Ex Mortis

(Warning: Contains Disturbing Scenes)

“There are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through. When this happens the man who knows must strike before reckoning the consequences.”

-HP Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep (1937)

USS Surefoot, Command Quarters, Stardate 51180.4:

Hrelle sat quiet and alone in what humans would have called total darkness, staring at a list of names.

Then his wife emerged from their bedroom, approaching his chair, crouching beside him, her voice low, intimate. “Sreen is asleep in her crib, but Misha is in our bed, so don’t expect any action tonight. In fact, don’t expect to have much of the bed at all, he’s sprawled out like- well, like you...” Kami leaned in and rubbed the side of her muzzle against his. “Leave that. You’re exhausted. You’ve gone through the Seven Hells today.”

“We all have. So many were killed... you and Misha almost joined them...” He shook his head. “Having my family with me out here, in the middle of a battle… what kind of man thinks that’s a good idea to allow?”

Kami wrapped her arms around him. “I hate to break it to you, O Mighty Commanding Captain, Sir, but unlike all your other decisions, the final say never lay with you alone. We’ve argued about this more than once, and I’ve been uncharacteristically stubborn in insisting your family stay onboard with you.” She sighed with exhaustion, and lingering shock. “And I’ve had my own share of guilt too today. And will do for some time to come. But we won’t solve this tonight. We shouldn’t even try.”

He sat there, nodding, looking at the list of the casualties. The casualties he used in a diversion to save themselves from the enemy. “We need a memorial. Something for those who have fallen. Something people can visit, alone or with others, where they can reminisce, or pray, or just pay their respects.”

“You’re still feeling guilty over what you did.”

He nodded. “I don’t regret using the bodies of the deceased to save the living. Just that I had to do it when people’s emotional wounds were still open and raw. And though Commander Zirangi helped defuse a lot of the anger and hurt everyone understandably felt...”

“It will take time. You’re right, Esek. But that’s something else you can’t solve tonight.”

He grunted. “Is there anything I can solve tonight?”

“Yes: your family needs your presence in our bedroom, so that we’re complete.”

He made a sound, and rose to his feet, slipping an arm around her waist, their tails caressing each other. “‘Uncharacteristically stubborn’? Really?”

“Watch it, Mister, my Protector’s in our bed tonight...”

He smiled, ready to surrender to the fatigue, even as his mind truculently continued to ponder the idea of a shipboard memorial. Sentient races had such diverse ideas about death and what awaits them beyond, if anything.

He wondered if anyone had the definitive answer...

*

Nearby:

The Klingon raced down the corridor, his boots pounding on the marble surface, his passing making the rich red curtains hanging in intervals on the walls on either side flutter.

His name was Karpog, of the House of D’Ghunn. And he would die without fear, and join his ancestors in Sto-Vo-Kor. Today was a good day to die.

But if he escaped… well, that wouldn’t be too bad, either.

But it was finding his way out of this bizarre ship he and his men had boarded that proved a trial. It was labyrinthine, with stone walls and floors and thick red curtains and a smell of chemicals and decaying flesh. And those… creatures, lurking in the shadows… and that human- no, he couldn’t have been human! No human could resist-

Karpoq stumbled as he turned a corridor, his ears hearing the approaching whine of one or more of those petaQ flying objects which had killed Rocut, Kusq and Mucir. He was drawing his disruptor-

When it flew from his hand as if smacked from it, sending it hurtling down the corridor.

A huge, shadowy figure stepped up to him from nowhere. Karpoq drew his blade from his belt, snarling his challenge. “Veqlargh! qaDta'bogh veqlargh jIH!”

And that was when the silver Spheres caught up with him, two soaring through the air, hooked blades emerging from the front of each of them, swiftly impaling his forearms into the wall behind him.

Agony shot through Karpoq, making him drop his blade. No! NO! He needed to die with his blade in his hand! This was- this was-

The humanoid figure stepped up: a tall man, pale and ancient and wrinkled, dressed in generic plain dark civilian clothes, with receding grey hair and a penetrating gaze. He spoke with a voice that was like dirt shovelled into a burial pit. “You played a good game, Klingon. But the game is over. Still… you earned a reward for entertaining me. And so I give you… Revelation.”

Karpoq felt the blood pour from his wounds where the Spheres had penetrated his arms. But he would not be made to beg! He would die with honour! “Qaj!’etlh Hinob!”

The Tall Man raised an eyebrow, before glancing down, seeing Karpoq’s dropped mek’leth blade. He bent down, picked it up, and seemed to regard its sharp, curved, pronged features, as he continued to speak. “The Revelation is this: there is no Sto-Vo-Kor. No Heaven, no Vorta Vor, no Celestial Temple, no Divine Treasury, no Great Forest, no Gloried Way After.”

He snapped the mek’leth blade like a twig, and threw the pieces aside.

And then he leaned in, his voice becoming almost intimate. “When you die… you come to us…”

And then, Karpoq felt fear.

“And now… time to die...”

*

This wasn’t right…

Captain Esek Hrelle stirred from his place on the floor, feeling a chill through his uniform, his fur, down through his skin to his bones, and deeper. Cold, uncaring air clutched him, reached into his lungs, a stale, musty, ancient air, complementary to the unkind darkness that not even his Caitian night vision could overcome. “Hello?”

His voice echoed; his ears did what his eyes didn’t, taking in his surroundings: a long, narrow corridor, made of polished stone, narrow and tall and going on for endless lengths.

A crackle: flames, eating at fuel.

The rustle of thick curtains.

An underlying vibration one only ever felt on a space-based ship or facility.

A chittering, like vermin, gnawing at something that could no longer resist.

“Hello?” His own voice wasn’t comforting.

Hrelle reached up for his jacket’s combadge, tapping it repeatedly, with no response.

He rose to his feet, moving around, reaching forward, looking for walls, objects, anything. His boots clapped dully on the floor.

What had happened? One moment, they were in the midst of a graveyard of warships: Klingon, Cardassian, Dominion, the remains of the Battle of Perigord. The Klingon Task Force had tried their hand at taking on the enemy… and from the looks of it, gave as good as they got. Qapla to them; they would make it to the halls of Sto-Vo-Kor tonight. Then, when the Surefoot was searching for survivors and supplies, they encountered… something…

“Is anyone there?” he called out, sniffing… and not liking what he was picking up: dead, decaying flowers, mildew, pungent cleaning and preserving chemicals… flesh…

The chittering was increasing… claws on polished floor…

*

Lieutenant C’Rash Shall, Chief of Security, leapt into a crouch, claws extended, her relief at smelling and hearing her partner beside her on the cold marble floor a small comfort, but one she grasped. She twisted around, her pointed ears twitching nervously on the top of her coal-furred head as she drew closer. “T’Varik!”

Commander T’Varik, First Officer, bolted up, her scent displaying an unaccustomed confusion… and fear. “What happened?”

“Dunno.” C’Rash drew her phaser and rose, glancing around in the dim light. She tapped her combadge, finding it inoperable. “Try your combadge.”

T’Varik complied. “The signal appears to be blocked.” She rose, glanced around. “We have been transported.”

“Where?”

“The unidentified vessel, presumably.” She began moving in one direction.

“Stay close,” C’Rash urged her. “I can’t see-”

There was a clicking sound, and then lights came to life overhead, making C’Rash squint and curse, getting a better look at their immediate surroundings. “What the Seven Hells…?”

T’Varik returned from the wall controls that she had obviously activated. “We appear to be in a storage facility of a 20th Century version of a Terran funeral home.”

“A what?”

T’Varik perused the stacks of coffins, coffins made of wood in various colours, highly polished and fitted with gleaming metal handles and ornamentation. “A business involved in the preparation of the recently deceased: their preservation, display, ceremony and ultimate disposition, the majority of preferred methods of the last being, in order, burial, cremation and interment.” She moved up to one coffin, testing the lid, lifting it up and peering inside. “Business appears to be dead.”

“Oh, Har Har.” C’Rash opened another coffin. “How do you know so much about it?”

“Given the pre-eminence of Terran culture in the Federation, one is inevitably contaminated with knowledge about all manner of esoteric and useless trivia about them. The more pertinent question is why an alien vessel would include such a place as this.”

“Are you sure we’re not in one of our own Holodecks, caught up in one of the cadets’ crappy old horror programs?”

