[ BACKLOG – Eight Months Ago ]
Astate Colony
Unpopulated Jungle Island Chain - Secret Underground Research Facility (NeoDyne Corp.)
"Into The Darkness" - Part V
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Captain Zane Akina stood quietly as the teen uttered words that made him cringe. “If this is a trick I will end your life just like all the others.”
“No tricks. Follow me. I promise to show you the exit", Zane said strongly.
The first child he had met, “X109”, grabbed Zane’s hand. “You’re a good person. I know it.”
Smiling softly, Zane led the children back through the facility toward the access shaft he had entered. It was possible he was making a mistake by freeing them, but he had little choice. He could sense the teenager's extreme distrust and malevolence behind him. The slightest sense of betrayal could be fatal. He had no idea what these children were capable of, but he could only guess having seen the bodies which he was again passing; a grim reminder of the children’s wrath should it be invoked.
The journey toward the exit was faster and easier with the electrical power restored. Zane estimated they were close. A few more corridors and turns would lead back to the escape shaft where he could contact Starfleet personnel on Astate and request emergency assistance. Someone else had to witness this - they had to see this place for themselves. The sheer magnitude of injustice, cruelty, and violation of everything moral and just had to be exposed. NeoDyne's sinister and vile plans had to be stopped for they were a threat to galatic peace and stability as much if not more so that the Dominion or Jem'Haddar.
Rounding the final corner there was just one room remaining to traverse. A pair of double doors at its far end led to the maintenance shaft he had entered from and freedom from this hellish laboratory.
Zane walked slowly his hand still holding the young boy’s whose only name was a scientific designation, “X109” as they made their way toward the exit.
“WARNING – ALL PERSONNEL PROCEED TO ASSIGNED EVACUATION POINTS – EMERGENCY CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ONE HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED. WARNING – ALL PERSONNEL PROCEED TO EVACUATION POINTS. THIS FACILITY WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN FIVE MINUTES! THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
“What’s going on”, one of the children shouted as alarms and warnings flashed across the walls. Red light replaced the standard white leaving the group bathed in crimson darkness as alarm klaxons and warning alerts sounded from speakers and video displays showed the count down timer for some built-in safeguard that had been activated to obliterate the facility and erase its existence.
Zane was no fool. Such a system would have already been automatically activated if indeed the facility’s computer had been programmed to react to any serious contamination breech. Someone else was here – someone who didn’t want Akina or the living evidence around him from escaping the facility. Someone had intentionally activated the destruct sequence to keep this place and its dark secrets silent - forever.
“WE HAVE TO MOVE NOW”, Zane called out tugging on the young man’s hand. “We have to get out of here quickly!”
“LIES – I KNEW IT”, shouted the teenager from behind. “He’s no different from the others. He’s just like them! He wants to hurt us!”
Zane turned to see the group of children had stopped. Their loyalty to the teenager seemed iron clad.
“NO”, Zane shouted. “The exit is not far. It’s just through those doors. I don’t know what’s going on, but we have to get out of here now!”
“NO”, shouted the teen. It was obvious to Zane the young teen did not comprehend what was happening around him. His world had been this facility – it was all he knew. The boy probably knew nothing of the outside world, of humanity, of other races. He had been educated to speak and perhaps given some limited education, but the scientists here were no saints - the boy had been given only what he needed to know in order to function and nothing more.
The alarms and warnings had served to breed distrust in the boy who most likely already had a strong distrust for adults due to the things the scientists had no doubt subjected the children to – painful terrible experiments that Zane couldn’t possibly fathom.
“All of you, get back. I won’t let him hurt any more of you. He’s one of them. We’ll take his light tool for ourselves and use it to gain our freedom. We don’t need him any longer!”
Zane swallowed his hand slowly moving for his disruptor at his side. His training and instinct forced him to pull the weapon, yet his heart was screaming to him in tones louder than words like a throbbing headache of emotion. He couldn’t fire – he couldn’t kill children. His mind was suddenly flooded by the training, voices, and indoctrination of Starfleet instructors and officers who had drilled into his very being the necessity of protecting oneself from an enemy, any enemy. Intelligence information came at a high price, one instructor he had had once said. Lives were expendable if the information was important enough. Kill or be killed the words of another instructor floated through his mind. How could he kill innocent children? How could he live with himself?
