly intact, with his marines, the Intel operative and seventy people, he nodded and simply said, “We got you. We got you.”
=== LATER ===
After Sam’s video debrief, he was excused. He came out of the wardroom. Covered in mud, still in uniform, bleeding. He walked to sickbay to get looked at. He entered the room and it was busy. There were seventy people in a space designed for maybe twenty-five. Samuel would have to wait his turn.
Pitcairn came out and saw him. She said, “Hey?”
“Hey” Sam replied.
“Thanks for getting me out. How many did…how many….” She couldn’t quite say the rest.
Sam said quietly, “70. Out of 300. Tarpeans likely killed anybody else. But you, you destroyed that place. They won’t be able to use it again.”
Pitcairn took a moment to process that. And how close she had come to dying. “Invoxum is one of three. One. Of three. They do this everyday all day. Starfleet must act. Anyway, thanks. The Federation Council can’t ignore this any longer.”
Sam nodded, “Just…doin’ my job Commander.”
Pitcairn nodded, “Is there something you wanted to ask me Lieutenant?”
“Why are they doing this? Why do the Romulans hate us so much?” Sam asked.
Pitcairn sighed. After a moment she said, “We’ve been watching this aspect of Romulan society for twenty-years. This….is an old hatred. Its not new. Do they hate our humanity? Our Federation? It seems to know no bounds. They hate because they can. Because they are lied to. They have been lied to for decades. They have been lied to so much they can no longer recognize the lie. It’s not all Romulans. Just as it's not all humans that are Starfleet. When this is over, we’ll be asking that question for a long, long time. This? Invoxumm and places like it? Is a reminder and a warning of just what horrors people are capable of.”
Three days later, the Tarpeans abandoned Invoxum but not before trying to raze it to the ground.
[OFF:]
Captain Samuel Woolheater
“Saepius Exertus, Semper Fidelis, Frater Infinitas”
Division VI, MARDET 62nd Company "Spartans", 1st Platoon CO
=/\= USS ELYSIUM - NCC-89000 =/\=