“That will depend on if we find Count Dracula in one of these… in which case I will employ my blood to give him copper poisoning.”

C’Rash looked to her partner again. “Are you okay? You’ve been erratic since the battle. We haven’t reformed our telepathic bond yet. You didn’t sleep last night, and your scent is off.”

T’Varik kept her back to the Caitian as she replied, “We remain behind enemy lines, at continued risk of rediscovery. Our vessel is overcrowded, with limited resources available to us. Tension remains high following Captain Hrelle’s reluctant but necessary actions to save our lives. And now we have been transported onboard here for unknown reasons, out of communication with our vessel and our colleagues.

So, to answer your flippant question: No, I’m not okay!” She slammed the lid down on the coffin in front of her in punctuation.

C’Rash was about to respond, when both females started at the sound of organ music, playing some distance away, an eerie intonation that crawled through the surrounding framework, making the Caitian’s fur stand on end. “Mother’s Cubs...”

T’Varik turned, wearing a mask of composure, one eyebrow raised. “The Dead March, a funeral anthem from the three-act oratorio Saul by the German composer George Frideric Handel.”

“Nerd.”

T’Varik continued, unabated. “The Dead March was traditionally played over the subsequent centuries for the funerals of many prominent Terrans: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Jackson Roykirk, Lee Kuan-”

C’Rash grunted. “If we can’t screw to it, I’m not interested. Come on.” She moved to a set of burgundy curtains near the light switch, roughly parting them to reveal thick heavy mahogany doors. She stepped back from it, adjusting her phaser’s setting.

The Vulcan stepped forward. “Sometimes you do not need to employ any weapon but common sense.” She reached out, turned the handle, and opened the door. “And that can often be the most potent weapon in one’s arsenal.”

C’Rash offered a more fundamental suggestion.

T’Varik raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps I will indulge that on your birthday. In the meantime, take the lead.”

*

Lieutenant Sasha Hrelle, Acting Second Officer for the Surefoot, woke up in a body bag.

The material was thick, plastic, heavy, and shifted as she breathed, clinging to her. The previous year, when she had been serving on the Ajax, she found herself fighting single-handedly against a group of Klingon boarders, and in order to stop them, had to set off an incendiary device at close range, protecting herself with nothing more than a thermal blanket. The fireball did the trick, and then some, and the heat made the blanket melt and encase her like a cocoon, burning her skin and constricting her breathing to the point of suffocation.

All that returned to her now, as she struggled to escape. She tried her combadge, but it didn’t work, and as she tried to find a way out, her panic increased. Oh God she wasn’t dead she wasn’t dead HELP ME GET ME OUT OF HERE-

Light and air suddenly struck her from above. And she struck back, sending her fist up to connect with-

Lieutenant Giles Arrington, Acting Chief Helmsman for the Surefoot, staggered back, pressing his cupped hand over his nose and mouth. “Ouch.”

Sasha sat up and looked around, finding herself in a black bag on a table, surrounded by stacks of other obviously-occupied bags, in a large windowless sterile room, with tall, narrow tanks of yellow-red chemicals, and tubes and long syringes attached to the sides, and strange black barrels filled another corner of the room. The air was sick with rotted flesh. “What the FRICK? Who put me in that thing?” She ripped the rest of the bag away from her and swung herself out of it, landing on her feet as she looked around again. She looked to him. “I was right! It was a fricking body bag!”

Giles took his hand away from his face. “I dink you brook by doze.”

She drew up to him, examining him. “I went nowhere near your nose, Putz.” She glanced down at his badge, smacking it several times, producing only some strange garbled feedback.

He stepped back, his expression one of annoyance. “I tried that already! I didn’t just come down on the last meteorite, you know!”

Sasha grunted, looking around again. “What happened? How did we beam in here? Where’s my Dad? What the frick is all this? Where are we?” She looked back at him. “Well? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Giles was running his tongue under his lips, testing for swelling. “I’m waiting for you to shut the hell up for a damn moment, Transwarp Mouth!”

She scowled, crossed her arms and said nothing.

Then he continued. “The last thing I remember was plotting a scanning course around that- that black ship-”

The description made her tense with memory, driven by her residual trauma from waking up in that damn bag. “Yeah, that black ship… like a coffin, moving around the wreckage of those Klingon and Cardassian vessels-”

“And the next thing I remember, I woke up in a bag just like you. And we’re here.” He looked around. “Wherever ‘here’ is. Looks like a morgue...” His words trailed away as he focused on the stacks of black bags.

Sasha lowered her arms and slowly approached the nearest stack. Please don’t let there be anyone I know in these. Please, please, please… But as she opened up the first bag, she felt herself relax, a little… “A Klingon.”

Giles had moved to another. “There’s a Jem’Hadar in here.”

“And a Cardassian in this other one… the black vessel… it’s collecting the bodies of the dead!”

Giles looked over at the chemical tanks. “A funeral ship? I’ve heard of them, usually as part of long-range colony fleets or following disasters. Well, I suppose they’d be useful for battle sites as well-”

“Not this one,” she noted, checking another, and then another: all dead, from explosive decompression or weapons discharge or just plain melee weapons. She was no stranger to the dead… having sent so many of the living to that other state: Vlathi, Klingons, Ferasans, Jem’Hadar, Cardassians.

And Life seemed determined to keep her in that role for the foreseeable future, as much as she hated it; she had soon learned how her Dad must have felt after all these years. “The Klingons and Dominion don’t care about their dead, and the Cardassians only about their rich and powerful dead, none of whom would be among the cannon fodder on the front lines. Everything here suggests it’s Terran. Why would they be here, gathering the dead, ready to embalm them? And how did we end up in here with them?”

Before he could respond, they heard a latch from a nearby door, and she silently motioned for him to hide in a nearby alcove, as she did the same. They made it in time to see the door open, and a pair of identical human males with passive, lifeless faces in black, old-fashioned Terran outfits enter, one of them moving to the chemical tanks, flipping some old-fashioned switches, and making the chemicals within begin to boil. The other one was easily lifting up an occupied body bag and setting it on a bier, rolling it over to the tanks and opening the bag, revealing the Klingon Sasha had viewed earlier.

Sasha watched them; they moved silently, but not with any sense of solemnity or respect for the dead, like the traditional pallbearers they resembled, but rather like Borg, automatons. They inserted one of the syringed tubes from the chemical tank into the corpse of the Klingon. A switch was flipped, and chemicals began pumping into the corpse, some of it leaking out from the Klingon’s wounds.

And the body began twitching. And shrinking.

Sasha’s heart was racing. What the actual FRICK...

One of the Pallbearers stopped in his tracks, looked down at the body bag Sasha had been in, bent down and picked it up, silently displaying it for his colleague. The other one looked down now, and saw Giles’.

Then they turned as one in the direction of the alcoves, and saw the Starfleet officers.

“Bugger,” Sasha muttered… and charged at the one nearer to her.

*

Ensign Kitirik, Acting Science Officer for the Surefoot, knelt and examined the decayed flower petals on the ruby-carpeted floor. “From the Genus Lillium, more colloquially known as Lilies. Culturally associated with purity and love, they were also appropriate for funereal ceremonies, symbolically signifying that the soul of the deceased has been restored to a state of innocence. Some species are edible. This particular species, however, is highly toxic to cats and felinoids.”

Counselor Kami Hrelle was approaching, but not stopped. “Toxic?”

The reptoid rose and turned to her. “Only if consumed, Respected Counselor.”

The sepia-furred Caitian female made a sound. “Good thing my husband isn’t around.” Then she revised that statement as she looked around: they were in a room with a phalanx of chairs, divided down the middle by a clearance that led to a raised dais, on which a trestle supported a large mahogany coffin with an open upper lid. Behind it, masses of dead and decayed flowers sat, forgotten. The plain walls were broken up by sunken lights and burgundy curtains. She moved to one, drawing them open to reveal… more wall. “What is this place?”

“A… Viewing Room, I believe, Respected Counselor,” Kit replied. “For a funeral service. The accoutrements are Ancient Terran, though my own people on Qarar hold very similar traditions. Do Caitians do the same?”

“No,” she replied absently, her snout twitching at the unfamiliar scents. “We honour the lives of our people, and their achievements and legacies. The bodies themselves are given back to Nature.” She resisted the urge to try her combadge again, having already done so more than once since she awoke here, without success. Still, what had she to lose? But it produced only that strange sound again. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The sounds suggest local subspace or even interdimensional interference, which would correlate with the readings I was detecting from the unidentified vessel.”