Zane shuddered hesitating as his mind was blurred by emotions, training, instinct, and impulse. He had killed before, yet he was fighting adults in battle or on the silent battlefield of intelligence in dark allies and behind closed doors. He had in his possession evidence that would rock the quadrant both on a tricorder and in living form. The eugenic wars that had produced such tyrants as Kahn Noonian Singh on Earth centuries ago seemed to reinforce the idea that history did indeed repeat itself - just in new, dissimilar ways.
Zane hesitated his weapon hand quivering. The very children he was trying to save from death had in a single instant become his enemy.
He looked on, weapon drawn, as the computer screens around him counted down the time to destruction. He faced the ultimate endgame scenario – his own personal Kobayashi Maru – the traditional test given to Starfleet cadets seeking command in which there was no way to win. This was his no win scenario - kill or be killed - die at the children’s hands, the complex’s ticking time bomb, or live with the guilt of disintegrating a dozen children for the rest of his days only to save his own life.
He could kill these children with his weapon and escape and have to live with that action forever, be destroyed by the facility’s self-destruct system, or take his chances fighting the children which given the evidence suggested it was a fight he couldn’t win.
“SEE, he now points his light tool at US”, the teen shouted. "He will use his weapons against us just like the whitecoats did before!"
“NO, X002”, shouted X109 the small boy still clinging to Zane’s leg. “He’s not like them. He isn’t!” Tears were streaming down the young child’s face as Zane held the teen in check with his pistol. Time ticked away second by painful second as Zane struggled for a solution against an impossible situation.
“HE’S ONE OF THEM”, the teen shouted enraged. Zane felt a pang of fear grip him as the teenager’s blue pupils suddenly dilated and turned a bright crimson red. A solution finally presented itself however crude. Perhaps if he eliminated the teen he could save the other children. Perhaps he could save the teen also, but if not, the needs of the many would indeed justify the loss of the one.
His mind made up, Zane pulled the trigger of his weapon its tip aimed at the belligerent teenager. Faster than lightning the teen reacted, Zane suddenly felt the teen’s hand on his throat as he was hoisted into the air off his feet. His disruptor shot bounced harmlessly against a rear wall seemingly too slow to hit the teenager who had reacted with amazing, uncanny speed.
The teen laughed with a sinister tone as Zane struggled to breathe a crushing grip blocking air from reaching his lungs. The child’s speed and strength were like nothing he had ever seen or even heard about. No species could react like that or exhibit such strength at such a young age. It was impossible!
The teen, confident in his superiority, threw Zane across the room like a pitcher tossing a baseball. Zane flew threw the air like a rag doll hitting the floor yards away skidding to a stop against the metallic wall his disruptor spinning out of his grasp and disappearing into the depths of the room. The youth had thrown over 225 pounds more than fifty feet like it was nothing. Zane was amazed and terrified at the same time. It was clear now what had happened - the staff here had stood no chance against such strength and speed.
Coughing, still recovering from both the throw, and the crushing grip of the teen, Zane scrambled for his weapon which lie several feet away. He was only a few feet from his weapon and the teen, now running at him, was over sixty feet away.
With his hand almost upon his weapon’s hilt, again the teen grabbed him. Zane couldn’t believe it. The teen moved with speed that was physically impossible covering ground at speeds no species could obtain.
“WARNING – ONE MINUTE TO SELF DESTRUCT – ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY – THIS FACILITY WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN FIFTY NINE SECONDS!”
Zane tried to reason with the teenager. “We’re all going to be killed if we don’t get out of here”, he yelled. “Can’t you hear the alerts!”
“Adult tricks”, the teen said with a confident snarl. “I’m going to tear you apart slowly for tricking us! Just like I did the rest of your kind with your lies and deceptions!”
“Listen kid, we’re all going to end up dead! This place is going to explode a mile high in just a few seconds!”
“More lies! You adults seem capable of nothing more. You are slow, weak, and so utterly predictable. I am invincible! That is what they told me! I am faster, smarter, and stronger than any other creature alive! I am the ultimate form of life in existence! Nothing before or since has surpassed my abilities! Once I escape from this dungeon with your tool there will be no one to stop me! I’ll have my revenge on all the lying adults from the world you came from. My brothers and sisters will never again have to fear the likes of you and those with the white coats! We will kill everyone.”