“So they beamed us over. Why does it look like this?”

“This may be an attempt by the occupants of this vessel relate to us through the adoption of cultural elements we might find familiar, relatable-”

Kami turned, sniffing, her tail smacking against Kit as she faced the coffin at the front of the room. “N-No… Great Mother, no...”

The reptoid looked up at her. “What is it, Respected Counselor?”

She moved forward, slowly, haltingly. No. No, they were with Jhess in his quarters back on the Surefoot, safe. They weren’t here… they weren’t here, in THAT!

Kami raced up to the open lid of the coffin. Kit quickly followed.

She peered down, her heart stopping, her Universe stopping.

Her cubs lay together in the coffin, side by side, dressed in immaculate white human burial clothing, their small furry heads covered in a multitude of disruptor burns and knife wounds.

Their eyes opened, revealing milky-white orbs, Sreen wailing with a sound like claws on slate, Misha holding up his arms and intoning, in a voice like the shovel of earth into a grave, “Mama!”

“NO!!!”

Then Kit brought the lid down on them.

Kami shoved him backwards and opened the lid again- her cubs! Her sweet cubs were, were-

Gone. The coffin was empty, save the pearl satin lining and the matching pillow. She slammed up the lower lid, saw and scented nothing there.

Nothing. Not even a trace of them. It was an illusion.

Snarling, she grasped the handles of the coffin and flipped it over, sending it crashing off the trestle and cracking the frame. She arched her back, looked up and roared, as rage and relief and terror swirled and fought and broke inside her.

Finally she calmed down, looked around for Kit… and saw that she had shoved him backwards to crash into half of the chairs like they were ninepins. She rushed down to help him. “Kit! I’m so sorry! Forgive me, I didn’t mean- are you hurt?”

He was already helping himself back up to his feet, webbed hands feeling his limbs through his uniform. “I- I understand your intense reaction, Respected Counselor, given the horrible vision provided.”

Kami started. “You saw- you saw them? My cubs?”

His round bronze eyes fluttered, and his throat wattles darkened into a deep purple. “N-No… I saw my brother, Arishkigel. I- I have had nightmares about his being killed in the interplanetary war my people are fighting with their neighbours. As a political exile I have had no contact with him in years, with any of my race, and are not likely to in the near future. Then I saw him… in that receptacle. He- He looked so real… forgive me, I- I-”

She drew him into a hug, one she needed to receive as much as give.

But then she realised that they couldn’t linger, and she drew back. “Why? Why would we be subjected to those nightmares?”

The reptoid breathed in. “I am reminded of that encounter five years ago on Halloween, with the anaphasic being, Baron Samedi, the emovore who fed on guilt, and induced visions in its victims-”

“I remember.” She recalled that incident acutely, seeing an illusory image of her first husband Rmorra, trying to torment her over having moved on and married Esek. The illusion had felt just as real as this one with her cubs, “But we destroyed Samedi.”

“Perhaps another of his kind?” Kit ventured. “He employed elements of Terran Occult lore, such as what we see here: ghosts, coffins-”

Kami steeled herself. “Tell you what, Kit: when we find the one responsible for all this, and I rip him inside out, you can ask what’s left of him, okay?”

He drew up, glancing back at the coffin where he saw his beloved brother. “That… will be most acceptable, Respected Counselor.”

*

The chill of a bleak winter ran through Hrelle’s uniform and fur to his bones. He hated the cold. He felt too much of it during his time as a slave for the Orions and the Breen. He walked down a long, narrow corridor illuminated by sunken lights, the flanking walls covered in endless rows of rectangles carved into the cold marble walls, rectangles with dark brass plates in the centre of each, plates inscribed with Terran names and dates. He paused to examine some; the names meant nothing, but the dates ran back for centuries…

It was a crypt. He had seen them on Earth, when he visited the place where his first wife was buried, and the casualties from his previous command, the Furyk. But this wasn’t Earth. It had to be the unidentified starship they had encountered in the battlefield. He had assumed they were scavengers, looking for weapons, warp cores, anything salvageable; carrion exploiting the detritus of War is as old an element as War itself-

“Papa!”

At the far end of the corridor, there was… Misha! He stood there, a silhouette in the light behind him from the transverse corridor, waving to him! “Papa!”

“Misha!” he called back, picking up the pace, racing to his son. What was he doing here? Had he been abducted as well? How many others were here? They were ferrying hundreds of survivors of the Battle of Khavak! Had they all been taken? “Misha! Come here!”

But his son just stood there, waving inanely.

He should have raced up into his Papa’s arms.

Hrelle slowed down. He stopped.

His son – or what tried to pass for his son – kept waving and smiling. “Papa!”

There was a whine in the air, a high-pitched, mechanical whine, like some anti-grav drone. It got under his skin and made his pointed ears twitch. But he bared his teeth at the image of his son. “Nice try, Whatever You Are.”

The illusion of his son dropped the wave… and turned it into an accusing point. “You’re Dead.”

The high pitch grew louder. “Who are you? Why am I here? What’s going on?”

“Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! DEAD!”

The air was shifting- something was coming-

From around the corner behind the image of his son, a silver spherical object about twenty centimetres in diameter flew into view, hovering over the false Misha.

Hrelle studied it, expecting it was some sort of remote surveillance or security device-

Twin forked blade popped out of the front of it.

False Misha waved Goodbye.

The Sphere hurtled towards Hrelle.

*

T’Varik was slowing down. It was not an overt deceleration, at least she didn’t think so, but she recognised it, as a side effect of her efforts to control her emotional reaction to their surroundings, and to the music that continued to emanate through the very air.

The last several days had been difficult, to say the least: the battle of Khavak had killed C’Rash, albeit temporarily, and savagely severed the telepathic bond she shared with T’Varik, and almost immediately after, T’Varik had been forced to kill several Jem’Hadar who had invaded the Bridge. C’Rash was restored to life, of course, but T’Varik had yet to find her emotional control, no doubt the result of damage to her mesiofrontal cortex when the bond was broken.

And now fear, dread, confusion filled her, as if carried to her by the music.

Just ahead of her, C’Rash stopped, her tail twitching. They had moved into an area of featureless, windowless corridors, but now she pointed at one door, mouthing Someone In There. T’Varik nodded, gathering up her focus, and motioned for her partner to take the lead.

C’Rash opened the door and entered a cold room of rows of metal tables beneath overhead washing utensils. The tables were all filled with what looked like still humanoid bodies under white sheets, while uniforms of different forces and weapons had been piled into one corner, next to stacks of folded black plastic bags.

T’Varik normally had no emotional attachments or affiliations to the deceased, beyond those to whom she had made connections within her lifetime; it was an inherent contradiction in life, that people were more empathic towards those familiar than towards those unfamiliar. And she had spent time working in the Surefoot’s Morgue. She did not get ‘the shivers’, as some humans described it. And yet, here and now…

She focused on C’Rash stepping lightly between the rows of bodies on tables, her ears and snout twitching… before stopping and pointing at one particular table, looking to T’Varik.

The First Officer nodded.

C’Rash raised her phaser. “Cardassian: this is Starfleet. There’s a phaser pointed right at you. Get up, slowly.”

The body didn’t move.

“I’m Caitian,” C’Rash continued. “I can smell you, hear you breathe, under that sheet. Get up, or I’ll stun you.”

The body bolted upright, pulling away the sheet- freezing only when he saw the Chief of Security, and the phaser. It was a younger male, uniformed, with the rank insignia of a Glinn. He also wore the mask of someone terrified. He gasped, clutching a Cardassian disruptor, catching his breath. “It’s- It’s true- you’re real-”

C’Rash nodded to his weapon. “Drop that to the floor. Slowly.”

The Cardassian complied, looking to each of the women in turn. “Is your ship- is it here? Is it still working?”

T’Varik straightened up. “It is. Under the Quadrant Rules of Engagement, you are now our Prisoner of War-”

He let out a sound like a harsh laugh. “Gladly, Vulcan, gladly! Take me!” He swung his legs out, pausing once more when C’Rash stepped back and pointed her phaser at his head. He raised his hands. “Easy, Caitian. I’m on your side. I want to get out of this nightmare as quickly as you!”

“Nightmare? What’s going on around here?”