Zane now understood with crystal clarity want NeoDyne had been researching. How they had achieved it was too much for his mind to understand, but it was quite clear to him now the meaning and intent of this facility and its research. They had been building a superior biological life form – either for military use or for some other sinister purpose he couldn’t say, but the knowledge and ability of the corporation to produce such life could well grant them immeasurable power over people, territory, perhaps entire governments or quadrants.
Zane felt himself lifted off the floor again and thrown into the air. His body hit a wall several feet from the floor and crushed a nearby video display which exploded in a shower of sparks. Breathless and hurt, Zane struggled to get to his feet. If he was going to meet his end he would do so standing. His arm had been cut by the impact and Zane could feel a warm stream of his own blood running down the length of his arm.
“WARNING – THIRTY SECONDS UNTIL SELF DESTRUCT”
Laughing the teen again approached to finish Zane just as he had killed his other victims. Zane never anticipated meeting his end like this, but then again, no one knew their ultimate fate. At least whatever happened would be quick.
“STOP”, a voice shouted out as a small body attached himself to Zane. The younger child, X109, clung to Zane as he cried profusely. “HE ISN’T LIKE THEM BROTHER! STOP IT, YOU’RE HURTING HIM!”
“Get out of the way X109”, the teen shouted back. This doesn’t concern you. I will protect you from the adults. I am your protector. Me and me alone!”
“No! No! Zane isn’t like them. He helped me! He brought back the light! He brought us food. He wants to help us!”
“LIES”, the teen screamed. “He’s tricking you X109! Just like they all tricked us before! Injecting us with their shots and causing us so much pain! NO! He must die like the others!”
“NO BROTHER HE WONT HURT US! AND I WON’T LET YOU HURT HIM!”
Zane felt the young boy push something into his hands. HIS DISRUPTOR! The boy had retrieved it for him!
Anguished washed over him at what he had to do. The young boy had the teen distracted. If he was going to act – that time was now.
“I’M SORRY”, Zane yelled out at the teen.
A green beam cut through the air slamming into the teenager’s right leg. The teen screamed in pain the disruptor beam ripping the atoms of his leg apart with its usual deadly efficiency. Zane quickly scooped up the small child and ran toward the exit as the computer screens counted down the final fifteen seconds.
Racing through the doors, Zane spotted the ladder and the sunlight shining from the opening he had made earlier. Grabbing the first rung of the ladder he raced upwards toward the light and fresh air of freedom and safety.
The young boy, X109, giggled as Zane frantically climbed unaware of the danger that was only seconds away. Nearly to the top, something tugged at Zane’s leg instantly stopping his progress.
Looking down, Zane locked eyes with the crimson pupils of the teenage boy who had somehow pulled himself to the ladder and climbed it with one leg, in extreme pain, and twice as fast as Zane had been able to do so himself.
“I WON’T LET YOU HAVE HIM”, the teen cried pulling on Zane’s boot as he struggled to pull himself and the young boy out of the hatch and back into the dense jungle. "YOU WON'T TAKE MY BROTHER!" Zane stared into the depths of the boys crimson red eyes which burned hot with unnatural brightness. The image would forever be etched into Zane's memory as he locked eyes with the teenager's for what seemed like an eternity.
A hand with ten times the strength of his own yanked the young boy from Zane’s grasp as the two children fell backwards down the shaft into the reddish darkness. There was nothing but silence afterwards as Zane screamed downward into the maintenance tunnel.
“NO! X109”, Zane yelled downwards. He quickly went to climb down to rescue the child when he heard the automated computer warning from below.
“SELF DESTRUCT INITIATED – FINAL DETONATION SEQUENCE NOW IN PROGRESS”
There wasn’t time. He was out of time and so were the children. All that remained was to escape this infernal place as quickly as possible and report to Starfleet Command. It was all he could do now - fate had sealed the children's destiny and if he didn't hurry it would seal his just as easily and swiftly.
[ To Be Continued ... ]
Captain Zane Akina
Starfleet Intelligence
NPC – (APB Tav)