He looked to each of them in turn, lowering his hands, fear returning to his oatmeal-grey face. “We- My unit- had been left behind in a damaged shuttle when the others departed- this… this ship appeared, and we boarded it, looking to take it over...” His face twisted into a scowl of pained memory.

“Your unit?” C’Rash echoed, glancing around. “Where are they?”

The Cardassian looked to her. “The things here killed them! The Cloaked Creatures! The Walking Dead Humans! The Flying Balls!”

C’Rash looked to T’Varik. “Yeah, it sounds like a load of balls.”

The Cardassian’s breath raced. “Look, whether you believe me or not doesn’t matter! The rest of my unit were killed by them, and I hid in here! And we should leave, now! That’s all you need to know!”

“I disagree,” T’Varik countered calmly. “The presence of this vessel is-”

The music in the distance stopped.

And the covered bodies on the surrounding tables began sitting up.

C’Rash cursed and stepped away from the nearest ones, aiming her phaser at each one in turn.

T’Varik took a defensive stance, seeing the cloths falling away to reveal the nude, cold corpses of Klingons, Cardassians and Jem’Hadar, some of them sporting fatal disruptor or bladed wounds, all of them displaying eyes of pure milky white, but still seemed to focus on the three living beings in the room.

T’Varik’s heart raced, uncontrollable. This is not possible. The deceased cannot be revived in this manner. It is an illusion, or holograms, androids, cybernetics, a form of telekinetic control-

“WE HAVE TO GO!” the Cardassian bellowed, shoving C’Rash aside and racing for the door.

The dead were reaching for the remaining Starfleet officers.

T’Varik reached out to one, a Klingon male, and pressed her fingers against his neck… to no effect. The Klingon gripped her tightly.

A phaser beam from C’Rash pierced one side of the Klingon’s skull, and exited the other end, sending the body falling.

“I think the Cardie’s right!” C’Rash declaring, racing up, grabbing T’Varik by the arm and rushing her out into the hallway-

Something struck T’Varik across the head, sending her to the corridor floor. Distantly she was aware of the Cardassian Glinn standing there, holding a brass candlestick in his hand. “Your phaser- give it to-”

A black-furred meteor struck him, sending him into the far wall, as C’Rash disarmed him and flipped him over her shoulder, sending him tumbling, before closing the door on the walking dead they left behind. She aimed her phaser at him again. “I should have left you in there with those things!”

As T’Varik helped herself back to her feet, ignoring the pain in her skull, she let her anger and anxiety break out. “Cardassian! We have to work together to find our ship!”

But he was clearly panicking now. “You said- you said your ship was here- you lied!”

A high-pitched whine filled the air, growing stronger, louder.

The Cardassian gasped, stepped backwards. “No- Not those accursed things again!” His eyes widened as he looked at them.

No, past them- C’Rash grabbed T’Varik and threw them both to the floor, as something rushed through the air from behind them. T’Varik looked up in time to see a levitating silver sphere with spiked blades in the front embed itself into the skull of the Cardassian. He stood there, jaw dropped as if in disbelief that he had just died.

There was an even higher-pitched mechanical whirling sound from the Sphere.

Then the Cardassian body sank to his knees, as blood pumped out from the back of the sphere to spray behind it.

“What the frigging Seven Hells is going on here?” C’Rash exclaimed.

T’Varik stared in abject, uncontrolled horror – until she grabbed the phaser from her partner, aimed and fired at the Sphere.

It exploded with a scream that was more organic than mechanical.

The two women returned to their feet, looking at the Cardassian’s body, which now slumped fully to the floor, the remains of two forked spikes and a drillbit from the Sphere still embedded in his face and forehead.

“Seriously,” C’Rash whispered. “What’s going on here, T’Varik?”

“I- I am uncertain. Of anything.” She returned the phaser to the Caitian. “Except we need to find the others, or find an egress from this ship.”

The dead in the Embalming Room began pounding on the door from the other side.

And then it stopped. The door opened of its own accord.

C’Rash raised her phaser, ready to fire at the undead hordes…

...That were no longer present. The room inside was empty.

*

Sasha struck out at the Pallbearer nearest her, delivering punches and kicks that had less effect than she had expected – not because she was inexperienced, but because he didn’t react like anyone…

Living.

Close up now, she could see the details of his blank face: he wore rouge, other makeup enhancements. The eyes were a filmy grey-white, with no irises. And his mouth…

His mouth was sewn shut.

Holy shit...

He swung out at her, but she dodged the blow, shoving her opponent backwards against the nearest wall. “THEY’RE DEAD!”

Giles was grappling with his own opponent, but glanced fearfully over at her. “What?”

Sasha’s Pallbearer launched himself once more at her, and with a roar she grabbed him and drove her boot savagely into his right kneecap, breaking it. He went down with hardly a reaction, except to continue to reach for her, until she brought down a stack of occupied body bags onto him, burying him almost completely.

Then she went after Giles’ opponent, who was trying to strangle the young man. She grabbed the second Pallbearer from behind, dragging him back… and breaking his neck with a twist that was easier than she had expected.

The second Pallbearer dropped to the floor, and she pulled Giles away. He bent over, coughing, sputtering, gasping for air as he tried to speak. “Th- Tha- Thank-”

“Shush. Just breathe.” She kept her back to the Pallbearer lying on the floor behind her. Another one to add to your list of killings, Sash. Unless your instincts were right, and they were already dead… “Can you straighten up?”

Giles nodded, and began demonstrating… his eyes widening in horror as he looked over her shoulder. “You gotta be kidding...”

She turned, seeing the Pallbearer whose neck she’d broken struggling to get back to his feet as well, arms flailing about for support… and the head slumped backwards at an insane angle, remaining connected to the body by skin and muscle if not bone, as the body moved to the other Pallbearer, still buried under the bodies but obviously trying to free himself.

And on the table, the Klingon corpse, shrunken down to about a metre in height like some fruit left in the sun too long, was beginning to rise and make sounds, the tubes still jammed into its arteries and veins.

Sasha tried not to pee herself, failed, and grabbed Giles’ forearm. “Come on!”

They raced to the door and into a cold, dark corridor of marble and curtain and shadow. Their footfalls echoed as they raced blindly down one end, before skidding to a halt to catch their breath. “Dead… they were dead...”

“Bull,” Giles responded. “We’re in the Holodeck, it’s all a program, a trick by someone- C’Rash, Jonas, Neraxis-”

She shook her head. “You really think they’d pull some childish shit like that while we were in the middle of a crisis?”

He shook his head in concession, still trying to slow down his breathing. “Then it has to be the alien ship- conjuring up all the Halloween nonsense like zombies and bodies- dunno why-”

She grunted, recalling a historical report she’d read once in the Academy, a mission of Kirk’s where they’d found a planet where some extragalactic aliens had created an environment filled with castles, black cats, witches and wizards, out of some mistaken belief that it was relevant to 23rd Century humans. Like most of Kirk’s recorded exploits, it sounded like utter crap to Sasha. Now, however-

She froze when she heard the scuffling from around a nearby corner, motioning for Giles to stay silent and listen. Something was definitely approaching. She indicated a set of thick burgundy curtains across from them, and they flighted over to them, slipping behind them and trying to still them before whatever was approaching noticed anything.

Sasha held her breath as she peeked out from her side, observing twin rows of metre-high humanoids – the same size as what the Pallbearers were doing to that Klingon corpse, she noted – in dark cloaks carrying huge black barrels between them down the side corridor. They shuffled along, their heads and faces covered by their draped cowls, moving with a mindless purpose like the Pallbearers… but with an underlying feral menace to them that she had only ever encountered from Ferasans.

But at least these chittering things, like the Pallbearers, seemed focused on their tasks. And there was far too many of them for Giles and her to handle.

Beside her, she felt Giles shaking slightly, and reached out to take his hand. She waited a moment after the phalanx of hooded creatures had disappeared, before emerging and peering down the corridor carefully. “Come on.”

“What, you want to follow that army of mini-monks with the giant beer kegs deeper into this freaking haunted house?”

Sasha let go of his hand. “This isn’t a haunted house, no matter what we see in here, it’s a starship. And we need to get an understanding of the layout of it, find its Bridge, Engine Room, Transporter, Armoury- and find the others. I don’t believe we were the only ones grabbed.”

Giles held up his hands in surrender. “You’re right. I’ll go first-”

He started ahead, but she grabbed him again. “Seriously? You couldn’t even handle one walking dead guy.” She stepped around him. “Putz.”

*

Kami led the way down the corridor, catching the echoes of familiar scents. “We definitely didn’t get beamed over alone. I’m picking up Sasha, Giles, C’Rash… other things.”

Kit drew up beside her. “Do you think you can pinpoint them, Respected Counselor?”

“Not yet.” She looked to the young Science Officer, sensing his distraction. “What is it?”

The reptoid pointed a webbed, olive-green hand along the walls and floors. “The labyrinthine interior of this vessel is designed to appear as a planetbound facility of antique design, with no apparent patterns. But patterns exist, in the designs on the walls, in the shape and structures of the lighting fixtures and the curtains-”

Kami stopped and looked around. “You can see patterns here?”

“Indeed, Respected Counselor. On the Iberia, I was much sought after for the Holodeck Labyrinth Challenges. They...” He paused, dipping his head.

Kami scented his change in mood, and drew up, resting a furred hand on his shoulder. “You’re feeling sad...”

He nodded, his throat wattles darkening into a deep violet. “The Battle of Khavak… we collected only a fraction of the Iberia crew… I know that other ships might have also collected other of my friends and colleagues and taken them to safety… but still, I worry for them, and mourn for them… forgive me, Respected Counselor, this is selfish and unprofessional of me at this time-”

The Caitian drew him into an embrace. “Hush. There’s nothing to apologise for.” She drew back to look at him. “We’ll talk when we get back, okay?”

The young Qarari nodded, breathed in deeply, his round bronze-black eyes looking around again, to a pair of curtains, stepping over to them and parting them to reveal an old-fashioned door, trying the handle and succeeding in opening it.

Kami rushed up to him. “Wait, Kit-” But he was already stepping inside, and she followed, senses alert for hostile opposition.

But the room they had discovered was unoccupied. It looked like some sort of office, filled with old-fashioned photographs on the walls, dead flowers in vases on pedestals, an ancient-looking music disc player Kami had seen once in a historical video, and an elaborately-carved, high-backed chair festooned in sangria-red velvet. The walls were a black that seemed to extend into itself.

“What do you suppose is the function of this place?” Kit asked, as he walked around, examining the photographs.

Kami’s hackles were raised, without knowing why. “It… It feels like a… study. A place of contemplation, perhaps. Reflection, for the commander of this ship. Which might give us some clues as to the nature and psychology of-”

“This is… incongruous. Respected Counselor...”

She approached him, following his finger as he pointed to the rows of photographs, in monochrome and colour. “These images represent a range of different time periods in Terran history, most of which I recognise from my Academy classes, from the 19th to the late 21st Century.

Specifically, they depict instances of death and the disposition of the dead, often in great numbers: horse-driven hearses in tiny wooden towns; soldiers in Earth’s First and Second World Wars; aircraft and terrorist disasters; the large-scale disposal of victims of pandemics such as Spanish Influenza, Andromeda and TS-19; the casualties of the Khanate Purges during the Eugenics Wars; the radioactive victims of the Post-Atomic Horrors-”

Kami leaned in, studying the common figure in each of them: a tall, elderly, stern-looking man with receding grey-white hair. “This looks like the same human in each of them, the same clothes...”

“There are many recorded accounts of long-lived or immortal beings who have secretly dwelled among humans in the past,” Kit noted. “For numerous reasons. But to spend such an extended period of time serving humans in disposing of their dead escapes me...”

“Or of bringing us here and tormenting us with visions of loved ones dying.” Then her attention turned to a simple wooden table at the far end, facing the chair. The table held a large, intricately-carved box of cherry-red wood. She moved to it. “There has to be answers somewhere here.”

Kit looked to her. “Respected Counselor, perhaps we should leave and-”

As she was reaching out for the box, it opened itself, the top, sides and front dropping away to reveal a set of three shiny metallic spheres, two silver, one gold.

She stepped back, her hackles rising as she felt a vibration in the air, a vibration coming from the Spheres.

Then the Spheres levitated up from the box...

*

Hrelle dodged as the Sphere flew past him, millimetres away, brushing against the padded shoulder of his jacket. He caught a glimpse of it, his eyes confirming what his ears told him: that it was slowing down, and beginning to bank around to return.

He turned and raced down where the False Misha had stood, now gone, and he turned right, reaching out and grabbing a pawful of hanging curtain, ripping it from the rails and taking it with him, as he heard the Sphere rapidly catching up with him. He worked the curtain in his paws, hoping luck and timing were on his side as he-

Spun around, holding up a clump of curtain, letting the Sphere race into it. A flash of memory returned to him from half a century ago, of a flitterbird that had gotten into his family cottage on Cait, and he had tried to capture it safely in order to safely release it outside.

He was less careful now, wrapping the Sphere up tightly in the curtain, feeling the considerable power that drove the object as it fought to be free, while he responded by slamming the Sphere against the nearest wall, again and again, hearing it whine in protest.

More sounds from behind him- footfalls, heavy, fast, the distinct rustle of heavy, shuffling figures.

He spun in place and kicked out, sending a short, cloaked figure backwards. Another avoided getting knocking back too and leapt towards Hrelle, snarling as it slammed into the Caitian.

The wind was almost knocked out of him – the creatures were small, but heavy, like Ferengi – but he recovered, drawing back the hood on his attacker to claw at the eyes-

Mother’s Cubs, the cranial ridges, the bone structure- it was like a Klingon, but compressed- some genetic aberration, like the ones from two centuries ago-

The other one joined the first, pounding stubby fists against Hrelle’s muzzle. Hrelle dug his thumb into one of the eye sockets of the first attacker, making it screech like a pig and fall to one side. He pressed his attack on the other- and knocked off its cowl to see it resembled, not a Klingon, but a Jem’Hadar, again, somehow compressed, compacted- why would anyone do this?

The Creature struck him, bringing him back to the fight. With a roar he flung the Creature from him and rolled back to his feet-

“Enough...”

He spun in place, seeing the tall human in the dark suit, standing there so intimidatingly as he announced, “You play a good game, Caitian. But the game is over.”

Aware of the Creatures rising on either side of him, ready to attack once more, but holding back, at some obvious unspoken command of the new arrival. Hrelle remained in a defensive stance, claws still bared. “Who are you? Why have you brought me here?” When there was no response, he steeled himself and continued. “I’m Captain Esek Hrelle, of the-”

The Tall Man raised an eyebrow, in a manner reminiscent of Hrelle’s First Officer. “I know who you are, Captain. I am beholden to you.”

Hrelle felt his hackles rise. “‘Beholden’? What are you talking about?”

The Tall Man extended his long arms, indicating the rows of tomb markers surrounding them. “I am in the business of collecting the dead. You have sent many to me over the years, Captain. I have a… pressing need of them.”

Hrelle grunted, striding forward. “I asked you why you brought me here.”

“The Service is about to start, Captain.”

“Service? What Service?” He drew up to the Tall Man. “You’d better start answering me, Bubulah-”

An invisible force gripped Hrelle by the throat, lifting him up from the floor, squeezing tightly. He reached up to his throat, struggling to free himself from whatever was choking him. But there was nothing. The blood flow to his head was constricting, more and more. His vision was tunnelling.

The Tall Man drew up to him, just out of reach of Hrelle’s hands and feet, regarding him coolly. “Of course, Captain. Ignorance is Bliss, after all… and I have no desire to leave you Blissful. But all in good time. Too much truth, swallowed at once… can choke.”

The hold on Hrelle’s throat ended abruptly, and he fell to the floor, coughing and gasping for breath, the pain of the impact shooting through him. He felt himself surrounded by the Creatures, grabbing him, dragging him along…

*

The music stopped. C’Rash and T’Varik did the same, the Caitian’s ears twitching. “There’s something else. A vibration. Something like what I feel near the Surefoot’s impulse engines.”

“Track it.”

“Shouldn’t we be looking for the others?”

“Can you pick up their scents?”

C’Rash’s muzzle creased. “They’re around, but I can’t pinpoint them.”

“Then follow what you can pinpoint, damn it!”

She turned to T’Varik, drawing up to the Vulcan, reaching out to touch her face. T’Varik pulled back, trembling. “Don’t- we have to find the others-”

“You have to find your balance, your control. We haven’t been linked since I died. Come on, just for a moment.”

T’Varik swallowed. “I- I cannot. The breaking of our link caused some… minor damage to the areas of my brain that govern emotional control in Vulcans.”

C’Rash bristled. “Damage? You have brain damage? And you haven’t bothered to get yourself treated? What the Seven Hells are you thinking, you stupid tail chaser?”

Her partner breathed in, focused herself. “I was thinking that we are in the midst of a crisis, and that I cannot afford to take time out for a condition that is manageable for now.”

The Caitian grunted. “Yeah, it seems real manageable! I swear in Mother’s Name, when this is over, I’m smacking your pert little ass, and then dragging it into Sickbay to get fixed! Is that clear?”

T’Varik glared back. “Perfectly.” She breathed hard.

C’Rash twitched, sniffing, reacting with amusement despite the situation. “Are you getting horny over my threatening to spank you?”

The Vulcan turned away, pointing in the opposite direction. “The vibrations you detected are in this direction. Come.”

C’Rash bit back the obvious retort, and complied. Along the new direction they took, the corridors grew darker, but the vibrations grew stronger.

“Wait,” C’Rash murmured, pulling T’Varik into the shadows, just as a procession of small, cloaked humanoids carrying black barrels appeared from the opposite direction, stopping and turning into a set of doors that slid open, revealing white light and hot dry air. She and C’Rash watched as the cloaked figures formed a double line that silently and methodically passed the barrels into the White Room, out of view.

Then the barrels were all transferred inside.

The figures now stopped… turned and faced T’Varik and C’Rash. Growling,

“Shit!” C’Rash raised her phaser and began firing, the whine of the beam filling the air as the cloaked figures surged forward, stubby hands raised. They began falling, though not quickly enough to stop all of them; those not stunned swept over the two females, who fought back. T’Varik remarked to herself on the weight, and the resemblance to humanoid races that were typically much larger in size, and her logical side attempted to calculate the odds and best strategy of physically disabling the still-active attackers.

A second after one of them bit her arm, sending pain shooting through her, her logic was eclipsed by her rage and her panic, and she let loose, screaming and striking out at everything around her, a nova-hot explosion of emotion galvanising her limbs and making her punch and kick her attackers.

Other, more familiar figures, appeared from around the corner, grabbing at the remaining figures; distantly, T’Varik recognised Lieutenants Hrelle and Arrington. Their appearance seemed to snap the Vulcan from her rage, as she disabled her final attacker and helped C’Rash rise as well. The Caitian was catching her breath, and licking blood from her paw, before spitting it out in disgust. “What the Seven Hells are these things? They smell like shit!”

Sasha kept glancing around at the twitching, grunting insensate creatures around them. “They’re- They’re dead Klingons, Jem’Hadar, Cardassians, many races...”

“What?” She crouched beside one of them, withdrew its cowl, and saw the body Cardassian ridges around the creature’s head. “Mother’s Cubs...”

T’Varik straightened up, quickly gathering her decorum. “Report, Lieutenant Hrelle.”

Sasha responded. “Commander, Lt Arrington and I found ourselves in another part of this ship, in a room full of bodies in bags. They’ve been gathering the dead from the Battle of Perigord, and injecting them with chemicals to reanimate and shrink them down in size.” She indicated the despatched Creatures around them. “Turning them into these freaks.”

“They were getting put into barrels,” Giles added. “The same ones we saw being carried into that White Room. But why?”

Some of the Creatures at their feet were twitching. “We will investigate… after Lt Shall stuns them again.”

*

The three Spheres rose from the box and circled Kami and Kit, the air buzzing around them.

“Respected Coun-” Kit started.

“Sshh,” she cut in, her eyes staying on the levitating objects; they felt more alive than mechanical, the way they reacted to the slightest movement on her part. “Don’t move.”

They floated up and down around the Starfleet officers. Red scanning beams emerged, swept over Kami and Kit. More and more she was reminded of predatory animals, examining a potential prey.

The Golden Sphere moved in front of Kami. She saw her own reflection in the gleaming surface of it.

A set of three circular saw blades popped out of the front of it. They began whirring.

Kami tensed, ready to take action-

Then the Sphere turned and moved to the door, striking the surface, the blades on it cutting madly, furiously into the wooden frame, rotating and spitting sawdust out around it, until a round hole was made, and the Golden Sphere forced its way outside, followed by the two Silver Spheres.

Kami relaxed, looking to Kit. “Are you okay?”

The reptoid nodded, breathing out heavily. “Y-Yes, Respected Counselor. Those- Those objects-”

“They fled, fled because of some alert,” she guessed. “Possibly because of our people. We have to go warn them, help them!”

*

Hrelle fought to free himself, but the Creatures held tightly onto him, still dragging him along a carpeted surface of a church-like room, where an organ with tall brass pipes played itself, near a raised dais with a tabernacle. Hrelle looked up at the Tall Man, shouting over the music. “What the Seven Hells is going on here? Who are you? Release me!”

The music stopped. The Tall Man moved up to behind the tabernacle, looking out at the assembled as if they were his congregation. “We are here today to pay tribute to Captain Esek Hrelle of the planet Cait, for his invaluable service to our cause.”

“Cause? What are you talking about? I serve Starfleet!”

The Tall Man leaned forward, gripping the edge of the tabernacle as he peered down at him. “I was mortal once, Captain, human, centuries ago. I have seen many uniforms since then, many races, as I followed mankind out into the Void. But ultimately, all serve Death.

And you have been very serviceable over the years, Captain. Many have died at your hands. Orions, Nausicaans, Klingons, Jem’Hadar, Cardassians, Tholians, Breen… Humans. Even your own crew.”

Hrelle bared his teeth. “My own crew? I’ve never harmed any of my crew!”

“Oh? Have you forgotten the crew of the Furyk? Have you forgotten those who died more recently on the Surefoot?”

The mention of his current and former commands made him start. “They- I wasn’t responsible for their deaths-”

“And yet, they died. You have helped fill our ranks substantially.”

Hrelle swallowed, feeling the guilt rise like bile within him. “I kill only when there’s no other choice-”

The Tall Man smiled humourlessly. “Those merry old refrains: ‘Only when there’s no other choice’, ‘Only in self-defence’, ‘Only following orders ‘. Platitudes with paper-thin endurance. Hide behind them if you wish, it matters not. Those whom you and your ilk rob of life, are taken by us, and… amended... to fill our needs.”

“What? You… You steal the bodies of our dead?” Disgust swept through him. “How dare you? Do you understand what they mean to so many of us?”

The Tall Man smiled again, and again without mirth. “I have seen many ceremonies, many means of disposing of your dead… but none of it is for the benefit of the dead. The dead have no need of your words, your hymns, your tombs.

But then, you recognise that already, Captain. Only yesterday, as you note time, you took your dead to use in a deception to save those still alive on your starship.” He held out his arms. “Like us, you put them to far better use than just leaving them in the dirt to decay, or burning them like garbage.”

Hrelle was ready to argue the point… but he had nowhere to hide from the accusation. It was true; he had taken the casualties on the Surefoot, even people he’d know for years, and used them, as part of the deception to fake their own self-destruction and escape the enemy’s detection. He didn’t regret it, he would do it again in an instant… but that didn’t mean the decision didn’t leave him twisted up in knots, even with the understanding of most of the others.

Finally he responded, “You’re right. But like you pointed out, I used those bodies to save innocent lives. What do you use the bodies you scavenge for?”

The Tall Man raised an eyebrow.

And three Spheres entered the Cathedral.

*

The White Room was spotless to the point of sterility, and absolutely empty except for two metre-high silver columns, a metre high and a metre apart, standing near the far end of the room. The air vibrated, more in here than outside.

C’Rash approached cautiously, phaser raised. “The Creatures brought in a dozen of those barrels. Where did they go?”

Sasha drew up as well, shivering. “Perhaps this is some sort of transporter room? Sending the newly-prepared somewhere else?”

T’Varik studied the walls, where light seemed to seep through without a discernible source… and the vibrations travelled into her bones, sending the hairs on the back of her neck rising. “As the only present objects are those columns, one must expect they act as a… portal.”

Giles moved more confidently towards them. “One way to find out.”

Sasha reached for him. “Giles, no, wait!”

T’Varik froze. “Lieutenant Arrington, do not approach-”

Giles wanted to stop… but his body refused, drawing, dragging him as if caught in a gravity well, pulling him to the space between the columns with a frightening rapidity. He twisted, fell to the floor, but still continued to be pulled. Terror paled him, and he called out, reaching out to stop himself, but there was nothing to grab onto.

Sasha went after him- but C’Rash grabbed her by the waist, pulling her back, restraining her cousin. “No, Sash!”

Sasha fought C’Rash, still reaching in vain towards Giles.

Giles was dragged by unseen forces between the columns.

And vanished.

“GILES!” Sasha screamed.

T’Varik joined them, helping to keep back Sasha. “Lieutenant! Get a hold of yourself!”

“We’ve got to help him! WE’VE GOT TO!”

The Vulcan grabbed hold of the young human’s face. “We will! But by working together, not just leaping into the unknown! Is that understood?”

The panic that had overtaken Sasha as seeing Giles disappear was quickly eclipsed, as she regained control of herself, nodding and swallowing. “Y-Yes, Commander.”

T’Varik nodded back, indicating the columns. “It is indeed some form of portal, a spatial doorway, this half of an interdimensional corridor. Now, get on the floor, you will be crawling towards the space between the columns; the gravimetric forces should not be as strong at that level. I will be down there as well, holding onto your legs, and Lt Shall will do the same for mine.”

“Hey, I’ll go in,” C’Rash volunteered. “I’m stronger than my cousin.”

“We both are,” T’Varik pointed out. “And will logically be more efficacious on this side, providing an anchor. We should hurry.”

The three females dropped to the floor and formed a chain, Sasha feeling the pull almost immediately from where Giles had been standing moments before, dragging her in the direction, and it became as much an effort to control her approach. The vibrations in the air this close to the columns made her teeth itch.

At her boots, grasping her by the shins, T’Varik instructed, “Be exceedingly careful, Lieutenant! Let one of your hands pass in first, but be prepared to withdraw it if the environmental forces on the other side prove to be detrimental… for Lt Arrington’s sake, we must hope it is not.”

Sasha stiffened, but didn’t respond. Since Giles returned to the Surefoot following the Battle of Khavak, she had kept him at arm’s length, not wanting him to believe that there was any hope of their rekindling the physical side of the relationship they had as cadets while onboard. She was probably a little abrasive to him as well, partly driven by her new role as Acting Second Officer and a need to establish her authority.

Now, however, she wanted to talk with him, try to explain herself, how she felt. But if he was dead, and past that…

Her hand disappeared. She still felt it, and what was beyond: hot, dry, heavy, swaddling air, like in a sauna rather than in a steam room. She withdrew it, looked at it: the skin had indeed dried, but she otherwise appeared intact. She looked back over her shoulder. “I’m going in, but the gravity pull is very strong, here and on the other side!”

“Acknowledged, Lieutenant!” T’Varik called back. “Be careful!”

Sasha turned back and continued crawling. The whine was growing louder, seeping into her like the heat had done to her hand. What was on the other side? What was on the other-

Oh, Hell.

She gasped, as much from shock as from trying to breath in the hot, dry, sulphurous air she found here. The ochre-red sky was a swirl of angry clouds that offered thunder and lightning but no relieving rain, above a bare, rocky, blood-red desert terrain that made Mars look like Risa.

In the far distance, there were distinct, indistinct flashes, clashes, as if a battle was underway just beyond a slope, Closer, however, there were Creatures. Hundreds if not thousands of them, assembling in great black swarms, making horrible sounds that filled the dead air.

Closer still, she saw the barrels, many now opened, revealing more of the Creatures, crawling naked from them like newborn animals.

Crawling towards a prone, gasping Giles, just lying there.

And more Creatures, cloaked ones, had also noticed him, and making their way closer.

Sasha felt the intense gravity here, and she realised now both why Giles was not moving, and why the operators of the black ship were shrinking the corpses down: the gravity here was several times greater than what most humanoids could manage under their normal sizes. It pressed her down, and even her lungs struggled to take in air, as she continued to crawl, her lower half still on the other side of the doorway, T’Varik still holding onto her. She had no idea if the doorway was one-way or two-way, and she didn’t want to risk finding out. She tried calling out to Giles, but the air was too thick and distorted her voice; it was like trying to speak underwater.

But he seemed to notice her, and began twisting around and crawl in her direction. Reaching out. Two metres away. One metre.

Sasha tried to get closer, but sensed that she was as far as T’Varik would allow her to go. And the Creatures were drawing closer, closer-

Suddenly she lost the hold on her ankles, and tumbled forward, the full gravity and heat and oppressive air upon her. Her head struck a rock, but she ignored the pain as she reached out for Giles, grasping him by the forearm, crawling back towards the twin columns.

But they seemed so far away. And the Creatures, better adapted to this environment, were closing in.

*

In the White Room, T’Varik twisted and fought back against the swarm of Creatures that had shaken off the stunbeams from C’Rash’s phaser, and had resumed their attack. The black-furred Caitian was on her feet, tossing T’Varik the phaser, warning, “Only a few shots left!”

T’Varik caught the weapon and half-used it as a bludgeon, her Vulcan strength and stamina serving to keep them at bay, but only just. She needed to return to the portal-

A sound from outside the White Room caught her attention, and she looked over in time to see Kami launch herself into the fray, claws extended, mane flying behind her as she roared and fought, followed closely behind by Kit, using some form of martial arts to use his opponent’s greater mass against them.

The fracas quickly ended, with Creatures lying around dead or disabled, the sickly-yellow ichor leaking from their wounds spoiling the air. T’Varik caught her breath, ensuring the rest of her colleagues weren’t gravely injured, and then turned back to the columns. “Hurry! We must rescue Sasha and Giles!”

*

In the Cathedral, Hrelle ducked as the three Spheres, two silver and one golden, spun around him like moons in orbit, before rising and expanding their orbit, crimson laser beams shooting out between them, sculpting photons into a hologram of what looked to Hrelle like a giant narrow silver-black octahedron shape, slowly rotating and spewing out beams of black light.

The Tall Man raised a hand to it. “This is the Enemy, Captain. Ours, and yours, though you don’t know it. Leviathan: a being of Absolute Order and Control, with acolytes who worship Agony, and seek to inflict it upon others. They have had desires to extend their dominion over our own realm for centuries. We need soldiers.” He raised the corner of his mouth. “Better to use the dead than to let the living suffer. You understand that, Captain.”

Hrelle stared up at the hologram, as if hypnotised by the abstract above. “The dead… deserve better. Better than what you and I have given them.” He rose to his feet. “To die in battle here, only for the likes of you to resurrect them to keep on fighting somewhere else? It’s monstrous!”

“I did not bring you here to debate ethics, Captain,” the Tall Man informed him archly. “But to bring your leaders a proposal: your people face an Enemy that is both insidious and relentless. They will overwhelm you. But we are prepared to offer you assistance: weapons, technology, information, that will help you achieve victory. And in return, you allow us to establish a permanent facility in your dimension, and openly deliver us all your dead, for our use-”

“No.”

The Tall Man straightened up. “Do not let your emotions overwhelm your reason, Captain. I have seen mankind rise from the superstitions and rituals that wasted time and resources on rotted flesh, and have seen races like your own, that place no absurd value or inviability on the dead. Your own actions-”

“I know my actions,” he said, moving to one side, to a set of religious icons mounted to the walls, divided by tall brass incense burner stands. “I don’t need you to remind me. But the answer is still No.” His hand moved up to an iron Star of David, his fingertips running along the sharp segmented edges.

“You have no reason to refuse us!” the Tall Man declared loudly.

“Oh, I have many reasons, Bubulah. I could go into the ethics of alliances with grave robbers from other dimensions or your prior history or your untrustworthy natures. But really...” He looked over his shoulder. “I just don’t like you, you long streak of piss.”

With his eyes fixed on the Tall Man’s, Hrelle grasped the Star of David, pulled it off the wall, spun in place and flung it like a discus with all his might.

The Star soared up and struck the left side of the Tall Man’s skull, taking part of his skull away and making yellow pus-like blood spurt.

Around Hrelle, the Creatures reacted to the attack on their Master, as did the Spheres overhead.

Hrelle grasped the incense burner staff with both hands and began fighting.

*

Somewhere else, Sasha kicked out at a Creature that had tried to grab her boot, and put an arm around Giles as she tried to help him hurry back towards the portal, before they both succumbed, either to the Creatures, or to the equally-hostile environment. It wasn’t far, a metre-

Two Creatures were upon her, pulling her hair, digging claws into her skin-

Then they screeched and staggered back, falling over themselves in terror as the sky darkened to an inky, stormy black.

Sasha turned – something had frightened them, and it definitely wasn’t Giles and she – and looked up to see three tall, thin humanoid silhouettes approaching, coming into view.

They were as hideous in their own way as the Creatures: chalk-skinned, clad in padded, skin-tight beaten black leather that exposed open, weeping wounds, their tortured skin seemingly bound in other places by razorwire and clamps and needles. They possessed horrific individual features: one had its face peeled back and framed with hooks, another was missing its jaw, leaving a long, bisected tongue to flap and swish like a tail… and the one in the middle sported a series of nails hammered into its face and skull in ordered rows. Their black eyes fixed on the humans.

Sasha stared up in abject horror. “Jesus!”

The one with the head full of pins laughed, his voice like the tearing of living flesh. “Hardly, Child! Though if we can find some wood for a cross, we would be delighted to crucify you both!”

They moved towards Giles and her.

Suddenly from the portal, T’Varik’s upper half appeared, reaching out for the two humans, grabbing them. They began crawling to assist, the gravimetric forces pulling them back-

-Into the White Room. Sasha kept crawling, panic almost overtaking her, her skin and uniform covered in sulphuric ash, her lungs protesting with racking coughs. Around her, Kami and Kit helped her up, as C’Rash and T’Varik helped Giles. She almost doubled over from the return to normal gravity and pressure, but she forced herself to point at this end of the portal, forced herself to speak. “Shut- Shut that fricking thing down! It’s- It’s Hell on the other side! Shut it down!”

The others looked to each other, T’Varik noting, “We have yet to find any control mechanisms for it.”

“Respected Commander,” Kit offered. “If there is any remaining power in Lt Shall’s phaser, destroying one of the columns might trigger an imbalance which will collapse the portal. It may also clear the local interference on our combadges-”

T’Varik had heard enough. “Clear the room.” She reached out for the phaser. “Lieutenant?”

The Caitian glared at her, but complied, following the others. The Vulcan checked the power reserves – 12%, and of course they were not aware of the composition of the materials to determine if it would be sufficient or what effects might occur from their actions, but they hardly had any other options on hand. She stepped back to the doorway, feeling C’Rash grab her by the waist from behind, obviously ready to pull her partner out of any resultant explosive reaction. She aimed at one column and fired without any further hesitation.

The column ruptured, and eldritch energies coruscated outwards. The vibrations that had suffused the immediate area of the ship grew now, but with a sickly, alarming tone. C’Rash drew T’Varik back to let the doors slide shut, as all of their combadges began chirping at once.

“It worked!” T’Varik shouted with unabashed emotion, smacking her combadge. “Surefoot! This is Commander T’Varik! Lock onto all combadge signals and beam us directly to the Bridge!”

*

In the Cathedral, Hrelle fought valiantly, smacking away the Spheres as they tried to swoop down and impale him with spikes or blades, swung out the incense burner at the Creatures that swarmed around him. He did his best, alone.

It wasn’t enough. One, then another, leapt onto him, and even as he felt himself succumb, he fought back still, until the sheer weight of their numbers threatened to collapse his lungs.

“Let him up,” the Tall Man commanded distantly.

The Creatures obeyed, holding onto Hrelle as they forced him up to his knees, and the Creatures parted in front of him to let the Tall Man stride up. His head wound remained gaping, but he reached up to it and folded back the hanging skin, licking his fingers where they had gathered what passed for his blood. “A foolish choice, Captain. We are eternal. We will continue. You… and your family and crew… will not. But know that after your deaths, we will endeavour to provide you all with gainful employment.”

Hrelle bared his teeth and doubled his efforts to escape… until his combadge chirped and announced, “Transport commencing, Captain.”

The Caitian looked up at the Tall Man. “Kiss my furry-”

“-Ass.” Hrelle fell forward, no longer held in place, and smacked his snout on the floor of his Bridge.

He rose quickly, ignoring the pain, ignoring the urge to rush up to Kami and Sasha and hug them both, instead barrelling over to the Tactical station, as C’Rash, standing there, announced, “Phasers and quantum torpedoes online, Sir!”

He looked up at the viewscreen, saw the black oblong ship still there amongst the wreckage of the space battle. “FIRE! FIRE IT ALL!”

Then he watched as a volley of torpedoes shot forth, the phaser beams overtaking them as they struck the black ship, cutting along its light-absorbing surface, making it spin and crash into some of the surrounding debris, even as space began to warp around it.

From the Science Station, Kit called out, “They are activating some sort of interdimensional shift, similar to what we found in the White Room!”

Hrelle gripped the sides of the Tactical station. “Ready another volley-” But then he watched as the first volley of torpedoes reached the ship, and the enveloping dimensional shift… seemingly disrupting and igniting the latter, and causing the ship to implode and blossom into a blinding energy.

And then nothing remained.

The returned Bridge crew watched still, silent, until Hrelle moved to embrace his wife.

*

“Captain’s Log, Supplemental: We have departed from the Perigord system, finding no survivors from either side of the battle, and are continuing on our way back to the Thirteenth Fleet. Lieutenants Hrelle and Arrington are in Sickbay, recovering from their experiences in the other dimension… and my First Officer has been frog-marched in there as well by my Chief of Security, apparently because of earlier injuries she had suffered from a prior incident.

But the questions that have been raised by this current incident linger. According to the collective reports from those of us abducted by the Tall Man, he and his unseen masters had been robbing the graves of Terrans for centuries, and have now ventured out into the wider Galaxy to do the same. We seemingly destroyed him, but can we really destroy such things? Will the Tall Man and his minions be back again? And those black-garbed entities that Sasha and Giles described seeing in the other dimension? What Hell raised them? Too many questions, and not enough answers.

Humanoids… and felinoids… like to think of themselves as the pinnacle of evolution, on the top of the ladder, the acme. But there is no acme, it’s all relative. There are entities that exist beyond our means of comprehension – the Organians, the Douwd, the Q – entities whose mere presence would at best be incomprehensible to us, at worst would literally blow our minds. And it is for the best that, for the most part, they keep to themselves and not bother with us insignificants. We should perhaps scurry away and hide ourselves, stay silent so as not to draw their attention…

Nahhhh, screw them. I don’t have the build for scurrying away and hiding.”

Hrelle rose and slipped off his jacket and the rest of his clothes, venturing into his bedroom, where he heard his wife and cubs all together, Kami having stayed close to them since her return. He didn’t mind; he wasn’t in the mood for anything but trying to catch up on sleep.

*

Somewhere close and yet immeasurably distant, a family of Q picnicked in a clump of chaotic space, the parents enjoying the refreshing respite brought by the rentrillic waves washing over their non-corporeal forms, while their son played with his pet in a subspace rift.

But then it was time to leave and go home, though now, their child proved mysteriously unable to hear them. Even when Papa Q called out, “Quentin! Join us this instant! In fact, join us five minutes before we asked! You know you have to practice your temporal manipulation anyway!”

Quentin stuck his head up over the edge of the rift. “We can’t go! Quarrel’s at the bottom and won’t come up!”

Mama Q made a sound. “I told you he was too young to have a pet. But of course you know everything...”

“But I do know everything,” Papa Q reminded her, looking back at their son. “You’re going to have to leave him.”

Quentin’s face screwed up into anguish, making nearby worlds tremble and crack. “We CAN’T! He’ll be lost, and never find his way home!”

“If only,” Mama Q muttered, saying more loudly, “Quarrel is made from our essences, Sweetheart. He’ll find his way home… when he’s good and ready. And probably hungry for Nova Treats.”

“Quentin...” Papa Q finished, in a tone that could not be ignored.

Grumbling, Quentin climbed out of the rift, peering down at the cat at the very bottom. “Don’t be late, Quarrel! And don’t cause any trouble again! Promise?”

“Of course,” his pet lied, his attention focused on the family of tiny lifeforms he had spotted, while observing a disruption of interdimensional portals. Tiny little lifeforms, barely worth glancing at… except for their pointed ears, fur and tails, much like his own. Distant relatives, perhaps, albeit very, very, very, very far down the evolutionary ladder?

He should definitely investigate… They could be fun...

THE ADVENTURES OF THE SUREFOOT WILL RETURN